Finer points of grammatical classification

Question

I was recently presented with two sentences:

"She already has her first client lined up."

and

"She has already lined up her first client."

The person who showed me these sentences was interested in how to classify the verbs;
which are auxiliary verbs and which objects go with which verbs. Of course, I am not so
well versed in those finer details of English grammar, so I was hoping that somebody here
could be so kind as to dissect these sentences for me. Heck, I don't even know if the first
is actually correct; it SOUNDS good but the word order seems a bit unusual.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dino95126 · Accepted Answer

I'll take a stab at this... in the first case, "She already has her first client lined up," the "lined up" part is like an adverbial phrase that modifies the verb, has. It implies (not unequivocally, however) that the subject ("She") played an active role in bringing this person (the client) to that position.

The second construction, on the other hand, is more straightforward. "... has already lined up" is the verb of the sentence, and "She" is the subject. In this case, she clearly was the motivating force in getting this person to become a client of hers.

Miriam · Answer

1. "She already has her first client lined up."

She: subject.
has: main verb (actually, the only verb in the sentence).
her first client: direct object.
lined up: I see this as an object complement rather than an adverbial. It's a past participle acting as an adjective, and it modifies "client": the client is lined up.

2. "She has already lined up her first client."

She: subject.
has lined up: verb phrase ("has" is an auxiliary verb here, the main verb is "line up").
her first client: direct object.

"Already" is an adverbial in both sentences.

Miriam

Mask · Answer

Could you think of the whole clause "her first client lined up" as the direct object in the first sentence?

Dino95126 · Answer

I was kind of split on the phrase "lined up" in the first example as to whether it's an object complement or an adverbial. To be quite honest, when I was writing my initial post, I had written that, as you say, it was an adjectival phrase modifying the direct object. Then, I decided otherwise, and did much erasing and backtracking. My reason for my doing so was because I was trying to imagine what characteristics a "lined up client" might have, and kept thinking that it was somewhat nonsensical. It made more sense to me to view it as something/someone that she "had lined up."

Then I considered this situation: a child takes his Lego pieces and puts them into several groups, arranged by size. All the pieces with two dots are in one pile, all those with four dots are in a second, etc. We can then say that "he has the pieces arranged by size." I believe that, in this case, "arranged by size" is clearly an adjectival phrase describing the pieces, rather than an adverbial modifying "has."

So, in short, I'm basically reinforcing your view of the phrase, "lined up." But I still have some reluctance to completely let go of the idea of the adverbial... could it be perhaps because the object in this case is human, rather than Lego pieces? Should that make a difference, or not?

Miriam · Answer

Hello, Mask

Sorry for the delayed answer, I've only just seen your post.
I think you can take the whole phrase as the direct object. There are views that support both analyses. I cannot tell if one is better than the other.

Dino,
I often have to think twice too before deciding if a certain phrase will be an object complement too; it is not something that I always find easy do to.
However, I'm not sure "lined up" can be considered an adverbial since it has, in my opinion, an adjectival function just as "arranged by size" does. I don't think it depends on the object being animate or inanimate (or human vs. non-human).
I agree with you that she has done something to have the clients lined up. In the sentence in question, though, what we have is the result of her actions: "the clients are lined up". In that sentence, "lined up" is clearly an adjective. That's what makes me think of lined up as object complement in the first place, and then also as part of the object as a secnd option.

Definitely, it's not the easiest sentence to analyse.

Miriam

Finer points of grammatical classification

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