What is a Predicate?

In grammar, a predicate is the part of a sentence that expresses what the subject does or is. It typically consists of a verb or verb phrase, and it may also include other words and phrases that provide additional information about the subject or the action being described.

For example, in the sentence “The cat slept on the couch,” the predicate is “slept on the couch.” The subject of the sentence is “the cat,” and the predicate describes what the cat is doing (sleeping on the couch).

The predicate is an important part of a sentence because it provides information about the subject and the action being described. It can also convey the mood, tense, and voice of the verb. In some cases, the predicate may be implied rather than explicitly stated, as in the sentence “It rained” (implied predicate: “rained all day”).

For example,

They went quietly to the dark cellar in the middle of a cold night during winter break.

Because “they” is the subject in this example, every word except “they” is the entire predicate. This comprises all of the prepositional phrases that indicate when and where the action occurred, as well as all of the adjectives that characterise the prepositional objects and the adverb that describes the verb.

A simple predicate simply relates to verbs, but a comprehensive predicate refers to all words in a phrase that is unrelated to the subject. To define the topic, predicate adjectives and predicate nominatives are combined with linking verbs such as be. A compound predicate consists of two verbs that share the same subject.