In sentences with two members or bimembres there is a subject (the person who performs the action) and a predicate (which describes the action performed by the subject). This implies that the subject answers the question who and the predicate the question what. Both the subject and the predicate of a sentence have an essential word, that is, a nucleus.
The core of the subject
The fundamental element of the subject of a sentence is its nucleus. In other words, the nucleus is the most important word in any subject.
In the sentence "Isabel dances", if we ask the question who, the answer is Isabel and she becomes the nucleus of the subject of the sentence. Obviously, the word dance constitutes the predicate of the sentence.
It should be noted that the subject of a sentence is the person, animal or thing that performs the action of the verb. Thus, in the sentence "My dog is seven years old", the subject consists of My dog and, therefore, its nucleus is the word dog.
In the sentence "My brother's neighbors have prepared a farewell for him," the subject is my brother's neighbors and the core is the word neighbors. In any case, the core of the subject is always a noun.
It must be taken into account that, on occasions, the subject is omitted. Thus, in the sentence "he did not do it", the subject does not appear explicitly, but logically the subject is the personal pronoun he. To know what the nucleus of the subject has to be in these cases, it is necessary to look for the personal pronoun that agrees with the verb form of the nucleus of the predicate.
The core of the predicate
People, animals or things perform actions, which are expressed through a type of words, verbs. In this way, in every sentence the core of the predicate is always a verb. In the sentence "The selection won the championship," the subject core is the word selection and the predicate core is the word won.
The predicate is a syntactic function that is performed by a verb or by a verbal group. In this sense, a verb periphrase can act as the nucleus of the predicate (for example, in the sentence "My friend is coming" the nucleus of the predicate is coming, since it is the main verb form).
It is convenient to first identify the core of the predicate
In parsing it is useful to first establish what the core of the predicate is. In this way, it is easier to discover which is the subject that performs the action.
In the sentence "My friend takes care of the plants" the action that is carried out is to take care of the plants and when we have already identified the nucleus of the action it is possible to ask the question who (who takes care of the plants? My friend).
Photos: Fotolia - Konstantin Yuganov / XY
