[MD] Food for Thought

[Heather Perella]

> [SA previously]
> The emphasis of this post though is what is a
> predicate?  

 
> [Arlo]
> A sentance contains two parts, the subject and the
> predicate. The predicate
> tells you about the subject. "SA's house is nice".
> "SA's house" is the subject,
> "is nice" is the predicate. Basically, remove the
> subject (or subjective
> clause) and everything that is left is the
> predicate. (For point of
> clarification, the predicate includes the verb). 

     Thank you very much.  Another question after what
you said previously, now that I know what a predicate
is.


     [Arlo previously]
The same sentiment is expressed in ZMM. "Thus, in
cultures whose ancestry includes ancient Greece, one
invariably finds a strong subject-object
differentiation because the grammar of the old Greek
mythos presumed a sharp natural division of subjects
and predicates. In cultures such as the Chinese, where
subject-predicate relationships are not rigidly
defined by grammar, one finds a corresponding absence
of rigid subject-object philosophy." 


     I don't know if you know this or not, but I'll
give it a shot.  I'm so used to learning grammar in
school.  You know, the chalkboard and a teacher
pointing out examples, and providing instructions with
identification, etc...  So, I learned grammar in a
sentence has a subject and then has a predicate.  The
teacher put this on the chalk board and labeled the
sentence, and those sentence trees with lines placed
on the board and paper and I had to put the words from
the sentence upon those lines, in which those lines
were drawn were the subject goes, the verb, the
preposition, etc...  Anyways, this is how I would have
noticed subjects and predicates (obviously identifying
the latter didn't stick with me).  So, how would the
Greeks and Chinese, back then, have emphasized the
relationships between subjects and predicates or lack
there of?  Or, is this more a question of we notice
what a subject is and what a predicate is now, and
when we read ancient texts from either of these
cultures, the words or sentences combined (Chinese) or
didn't combine (Greek) certain words or meanings?  For
instance, the Chinese xin is a word that says
heart-mind or thought-feeling.  Whereas the Greeks
have no such word, even English doesn't, that's why I
had to put a hyphen (-) between the two English words
so the reader will notice that it is really one word. 



thanks.

night as dark as the dogs' back,
SA

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