In order to understand how an engine works, you have to know what and where the parts are, and how they work. The same is true for English. Although English is one of the most complex and confusing languages on earth, it is possible to learn enough of the basics to understand most any sentence. If you hang in there with me, you could soon be translating Shakespeare or the King James Bible to your friends!
In this lesson we are going to look at the structure of a sentence, the frame, the very reason and way sentences work. For a sentence to be a sentence, you must have only two parts: the subject and the predicate.
The Subject
When you make a statement, you are focusing your attention on one particular item (or idea, or whatever). In the sentence Cats sleep, your attention is on cats. If you were to say My cats sleep in the sunshine, your attention is still on cats, right? The whole sentence is giving your audience information about cats. Now, if you were to say Sleeping is my cats’ favorite pastime, you’re not focusing on the cats anymore, you’re focusing on sleeping. The subject of a sentence is the focus of the sentence.
The Predicate
To give your audience information about your subject, you have to say something about it. Yes, that was a little obvious, but that’s what predicates are. A predicate is the word or group of words that says something—anything—about your subject. Let’s take the previous sentences as examples. In Cats sleep, the subject is cats, and we’re saying that they sleep, so that’s the predicate. In My cats sleep in the sunshine, the predicate is “sleep in the sunshine.” And in the last sentence, Sleeping is my cats’ favorite pastime, the predicate is everything after the word “sleeping.” Make sense?
Finding the Subject
To find the subject, read the entire sentence—out loud, if it helps—and figure out who or what is the main focus of the sentence. That’s pretty much the easy part, unless you have an understood subject. If the sentence is a command, Please feed the cats, then the subject is an understood “you.” You could have said Hey you, please feed the cats, but it’s just simpler to give the command if you know the person is already paying attention. Besides, it would get annoying if someone kept saying your name before every instruction.
The other time it might be difficult to find the subject is in long, complex sentences. Don’t worry about those for now, we’ll learn how to dissect them later. You have enough to remember for now, Grasshopper.
Finding the Predicate
Once you’ve found the subject, finding the predicate is easy. It’ll be all of the words that are referring to the subject. In our example sentences, all of the words except the subject itself are the predicate.
Practice
1. Define, in your own words, the subject and the predicate.
2. Explain, in your own words, how to find the subject and the predicate.
3. Put a single underline under every subject and a double underline under ever predicate in each of the example sentences. For the understood subjects, write the subject off to the side and underline it. If completing this practice on the computer, you may highlight the subject and predicate, using two different colors.
1. Winter is warmer in Tennessee.
2. Snow is white.
3. The weatherman is predicting snow.
4. Snow rarely falls in warm climates.
5. Will the snowflakes stick to the ground?
6. Please warm the car first.
7. Can we build a snowman?
8. Everyone loves snowmen.
9. Not everyone loves the cold.
10. Tiny snowflakes speckle my windshield.
11. Make sure to defrost the windshield.
12. Homeschoolers don’t often get snowdays.
13. Working adults don’t get snowdays either.
14. How quickly the snow melts in Tennessee!
15. Maybe we will see more snow next year.
