Page:Manual of English Grammar and Composition 1898.djvu/10

 2 PARSING AND ANALYSIS PART I In a very si i oil sentence like "fire bums," the "word "fire" (which is called a Noun) expresses the whole of the Subject, and the. word "burns" (which is called a Finite Verb) expresses the whole of the Predicate. However long a sentence may be, it can always be divided into the same two parts as the shortest sentence : Subject. Predicate. (1) Fire burns. (2) A fierce fire burnt down my house. (3) A fierce fire, breaking out completely burnt down my yesterday, house. (4) A fierce fire, suddenly break- completely* burnt down my ing out yesterday after- house and many others in the noon, same street. (5) A fierce fire, suddenly break- completely burnt down my house ing out yesterday after- and all the other houses in the noon at four o'clock, same street except five. Definitions. The Subject of a sentence is a word or words denoting what we speak about. The Predicate is a word or words by which we say something about the thing denoted by the Subject. Note 1. In grammar the Subject is not "what we speak about," but "the word or words denoting what we speak about." Grammar deals exclusively with words, and this fact has to be recognised in all the definitions. Note 2". Such a sentence as "Go!" is elliptical. Here the Subject "thou" or "you" is understood. Still more elliptical is a sentence in which the Subject and the Finite verb are both under- stood : Companion, hence ! SHAKSPEARE. To express this sentence in full, we have to say Companion, go thou hence ! . Nominative or its equivalent. The predicate-verb has for its Subject some noun or noun-equivalent of the same number (Singular or Plural) and the same person (First, Second, or Third) as the verb itself. The noun that stands as Subject to a verb is invariably in the Nominative case, and so it is best to call it a Nominative at once. Fire burns. Here "fire " is the Nominative to the predicate-verb " burns." A pronoun is a very common form of noun-equivalent : He | is standing outside. We cannot say "Him is standing outside." So the pronoun like the noun must be in the Nominative case.