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English Course

Semantics and Discourse Analysis

Semantics Notes – III

Unity – III: Predicates

➢ Predicator

➢ Predicates

➢ Degree of predicate

In this unity, we start by examining the semantic structure of simple declarative sentence such as “My
dog bit the postman.” or “Mrs. Smith is waiting for the down-town bus.” Such sentences contain one
or more referring expressions plus some other words that do not make part of any of the referring
expressions. It is on these other words that we shall now concentrate on.

Exercises

In the following sentences, underline the words which are not referring expressions.

1. My dog bit the postman.

2. Cairo is in Africa.

3. Edinburg is between Aberdeen and York.

4. This place stinks.

5. John’s car is red.

From the underlined words in each sentence above, write down the single word, or part of a word,
which carries the most specific meaning.

The words you’ve just isolated from their original sentences are called PREDICATORS of those
sentences.
 I. Predicator

The PREDICATOR of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a group of words) which
does not belong to any of the referring expressions and which, of the reminder, makes the most
specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence. Intuitively speaking, predicators describe the
state or process in which referring expressions are involved. For example, asleep is the predicator in
Mummy is asleep and describes the state Mummy is in; wait for is the predicator in Jimmy was
waiting for the downtown bus and it describes the process involving Jimmy and the downtown bus.

Predicators in sentences can be of various parts of speech: adjectives (red, asleep, etc.); verbs (bite,
wait, place, etc.); prepositions (in, between, with, etc.); and nouns (genius, dog, etc). Despite the
obvious syntactical differences between these different types of words, semantically they all share the
property of being able to function as predicators of sentences. Words of other part of speech, such as
conjunctions (and, but, or, etc) and articles (the, a, an), cannot function as predicators in sentences.

The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two major semantic roles played by
subparts of a sentence. These are the roles of predicator, illustrated above, and argument, played by
the referring expressions. Identify predicators and arguments in the sentences that follow:

1. Denis is an imbecile.

2. John showed Peter his house.

3. Donald is proud of his family.

4. Frank is a menace.

5. Teddy is whimsical.

6. Fred offered Jane his BMW.

7. The hospital is outside the city.

8. Juan took Pablo to Rio.

9. Ranga Chimundege became an MP.

Therefore, we shall be concerned almost exclusively with the semantic analysis of sentences, and
we’ll not make use of the notion “grammatical predicate (phrase).” We will use the term predicate in
a semantic sense, to be defined below.

II. Predicate

A predicate is any word or (sequence of words) which (in a given single sense) can function as
the predicator of a sentence. For example: hungry, in, asleep, bite, show are all predicates. But
and, but, or, not are not predicates.

Exercises

Are the following predicates?

a. Dusty

b. Drink

c. Woman

d. You

e. Fred

The definition of predicate above contains two parenthesized conditions. The first, (sequence of
words), is to take care of examples like wait for, in front of, which are longer than one word but they
should be considered as single predicates. The second parenthesized condition, (in a given single
sense), is more important and illustrates a degree of abstractness in the notion of predicate. A “word”
can be ambiguous, i.e. can have more than one meaning, but we use “predicates” in a way which does
not allow them to be ambiguous.

A predicate can have only one sense. Normally the context in which we use the word will make clear
what sense (what predicate) we have in mind. The word bank has at least two senses. Accordingly,
we might speak of the predicates bank1 and bank2. Similarly, we might distinguish between predicates
man1 (noun); man2 (noun) and; man3 (transitive verb) as in The crew manned the lifeboat.

Notice that “predicate” and “predicator” are terms of quite different sorts. The term predicate
identifies elements in the language system, independently of particular examples of sentence. Thus, it
will make sense to talk of a list of predicates of English as included in a dictionary. The term
predicator identifies the semantic role played by a particular word or group of words in brackets in a
particular sentence. In this way, it is similar to the grammatical term subject. One can talk of a subject
of particular sentence, but it makes no sense to talk of a list of subjects of English. Similarly, one can
talk of the predicator in a particular sentence, but not list the predicators of English. A simple
sentence only has one predicator although it may well contain more than one instance of predicate.

Exercises

1. In which of the following sentences does the predicate human function as a predicator.

a. All humans are mammal.

b. Socrates was human.

c. These bones are human.

2. In which of the following sentences does the predicate male function as a predicator?

a. The male gorilla at the zoo had a nasty accident yesterday.

b. The gorilla at the zoo is a male.

c. The gorilla at the zoo is male.

III. Degree of predicates

The Degree of a predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments that the predicate
subcategorizes in a sentence. For example, asleep is a predicate of degree one or a one-place
predicate. Love is a predicate of degree two or a two-place predicate.

Exercise

1. Are the following sentences acceptable?

a. Mr. Teddy sneezed.

c. Teddy sneezed his wife a handful of pepper.

2. Is sneeze a one-place predicate?

3. Are the following sentences acceptable in normal usage?

a. Mukhombo hit.

b. Martha hit the sideboard.

c. Alinafe hit George the sideboard.

4. Is hit a one-place predicate?

5. Is burp a one – place predicate?

6. Is come a one-place predicate?

7. Is murder (verb) a one-place predicate?

A verb that is understood most naturally with just two arguments, one as its subject, and one as its
object, is a two-place predicate. In Martha hit the parrot, hit is a two-place predicate: It has an
argument, Martha, as its subject and an argument, the parrot, as direct object.

Exercises

1. Are the following sentences acceptable?

a. Ana made.

b. Keith made this toy guillotine.

c. Teddy made this toy guillotine his mother – in – law.

2. Is make a two-place predicate?

3. Is murder a two-place predicate?

4. Is see a two-place predicate?

There are a few three-place predicates in English. The verb give is the best example.

Exercises
For each of the following sentences, say whether it seems somewhat elliptical (i.e. seems to omit
something that one would normally expect to be mentioned). Some of these sentences are more
acceptable than others.

1. Fátima gave.

2. Fatima gave Salome.

3. Fatima gave a nice present.

4. Fatima gave Salome a nice present.

5. How many referring expressions are there in sentences (4)?

We have concentrated so far on predicates that happen to be verbs. Remember the examples such as

Cairo is in Africa; Cairo is dusty; Cairo is a large city. In these examples, in (a preposition), dusty
(an adjective), and city (a noun) are predicates.

In the case of prepositions, nouns, and adjectives, we can also talk of one-, two- or three – place
predicates.

Exercises

1. How many referring expressions are there in Your marble is under my chair.

2. Is Your marble is under acceptable in normal usage?

3. Is Your marble is under my chair the carpet acceptable in normal usage?

4. So, of what degree is the predicate under (i.e. how-many-place-predicate is under)?

5. Of what degree is the predicate near?

6. Is Dundee is between Aberdeen acceptable?

7. Is Dundee is between Aberdeen and Edinburg acceptable?

8. Of what degree is the predicate between?

Forum VI: What is the difference between an utterance and a sentence in Semantics?