§283. Predicate Noun or Adjective
With sum and a few other intransitive or passive verbs, a noun or an adjective describing or defining the subject may stand in the predicate. This is called a Predicate Noun or Adjective.
The verb sum is especially common in this construction, and when so used is called the copula (i.e. connective).
Other verbs which take a predicate noun or adjective are the socalled copulative verbs signifying to become, to be made, to be named, to appear, and the like.
J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.