Complete Subject and Predicate
Together, a complete subject and a complete predicate make up
an entire sentence. Every word of the sentence is either a part of the complete
subject or the complete predicate.
·
The complete subject includes the main noun and all of its
modifiers.
·
The complete predicate includes the main verb and all of the
modifiers, objects, and phrases that add on to it. The complete predicate is
basically anything that is not part of the complete subject.
Consider the following examples:
The hot coffee spilled
all over the floor.
A perfect swing saved us
the game.
In the above examples, the underlined text is the complete
subject, while the bold text is the complete predicate. Notice that the
complete subject includes the noun and all its modifiers, and the complete
predicate includes the main verb and all the modifiers, objects, and phrases
that add on to it.
As additional information, here is a classification of the
words in the complete subject and predicate of the above examples.
First example:
|
Complete Subject
|
the noun “coffee”
|
the adjective “hot”
|
the article adjective “the”
|
|
|
Complete Predicate
|
the verb “spilled”
|
the adverb (in this case) “all”
|
the preposition “over”
|
the article adjective “the”
|
the object of the preposition “floor”
|
Second example:
|
Complete Subject
|
the noun “swing”
|
the adjective “perfect”
|
the article adjective “a”
|
|
|
Complete Predicate
|
the verb “saved”
|
the indirect object “us”
|
the article adjective “the”
|
the direct object “game”
|