praedicamenta (singular: praedicamentum), in medieval philosophy, the ten Aristotelian categories: substance, quantity, quality, relation, where, when, position (i.e., orientation – e.g., ‘upright’), having, action, and passivity. These were the ten most general of all genera. All of them except substance were regarded as accidental. It was disputed whether this tenfold classification was intended as a linguistic division among categorematic terms or as an ontological division among extralinguistic realities. Some authors held that the division was primarily linguistic, and that extralinguistic realities were divided according to some but not all the praedicamenta. Most authors held that everything in any way real belonged to one praedicamentum or another, although some made an exception for God. But authors who believed in complexe significabile usually regarded them as not belonging to any praedicamentum. See also ARISTOTLE , COMPLEXE SIGNIFICABILE , GENUS GENERALIS – SIMU. P.V.S.