Grammar in Philosophy, Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar

Grammatically, a subject–predicate sentence consists of any noun phrase and verb phrase in combination, the constraints on the combination being syntactic rather than semantic. Of greater interest to philosophers has been the narrower notion of a ‘logical’ subject–predicate sentence, where the eligible noun phrases are restricted to those having a certain semantic function, namely, that of referring to something or someone. Thus, whereas ‘Nothing dies’ and ‘Nero fiddled’ would both satisfy the grammatical description, only the latter would be reckoned a logical subject–predicate sentence. More precisely, the predicate in such a sentence is described as a ‘first-order’ predicate, whereas a predicate which attaches not to a name but to a first-order predicate is known as a ‘second-order’ predicate. The logical variety is in question when it is said that ‘exists’ is not a predicate. In saying, for example, ‘The Loch Ness monster does not exist’ we can hardly be referring to a monster in the loch, so the grammatical subject is not a logical subject, and the predicate accordingly not a logical predicate. The hierarchy of predicates indicated is also thought important to an understanding of related terms, as ‘there is’ and ‘something’. Starting with ‘atomic’ sentences, as ‘Rome burned’ and ‘Vesuvius is a dormant volcano’, we can derive the forms ‘Something burned’ and ‘There is a dormant volcano’. ‘Something’ and ‘there is’ are not logical subjects, but are predicates of a predicate, or second-order predicates. This whole mode of classification calls for scrutiny.

Consider ‘Here is a key’. This provides a good contrast to a subject–predicate sentence in that we are not saying of something named ‘here’ that it is a key, but the adverb simply demarcates the locality where the description ostensibly applies. Similarly with ‘There is a key’, and not merely when this features ‘there’ as an adverb of place. In the existential reading what we have is a variation on this pattern, even though ‘there’ now lacks demonstrative force, approximating more to ‘somewhere’: provided a key is somewhere to be found, the form is in order. At all events, so long as the behaviour of ‘is a key’ can be reckoned the same whether it follows ‘here’ or ‘there’, we have reason not to think of ‘There is a key’ as in some way deriving from particular predications, as ‘This is a key’. Since we do not then have a predicative use of ‘a key’ in ‘There is a key’, nothing which can be attached to the former phrase can be described as a predicate of a predicate.

It can also be queried whether ‘Something is a key’ features a second-order predicate, but now because ‘is a key’ may be said to function in just the same way as in ‘This is a key’, despite the absence of any namelike term. More generally, there is good reason for broadening the category of subject to include a greater range of noun phrases than is customary, even those that are negative, as ‘nothing’ or ‘no one’. So we might include here ‘Every dog has its day’, ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’, and ‘Nothing surprises him any more’. In ‘Every dog has its day’ the phrase ‘every dog’ is a genuine unit, relevantly on a par with ‘Fido’, though of course not a name. It is relevantly on a par in so far as we can say: ‘has its day’ is true of every dog. Similarly, ‘prefer blondes’ is true of gentlemen and ‘surprises him any more’ is true of nothing. The contrast here continues to be with ‘Here is an F’, where we cannot say: ‘is an F’ is true of here.

Bibliography and More Information about subject and predicate

P. T. Geach , ‘Subject and Predicate’, Mind (1950). B. Rundle , Grammar in Philosophy (Oxford, 1979). P. F. Strawson , Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar (London, 1974).

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