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Simple Subject and Simple Predicate
Every subject is built around one noun or pronoun (or more) that, when stripped of all
the words that modify it, is known as the simple subject. Consider the following
example:
A piece of pepperoni pizza would satisfy his hunger.
The subject is built around the noun "piece," with the other words of the subject -- "a"
and "of pepperoni pizza" -- modifying the noun. "Piece" is the simple subject.
Likewise, a predicate has at its centre a simple predicate, which is always the verb or
verbs that link up with the subject. In the example we just considered, the simple
predicate is "would satisfy" -- in other words, the verb of the sentence.
A sentence may have a compound subject -- a simple subject consisting of more than
one noun or pronoun -- as in these examples:
Team pennants, rock posters and family photographs covered the boy's
bedroom walls.
Her uncle and she walked slowly through the Inuit art gallery and admired the
powerful sculptures exhibited there.
The second sentence above features a compound predicate, a predicate that includes
more than one verb pertaining to the same subject (in this case, "walked" and
"admired").
Objects and Complements
Objects
A verb may be followed by an object that completes the verb's meaning. Two kinds of
objects follow verbs: direct objects and indirect objects. To determine if a verb has a
direct object, isolate the verb and make it into a question by placing "whom?" or
"what?" after it. The answer, if there is one, is the direct object:
Direct Object
The advertising executive drove a flashy red Porsche.
Direct Object
Her secret admirer gave her a bouquet of flowers.
The second sentence above also contains an indirect object. An indirect object (which,
like a direct object, is always a noun or pronoun) is, in a sense, the recipient of the direct
object. To determine if a verb has an indirect object, isolate the verb and ask to whom?,
to what?, for whom?, or for what? after it. The answer is the indirect object.
Not all verbs are followed by objects. Consider the verbs in the following sentences:
The guest speaker rose from her chair to protest.
After work, Randy usually jogs around the canal.
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs that take objects are known as transitive verbs. Verbs not followed by objects
are called intransitive verbs.
Some verbs can be either transitive verbs or intransitive verbs, depending on the
context:
Direct Object
I hope the Senators win the next game.
No Direct Object
Did we win?
Subject Complements
In addition to the transitive verb and the intransitive verb, there is a third kind of verb
called a linking verb. The word (or phrase) which follows a linking verb is called not an
object, but a subject complement.
The most common linking verb is "be." Other linking verbs are "become," "seem,"
"appear," "feel," "grow," "look," "smell," "taste," and "sound," among others. Note that
some of these are sometimes linking verbs, sometimes transitive verbs, or sometimes
intransitive verbs, depending on how you use them:
Linking verb with subject complement
He was a radiologist before he became a full-time yoga instructor.
Linking verb with subject complement
Your homemade chili smells delicious.
Transitive verb with direct object
I can't smell anything with this terrible cold.
Intransitive verb with no object
The interior of the beautiful new Buick smells strongly of fish.
Note that a subject complement can be either a noun ("radiologist", "instructor") or an
adjective ("delicious").
Object Complements
An object complement is similar to a subject complement, except that (obviously) it
modifies an object rather than a subject. Consider this example of a subject
complement:
The driver seems tired.
In this case, as explained above, the adjective "tired" modifies the noun "driver," which
is the subject of the sentence.
Sometimes, however, the noun will be the object, as in the following example:
I consider the driver tired.
In this case, the noun "driver" is the direct object of the verb "consider," but the
adjective "tired" is still acting as its complement.
In general, verbs which have to do with perceiving, judging, or changing something can
cause their direct objects to take an object complement:
Paint it black.
The judge ruled her out of order.
I saw the Prime Minister sleeping.
In every case, you could reconstruct the last part of the sentence into a sentence of its
own using a subject complement: "it is black," "she is out of order," "the Prime Minister
is sleeping."
The Direct Object
Don't use subject pronouns as direct objects. The chart below contains subject
and object pronouns. Because direct objects are objects, always use the
objective form of the ...
Objects and Complements
In general, verbs which have to do with perceiving, judging, or changing
something can cause their direct objects to take an object complement:
Direct Objects and their Pronouns
Let's start with some easy ol' DOs. The following sentences have Direct
Objects -- remember they answer the questions "who" or "what" -- in them.
Objects fall into three classes: direct objects, prepositional objects, and nonprepositional indirect objects. A direct object answers the question "What?", while
an indirect ...
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is a sentence element and is often part of the sentence predicate.
It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb.
As an example, the following sentence is given:
In the sentence "Bobby kicked the ball", "ball" is the object.
"Bobby" is the subject, the doer or performer, while "kick" is the action, and "ball" is
the object involved in the action.
The main verb in the sentence determines whether there can or must be objects in the
sentence, and if so how many and of what type. (See also Valency (linguistics).) In
many languages, however, including English, the same verb can allow multiple
different structures; for example, "Bobby kicked" and "Bobby kicked the ball" are both
valid English sentences.
Types of object
Objects fall into three classes: direct objects, prepositional objects, and nonprepositional indirect objects. A direct object answers the question "What?", while an
indirect object answers the question "To whom?" or "For whom?". An indirect object is
the recipient of the direct object, or an otherwise affected participant in the event. There
must be a direct object for an indirect object to be placed in a sentence. Some examples:
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In "Jasper ate fruit", fruit is the direct object of the verb ate. It corresponds to
the accusative of languages with grammatical cases.
In "They sent him a postcard", him is the (non-prepositional) indirect object of
the verb sent (which uses a double-object construction). It typically corresponds
to the dative case.
In "We listened to the radio", radio is the object of the preposition to, and the
prepositional object of the verb listened. It can correspond to a variety of cases
and complements.
In many languages, including German, Latin, and Classical Arabic, objects can change
form slightly (decline) to indicate what kind of object they are (their case). This does
not happen in English (though a few English pronouns do have separate subject and
object forms); rather, the type of object is indicated strictly by word order. Also, some
objects are treated differently from others in particular languages. In Spanish, for
example, human objects have to get a preposition 'a'. This is called differential object
marking.
Forms of object
An object may take any of a number of forms, all of them nominal in some sense.
Common forms include:
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A noun or noun phrase, as in "I remembered her advice."
An infinitive or infinitival clause, as in "I remembered to eat."
A gerund or gerund phrase, as in "I remembered being there."
A declarative content clause, as in "I remembered that he was blond."
An interrogative content clause, as in "I remembered why she had left."
A fused relative clause, as in "I remembered what she wanted me to do."
The object in linguistics
In inflected languages, objects may be marked using morphological case. In many
languages, the patient of a ditransitive verb is marked in the same way as the single
object of a monotransitive verb, and is called the direct object. The recipient has its
own marking, and is called the indirect object. In Latin and many other languages, the
direct object is marked by the accusative case, while the indirect object is typically
marked by the dative case.
In more isolating languages such as English, objects are marked by their position in the
sentence or using adpositions (like to in I gave a book to him). Modern English
preserves a case distinction for pronouns, but it has conflated the accusative and the
dative into a single objective form (him, her, me, etc., which may function either as
direct or indirect objects).
Examples of common Helping Verbs are these: is, am, are, was, were, be, been, being,
may, must, might, should, could, would, shall, will, can, appear, become, became, feel,
grow, and look.
In some languages, the recipient of a ditransitive verb is marked in the same way as the
single object of a monotransitive verb, and is called the primary object. The patient of
ditransitive verbs has its own marking, and is called the secondary object. Such
languages are called dechticaetiative languages, and are mostly found among African
languages.
An object can be turned into a syntactic subject using passive voice, if the language in
question has such a construction. In dative languages, the direct object is promoted,
while in dechticaetiative languages the primary object is promoted. English shares this
property with dechticaetiative languages, since non-prepositional indirect objects can be
promoted:
His colleagues sent him a postcard.
He was sent a postcard.
In the immense majority of languages, where there is a preferred word order in the
sentence, the object is placed somewhere after the subject. Analytic languages
additionally tend to place the object after the verb, so that it remains separate from the
subject.
Predicate (grammar)
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In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other
being the subject, which the predicate modifies). For the simple sentence "John [is
yellow]," John acts as the subject, and is yellow acts as the predicate, a subsequent
description of the subject headed with a verb.
In current linguistic semantics, a predicate is an expression that can be true of
something. Thus, the expressions "is yellow" or "is like cheese" are true of those things
that are yellow or like cheese, respectively. This notion is closely related to the notion
of a predicate in formal logic, which includes more expressions than the former one,
like, for example, nouns and some kinds of adjectives.
Predicate in traditional English grammar
In traditional English grammar, predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the
other being the subject, which the predicate modifies).[1] The predicate must contain a
verb, and the verb requires, permits, or precludes other sentence elements to complete
the predicate. These elements are: objects (direct, indirect, prepositional), predicatives
(aka predicate complements: subject complements and object complements) and
adverbials (either obligatory or adjuncts). In the following examples, the predicate is
underlined.
She dances. (verb only predicate)
John reads the book. (direct object)
John's mother, Felicity, gave me a present. (indirect object without a preposition)
She listened to the radio. (prepositional object)
They elected him president. (predicative /object complement)
She met him in the park. (adverbial)
She is in the park. (obligatory adverbial / adverbial complement)
The predicate provides information about the subject, such as what the subject is doing
or what the subject is like.
The relation between a subject and its predicate is sometimes called a nexus.
A Predicate Nominal is a noun phrase that functions as the main predicate of a
sentence, such as "George III is the king of England", the king of England being the
Predicate Nominal. The subject and predicate nominal must be connected by a linking
verb, also called a copula.
A Predicate Adjective is an adjective that functions as a predicate, such as "Jessica is
attractive", attractive being the Predicate Adjective. The subject and predicate adjective
must be connected by a linking verb, also called copula.
Classes of predicate
Carlson classes
After the work of Greg N. Carlson, predicates have been divided into the following subclasses, which roughly pertain to how a predicate relates to its subject:
Stage-level predicates
A stage-level predicate ("s-l predicate" for short) is true of a temporal stage of its
subject. For example, if John is "hungry", that typically lasts a certain amount of time,
and not his entire lifespan.
S-l predicates can occur in a wide range of grammatical constructions and is probably
the most versatile kind of predicate.
Individual-level predicates
An individual-level predicate ("i-l predicate") is true throughout the existence of an
individual. For example, if John is "smart", this is a property of him, regardless which
particular point in time we consider.
I-l predicates are more restricted than s-l ones. I-l predicates can't occur in
presentational "there" sentences (a star in front of a sentence indicates that it is odd or
ill-formed):
There are police available. ("available" is s-l)
*There are firemen altruistic. ("altruistic" is i-l)
S-l predicates allow modification by manner adverbs and other adverbial modifiers. I-l
ones do not.
John spoke French loudly in the corridor. ("speak French" can be interpreted as
s-l)
*John knew French loudly in the corridor. ("know French" can't be interpreted
as s-l)
When an i-l predicate occurs in past tense, it gives rise to what is called a "lifetime
effect": The subject must be assumed to be dead or otherwise gone out of existence.
John was available. (s-l
John was altruistic. (i-l
no lifetime effect)
lifetime effect.)
Kind-level predicates
A kind-level predicate ("k-l predicate") is true of a kind of thing, but cannot be applied
to individual members of the kind. An example of this is the predicate "are widespread."
One can't meaningfully say of a particular individual John that he is widespread. One
may only say this of kinds, as in
Humans are widespread.
Certain types of noun phrase can't be the subject of a k-l predicate. We have just seen
that a proper name can't be. Singular indefinite noun phrases are also banned from this
environment:
*A cat is widespread. (compare: Nightmares are widespread.)
Collective vs. distributive predicates
Predicates may also be collective or distributive. Collective predicates require their
subjects to be somehow plural, while distributive ones don't. An example of a collective
predicate is "formed a line". This predicate can only stand in a nexus with a plural
subject:
The students formed a line.
*The student formed a line.
Other examples of collective predicates include "meet in the woods", "surround the
house", "gather in the hallway" and "carry the piano together". Note that the last one
("carry the piano together") can be made non-collective by removing the word
"together". Quantifiers differ with respect to whether or not they can be the subject of a
collective predicate. For example, quantifiers formed with "all the" can, while ones
formed with "every" or "each" cannot.
All the students formed a line.
All the students gathered in the hallway.
All the students carried a piano together.
*Each student gathered in the hallway.
*Every student formed a line.
What is a predicate?
Definition
A predicate is the portion of a clause, excluding the subject, that expresses
something about the subject.
Also known as:
Example (English)
 The book is on the table.
Kind
Here is a kind of predicate:
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What is a compound predicate?
Generic
A predicate is a kind of

What is a syntactic function?
What is a clause?
Predicador
Definition
A clause is a grammatical unit that
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includes, at minimum, a predicate and an explicit or implied subject, and
expresses a proposition.
Examples (English)
 The following example sentence contains two clauses:
 It is cold, although the sun is shining.
The main clause is it is cold and the subordinate clause is although the sun
is shining.
Kinds
Here are some kinds of clauses:
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What is an adverbial clause?
What is a coordinate clause?
What is an equative clause?
What is an existential clause?
What is a final clause?
What is a finite clause?
What is a main clause?
What is a marking clause?
What is a medial clause?
What is a nominal clause?
What is a nonfinite clause?
What is a reference clause?
What is a relative clause?
What is a subordinate clause?
Generic
A clause is a kind of

What is a construction?