The problem of predication is, at its core, a problem of how an associative mechanism can result in the acquisition of subject/predicate structures, structures which many theorists believe appear in language, thought, and judgment. The first major discussion of the problem appears in Kant (1781/1787), but variants of the basic Kantian criticism can be seen across the contemporary literature (see, e.g., Chomsky 1959; Fodor and Pylyshyn 1988; Fodor 2003; Mandelbaum 2013a; for the details of the Kantian argument see the entry  on Kant’s Transcendental Argument).