What Is a Predicate?

In English grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence. (The other main
part is the subject.)
A predicate is usually defined as a word group that comes after the subject to complete the
meaning of the sentence or clause.
Types of Predicates
A predicate may be one word or many words.
(1) A predicate may be just a single word: the verb. In this first example, the verb laughed is
the predicate of the sentence:
Felix laughed.
(2) A predicate may be a word group made up of amain verb and any helping verbs. In the
next example, will sing is the predicate:
Winnie will sing.
Notice that the helping verb (will) comes before the main verb (sing).
(3) A predicate may also be a complete verb phrase: that is, a main verb and all the words
related to that verb except the subject. In this last example, the predicate is the verb phrase is
always greener on the other side:
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Whether it's just one word or many words, the predicate usually follows the subject and tells us
something about it.
Examples of Predicates
In each of the following sentences, the predicate is in italics.
1.

Time flies.

2.

We will try.

3.

The Johnsons have returned.

4.

Bobo has never driven before.

5.

We will try harder next time.

6.

Hummingbirds sing with their tail feathers.

7.

Pedro has not returned from the store.

8.

My brother flew a helicopter in Iraq.

9.

My mother took our dog to the vet for its shots.

10.

Our school cafeteria always smelled like stale cheese and dirty socks.

Predicate

Definition:
One of the two main parts of a sentence or clause, modifying the subject and including
the verb, objects, or phrases governed by the verb. Adjective: predicative.
In both grammar and logic, the predicate serves to make an assertion or denial about the
subject of the sentence, as in "Merdine sneezes" and "Gus never smiles."
Don't confuse the term predicate with the traditional grammatical terms predicate
nominative (a noun that follows a linking verb) and predicate adjective (an adjective that
follows a linking verb).
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to proclaim" or "make known"

Examples and Observations:

"The subject of the sentence, as its name suggests, is generally what the sentence is
about--its topic. The predicate is what is said about the subject. The two parts can be
thought of as the topic and the comment."
(Martha Kolln and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar, 5th ed., 1998)

""We rob banks."

(Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, 1967)

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss
people.
(Eleanor Roosevelt)

""If you build it, he will come."

(Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, 1989)

"Always do right. This will gratify some people andastonish the rest."
(Mark Twain)

Subject and Predicate

"'I came. I saw. I conquered.' In each sentence, Julius Caesar showed unity of thought and
expressed himself in the most direct way possible. Like Caesar, you should put your faith in
the sentence's bare bones: subject andpredicate. . . .
"The predicate, at its core, is a verb that tells what the subject does or is. In Caesar's
statements, the predicates are the single verbs came, saw, and conquered. . . . The
predicate, in short, is everything that is not the subject. In addition to the verb, it can
contain direct objects, indirect objects, and various kinds of phrases . . .."
(Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose. Three Rivers Press,
2001)

Predicate as Action
"The predicate typically describes a property of the person or thing referred to by the
subject, or describes a situation in which this person or thing plays some role. In elementary
clauses describing an action, the subject normally indicates the actor, the person or thing
performing the action, while the predicate describes the action, as in Kim left and People
complained."

(Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar.

Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006)

Placement of Subject and Predicate

"The conventional placement of subject and predicate in conversation helps with the
identification. We expect to find the subject (the who or what a sentence is about) at the
beginning of the sentence, and once that is identified, we expect the rest of the sentence to
tell what the subject does or is like."
(Thomas P. Klammer, Muriel R. Schulz, and Angela Della Volpe, Analyzing English Grammar.
Pearson Education, 2007)

Predicates and Arguments

"Current views of grammar hold that, in selecting a predicate, a language user determines
possible syntactic structures. Selecting the predicate GIVE obliges one to construct a
sentence on the lines GIVE + Noun Phrase + Noun Phrase (give the dog a bone) or GIVE +
Noun Phrase + to + Noun Phrase (give a bone to the dog).
"The entities that the predicate tells us about are referred to as its arguments. Thus, the
sentence Maggie gives the dog a bone has three arguments: Maggie, dog, bone. Sentences
are sometimes represented in terms of their underlying abstract predicate/argument
structure, using a format in which the predicate appears followed by the arguments in
brackets: GIVE (Maggie, dog, bone)"
(John Field, Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2004)

Predicate Words and Complements

"The relationship between the predicate word, such like DO, SAY, WANT, and SEE, and its
'complements' like SOMETHING, ONE THING, or SOMEONE is not the same as that between
a head and a modifier in an attributive relation, if only because a head can normally occur
with or without its attribute, whereas predicates like DO, SAY, WANT, and SEE do require
their complements (if they are not . . . understood as elliptical). At the same time, it is clear
that it is the element SOMETHING which is dependent on the predicates DO, SAY, and
WANT, rather than the other way around, for it is the predicate which determines whether
or not a complement is possible, and what the range of possible complements is. For
example, SEE combines, universally, with the complements SOMETHING, SOMEONE, and
PEOPLE, whereas SAY and DO (and in many languages WANT) combine only with
SOMETHING."
(Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka, "Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar." Meaning
and Universal Grammar: Theory and Empirical Findings. John Benjamins, 2002)
Pronunciation: PRED-i-kat