Secondary predication

In every sentence there must be predication, without which there would be no sentence. In a usual two-member sentence the predication is between the subject and the predicate. In most sentences this is the only predication they contain. However, there are also sentences which contain one more predication, which is not between the subject and the predicate of the sentence. This predication may be termed secondary predication.

In Modern English there are several ways of expressing secondary predication. One of them is what is frequently termed the complex object /I saw him run./ The primary predication in this sentence is between the subject I and the predicate saw. I is the doer of the action expressed by the predicate verb. The secondary predication is between him and run: him is not the subject of a sentence or a clause, and run is not its predicate.

Views vary on the syntactic function of the group “run”. The main difference is between those who think that “run” is a syntactic unit, and those who think that “I” is one part of the sentence, and “run” another. If the phrase is taken as a syntactic unit, it is very natural to call it a complex object; it stands in an object relation to the predicate verb “saw” and consists of two elements.

If, on the other hand, the phrase “him run” is not considered to be a syntactic unit, its first element is the object, and its second element is termed the objective predicative.

The choice between the two interpretations remains arbitrary and neither of the can be proved to be the only right one.

The case in which the two elements of the phrase cannot be separated is found when the verb expresses some idea like order or request and the second element of the phrase is a passive infinitive. With the sentence “He ordered the man to be summoned” we cannot possibly make a stop after man.

The objective predicative need not be an infinitive: it may be a participle I saw him running, an adjective I found him running, an adjective I found him asleep, sometimes an adverb and a prepositional phrase.

Another type of secondary predication may be seen in the so-called absolute construction. This appears, for instance, in the following example: Weather permitting, we shall go on a trip. Participles seem to be the most widely used types of predicative element in the absolute construction.

The absolute construction expresses what is usually called accompanying circumstances – something that happens alongside of the main action. But these relations are not indicated by any grammatical means.

The stylistic colouring of the absolute construction should also be noted. It is basically a feature of literary style, “She had hoped that the war being over, life would gradually resume its old face” and unfit for colloquial speech.

There is one more remark about the absolute construction. It concerns the semantic ties between the absolute construction and the rest of the sentence. For example, we can say that in the sentence: “She had hoped that the war being over, life would gradually resume its old face” – the relations between the construction and the rest of the sentence are causal: we can say that the absolute construction is here a loose adverbial modifier of cause. On the other hand, in the sentence: “Weather permitting, we shall go on a trip”, – the relations between the construction and the rest of the sentence are those of condition, and the absolute construction may be said to be a loose adverbial modifier of condition. But now the question is, how do we know that it is cause in one example, and condition in the other? This is not expressed by any grammatical means and it only follows from the lexical meanings of the words and the general meaning of the sentence. What is expressed by grammatical means is merely the subordinate position of the absolute construction. All the rest lies outside the sphere of grammar.

Such are the syntactical phenomena which occupy a place somewhere between the simple and the composite sentence and which may therefore be considered as a kind of stepping stone from the one to the other. This transition to the composite sentence is based on what is very aptly termed “secondary predication”.