sustatives

Sustatives are a conceptual category within linguistics, though the term itself is not widely standardized or universally adopted. The concept generally refers to words or phrases that function as the core element of a sentence or clause, providing the primary meaning or subject matter. This can encompass nouns, pronouns, and occasionally noun phrases that are essential for the grammatical structure and semantic completeness of a statement.

In essence, sustatives are the "things" or "ideas" that the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon. They are the entities around which the predicate revolves. For example, in the sentence "The cat sat on the mat," "the cat" functions as the sustative. It is the subject that performs the action of sitting, and the rest of the sentence provides information about this action.

The term "sustative" is sometimes used in contrast to relational words or grammatical function words, which serve to connect or modify the sustative. While the term might not appear in every grammar textbook, the underlying concept of a core subject or topic word is fundamental to understanding sentence structure in many languages. The precise definition and boundaries of what constitutes a sustative can vary depending on the linguistic framework being used.