Glossary 305Predicative adjunct. Phrase functioning as adjunct in clause structure, related to an
overt or understood predicand. Unwilling to lie. Max confessed (Max is the one
who was unwilling to lie).
Predicative complement. Complement of V or P related to a predicand: Sue seems
capable; I regard Sue [as capable] (the property of being capable is assigned to
Sue).
Predicative use. Use of an adjective or other expression as predicative comple
ment or adjunct (as opposed to modifier): I'm hot illustrates the predicative use
of hot.
Predicator. Head of a VP, the function of the verb: in I [saw you] the predicator is
saw.
Prefix. An affix that attaches to the beginning of a base.
Preposing. Placement before the subject of an element whose position in a more
basic clause construction would be after the verb: Most of them he hadn't even
read.
Preposition. A category of words whose most prototypical members denote rela
tions in space or time (in, on, under, before, etc.) and take NPs as complement
(in the car, on the chair).
Prepositional verb. A verb taking a complement consisting of a PP with a particu
lar preposition as head: ask in I asked fo r help; come in I came across some old
letters.
Present tense. An inflectional category of verbs whose primary use is to indicate
present time.
Preterite. A past tense marked by inflection: took is the preterite form of the
lexeme take.
Primary tense. The tense system marked by verb inflection, contrasting preterite
tense (I knew her) with present tense (I know her).
Primary verb-form. For verbs other than be the primary forms are those marked
for tense (present or preterite). For be they also include irrealis mood were (as
in if I were you).
Progressive (aspect). Construction marked by auxiliary be taking a gerund
participle complement: She was writing a novel; usually represents a situation
as being in progress.
Pronoun. A small subclass of noun not taking determiners. Includes personal
pronouns (he, us, etc.), interrogative and relative pronouns (who, what, etc.),
reciprocals (each other).
Proper noun. A large subclass of noun characteristically functioning as head of
proper names - names individually assigned to particular people, places, etc.:
Bach, Pa ris, Islam, July.
Pseudo-cleft. Construction like What we need is a knife, splitting the basic coun
terpart We need a knife into two parts: a knife is foregrounded in an extra clause
as complement of be, and the residue is backgrounded in a fused relative
construction (what we need).
Reciprocal pronoun. One of the pronouns each other and one another.