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predicate
The term predicate traditionally refers to
the part of a sentence that characterizes the subject.
In “Sally kissed Fred,” “Sally” is the subject
and “kissed Fred” is the predicate. Philosophers
and logicians extend this notion, so that a sentence
with one or more singular terms removed is
a predicate. Predicates are 1-place, 2-place, and so
forth, depending on the number of singular
terms needed to make a sentence. A predicate is
said to be true of an object or sequence of objects
if a true sentence would result if terms referring
to that object or those objects were inserted.
From our example, we can get these predicates:
1. (1) kissed Fred.
2. (1) kissed (2)
3. Sally kissed (2)
4. (1) kissed (1).
(1) is a 1-place predicate, true of Sally and
whoever else has kissed Fred. Predicate (2) is a
2-place predicate, true of the pair of Sally and
Fred, and any other pair, the first of which has
kissed the second. Number (3) is a 1-place predicate,
true of Fred and others Sally has kissed.
And (4) is a 1-place predicate, because it only
takes one referring expression to complete the
sentence, although it must be inserted twice. It is
true of people who have kissed themselves.
The notion of a predicate does not necessarily
fit very well with the categories linguists use to
describe the structure of sentences. For example,
the words Sally kissed, which remain after Fred is
removed from our sentence, giving predicate (3),
are not usually considered a syntactic part of the
original sentence.
premise See deductive argument.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Philosophy
- Category: General philosophy
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