Get ready to take a closer — and fuller — look at the predicate. Crucially, it makes for “half” of the all-important (not to mention essential) grammatical building block of the sentence, the main clause.
Yes, our sentences usually present the subject first, then the predicate, as shown and exemplified throughout my Stage 1-b post, on main clauses. Borrowing the example played out there (and again using my typographical aid of bold for subjects and bold italics for predicates), I will remind you, not that you need it, “taxes suck.” It’s just an example of subject, then predicate.
But, in these next two posts, which will take a deeper dive into Ss & Ps, the two requirements of a main clause, I am putting predicates first. I’m starting with predicates, because they carry the heaviest load in my “activated” system, a system that will come to fruition in Stage 3, here in Writing Lessons.
We will look closely at subjects in the next post (Stage 1-f), but, right now, “the subject is predicates“! Get it? 🙂
Presenting . . . a broader view of the predicate
Once a writer has named a subject, the writer must follow up, as I will unpack below, by giving the subject something to either do, be, or have.
That’s my three-way definition of predicate. Be warned that, were you to do a search of the term right now, you would find something else, but not necessarily anything particularly helpful. Go for it, if you’d like. I’ve done it dozens of times in the past few weeks, while writing all this for you. I can tell you right now that you will find one of two types of “standard definitions.”
Both types of definitions acknowledge the traditional view that the predicate tells what the sentence’s subject is doing. And the newer type of definition (growing, especially in the past few years, I’ve noticed) adds, with varying degrees of emphasis, also what the subject is being, sometimes calling this the “state” of the subject.
Doing: – He can jive his way out of anything.
Being – He is the jive-master.
So the newer (or at least updated) type of source defines the predicate as telling both “what the subject is doing” and what the subject is being or maybe what “state the subject is experiencing. If you do search this, as I invite, what pops up may or may not include the being/experiencing part. Some less-current sites still just specify only the doing.
Later in this post, I will provide a special and illustrative array of examples of these differing types of predicates, so please be patient. (See? I just asked you to “be” something — one of our two predicate choices . . . so far!)
Beyond those two choices, my definition (and associated system), as you will soon learn, doesn’t merely include “being,” it emphasizes being — and with strong reasons, which may amaze you.
And then, for related reasons (as I will also explain and support), I further expand my definition to include the aforementioned third verb option: having. That’s why you see me repeatedly stating that the predicate conveys (the writer’s view of) what the subject is doing, being, or having.
Having – He has a way of jiving himself out of anything.
Not a trendy view — a theory-rich counter-statement
Now that third inclusion, having, you won’t find anywhere else (yet)! I was surprised when “being” started gaining inclusion more regularly. Quite naturally, I discovered the importance of including that third verb, “to have” — and also placing major emphasis on (not just including) “to be” — as I worked, class by experimental class and year by experimental year, to develop and refine my “activated writing” theory.
Not to get sidetracked, but please appreciate that I love to write theory and am very specially trained to do just that, especially in the “theorizing” mode of first observing human communication (especially in language, aka “discourse”) and then developing and making theoretical arguments.
In contrast (since I know this fascinates you), the traditional model of theory-building, since the 1600s, called first for a “hypothesis,” which would then be somehow tested. True, this arrangement helped to fuel the Enlightenment, and it did beat the existing system of “believe what religious authorities tell you, or possibly be burned at the stake as a “heretic.”
This enlightened “scientific method” has stood for centuries, but it produces iffy “proof” of anything, when it comes to studying how humans talk. The design of the experimenter’s testing (as regards human meaning making, which can’t really be observed) can be too easily rigged to produce whatever results are desired — à la, “if she sinks, that ‘proves’ she is a witch.”
Your humble author (me — okay, I) learned all about this upgraded way of “building theory” (for theories about “talk,” anyway) not from up-to-date discourse professors who understood the newer methods, but from the two scholars (Robert Craig and Karen Tracy) who, in 1995 wrote the book and many articles, presenting their revised method for developing theories in communication, “the practical discipline.”
The gist? Don’t start with a theory and then go out to prove it. Observe first, then work out any resulting theory from interesting interactions, particularly language based, and derive theory from that. They named this system of theoretical investigation “grounded practical theory” (aka GPT — and that came before AI “co-opted” those initials!). This kind of scholarly work is called “meta-theory” — theory about theory itself — since you asked. Okay, you didn’t really ask, but I know you were wondering.
Pardon the boastful tone, if you perceive any, but I am really bragging on my doctoral faculty in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado, which, at that time, featured arguably the most elite “comm.” faculty in the world (supporting facts available on this site in “About Mike”)
How and why — and how! — I’m re-imagining the predicate
And, as I, trained to notice patterns in “talk,” found myself with literal stacks of “data” to scrutinize (that is, papers to “grade”! — remember I have taught a record number of classes, partly because I craved this data! — I not only noticed, but kept track of the kinds of verbs I saw in those stacks of papers. I didn’t just closely “grade” these papers, I studied them — thousands of pages of them — often using colored pens (blue, green and red) in my feedback, to help the students see their own trends in predicate choice.
And guess what? A great many sentences (I should really specify “main clauses”) that I marked up in color, presented subjects that were neither doing or being anything — instead, they were having something! That’s not an odd “exception”; rather, “to have” ranks as the second-most-common verb in the English language — after being! That’s an easy fact to verify.
That’s what I’ve done. And that’s how I know that “to have” belongs on the short list (still only three!) of predicate possibilities. Having something certainly differs greatly from being something, wouldn’t you say, Reader-student? Nor is having something a form of doing anything.
So I am hereby establishing — for my own purposes and for all learners of my system, past, present, and future — that we will define the predicate by particulars — it’s what the subject is doing, being, and also having.
Are you seeing the light? I know that you really can make a quick upgrade in how you write, as your grasp of these very fundamental principles becomes not only understood, but internalized.
I shot the sheriff . . .
None of what I’m asserting “has” (note the main verb) anything to do with any law. There’s no lawbook of English grammar and usage. We’ve established all that. I’m not saying “change the law,” because there’s no law to change! I’m just presenting a new and systemized (hence teachable, not to mention learnable) way of thinking about your subjects and predicates, since they combine as the essence of every sentence you write.
So, of course, I don’t define the predicate as would your typical “English teacher,” and neither do I define predicate (nor any other grammatical term) to promote or otherwise cash in on the latest social (or technological) trends. Rather, I write as a rhetorically oriented analyst of “language in use,” that is, as a discourse analyst.
I know that the term means little to most people (as do many specialized scholarly designations), but that’s my academic pedigree, and I’m proud to have accomplished that, especially where I did. You have no idea what I had to do to get myself in front of professors of such prominence. I’ll save the story for elsewhere; suffice to say, a certain “Grand Inquisitioner” tried his best to drown me . . . but I just kept floating back up to the surface! That’s why you get to read all this!
All I need is a miracle
I don’t hope my system works. I’ve have seen it not just work, but work minor miracles. Actually, the student — or reader-student! — has to work the miracle. But someone has to call for one — preferably while offering up an instruction manual. We are just getting to the good stuff. First, we’ve had to build a sturdy, yet flexible, foundation. That’s coming right along.
Please take little one-item pop quiz, to help set the table for what’s coming next and to see if, by chance, you presently belong in the front row of our metaphorical class. If you can confidently and easily answer the following question correctly, at this early point in my system (still in Stage 1), then, based on voluminous experience, I would put you in the top 10 percent of the class, currently.
I emphasize “currently,” because, over the years, I’ve seen a great many students start out further back but finish ahead of the whole pack! The current leaderboard always counts, but the standings can change a lot over the “semester.” If you’re not at the front now, you can still end up there. I’ve seen it many times. Don’t you think that’s fun and rewarding? I promise you, it is.
So here’s your pop quiz question:
Results
#1. Which of the following words best fits into this sentence: The predicate of a sentence holds great importance, as the ___________ “activating” force in your self expression.
What does the predicate do?
We might say, the predicate “puts the verb to the noun.” That’s a loose way to say it, but it’s true. The sentence’s subject — or, as I’ve called it, “the thing the sentence is talking about” — will, indeed, always be some kind of noun. I’ll say more about nouns in the next post (Stage 1-f), exploring the subject. For now, let me just point out that a sentence might contain many nouns (just like it can include many verbs) but only one is the simple subject, the one-word center of what you’re talking about — the same way only one verb (of several, possibly) stands as the main verb, aka simple predicate.
Notice how, in defining the function of the predicate, I began with reference to the subject. We’ll discuss that in more depth soon. For now, I’m just pointing out that we can’t even have a predicate without a subject, (some kind of noun).
And, when a noun is, indeed, functioning as the sentence’s subject, that noun needs something to do, be, or have (that is, the subject needs its predicate, with those three options, as we have covered.
In fact, without needing any grammatical terms at all, the way our English language works (as you’ve already learned on this site), “every sentence says, asks, or commands something about something.” Those aren’t grammatical terms — just common-sense language. We’re talking about some thing and saying something about it.
In the next post, delving into the subject, I’ll say more about the “subjectivity” involved with naming (or we could say choosing!) a subject and then assigning its predicate. Without such a discussion as this, we could easily assume (as do most people) that certain subjects are simply “there,” and what they are doing, being, or having is just the way we (at the moment) happen to see it. The subject is just “there” and so is the predicate. We’re just reporters! Well . . . maybe not.
So that’s a thread we will pick up, but right now, but let’s get back to defining the predicate.
That’s the rock-bottom truth — no technical terms necessarily needed. Whether it’s how our brains are hardwired (just a theory; I’m no brain expert) or some cultural forces intermingling, a foundational unit of our cognitive, especially linguistic, reality is that we 1) think about and name things (noun = name), and 2) we ascribe to that named thing (non-technical term for subject!) some likewise-named activity, trait, or possession — that is, just what we “proclaim” that named thing to be doing, being, or having.
Philosophically speaking, does the predicate “make” the subject?
I’ll admit that this question risks diving in a little too deep, for our present purposes. Now we are invoking ideas in the realm of philosophy, including (but not limited to) what’s known as the philosophy of language. If you’re interested, start with Wikipedia on that one. That’s not my scholarly specialization as regards language, so, going in, I’d rather just ask the question than attempt to answer it. My own very specialized training in language is expressly practical. But it’s true that theories of practice (at least in my specialization) are rooted in philosophic principles from ancient Greece and elsewhere. That said, as a “discourse analyst,” my focus is not on what language is, rather on what language does — more specifically, what people do with language.
But I do raise that question at least, and here’s why. We are, in this post, diving into the predicate, right? Well, that’s how the post is named, so let’s stick with it. And if we look at the derivation of this grammatical term (as I just did; feel free to do likewise), we see that its Latin roots tie to proclaiming.
Well, so far, that makes sense. As I’ve taught for decades, we both “name” the subject and then assign it a predicate — that is, we “proclaim” what that subject (that we named in the first place!) is doing, being, or having. Our predicate does make a proclamation! Given all that you’ve read so far on this site, that does make sense. Our look into the derivation of predicate could stop right there. The predicate is, by definition, a proclamation made, about a subject we just named.
But you know me! When do I ever stop right there? I jest, but “stopping right there” doesn’t even work that great for “rules and tips.” It’s definitely not enough to actually change how people write. So I’ll just take one, tiny and speculative, step further, if a bit out of my “lane,” on whether the predicate not only makes a proclamation, but in “existential” ways, it actually makes the subject. If the predicate is not true, then the subject just goes away — it ceases to be. (Work with me on this — I’m almost done! I know it sounds like BS.)
Now we are referring to the word predicate in its “more modern” sense (said my research) — not so much the proclamation of the Romans, who gave us the word, but a logic focus, where something (say, success) is “predicated” on something else (say, your writing ability). In such a sense and usage, then — without that “predicating” something else, the subject does “go away”! If the sentence is true, then the absence of writing skills would at least impair success, and might even make said success altogether cease to be.
Gotcha! The predicate does (or, at least, can) “make the subject.” See? You need me! It wasn’t just BS, after all. Well, maybe a little. 🙂
Enough of this BS! . . . for now
If you think that’s a bunch of bull I just pulled out of my butt, just wait until you get to the next post, where we maintain our attitude of exploration wayyy past “rules and tips,” to delve, with some depth, into the subject.
But let’s “leave speculative stuff” out of our concluding recap of this post and “proclaim,” with certainty, that the predicate serves as a “proclamation” (by the writer or speaker) of what the named (or implied) subject is (supposedly) doing, being or having.
It’s not really BS, not even the deeper stuff. I spent a lot of time laying out my unique “credentials,” such that they are, in the About Mike section of Up-Wordz.com. Whether you look at that or not, let me just “proclaim” that I, your teacher (complete subject) know what I’m talking about (complete predicate).
My stance? If I’m going to teach you to write authentically, then I have to practice it, myself — both in what I am “proclaiming” and how I proclaim it.
I can’t wait to write up for you the next post (Stage-1 f)– on subjects — and, soon thereafter, move us onward to my system’s Stage 2, where we explore the “rules and tips” (and the underlying concepts!) of the compound sentence — in which we present more than one main clause in a single sentence.
Stay on board! I know this is starting to make sense.