Subject and Predicate

Subjects and predicates are two parts that make up a sentence.

What is a subject?

• Who or what the sentence is about.
• Usually the noun part of the subject.
• It can be a noun phrase too, like “the deaf man”.
• For example:

Raju is running.

Raju is the subject in this sentence, since it talks about him. Who is running? That is, who is carrying out the verb or action mentioned in the sentence? The answer is Raju.

The lion is running after the deer.

The lion is the subject here. The verb is running, so who is running? The answer is the lion.

What is a predicate?

• Talks about the subject.
• Normally contains the verb and the object in the sentence.
• Examining the same examples:

Raju is running.

What is the subject Raju doing? He is running. So “is running” becomes the predicate, since it shows what the subject is doing.

The lion is running after the deer.

What is the lion, the subject doing? He is running after the deer, where the deer is the object. Hence “is running after the deer” becomes the predicate since it talks about what the subject is doing.