Relationships Between Subject and Predicate

I. The syntactic relationship between subject and predicate 1. The subject determines the number form of the predicate verb.  The guiding principles: grammatical concord notional concord proximity  Of the three principles, notional concord is the most influential because it conforms with the purpose of communication and reflects the direction of the development of the language. However, the other two principles are more traditional and formal.

(1) Nouns as subject Singular form, singular meaning, singular verb (under normal conditions): A rolling stone gathers no moss. Honesty is the best policy.

Plural form, plural meaning, plural verb (under normal conditions): Rolling stones gather no moss. Still waters run deep.

Singular form, plural meaning, plural verb (special collective nouns): The Chinese people are a great people. Police are badly needed in this area. Poultry are kept at the back of the house.

Plural form, singular meaning, singular verb (names of diseases): Mumps is a kind of infectious disease. Diabetes occurs in middle-aged and old people.

Singular form, singular/plural meaning, singular/plural verb (regular collective nouns): My family ___ (be) a happy one. My family ___ (be) all early risers.

Plural form, Plural/singular meaning, plural/singular verb (nouns denoting sports and subjects of study): The politics of Aristotle ___ (be) studied at Oxford. Politics ___ (be) the art of government. Mathematics ___ (be) not his strong point. Marbles ___ (be) very popular among children. Marbles ___ (vary) in kind and quality.

(2) Non-finite verbs as subject To live means to struggle. Learning without practice is of no use.

(3) Clauses as subject That he is always late ___ (make) the teacher unhappy. He is always late, which ___ (make) the teacher unhappy. What I want ___ (be) just a few books.

(4) Coordinate subjects The dean and secretary ___ (have) come already. American and Dutch beer ___ (be) much lighter than British. Neither the teacher nor the students ___ (be) present. Either you or she ___ (be) to blame.

2. The predicate verb determines the clause pattern of the sentence.  the link verb → SVC  the monotransitive verb → SVO  the ditransitive verb → SVOO  the complex transitive verb → SVOC  the verb complement transitive verb → SVOA  the complete intransitive verb→ SV  the incomplete intransitive verb → SVA

II. The semantic relationship between subject and predicate  1. Active subject-predicate relationship (agent-action relationship )  2. Passive subject-predicate relationship (patient-action relationship )  3. topic-comment relationship

III. The informational relationship between subject and predicate  Subject + Predicate  ↓ ↓  Theme + Rheme  ↓ ↓  Given Information + New Information  The information focus generally comes at the end of the sentence, hence the term “end-focus”. In a question, however, the information focus comes at the head of the sentence, and fronting also results in beginning-focus.

IV. The structural relationship between subject and predicate  Subject + Predicate  ↓ ↓  Light + Heavy  Weighty structures are usually placed at the end of the sentence, hence the term “end-weight”.