Bryson•s Dictionary for Writers and Editors

Glossary � 397
often used when the sense is the present or future (“She has broken
it”; “Things have never looked better”). When present-tense participles
are used as nouns, they are called gerunds.
phrase. A group of words that does not have a subject and verb. “I
will come sometime soon” consists of a clause (I will come) and
a phrase (sometime soon). Phrases always express incomplete
thoughts.
predicate. Everything in a sentence that is not part of the subject
(i.e., the verb, its qualifiers and complements) is called the predicate.
In “The man went to town after work,” The man is the subject
and the rest of the sentence is the predicate. The verb alone is sometimes
called the simple predicate.
preposition. A word that connects and specifies the relationship between
a noun or noun equivalent and a verb, adjective, or other
noun or noun equivalent. In “We climbed over the fence,” the
preposition over connects the verb climbed with the noun fence.
Whether a word is a preposition or a conjunction is often a matter
of function. In “The army attacked before the enemy was awake,”
before is a conjunction. But in “The army attacked before dawn,” before
is a preposition. The distinction is that in the first sentence
before is followed by a verb, whereas in the second it is not.
pronoun. A word used in place of a noun or nouns. In “I like walking
and reading; such are my pleasures,” such is a pronoun standing
for reading and walking. Pronouns have been variously grouped by
different authorities. Among the more common groupings are personal
pronouns (I, me, his, etc.), relative pronouns (who, whom,
that, which), demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those), and
indefinite pronouns (some, several, either, neither, etc.).