Adjective vs Predicate
Knowing the difference between adjective and predicate will help you to understand English grammar better. An adjective is a part of speech that describes the quality of the noun. On the other hand, a predicate is a clause that tells us something about the subject. This is the main difference between an adjective and predicate. Adjective can be used with any noun in the sentence while the predicate only tells us about the subject of the sentence. This article presents to you more details about these two words as well as their differences.
What is an Adjective?
An adjective, in short, can be defined as a part of speech that describes the noun it qualifies. This is the important definition of an adjective. Observe the two sentences given below.
Francis is an angry man.
Lucy accepts the blue garment presented to her.
In both the sentences, you can find that the words ‘angry’ and ‘blue’ are used as adjectives respectively to describe the nouns, namely, ‘man’ and ‘garment’ respectively. In the first sentence, you can find that the word ‘angry’ describes the quality of Francis as he is angry in nature. In the second sentence, you can see that the word ‘blue’ describes the quality of the garment and says that Lucy accepts the blue garment that was presented to her. This is an important observation to make while studying the adjectives. Adjective is usually placed just before the noun it describes.
What is a Predicate?
On the other hand, a predicate is a clause that says something about the subject of a sentence. Look at the two sentences given below.
Willey is coming today.
John will speak today at the function.
In both the sentences, you can find that the words that denote the subject are ‘Willey’ and ‘John’ respectively. At the same time, in the first sentence, the predicate is ‘coming today’ since it indicates something about the subject. In the same way, in the second sentence, the predicate is ‘will speak today’ since it says something about the subject, namely, John. As you can see, a predicate comes after the subject in a sentence. However, there are instances where the predicate is placed before the subject. Look at the following examples.
Down went the Princess Victoria.
Bitter are the results of treachery.
In the first sentence, Princess Victoria is the subject. Went down is the description of the subject. In other words, it is the predicate. Then, in the second sentence, results of treachery is the subject while the predicate is bitter. Both of the predicates in both of these sentences are placed before the subject. Usually, this type of usage is found in literature.
What is the difference between Adjective and Predicate?
• An adjective is a part of speech that describes the quality of the noun.
• On the other hand, a predicate is a clause that tells us something about the subject.
• Adjective is usually placed just before the noun it describes.
• A predicate usually comes after the subject, but there are exceptions when predicate comes before.
These are the differences between adjective and predicate in English grammar.