GRAMMAR 77:
SIMPLE AND
COMPOUND
PREDICATES
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Grammar Hamster
SIMPLE AND COMPOUND PREDICATES
•  In a sentence, the complete predicate includes all the words that
tell or ask something about the subject. In the following sentence
from The Way to Rainy Mountain, the complete predicate is in
white font.
A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and
west of the Wichita Range.
SIMPLE AND COMPOUND PREDICATES
•  Each complete predicate contains a simple predicate (the verb).
The verb may be one word or several words, but it does not
include modifiers. In the sentence below, the simple predicate
within the italicized complete predicate is in white font type.
Loneliness is an aspect of the land.
SIMPLE AND COMPOUND PREDICATES
• 
A compound verb has two or more verbs that share the same
subject. The verbs are connected by a conjunction.
• 
In the sentence below, the compound verbs within the italicized
complete predicate are in white font type.
In Palo Duro Canyon they abandoned their crucial stores
to pillage and had nothing then but their lives.
EXERCISE: IDENTIFYING PREDICATES
Underline the complete subject in each of the following sentences.
Then double underline the complete predicate. Then circle the verb
or verbs in each predicate. Finally, write compound after each
sentence if it contains a compound verb.
1.  The Kiowa migrated to this area from the high country of
Montana.
2.  They consider it an old landmark and named it Rainy Mountain.
EXERCISE: IDENTIFYING PREDICATES
3.  The narrator arrives for a visit to his beloved grandmother’s grave.
4.  In memory of her, he makes a pilgrimage and travels 1,500 miles
through the Black Hills to her home at the foot of Rainy Mountain.
5.  His grandmother, Aho, belonged to the Kiowa, rulers of the
southern Great Plains for over 100 years.
ANSWERS
1.  The Kiowa migrated to this area from the high country of
Montana.
2.  They consider it an old landmark and call it Rainy Mountain.
(compound)
3.  The narrator arrives for a visit to his beloved grandmother’s grave.
4.  In memory of her, he makes a pilgrimage and travels 1,500 miles
through the Black Hills to her home at the foot of Rainy Mountain.
(compound)
ANSWERS
5. His grandmother, Aho, belonged to the Kiowa, rulers of the
southern Great Plains for over 100 years.
6. On their migration from the mountains to the plains, the Kiowa
acquired horses and developed their Sun Dance culture.
(compound)
7. Most of the wild herds of buffalo had been slaughtered by 1887.