Grammarians...

[zats_clear]

 Are you smarter than a 3rd grader?  No, seriously, we were looking at my 3rd grader's homework and he was marked wrong on something that husband and I do not understand...

The night air is chilly.

What is the predicate in that sentence?  Wiki says:  In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the

Comments

[aurora_novarum]

SUBJECT: The night air
Air is the subject, night is the adjective for it, and the is the decriptive article for it.

PREDICATE: is chilly
Is is the verb, and chilly is the adverb describing the verb.

That's what my years of diagramming sentences tells me and being an English major (but we don't exist you know) tells me.

[zats_clear]

ahhh, sentence diagramming...I remember those days

[ultranos_fic]

Um, remembering the 7ish years of grade-and-middle school grammar smashed into my head, I think your kid is correct.

"The night air" is clearly the subject. "is" is a verb; therefore, if I'm remembering correctly, anything after is the predicate.

Now I want to go attempt to diagram that sentence, which is something I haven't done in roughly 14 years...

[zats_clear]

I am so sorry (about the sentence diagramming desire)!!! and I think he is right too. So glad there is a consensus!

[pepper_field]

Your 3rd grader's teacher is not smarter than a 3rd grader...

[archersangel]

or the "answer sheet" that he/she has is wrong

[zats_clear]

that could be!

[sg_wonderland]

I found this link to be helpful. This is a quote: 'a predicate has at its centre a simple predicate, which is always the verb or verbs that link up with the subject.

Thus, 'is' would be the predicate. I think....

http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/subjpred.html

[zats_clear]

zomg! how is it that the english language is so complicated?

[hastiekido]

LOL you should try dutch it's even more confusing :D
But maybe the teacher just looked wrong or so.
Maybe let thing one ask her why she thinks it's wrong?

[sg_wonderland]

I know, I always felt sorry for the students in English class for whom English was their second language. Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was an English major and I was thinking 'the subject is the subject, the verb is the verb and the predicate is...you know...something else.

[holdouttrout]

Um. I am pretty sure your kid is right. I mean, it's been a while, but... yeah.

[zats_clear]

oh dear god, been awhile indeed! and they have, for math, this horrible thing called Math Investigations that deals with math theory (a lovely idea) but not math repetition (a bad idea). Parents were up in arms in the county and the schools are now teaching a "blend" where they still have to learn, for example, multiplication tables by heart (I think - my kids are at home!) but get the theory stuff too.

Parenting - not for wimps!