The compound nominal predicate
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 696.
The compound predicate
The compound predicate consists of two parts: (a) a finite verb and (b) some other part of speech: a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, a verbal (a participle, a gerund, an infinitive), etc.
The compound predicate may be nominal or verbal.
The compound nominal predicate denotes the state or quality of the person or thing expressed by the subject (e.g. He is tired. The book is interesting.), or the class of persons or things to which this person or thing belongs (e.g. She is a student.).
The compound nominal predicate consists of a link verb and a predicative(the latter is also called the nominal part of the predicate).
The link verb expresses the verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect, mood, sometimes voice. All link verbs, as the result of a long development, have partly lost their original concrete meaning. One link verb has lost its concrete meaning altogether: this is the verb to be.
| The Compound Nominal Predicate | |
| link verb | |
| 1) of being to be, to feel, to sound, to smell, to taste, to look, to appear, to seem | I felt better pleased than ever. His voice sounded cold |
| 2) of becoming to become, to grow, to turn, to get, to make | He grew more cheerful. The girl will make a good teacher. |
| 3) remaining to remain, to continue, to keep, to stay | She remained vexed with him. They kept suspiciously silent. |
| 4) some other verbs to lie, to sit, to die, to marry, to return, to leave, to come, to stand, to fall, to go, to shine | The girl lay senseless. One evening she came home elated. |
| predicative (ways ofexpressing) | |
| 1) noun (in the common case and possessive case) | She is a pretty child. The book is my sister's. |
| 2) adjective | Her eyes grewangry. |
| 3) pronoun (personal, reflexive, defining, indefinite, negative, possessive, interrogative) | It washe. She issomebody. Whatis he? She washerself again, brushing her tears away. |
| 4) stative | I was wide awake by this time. |
| 5) numeral (cardinal or ordinal) | He wasthe first to break the silence. I'm only 46. |
| 6) prepositional phrase | She ison our side. |
| 7)infinitive, infinitive phrase, or infinitive construction | His first thought was to run away. My idea is to go there myself. The only thing to do isfor you to whip him. |
| 8) gerund, gerundial phrase, or gerundial construction | My hobby isdancing. The main problem washis being away. |
| 9) participle II (or participial I) | He wassurprised. That sounded quite distressing. |
| 10) adverb | It wasenough the way she said it. |
| 11) indivisible group of words | It isnine o'clock already. |
| Objective Predicative | |
| He appointed Bush secretary in his stead. Lord and Lady Masham left him alone with them. He carried me safe to my little nurse. They painted the green. |
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| Nominal Aspect Nominal | | | The compound verbal predicate |