The predicate is the second principal part of the sentence which expresses an action, state, or quality of the person or thing (The word thing is used in a broad sense.) denoted by the subject. It is grammatically dependent upon the subject.
NOTE: This definition does not cover sentences with the formal it as the subject. In these sentences, the predicate expresses the state of the weather, time, or distance, and the subject only makes the sentence structurally complete.
As a rule, the predicate contains a finite verb that may express tense, mood, voice, aspect, and sometimes person and number. According to the structure and the meaning of the predicate, we distinguish two main types: the simple predicate arid the compound predicate.
