Unit 13 The Complement Check Your Understanding 1. F 2. W 3. F 4. T 5. R On hearing the news, Mary blushed. In-Class Activities 1. (1) In the first picture: jealous, smelling like French toast; in the second picture: sold to you (2) Subject complement: smelling like French toast; object complements: jealous; sold to you (3) No. “regard” must take “as”. 2. (1) In the first picture: the prepositional phrase “to its clear and upright position”; in the second picture: the prepositional phrase “in a clean condition”; in the third picture: the prepositional phrases “down the lavatory”. They can be regarded as object complements mainly because the predicate verbs in these sentences (i.e. return, leave, and flush) are all causative verbs, which cause their direct objects (i.e. your head, the toilets, and sanitary dressings) to be in a special condition of spatial existence or movement; that’s why they are usually associated with prepositional phrases indicating space positions or directions used as the object complements to their direct objects. It should be noted that some grammarians may prefer to analyze the above mentioned prepositional phrases as adverbials rather than object complements. (2) In the first picture, the prepositional phrase “to its clear and upright position” informs the effect of the action of “returning” on the object. In the second picture, the prepositional phrase “in a clean condition” is also used to indicate the state of the object caused by some action. In the third picture, “down the lavatory” is used to indicate the direction of the movement “flushing”. 3. (1) Verbs with a depictive tendency: feel, continue, appear, look, keep, seem, smell, remain, sound, taste, stay, prove; Verbs with a resultative tendency: become, come, fall, get, go , grow, turn. (2) Yes. In terms of the form, Sentence (a) differs from Sentence (b) only in that the subject complement of the former is a noun phrase but that of the latter an infinitival clause; in contrast to the first two sentences, the subject of Sentence (c) is a dummy “it” rather than “Oslo” and its complement is a that-clause. Among the verbs mentioned above, the verb “appear” can be used in a similar way. (3) More examples of this type: slam shut, lie flat, run wild, feel a fool, rest assured, fall down dead, etc. 4. (1) Because the predicate verb “make” should take an obligatory object complement and the predicate verb “hammer” can take an optional object complement. MAKE-type: drive, get, put, render, sent, set, turn, appoint, elect, name, vote, designate; HAMMER-type: knock, paint, push, wash, frighten. (2) The first sentence is actually a SVC sentence while the second is a SVOO sentence; when used as the object, a countable noun usually has to take an explicit determiner rather than zero determiner, so Sentence (b) can be improved as “They promised him a secretary”. Like “appoint”, the predicate verb “remain” is a complex transitive verb, which is used to form a SVC sentence, while like “promise”, the predicate verb “question” is a mono-transitive verb, which is used to form a SVO sentence. Therefore, in contrast to its being used as the object complement, the countable noun “secretary”, when used as the object, should take an explicit determiner, hence the grammaticality of the sentences “She remained treasurer” and “She questioned the treasurer” and the ungrammaticality of the sentence “She questioned treasurer”. (3) The predicate verb “make” is obviously a complex transitive verb, so Sentence (a) in Group D is a SVC sentence, the notional object of which is actually the that-clause; the pronoun “it” is used as the so-called formal object to take the place of the heavy clausal object for the sake of structural balance. The predicate verb “promise” is actually a ditransitive verb, so Sentence (b) should be SVOO in structure; its ungrammaticality is actually due to the abnormal order of its two objects: instead of the indirect object “his team” the direct object “it” (used as the formal object to replace the heavy notional clausal object) immediately follows the predicate verb “promise”; the reordering of these two objects in turn makes it unnecessary to use the formal object “it” for the sake of structural balance because the heavy clausal direct object (i.e. the that-clause) itself has already been at the end of the sentence. So Sentence (b) can be revised as “The coach promised his team that they can enjoy a holiday after this intensive training.” 5. (1) The second sentences in each group should be the better choice, because they are semantically closer to the first sentences, for the state of “being penniless” and the state of “being the best friends” are both foregrounded in the first two rather than the third sentence in each group. (2) The SVC analysis is preferred; for the first sentence is preferred to be interpreted as the second sentence in each group, which obviously is SVC in structure. (3) More examples: They married young. They came in drunk. The bird fell dead to the ground. 6. (1) It is very difficult to generalize the way we can question the complement, but a weak tendency can be identified: if the complements are realized by noun phrases, such wh-words as “what”, “which”, and “who” can be used; if the complements are realized by adjective phrases and prepositional phrases, the wh-word “how” is preferred. (2) No, we cannot, because if we are asked the question “What was the captain”, we cannot give an answer like “The captain was my brother”; if we asked the question “Who was the captain”, we can answer “The captain was my bother.” (3) We may phrase our question as: What do you think about the seminar? 7. (1) The verbs that can take a to-less infinitive as the object complement mainly includes: the verbs of coercive meaning such as “let”, “have” and “make”; the perceptual verbs of seeing and hearing such as “feel”, “hear”, “notice”, “observe”, “overhear”, “see”, and “watch”; verbs like “help” and “know”. (2) The passive version of Sentence (b) is “The students were made to work in pairs by the teacher.” (3) The infinitival complement indicates that the whole process of “knocking” is over, while the V-ing complement indicates that the act of “knocking” is going on at the moment. Post-Class Tasks 1. a. The unanimous vote made Mr. Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. (object complement realized by a noun phrase ) b. Any attempt to strengthen a country's own security at the expense of that of others is detrimental to maintaining global security and stability. ( subject complement realized by an adjective phrase ) c. They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. (object complement realized by an infinitive clause ) d. It was less than four years ago that Mr. Obama, coming off of serving seven years as an Illinois state senator, became a member of the United States Senate. (subject complement realized by a noun phrase ) e. Mr. Obama’s nomination came 120 years after Frederick Douglass became (1) the first African-American to have his name (2)entered in nomination at a major party convention. ((1) subject complement realized by a noun phrase; (2) object complement realized by an V-ed clause ) f. Even the lower figure would put the bill at twice the cost of the opening ceremony at the 2004 Athens Games. (object complement realized by a prepositional phrase ) g. At one point, thousands of large umbrellas were snapped open to reveal the smiling, multicultural faces of children of the global village. (subject complement realized by an adjective ) h. The scale and speed of that growth often leaves the outside world awed, but also worried. (object complement realized by an adjective phrase ) 2. a. He has proved it a fallacy that old age brings wisdom. b. Her parents named her Gladys. c. He thought desirable most of the women in the room. d. She was seen to enter the hall. f. Charles Babbage is generally considered to have invented the first computer. g. The woman woke up in the middle of the night, looked out of her window and saw something strange hovering over the trees in the park. h. The crowd fell silent when a Marine veteran said he had once voted for Mr. McCain, but was now supporting Mr. Obama. i. My long-term goal is to get myself elected to Council. 3. a. He left home a mere child and returned quite a different man. b. Her niece was held captive for several years. c. She presumed that her father had been dead. d. What I regret is that I am not able to accept your kind invitation. e. She believed it an advantage to be out of town. f. How wide is the lake? 4. a. object; b. subject; c. attributive; d. object complement; e. adverbial; f. object complement; g. notional subject; h. object complement; i. attributive 5. a. subject; b. attributive; c. object complement; d. object; prepositional object; e. attributive; f. object complement; g. adverbial; h. object; i. adverbial 6. a. adverbial; b. object complement; c. attributive; d. object complement; e. adverbial