1) Isn't that a strawman? I didn't say 'a predicative complement', neither PP did.
It's not a strawman because PP obviously meant a predicative complement when she said that
esse doesn't require a predicate, because by the other definition of predicate it makes no sense to say that a verb can't take one. This is what people usually refer to when they talk about 'the predicate' (and other more specific terms like 'subject predicate' and 'object predicate') in Latin. The other kind of predicate, the one you said 'any sentence requires', is automatically fulfilled by the inclusion of a verb in a sentence, so it makes no sense to argue that non-copular
esse doesn't exist on the grounds that all verbs must have a predicate, seeing as non-copular
esse is the sentence predicate, just as any other verb will be (together with its objects and complements).
She said predicate and hence I talked about predicate only because so I could talk about the subject, that was my goal (see more about the predicative complement in my next paragraph). We talked about the subject, since I think we agreed that "what" in "what" questions is rather a predicate, not a subject, so we talked about the other thing.
Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying here. It's true that
quid will always be the predicative complement, and never the subject, with copular
esse. But with other kinds of verbs, such as non-copular
esse,
quid can be the subject as well (with non-copular
esse it will necessarily be the subject because it can take neither a direct object nor a predicative complement).
But then I also made a claim about what you say is a predicative complement:
You were just talking about the predicative complement, Godmy. It doesn't seem to me that you have the terminology down because you keep confusing the two.
In syntactical analysis, if either the subject is missing or the predicative complement is missing, they are both implied (even if missing - even the predicative complement) - they are morphosyntactically understood as to be there, as to have a position, they are treated as if present, and because of that some other words can even agree with them through the morphological agreement (in number and gender). I talk about that more further in this reply.
No, no, no. That's not what a predicative complement is. You're talking about the other kind of predicate now, Godmy, the sentence predicate, not the predicative complement. Only linking verbs can have a predicative complement. You need to learn the terminology before we can can make any headway in this discussion. Please look here (this isn't negotiable):
predicative complement /
predicate
You're talking about the latter here, not the former. Often people use the word 'predicate' for 'predicative complement', however, which is how PP was using it earlier and how it's generally used when discussing Latin grammar. But if you're going to bring up the broader meaning of predicate as the sentence predicate it's absolutely imperative that we distinguish it from the meaning 'predicative complement'.
If you will, they are expressed by a zero lex(eme). //I would say "zero word", but that wouldn't look terminologically kosher probably.
I never said the word can't be missing! It clearly can. But it doesn't matter in the analysis. Its position still exists and takes/has number and gender.
I already know that every sentence requires a subject and a predicate (but not a predicative complement!) But that isn't germane here, because as I've said before, non-copular
esse, just like any verb, already fulfills the function of the predicate in any sentence where it occurs. On the other hand, only copular
esse will require a predicative complement.
2) There is "X" (quid) and implied "Y", or if you want, there is "Y" (quid) and implied "X". = the implied missing word is some rudimentary neuter singular, e.g. [id] - further opened to interpretation (to, let's say "fact" or "reason")
Not true, because
esse isn't always copular (i.e. a linking a verb). If you're going to deny this I'm going to have to ask for a source, because bare assertion doesn't hold any weight in academic discussions. The only argument that you've so far put forth to support it relies on a false conflation of sentence predicates and predicative complements, so that's going nowhere.
3) Well, the statement was so simple that I don't know how to write it in any other way: quid doesn't get modified by a relative pronoun - it just doesn't, ever. That's a fact, at least where I come from.
The statement wasn't simply stated, Godmy, mainly because it doesn't parse as English (i.e. it's non-grammatical), hence my confusion. If you had reread it you'd have been able to see that. But never mind, you've clarified: as you've now stated it, I can't do anything but dispute this 'fact' because it appears to me wrong on the face of it and you've not yet supplied any supporting evidence for it. And I don't care where you're from: bare assertion doesn't carry any weight.
In this sentence if "quid" is X, then "Y" is some implied neuter singular, let's say [id] - since [id] is vague enough to be opened to interpretation, which is then modified by quod, which then has also neuter singular.
Not true. Non-copular
esse exists.