Why do we call it “Predicate nominative” While this is normally
a grammar question, I cannot find why we use the language
“predicate nominative” to name parts of a sentence. On the
surface it connotes nothing. A search of my grammar books, the
unabridged dictionary, the OED and an on-line search reveal
nothing about the origin of this usage. Also, do we know what
grammarian first applied this taxomony? “Nominative” in Latin
means “naming”. Do we mean that the part of the sentence with
this name is based on, “predicated on”, the subject of the
sentence? That is, is the noun “predicate” in this usage related
to the verb “predicate”? I have always thought this an
unfortunate taxomy, as it makes language learning doubly
difficult -- first the language, and then these arcane names to
talk about it. This after having studied three European
languages plus my own.