Our impulse to write is our wish to say something. In the technical terminology of language and logic, to say something is to predicate it, and that same term (the vowel a pronounced just slightly differently) is used to name the section of a clause which contains the verb. Every complete sentence we write is made up of at least one verb connected grammatically to a subject, what it is we are saying something about. This combination of subject and verb is the essential framework of each thought we communicate.
Now all of this is fairly straightforward when the verb is explicitly stated. If I say, for example, that the elections will be monitored closely, it’s obvious that what I’m talking about, the subject, is the elections, and the predicate, what I’m saying, is will be monitored closely (the verb to monitor being used in the passive voice). Associating those two parts of the sentence logically, my reader will understand the assertion I am making and will then be in a position either to agree or disagree with it. If, however, I should decide to expand the predicate with additional information, I will bump into a stylistic problem to consider.
Let’s say, for example, that I expand the predicate of my original sentence like this: the elections will be monitored closely in that still-divided country. Should I be writing that still-divided country or that country still divided? The headline writer of a major newspaper online recently chose the former arrangement of that phrase, the requirements of space and brevity no doubt figuring in to that decision. But there is something worth understanding here when such special requirements do not obtain, something that can smooth out an otherwise cramped style and bring, if the occasion permits, a modicum of both accuracy and polish to our workaday sentences.
We can analyze the phrase still-divided country into two parts, a compounded adjective still-divided and country, the noun which that adjective phrase modifies. When an adjective is positioned before the noun it works with, as is the case here, the adjective is said to be in the attributive position. An attribute is an essential, defining feature of something, and so when we first read the adjective and then the noun it modifies, we are to understand that some stable quality is being named as an inseparable part of its noun as it is being conceived. Notice, though, that the attributive adjective in this particular phrase is actually the participle divided. Such participial adjectives, as they are called, carry with them a verbal force, some sense of action; that is naturally to be expected (a participle is a part of a verb, after all), and that is also the reason they should often follow their noun, where they can suggest another predicate.
A still-divided country is a country which is still divided, and the important difference between these two constructions is that the verb is has been explicitly asserted in the second version. The presence of that verb has created another predicate, at the same time making it necessary to move the adjective divided from its attributive position before the noun country in the first version to what is called the predicate position, where, as in the second version, it follows its noun. If we now take this same arrangement and position the adjective after its noun—but omit the verb—we compose an implied predicate, and that changes the rhythm and amplitude of the sentence entirely: a country still divided. (Note, too, that predicate adjective phrases usually drop the hyphen.)
This predicate position of the adjective is best used when the adjective itself is modified in some way. To say that the elections will be monitored closely in that country still divided will sound too lofty in most circumstances, but not if we expand the predicate with the addition of more relevant detail: the elections will be monitored closely in that country still divided by economic disparities. Similarly, to speak of regaining lost ground to an opponent, is to miss the opportunity to get the adjective lost on the right side of the logic: regaining ground lost to an opponent. The prepositional phrase to an opponent is folded into the idea of being lost as its result, and so should stand next to its adjective in the predicate position.
Our wish to say something, then, can take on both an explicit and implicit expression. Recognizing this gives us another way to craft our sentences to fuller effect, both in the refinement of our thinking and in its persuasive value—two essential considerations in saying well what we have to say.
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