The predicate is the main member of the sentence. The semantic and grammatical features of the predicate

The subject and the predicate are linguistic concepts related to the study of the structure of sentences. Both of these members are recognized as the main ones and represent the grammatical basis of the sentence, its semantic center.

Between them there is a close grammatical and lexical relationship. Often you can find the predicate in the sentence through its relationship to the subject, and the subject through its connection with the predicate.

The semantic features of the predicate

If the subject calls the object, then the predicate calls the attribute that characterizes this object. It can be a certain action, condition, property, quality, quantity, generic concept or belonging. Here are some examples.

1. "Father went to the window." The predicate “approached” expresses the action of the object called the subject “father”.
2. "Veronica was happy." The compound predicate “was happy” denotes the state of the object expressed by the subject “Veronica”.
3. "Raindrops are sparkling with gems in the sun." Here, the predicate is the phrase “shimmer with gems”, it characterizes the property of raindrops in the sun.
4. "The clothes were worn." The predicate “turned out to be well-worn” expressed the quality of the object designated by the subject “clothes”.
5. "Three times three - nine." Here, both main terms are expressed by numbers. The word "nine" is used as a predicate expressing quantity.
6. "Potato is a vegetable crop." The phrase “vegetable crop” is a generic term.
7. "A bow - Anyutkin, shoes - mine." In this sentence with two bases, the predicates “Anyutkin” and “mine” are expressed respectively by a noun and a pronoun, and they denote belonging.

Three semantic tasks of the predicate in the sentence

“What does the object do? What is happening to him? Who is he or what is it? What is he like? ” - these are the questions that can be asked to the predicate. Thus, this member of the proposal is able to solve three main problems:

• Calls the action that produces the subject: "The pain has subsided."
• Calls the action that the subject experiences on himself: "The house was completely inhabited by people."
• It fixes the subject as the owner of a certain sign: "His intentions were serious."

In the role of the predicate

Most often, the performer of the role of the predicate in the sentence is the verb. The predicate may in this case consist of one or more verbs in personal form. Example: "The bird sang - flooded."

The predicate may well be expressed in other parts of speech and syntactic constructions.

• Nouns: "London is the capital of Great Britain."
• Adjectives: "Southern night - warm, velvet."
• Numerals: "Five five - twenty five."
• Adverbs: "Hands - together, legs - apart."
• Communion: "Tea is drunk, cheesecakes are eaten."
• The pronoun: "Ten percent of the transaction is mine."
• Phraseological phrase: “Frightened, Kostya gave the strekach, they only saw him.”
• The whole sentence: "Good health is when you forget about it." In this case, the predicate is a construction consisting of the sentence "this is when you forget about it."

Varieties of the predicate

It is both simple and compound.

Simple is called a simple verb predicate, because it is expressed by verbs in its various forms - in the indicative mood in all three tenses (present, future, past), in the imperative and conditional moods, in the indefinite form, in the unverbable form of the verb "is ".

The compound predicate combines two elements, one of which is the main one, and the other is auxiliary. Such a predicate is divided into two types - compound noun and compound verb. In the first, the connective part of the predicate is expressed by some of the names - noun, numeral, adjective, adverb, pronoun, participle, and in the second - by the infinitive. Examples:

1. "Vera Ivanovna began to read me notations." Comp. verb the predicate is expressed by the verb of wives. kind, unit hours past time "began" and the infinitive "read".
2. “The holiday will be great!” Composed here. names. the predicate is a combination of the verb future. time, 3 l., unit h. “succeed” and the adjective “magnificent”.

Homogeneous predicates

Homogeneous are those members of the sentence who equally apply to the same word. For example, homogeneous predicates are tokens that refer to the same subject, answer one question. They can be connected by unions or separated by commas, marked by enumerative intonation. Examples:

• "He asked, begged, persuaded, but she did not flinch and did not give in." The predicates “requested, implored, convinced” are homogeneous. They, answering the question “what did you do?”, Refer to the subject “he”. The predicates “did not flinch and did not give in” - also homogeneous, they are connected by a union and relate to the subject “she”. We ask a question to them: “What did you do?”
• "Maxim saw Lily and stood up in his tracks." In this sentence, the simple predicate “saw” and the stable expression “stood up in one ditch” are homogeneous. They both relate to the subject "Maxim" and answer one question: "What did you do?"

In parsing, the predicate is always underlined with two features, no matter how many there are in the sentence.