1.1.2. Predication as a means of sense catenation (chaining).

How is sense made? What links up our thinking and actual speech? Can the perfectly adjusted mental mechanisms of the mother tongue be applied to learning a second language? At the attempt to answer questions like that, we do thought experiments to make reflection and speech techniques explicit and manageable in the light of the knowledge and expectations of the learners.

Here is an important conclusion to be drawn: “noun” communication is possible if and only if we can retrieve skipped predicates required or allowed by a specific fact or situation which we always do explicitly (in oral speech) or implicitly (in the form of our inner understanding). In case we cannot figure out details specifying names, the latter sound as meaningful words but make no sense. Thus, sense making might be specified as predication – the act of thinking and saying anything about a thing (also entity, noun, subject agent, object, argument, (concrete) thing). Predicates imply all words giving information about the thing. That is why we can call them information words. Study the following examples.

“Place” is not only about location. (“place” is used as a name for its identification)

Keep your documents in a safe place. (The word “place” gets more specified when preceded by the predicate “safe”: more detail (info) is given)

It’s hard to find a place to park. (The word “place” gets more specified when followed by the predicate “to park”: more detail (info) is given about the purpose of the noun)

It isn’t a place. It is the place to be. (The-article shows that the speaker has a high opinion of the place in question; according to the speaker, it is the best place to attend)

This is a great place for a holiday. (The word “place” acquires more predicates, and the listener gets more info, correspondingly.

There is still a place left on the course. (an opportunity for someone to take the course in question).

1.1.3. Identity patterns.

“Identity pattern” is a conventional name applied to certain common sentence structures. There are a few basic varieties of them:

1) noun = noun complement; 2) noun + adjective complement; 3) noun = infinitive complement; 4) noun = ing-form complement; 5) noun = pronoun complement; 6) noun + an adverbial complement; 7) noun = a clause describing a fact (again reduced to an entity). (A complement is a word (phrase, clause) that comes after the verb and describes or modifies the subject. That is, a complement is a type of predicate, according to our working terminology.) It is useful to follow how complements function in sentences because it is one of the most important ways of indicating the connection of ideas.

Note. “Negative identity” is to be considered as a particular instance.

e.g.

1) noun = noun (complement) / noun ≠ noun (complement)

In an identity pattern of this type the verb acts rather like an equals sign identifying two names for the same person or thing. Consider the example:

A procedure is typically a process.

It is usually some form of the verb be, though a few other verbs are possible: mean, involve, indicate, designate, etc. (see 1.2.6.). They vary in detail, but in all of them the identity between the subject (procedure) and the complement (process) could be symbolized (though of course not fully represented) by the formula:

A procedure = a process

More examples:

Perhaps the most common reaction to a problem is a random hunt for solutions.

All writing is a process of elimination. ( M.Albrand)

2) noun + adjective complement

In such a sentence as “This phrase is empty” empty is not another noun renaming the subject, but an adjective associated with it. “Empty” is predicated of “phrase” and modifies I, but is cannot be replaced by an equals sign without a considerable distortion of the meaning.

More examples:

This technique is useful analytically.

The past is by no means definite. It is rather open.

3) noun + infinitive complement

Consider the following example:

The strategy of this project is to keep things as simple as possible.

The infinitive predicate “keep” indicates the essence of the strategy in question, that is why this kind of predication might be symbolically expressed as “strategy = to keep (thing simple)”.

4) noun = ing-form complement

Having issues with people is disagreeing with them. (having issues = disagreeing)

Much talking often means clouding an issue. (much talking = clouding an issue)

5) noun = pronoun complement

Knowledge is nothing without understanding.

The capacity for self-criticism is not something that is inborn.

6) noun + an adverbial complement

The equipment is in good condition.

A funny feeling is at the back of my mind. What if all this is only a trick?

The maximum of the emission that comes from the coldest objects in the Universe, including gas and dust clouds in our and other galaxies, asteroids, comets, and planets, is in the far infrared band.

7) noun (infinitive, ing-form, a clause describing a fact) = a clause describing a fact (again reduced to an entity) or vice versa

One common fault in human thinking is that it is too hasty. (The fact that it is too hasty = hastiness)

Things are not what they used to be. (Things are not things they were.)

All we can do is hypothesizing. (our doing = hypothesizing)

What we traditionally learn about cause and effect is what modern science shows to be fundamentally erroneous. (our idea the idea of modern science)