"Predicated of"

[Markku]

Hello

Could anyone please explain the exact meaning and/or use of the phrasal verb "predicated of"? Although I have a feeling it is not, could it be merely an alternative to "predicated on"?

The sentence where I encountered this construct:

"Ideational meanings are also conveyed in the form of propositions in which a state, action, process or event is predicated of an argument or of arguments."

Interestingly, looking up this construct from Corpus of Contemporary American English you'll notice that approximately half of the results are from a theological journal (are 19 altogether against 600 for "predicated on").

Thank you

 

[flunn]

I don't actually use either of these verbs and am quite unfamiliar with "predicate of." However:

"predicate on" means something like "is dependent on" or "is based on"
(I just found the following in a letter to the New York Times: "We predicate our actions on our beliefs...")

and

(my dictionary tells me) "predicate of" means some thing like "ascribe to" or "describe as having [some characteristic]." (I think it's quite an uncommon usage and would probably be regarded as pedantic in many contexts.)

Incidentally, I think both of the verbs you mention are ditransitive prepositional, verbs (not phrasal).

 

[Markku]

Thank you for answer!

 

[BobK]

Hello

Could anyone please explain the exact meaning and/or use of the phrasal verb "predicated of"? Although I have a feeling it is not, could it be merely an alternative to "predicated on"?

The sentence where I encountered this construct:

"Ideational meanings are also conveyed in the form of propositions in which a state, action, process or event is predicated of an argument or of arguments."

Interestingly, looking up this construct from Corpus of Contemporary American English you'll notice that approximately half of the results are from a theological journal (are 19 altogether against 600 for "predicated on").

Thank you

:up: Well spotted! Maybe in theological argument there is a specific meaning for this verb (with for), which I haven't met. Specialisms often use special words that are interesting only for them. For example, philosophers talk about 'extention' (the quality of having extent) - a word that is seldom if ever met in any other context. Or 'affect' (stressed on the /æ/), used by psychiatrists and other people in the medical profession.

But possibly its use reflects a silly fashion. Sometimes when people say 'predicated of' they just mean 'said of', and so 'predicated' loosely (and inaccurately) attracts the same wider range of prepositions as 'said'.

b

 

[philo2009]

Hello

Could anyone please explain the exact meaning and/or use of the phrasal verb "predicated of"? Although I have a feeling it is not, could it be merely an alternative to "predicated on"?

The sentence where I encountered this construct:

"Ideational meanings are also conveyed in the form of propositions in which a state, action, process or event is predicated of an argument or of arguments."

Interestingly, looking up this construct from Corpus of Contemporary American English you'll notice that approximately half of the results are from a theological journal (are 19 altogether against 600 for "predicated on").

Thank you

When we say (in general speech) that a claim is predicated on an assumption, we mean that the claim is based on that assumption.

When a grammarian or logician says that 'act X is predicated of (argument) Y', it means "it is stated that subject Y performs act X".

 

[Markku]

(my dictionary tells me) "predicate of" means some thing like "ascribe to" or "describe as having [some characteristic]." (I think it's quite an uncommon usage and would probably be regarded as pedantic in many contexts.)

Here's another example of "predicated of" I just came across. The sentence is from an encyclopedia of philosophy, the subject matter being ordinary language philosophy:

Truth can be only predicated of sentences indirectly, via the connections between the sentences and the 'speech act' it can used to perform.

Substituting "predicated of" with "ascribed to" works perfectly in this instance.

 

[philo2009]

Here's another example of "predicated of" I just came across. The sentence is from an encyclopedia of philosophy, the subject matter being ordinary language philosophy:

Truth can be only predicated of sentences indirectly, via the connections between the sentences and the 'speech act' it can used to perform.

Substituting "predicated of" with "ascribed to" works perfectly in this instance.

:up: