In many sentences,
complements are an important part of
the predicate: They’re called complements
because they complete the verb.
For example, all these sentences are obviously
incomplete:
Ralph seemed.
Alice gave.
Norton is.
The verbs here (seemed, gave, and is) each need
another word (or more) to complete their meanings. They need complements. For
example:
Ralph seemed impatient.
Alice gave him his present.
Norton is their neighbor.
The underlined
words are complements—nouns,
pronouns, or adjectives that complete the verb in some way and are part of the
complete predicates of the sentences.
In this chapter, we’ll examine five kinds of
complements.
PREDICATE
ADJECTIVES
Earlier we
discussed two kinds of verbs: linking verbs and action verbs. We said that the
relatively small number of linking verbs in English include seem, become, appear, looked, felt, and
forms of the verb to be.
Linking verbs
typically have complements. In these sentences, the complements are underlined:
Mr. Lochenhocher is irritable.
The staff appears efficient.
All of his sisters are musical.
Each of these
underlined words is an adjective that follows the verb, and each describes the
subject of the sentence. Such complements are called predicate adjectives. Here are some more examples:
This chapter looks easy.
He seems friendly.
They became calm and quiet.
PREDICATE
NOMINATIVES
Predicate nominatives are nouns or pronouns that
follow linking verbs and describe
the subject. In these examples, the predicate nominatives are underlined:
George became President.
Helen was a teacher.
We are also teachers.
In each sentence,
the noun phrase following the linking verb identifies the subject of the
sentence. Here are more examples:
Ralph became president of our club.
Norton is a menace.
The Browns are good neighbors and good
citizens.
Some grammar books
call predicate nominatives predicate nouns. Still others combine predicate
adjectives and predicate nominatives
into a single category called subject
complements.
Notice that
sometimes the verb be is followed by
an adverb, especially a prepositional phrase, instead of a complement:
Dad is at the library.
The kids are in the car.
DIRECT OBJECTS
AND TRANSITIVE VERBS
We’ve discussed
action verbs before, but here we learn a bit more about them.
There are two
kinds of action verbs, transitive
and intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs have
complements; intransitive verbs don’t need
them. The sentences that follow contain intransitive verbs— no complement is
present:
The accountant disappeared.
It rained today.
Rain fell all day.
Some intransitive
verbs, like disappeared, typically
don’t take complements in any context.
Transitive verbs
always have one or more complements, and they must have a direct object,
a noun or pronoun that typically follows the verb and is the object of the verb’s
action in some way:
Susan saw the Lloyds at the mall.
June addressed the audience.
Ed baked the cake yesterday.
Here are more examples:
Ed wrote the article.
The newspaper published the article and Ed’s
photos.
Mr. Lochenhocher wants peace and quiet.
Many verbs can be
transitive or intransitive. That is, they can be used with or without direct
objects:
Intransitive: I’ll run to the store.
She read for two hours.
He laughed.
She sang.
Transitive: I run the store.
She read the book.
He laughed a hearty laugh.
She sang an Irish song.
When the direct object is a
pronoun, it must be in the objective case:
Susan saw them at the mall.
Susan greeted us warmly.
INDIRECT
OBJECTS
Indirect objects appear only in sentences with
direct objects, and then they appear
between the transitive verb and the direct object. They name a person or thing
that receives the direct object in some way. In the following sentences, the
indirect objects are underlined and the direct object is a note:
Bailey wrote me a note.
Ed wrote her a note.
We wrote Bailey and Ed a note.
Here are more sentences with indirect objects (underlined) followed by direct objects:
Mr. Redden taught me history.
Last night I read my daughter a book.
We bought Ruthie an accordion.
Notice that when
pronouns are indirect objects, they are also in the objective case (as with me and her in the sentences above).
There is a test
for the indirect object. Without changing the meaning of the sentence, the
indirect object can be turned into the object of a prepositional phrase
beginning with the preposition to or for. The prepositional phrase then
appears after the direct object:
Mr. Redden taught history to me.
Last night I read a book to my daughter.
We bought an accordion for Ruthie.
But please notice the
important difference. This sentence has an indirect object:
Mr. Redden taught me history.
The next sentence
has no indirect object; to me is a
prepositional phrase:
Mr. Redden taught history to me.
Some transitive
verbs can take direct objects but cannot take indirect objects, as in these
sentences:
Ned ate the cake.
Julie wanted cake.
Mr. Lochenhocher hates the violin.
OBJECT
COMPLEMENTS
The object complement is the last kind of
complement we’ll discuss here, and it’s another complement used only with a
transi-tive verb and a direct object. Here are some examples:
We elected Bernice president.
We named Bob the new treasurer.
The news made Mr. Lochenhocher angry.
Object complements
are nouns or adjectives that follow the direct object and describe the direct
object, in roughly the same way that a predicate adjective or predicate
nominative describes the subject.
With object
complements, we don’t distinguish between the adjectives and the nouns that
describe the direct object—they are all object complements if they appear after
the direct object and describe it.
Here are more examples:
We found the request unreasonable.
The Court declared the law unconstitutional.
The Court’s decision renders the issue null
and void.
It’s important to
distinguish object complements from other grammatical units. In the following
pairs of sentences, the first sentence contains an object complement and the
second sentence contains a different structure that is identified in the
comment that follow:
They found Will irritable.
They found Will at home.
(At home
is an adverbial prepositional phrase)
They made Bill an officer.
They made Bill a cake.
(In the second sentence, Bill is the indirect object; cake is a direct object.)
In everyday
conversation, we often use the verbs have
and get with object complements:
I have the car ready.
I will get the car ready.
Reflexive pronouns, the ones that end in –self (e.g., himself, herself,
themselves) are often the direct objects that appear with object complements:
We got ourselves
ready.
He imagined himself successful.
We’ll discuss those pronouns in Chapter 19.
Object complements
never appear in a clause that also contains an indirect object. They can only
appear when there are direct objects in the same clause, and only a small
number of transitive verbs can take object complements.
POINTS FOR
WRITERS
As we’ve said,
when we use a personal pronoun as a direct object or an indirect object, it has
to be in the objective case. In these sentences, the underlined direct and
indirect objects are objective case pronouns:
They gave me the job. (Me is the indirect object.)
We will find her immediately. (Her is the direct object.)
You must tell them the news. (Them is the indirect object.)
She has just informed us. (Us is the direct object.)
With predicate
nominatives, which appear after linking verbs, the situation is a bit more
complicated. Consider these versions of the same sentences:
The person responsible is he.
The person responsible is him.
It is I.
It is me.
Most of us would instinctively
use the second version in each pair, because we’re accustomed to using
objective-case pronouns after a verb.
But the verb in
these sentences, is, is a linking
verb, and that makes he (and him) and I (and me ) predicate
nominatives. In the judgment of those writers and editors most careful about
prescriptive grammar, we should use nominative case pronouns as predicate
nominatives, because the pronoun is being equated with the subject: It is I. It is he. It is annoying.
Here again, the
choices you make will depend on your editor, your audience, and the formality
of your tone. It’s often possible to rewrite the sentence to avoid the issue
altogether.
EXERCISES
1. In
the following sentences, fill in the blanks with one word: always, never, or sometimes. (This is tougher than you
might think. Feel free to look back
at the chapter to work out the answers.)
Sentences with action verbs ______ have a complement.
Sentences with linking verbs _______ have a complement.
Sentences with intransitive verbs _______ have
a complement.
Sentences with transitive verbs _______ have a
complement.
Sentences with transitive verbs _______ have a
direct object.
Sentences with transitive verbs _______ have
an indirect object.
Sentences with linking verbs _______ have a
predicate nominative.
Sentences with transitive verbs _______ have a
predicate adjective.
Sentences with linking verbs _______ have a
predicate adjective.
Sentences with transitive verbs _______ have
an object complement.
Sentences with linking verbs _______ have an
object complement.
Sentences with linking verbs _______ have a
direct object.
2. In
the sentences below, identify the complements and classify them as a direct object, an indirect object, a predicate
adjective, a predicate nominative, or an object complement. These simple
sentences may have as many as two complements, but never more than two.
In some sentences,
the complements are underlined. In others, there are no complements.
My daughter made me proud.
My aunt brought me a souvenir.
My sister is late.
Both my sisters are teachers.
Both my sisters are arriving at noon.
Six hours a day, Ruthie practices the
accordion.
Ruthie practices for hours every day.
We sent Bill and Sue a gift.
They were kind and grateful.
I will address that issue at another time.
That fellow became our assistant.
Bonnie bought Ed that painting.
3. Now go back through the
sentences above and identify the verbs
as linking, transitive, or intransitive.
