Language Structures—Part 1: The Core / 3


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1.5 — TAKING STOCK

Core language rests on:

  • A subject, i.e. the focus of the clause: we are talking about it.

  • A predicate, i.e. the statement being made about the subject (how the subject is, or what it does, or what is being done to it).

  • An object - the third element - is required by some predicates, but other predicates may not need an object (if the predicate action is painting, an object may be needed: a portrait, a wall ..., but with a predicate such as speaking no object may be required).

      • There are many information items which may be added to the core (i.e. to the "subject + predicate + object" clustering).

      Any extra information is optional: we may say "Yesterday I met Henry" or just "I met Henry".

      "Yesterday" does not belong to the core because it is not absolutely necessary. However, if we do add it, the clause is more informative.

      The object belongs to the core because - when predicate is of the transitive kind - it must be added. If we withdraw "Henry" from the foregoing example, no information is passed on to the listener (saying "I met ..." does not make any sense).

More in detail:

Subject

It can be any entity we are making a statement about:

  • one or more persons: Their brothers came
  • one or more animals: Giraffes appeared
  • objects: Leaves were falling
  • smells, whatever ... Violet scent is her favourite
  • ... even notions developed by our reasoning (Poverty or illness is a disgrace).

Predicate

  • It is the statement made about the subject. It may follow either of two patterns:

    1. Pattern based on TO BE + QUALIFIER: I am happy, with:
      1. "I" (subject), and
      2. "am happy" (predicate) - with:
        • TO BE (am)
        • followed by a QUALIFIER (happy).

    2. In the second pattern of predicate, the subject performs an activity(1) or finds itself in some state: resting, sitting, standing, listening ...

      The focus is on what the subject does or doesn't do, not on how the subject itself is.

        Examples of the second pattern:

        • She earns a good salary
        • The pilot fainted
        • I am (no qualifier added: its meaning is "existing" as opposed to nothingness)

    For more on this, see the fine print.

    Object

  • An object (e.g., "a good salary") is attached to some of the second pattern predicates (the transitive ones) but is never found with the "to be + qualifier" kind of predicate.

      Don't mistake the QUALIFIER of the first pattern for an object: in It feels great!, You are wrong!, great and wrong are qualifiers, not objects; they blend with feels and are to form predicates of the 1st pattern.

      In languages based on cases - like Greek and Latin or today's German - great and wrong would be set in nominative case (the same case of their respective subjects: it and you). On the other hand a good salary would be set in accusative, the case signalling objects.

  • If some elements of core language are not visible, your national grammar assumes them to be self-evident and leaves them implicit.

      Italian and Spanish, unlike English, French and German often skip the subject: "È stanca" ("Está cansada" in Spanish) is rendered by three words in English (She is tired), French (Elle est fatiguée) and German (Sie ist müde). This happens because Italian and Spanish words change (è instead of siamo, sono ...; stanca instead of stanco, stanchi ...) in such a way whereby the entity being tired is identified as one female. Therefore, adding the subject "lei" is redundant; the listener can figure out who the subject is even without being told. (French words change as much as in Italian and Spanish, but French pronunciation is such that some letters - e.g. final "s" - are not uttered and the listener may lack sufficient information about who or what is the subject, so French subjects are always explicit like in English and German.)
A clause consists of the triad subject, predicate and - if required - object. Clauses are the most elementary language units(2). Thoughts are developed by chaining clauses into wider constructions.

    Part IV deals with such constructions: sentences and discourse.
    A sentence may consist of one (e.g., Francis jumps) or more clauses (e.g. The tree is large and a stream flows(3)).

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FOOTNOTES
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) – Or - in passive sentences - the subject receives the impact of external activities. (Passive construction is introduced further ahead in #2.3).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) – Of articulate language, that is.

At a lower level are found gestures, facial expressions, growling, screaming, laughing and other sketchy manifestations of moods, sentiments, value judgments, injunctions or expectations. But that is not articulate language.

One may say that clauses are the fundamental units of human language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(3) – The tree is large [1st clause], A stream flows [2nd clause].

When two or more clauses are in the same sentence, some elements are left implicit in order to avoid repetition. A sentence like Mr. Carr is painting the hall and singing is shorthand for Mr. Carr is painting the hall [1st clause] and Mr. Carr is singing [2nd clause].

In the second clause, Mr. Carr (the subject of both clauses) is left implicit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fine Print
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Additional comments on predicate patterns
Why two patterns

If you feel that grouping predicates in two patterns is wantonly artificial, these comments are here to make you think again.

All predicates are statements made on subjects, and all of them are based on verbs (which will be discussed in Part III).

Now, of the thousands of verbs found in a language, only one penetrates the inner essence of the subject. That one verb is TO BE.

While other verbs inform on what the subject does or doesn't do, or on a relationship which binds the subject to an external entity (the object), TO BE is unique in disclosing who or what the subject itself is.

Taken in isolation, TO BE negates nothingness; its meaning is "to exist", "to belong to the dimension of reality". (Remember French philosopher Descartes saying I think, therefore "I am", or Shakespeare having Hamlet muse To be or not to be?)

When coupled with a qualifier, TO BE defines the subject rather than showing how it interacts with the rest of the world. (She is "my supervisor", Your friends are "funny", Our attitude is "wrong", This jewel is "one of the most expensive ones" - with qualifiers showing between quotation marks.)

Grammar recognises that TO BE is special, and sets it apart from other verbs. While anything directly attached to a generic verb is classed by grammars as an "object", the qualifier beside TO BE is handled the same way the subject is.

    This is best observerd in languages based on cases - like German. The subject case is nominative and - apart from the subject - there is only one grammatical figure which must be set in nominative: the qualifier placed after TO BE.

What is meant by "qualifier"

The terminology is arbitrary: what we here call qualifier other books call complement of TO BE (but we can't do so, because we use the term "complement" to identify those clause parts which are added to the "subject / predicate / object" core).

We call qualifier the element(s) attached to TO BE in predicates of the first pattern, viz. when we are being informed on how the subject is.

In older grammars. the terminology was different: the TO BE part of the 1st pattern predicate was called copula and the attached qualifier was called predicate noun.

In fact, the qualifier can be a noun (with or without an article) as in:

    Mathilda is a lawyer.

or can be an adjective as in:

    Mathilda is famous.

or can be a noun plus adjective as in:

    Mathilda is a famous lawyer.

But there are borderline cases where TO BE doesn't tell us how the subject itself is, but rather informs on her / its / his whereabouts like in:

    Mathilda is at home.

In the above example, TO BE means something quite close to "to exist", "to be found ..." rather than "being one way rather than another way".

Even borderline cases should be included within the first pattern predicate, as they clearly don't suit the second pattern: the statement is still about the subject itself rather than what it / she / he does or doesn't do.

Quite different is the case of TO BE featuring in ready-made expressions like to be at odds with: here, it means TO FIGHT, TO ANTAGONISE and, having strayed altogether from the being / existing realm, we are now dealing with patterns of the 2nd pattern, not with TO BE as descriptive of the subject itself.

Virtual proxies of TO BE

Going back to the 1st pattern, note that a handful of verbs (like "to become", "to get" ...) are virtual synonymous of "to be" when performing in the "TO BE + QUALIFIER" pattern.

The meaning of:

  • My niece becomes a hospital nurse.
  • Our neighbours get nasty.
is quite close to:
  • My niece is a hospital nurse.
  • Our neighbours are nasty.
the difference being a minor one:
  • "to be" is static (it states that some way of being already exists)

  • "to become", "to get", "to turn into" are dynamic (they state that change is in progress towards a way of being).

In either case we are talking of "ways of being" and therefore we deal with predicates of the first pattern.

Similarly, it may be argued that also "to feel", "to appear", "to look" ... are eligible for supporting a #1 pattern as proxies of TO BE:

  • This book looks interesting.
  • Your gloves feel soft.
The difference vis-à-vis "to be" is that the doubt is added that things may not be exactly they are surmised to be, the stress being on how we perceive reality rather than on how reality unconditionally is.

More hazy cases

And what about there is / there are - whereby we signal that something is there but nothing is said about its inner identity?

In "There are 3 players in each team" we just enumerate the team players. This can be considered to be an instance of 1st pattern because it clearly does not fit the 2nd pattern.

More straightforward is "It is a 3-player team". We are now told what kind of team is there (one conisting of 3 players) and therefore clearly is a predicate of the 1st kind.

Note that it is accidental for English to have the verb "to be" in the "there is" / "there are" pattern: German conveys the same information via verb "to give" ("Es gibt 3 Spieler ...": it gives 3 players ...) and French does it via "to have" ("Il y a 3 joueurs dans chaque équipe"). All the same, in all three languages the construction is impersonal (i.e., the subject is hinted at rather than precised defined; for details on this, see impersonal construction).

Our provious choice to see are 3 players (in "There are 3 players") as a 1st pattern predicate is confirmed by a Latin form built along the same line: "Sunt tres athletae". There, athletae is set in nominative, the case Latin sets aside either for subjects or whatever follows TO BE inside a predicate.

The identity of predicates based on to belong is likewise hard to crack.

Let us consider:

    Mathilda belongs to the lawyers' guild.

The information being conveyed is about Mathilda herself (the subject) and therefore we may surmise that this predicate complies with the 1st pattern.

As a matter of fact, associating it with the 2nd pattern would lead to a logical impasse:

  • We know that - with the exception of "to be" (needed for working passive forms out) - all verbs are either transitive (requiring an object: Mathilda addresses the court) or intransitive (the acting or situation referring to the subject is self-enclosed; no object is required: Mathilda walks).

  • Now, "to belong" can't be seen as self-enclosed, as we can't stop short at "Mathilda belongs". Such statement does not make any sense.

  • On the other hand, the segment to be added ("to the lawyers' guild") is not an object. Objects are directly connected to the subject via a transitive verb but, with "to belong", the connection between Mathilda and her guild happens in an indirect way via the intermediary of particle "to".

  • Notice that adding "to" after the verb is not a stylistic twist of the kind seen for Spanish in the Fine Print on objects, as the indirect construction of "belong" features in all of our reference languages:
    • Spanish: pertenece a ...;
    • Italian: appartiene a ...;
    • French: appartient à ...;
    • German: gehört der Zunft - where der Zunft for "guild" is set in the indirect dative case.

Thus the 2nd pattern predicate is ruled out, and "belong" must be an extreme borderline case of displaying the "TO BE + qualifier" predicate.

Once again, Latin supports our finding. In that language, "belong" does not exist as such because its function is carried out by "be": Latin for "This belongs to me" is "Hoc mihi est" (This is to me).