The Sentence: Subject and Predicate

 Without sentences, we would have a great deal of difficulty in communicating with each other. A sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense by itself. In its simplest form, a sentence may consist of just a noun and a verb, or even of a single word.

A sentence has two main parts, called the subject and the predicate.

Subject: The Subject is the part of the sentence that tells us who or what acts. The main word in the subject is usually a noun or a pronoun.

Predicate: Whatever is said about the subject is called the predicate. The predicate always contains a verb.

In the following examples below, we notice that the subject of a sentence can be a single word or a group of words; and that the same is true for the predicate.

 

Subject	Predicate
He	lived.
Mr. Martin	lived in Australia.
The grandest scheme of Mr Pedrick	was to irrigate the deserts of the world.
Josephine Dickson and her husband	were responsible for the invention of the Band-Aid.
The enraged American inventor	stormed out of the room.
Levi Strauss	made the first pair of jeans out of canvas.
Prehistoric man	created rope by twisting vines together.
The invention of water-pipes	took place about five thousand years ago.
The Chinese and Mongols	had used rockets from about AD 1200 onwards.
The first traffic-light	Was installed in Cleveland, USA, in 1914.

Here are some examples of proverbs that indicate subject and predicate:

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Necessity knows no law.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Birds of the same feather flock together.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

Here are more examples with appropriate subjects:

The stethoscope is an instrument used for listening to the heart.

The compass is an instrument for determining direction.

The telescope is an instrument for observing the movements of the stars.

The microscope is an instrument for examining tiny objects.

The thermometer is an instrument for measuring temperature.

 The megaphone is an instrument for amplifying and directing the voice.

 The barometer is an instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure.

The seismograph is an instrument for recording and measuring earthquakes.

The periscope is an instrument for viewing the surface from underwater.

The telegraph is an instrument for sending messages between places far apart.