Hey, everyone—welcome to another English grammar lesson. Today we’re going to be
covering some very tricky subjects and predicates. So, if you’re not quite caught up on these
topics, go—uh—check them out (links around…), and then—uh—head on back.
Okay, so we know that every sentence has a subject and a predicate—a complete and simple subject
and a complete and simple predicate, to be exact. And usually the subject comes first
and the predicate comes last, like this: “My niece turned twelve today.” Complete subject
is “My niece,” simple subject is just “niece,” complete predicate is “turned
twelve today,” and the simple predicate is just “turned.” Cool. Easy, right? If
you know your basic subjects and predicates, you already know that. But what happens when
our subjects and predicates are not in that very basic, standard order? What happens if
you have a sentence like this? “In the tree sat two ravens.” Okay, so take a moment
and look at this. What is my complete subject in this sentence? Who or what am I really
talking about? Take some time… The answer here is “two ravens,” but as you can see
that’s not the first part of the sentence. So, the subject here is actually at the end,
and my predicate—this part—is at the beginning. So, my simple subject would be “ravens,”
and my simple predicate would be “sat,” but they’re kind of backwards, right? They’re
not in that typical “subject and then predicate” order. The same is true when we have questions.
“Did you complete your homework?” Take a look. What’s my subject here? Should be
easy enough to find, right? It’s “you.” Both the complete and simple subjects are
“you.” And that’s great; it’s sort of towards the beginning like normal—not
that strange or out of place or anything. But what about my predicate? Obviously, the
complete predicate is everything aside from the complete subject, which means that it
would all of this. And that’s a little bit strange isn’t it: to have your predicate
split around your subject? And even the simple predicate is split around the subject—because,
technically, the simple predicate here is “did complete.” So, again, very strange
stuff—not that typical “subject then predicate” routine. And how about this one? “Go sit
down!” Okay, so this is a command—someone telling someone else to do something. And
this is where things get really weird because, technically, my subject is invisible. Yep,
that’s right—my subject is invisible. When you have a command—when you have someone
telling someone else to do something—your subject is suggested or implied or assumed—and
it is suggested or implied or assumed to be the word “you”—whether that means “you,”
singular, like just one person needs to go sit down, or whether it mean “you,” plural,
like a whole group of people needs to sit down. Okay, so I can’t really underline
or circle my subject because it’s not actually written in the sentence. The actual writing
you see is all predicate. “Go sit down” is all the predicate, with the simple predicate
being “go sit.” Okay, so remember, with commands, your actual subject is “you,”
but it’s not written because it’s suggested or implied or assumed—because, generally,
when someone makes a command in real life, it’s very obvious who they’re talking
to, right? So now let’s see if you can do a few. Take a look at this: “Over there,
in the forest, are two evil monsters.” Take a minute and see if you can find the complete
subject. Got it? Should have said “two evil monsters,” which, again, is not in a very
traditional spot in the sentence. But once you’ve found that, you should know that
the simple subject is just “monsters,” and the rest of the sentence would be your
complete predicate. And what would your simple predicate be? Answer is… “are.” Two
more… “Have you seen Joseph lately?” Okay, so another question—like one of the
examples we looked at. Complete and simple subjects are the same; they’re both “you,”
making the complete predicate all of this stuff. And the simple predicate—again, very
weird in the placement here—would be “have seen.” Last one… “Stay away from me!”
Okay, so here’s another command like we said earlier. So tell me, where’s my subject
here? What is it? Answer is… suggested or implied or assumed “you”—“you,”
singular, “you,” plural, we don’t know—but the subject is “you,” even if it’s not
written. That’s our complete and simple subject. So our complete predicate is all
of the written stuff: “Stay away from me!” And the simple predicate within that is just
“stay.” Cool! Well, whether you came here for a refresher or are just now learning this
stuff for the first time, I hope this video helped. Be sure to check out the free practice
down in the description, and—uh—we’ll see you next time. Thanks.