Each complete sentences (sentences What can be Stand Alone) has a Subject and Predicate .What is the subject of discussion hearts Or who Or clause A sentence while the predicate describes. Something About subject while the subject can be form of orangutans, Animals, Objects, as well as an abstract concept .
Subject and Predicate
The subject and predicate of a sentence should reflect what one is talking about and what one is saying about it. Metaphorically, the subject names the place in memory where the propositions being conveyed are to be stored. Connie owns a horse is a fact to be stored about Connie, while The horse is connie's is a fact to be stored about the horse. Virtually every fact ean be expressed in more than one way, and so speakers are always forced to decide on subject and predicate. All other things being equat, however, they will select the given information, the frame or both , as subject. And when these factors do not apply, they will select the agent of the action (saying connie bought the horse in preference to The horse was bought by Connie) or the experiencer (sayiing Connie saw the house in preference to The house was seen by Connie). How they make these decisions, however, is not at all clear. There are two different ways to view the choices of subject and predicate, given and new information, and frame and insert. In the context of speakers and listeners, subject-predicate and frame-insert are speaker oriented and given-new is listener oriented. Speakers place what they want to talk about as subject and state the framework they want to place it in as frame. But at the same time they place what they judged the listener already know as given information and what the listeners don't yet know as new. These orientations are quite distinct. Viewed as elements in an ongoing discourse, one the other hand, subject-predicate and frame-insert are forward looking, while given-new is backward looking Subject and predicate reveal the direction speakers are expecting to go in the discourse, and frame and insert, the framework within which they are going to talk. These tell listeners what to pay attention to. Given and new information, in constrast, are adjustment speakers must make to what has already been said, since the given information must refer directly or inderectly to known material and they can be certain that what has been said before is known. Although there is little hard evidence on these decisions, participants in spontaneous conversations appear to make these selections with considerable care. They way stumble and hesitate in talking, but they pay close attention to the thematic choices they make. Tannenbaum and Williams (1968) have demonstrated how important these thematic distinctions are in the production of sentences. In their study people were shown a picture and asked to describe it as quickly as possible in either an active or a passive sentence. For example, they were shown a picture of a train hitting a car. In the upper left-hand corner of the picture there was either an A or a P. They were to produce 6 if there was an A and 7 if there was a P:
6. The train is hitting the car
7. The car is being hit by train.
Before people were shown this picture,however, rhey red a preamble, a short paragraph, that was about trains and their importance, about cars and their function and importance, or about neither. Schematically, there were three types of preamble: (A) about trains, (B) about cars, (C)neutral. The times people took to produce the complete sentences suggest that one or more oh the three thematic distinctions affect speed of sentence production. Sentence 6 was fastest for Problem A, next fastest for Preamble C, and slowest for Preamble B. On the other hand, 7 was fastest for preamble B, next fastest for preamble C, and slowest for preamble A. That is, it was easiest to produce a sentence whose subject, frame, and given information referred back to the preamble. Apparently, the preamble sets up the theme of the discourse and states what is known. The next sentence, to be produced quickly, has to carry on the theme with the subject and frame and refer back to what is known with the given information. It is imposible to tell, however, how many and which ones of the there thematic function were critical. In sum, the planning of an individual sentence is not easy. Speakers have to decide on the propositional content, illocutionary contet, and thematic structure of what they want to say and then select a sentence to fit. Imagine they have made the following choices:
Propositional contet: Hit (Harry, Bill)= S
Speech act: I request you to tell me whether S is true.
Thematic structure: Harry is subject and frame; X hit Bill is given
Taken together, these choices lead to Did Harry hit Bill? or Was it Harry who hit Bill? The difficult problem, however, is how to make the three selections in the first place. It is fairly clear what considerations speakers must pay attention to, but it is far from clear what mental processes are involved or how the final decisions is arrived at. The study of sentence planning has barely begun.
6. The train is hitting the car
7. The car is being hit by train.
Before people were shown this picture,however, rhey red a preamble, a short paragraph, that was about trains and their importance, about cars and their function and importance, or about neither. Schematically, there were three types of preamble: (A) about trains, (B) about cars, (C)neutral. The times people took to produce the complete sentences suggest that one or more oh the three thematic distinctions affect speed of sentence production. Sentence 6 was fastest for Problem A, next fastest for Preamble C, and slowest for Preamble B. On the other hand, 7 was fastest for preamble B, next fastest for preamble C, and slowest for preamble A. That is, it was easiest to produce a sentence whose subject, frame, and given information referred back to the preamble. Apparently, the preamble sets up the theme of the discourse and states what is known. The next sentence, to be produced quickly, has to carry on the theme with the subject and frame and refer back to what is known with the given information. It is imposible to tell, however, how many and which ones of the there thematic function were critical. In sum, the planning of an individual sentence is not easy. Speakers have to decide on the propositional content, illocutionary contet, and thematic structure of what they want to say and then select a sentence to fit. Imagine they have made the following choices:
Propositional contet: Hit (Harry, Bill)= S
Speech act: I request you to tell me whether S is true.
Thematic structure: Harry is subject and frame; X hit Bill is given
Taken together, these choices lead to Did Harry hit Bill? or Was it Harry who hit Bill? The difficult problem, however, is how to make the three selections in the first place. It is fairly clear what considerations speakers must pay attention to, but it is far from clear what mental processes are involved or how the final decisions is arrived at. The study of sentence planning has barely begun.
Subject and predicate article may be useful to readers
