Predication

Predication is the act of ascribing a property, relation, or attribute to a subject within a proposition. In philosophy and linguistics, predicates are expressions that, together with a subject, form statements.

In ancient philosophy, predication described the relation between terms in a proposition, with Aristotle analyzing terms as universal or particular; later, Frege reframed predication as function application: a predicate P(x) denotes a function that yields a truth-value when supplied appropriate arguments.

In logic, a predicate is a symbolic expression of arity n that denotes a relation among n objects or a property of a single object. The sentence P(a) or ∀x P(x) expresses predication; truth is defined relative to a model that assigns objects to variables and interprets predicates.

In linguistics, predication describes how a sentence attributes a property to its subject. The predicate may be a verb, adjective, or noun phrase headed by a copula; predication can be tested via subject-predicate inversion, agreement, or semantic role assignment.

Predication types include monadic predicates (one argument, e.g., "is tall"), polyadic predicates (two or more arguments, e.g., "loves"), and higher-order predicates in some formal languages. In natural language semantics, predication interacts with tense, aspect, negation, and modality.

Predication is central to theories of truth-conditional semantics and model theory, and is differentiable from attribution, assertion, or predication failure (e.g., false predicates). See also predicate logic, subject-predicate structure, copula.