SUBJECTS AND PREDICATES

 Sentences are organized following certain rules.

 They are divided into SUBPARTS or CONSTITUENTS.

Subject

 Semantic definition (vague): who does the action or what the sentence is about.
 Syntactic Tests (more accurate):
1) Is it an NP?
2) Is it the first NP in the sentence?
3) Is it compulsory?
4) Is it replaced by WHO or WHAT in a Who/What question with no other movement?
Tom left the door open  Who left the door open?
5) Does it invert with the auxiliary verb in Yes/No questions?
Your sister is working at the moment  Is your sister working at the moment?
6) Is it fully replaced by a pronoun in a question tag?

That tall boy is your son, isn’t he?

Check! Sometimes subjects are “meaningless”

 Non-referential “it”  It’s raining. It was hot.

 Existential “there”  There are ants everywhere. There is a man at the door.

 Subjects are said to be the “EXTERNAL ARGUMENT” of the verbs, whereas the D.O., I.O. and the
other elements that appear within the VP are called “INTERNAL ARGUMENTS”

Predicate
 It is always a VP.
 It has ONE PREDICATOR  it is the VERB that denotes the main action or process. It is HEAD of
a VP and it determines how many complements (internal arguments) this VP will have.
The teacher explained the lesson.

CATEGORIES OF WORDS
VERBS
 Lexical  open group – they can stand on their own in a sentence
 Auxiliary  closed group – they can’t occur independently. They are “helping verbs”

 A full VP must contain one LEXICAL VERB and it may contain one or more AUXILIARY VERBS.
 They denote activities or states.

 A verb is any word that can take a tense inflection.

  Tense is a grammatical notion that refers to how language encodes the semantic notion of TIME.

 Verbs can be inflected (encode grammatical properties) for:

 Present tense  -S / -ES (agreement)  Present Participle  -ING
 Past tense  -ED  Perfect Participle  -EN

Non-finite verbs are:

 The TO infinitive: to go  Present participle: going

 The bare infinitive: go  Perfect participle: gone

Verb classification
1) Intensive Verbs [INTENS]
Subject + Predicate (verb + subject predicate)

 [PP / NP / AP]

o The students were in the classroom (PP)

o The man was a doctor (NP)
o He is exhausted (AP)

 Sometimes called linking verbs.

 BE  copula verb.
 They require a complement AP-PP-NP
 The complement is PREDICATIVE/PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT.

 It’s the only category of verbs that can take an AP as complement.

 Predicatives attribute properties to the subject, thus they are called SUBJECT PREDICATIVE or
PREDICATIVE SUBJECT

Other intensive verbs are:

Become, seem, appear, turn, remain, look,

taste, feel, smell, sound

o He seems tired.
o You look happy.
 2) Intransitive Verbs [INTRANS]
Subject + Predicate (verb)

o The dog barks.

o They jumped.

 They don’t require a complement.

3) Transitive Verbs [TRANS]

Subject + Predicate (verb + DO)

 [NP]

The teacher prepared the exams.

My mum makes dinner.
The police officer killed the thief.
Tom kissed Mary/her.
I bought a computer/it.
I can’t hear you.
He loves me.
She hates us.

 They require an NP as complement.

 This NP functions as D.O. (direct object)
 The NP that is a D.O. has OBJECTIVE CASE.

Compare:

The man was a doctor  intensive verb + subject predicate.

The man saw a doctor  transitive verb + D.O.

Henry moved (I.V.) The kids walked. (I.V.)

Henry moved the table (T.V.) The kids walked the dog. (T.V.)

But
Kate was reading (a book)
Joe ate (a sandwich)

 The D.O. is not present but it is implied.

D.O. and Passive Voice

If we turn an ACTIVE SENTENCE into a PASSIVE one, the direct object of the active sentence becomes
the subject of the passive one. In the passive structure, the subject is no longer the doer of the action.
Thus, in a passive sentence the subject acts as a patient (receiver of the action).

But what happens to the subject of the active sentence?

It can be included in the passive structure after the
verb, as a PP: “by …”. We say it is the agent (it is the
doer of the action but not the subject of the sentence).
4) Ditransitive Verbs [DITRANS]

Subject + Predicate (verb + I.O. [NP]+ D.O. [NP])

Subject + Predicate (verb + D.O. [NP] + I.O. [PP])

He sent me a message.
They gave the students the reports.
She bought him a new book.

 They required two NPs as complements.

 The first NP is the INDIRECT OBJECT (I.O.). It is the recipient/beneficiary of the action. It
denotes animate things.
 The second NP is the DIRECT OBJECT (D.O.).

Check! Remember that the internal arguments (complements) of a verb are sisters of this V. Thus,

But there is another option. Look at these examples:

She bought him a new book  She bought a new book for him.
They gave the students the reports  They gave the reports to the students.

The I.O. can take the form of:

 The first of the two NPs.

 A PP introduced by to or for that follows the first NP.

Ditransitive verbs and passive voice:

Structures with two objects (an I.O. and a D.O.) can take two different passive structures:

 The teacher gave the students the reports. ACTIVE: D.O. and I.O.
 The students were given the reports. PASSIVE: fronting of I.O.
 The reports were given to the students. PASSIVE: fronting of D.O.
5) Complex Transitive Verbs [COMPLEX]
Subject + Predicate (verb + object predicate)
 AP/NP/PP

I find your comments disgusting. (AP)

We made him our spokesperson. (NP)
They named her Luisa. (NP)
They put the bag on the chair. (PP)

The phrase underlined is the D.O. But the phrase in bold is not an I.O. These phrases are giving
characteristics about the D.O. Thus, they are called OBJECT PREDICATE or OBJECT PREDICATIVE.

Since both elements are internal arguments of the verb,

they are sisters of this V in the phrase marker.

6) Prepositional Verbs [PREP]

Subject + Predicate (verb + Prep. Complement)

 [PP]

They worry about the weather conditions.

She glanced at me.
They talked to the boss.
This bag belongs to my secretary.
They arrived at the party.
The old lady smiled at the passersby.
They argued about everything.

 These verbs are complemented by a PP.

Complements vs Adjuncts
Compare:

1. We were at home yesterday.

2. They played the guitar in the park.
3. He talked to the teacher after school.
4. She practices the piano twice a week.

 The phrases in bold are internal constituents of the verbs. They are compulsory to complement
the meaning of the verb. If there were omitted the sentences would be grammatically incorrect
or the meaning of the verbs would change. These phrases are called COMPLEMENTS.

 The phrases that are underlined are not required by the verb. If they were omitted the sentences
would be grammatically correct sentences anyway. These phrases are called ADJUNCTS.

Complement  a functional label which denotes a constituent whose presence is required by a verb,
noun, adjective or preposition. They are sisters of V in the phrase markers.

Adjunct  a function label which indicates the where, why, when, etc. in a proposition and is not
required (it is not an internal argument) of the verb. They are sisters of VP in the phrase markers.