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Laborious Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Found the guard sleeping in the barn (can a present participle be used as object complement)

- I found the guard sleeping in the barn.

Does that mean "I found the guard who was sleeping in...", Or does that mean "I found the guard while he was sleeping in..."?

I was reading about the verbs that can take object complements. I found the that example sentence here: https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/object_complement.htm

Is it possible to use a present participle phrase as an object complement, as shown in that example sentence? Or do we only have to have an adjective or a noun there?

Thank you!

  

Top answer

I found the guard sleeping in the barn . No, it's not an object complement. Such complements consist of either a noun phrase ( They elected him presiden t) or an adjective phrase ( I consider Ed untrustworthy ), but not normally a clause.

— BillJ

  • I found the guard sleeping in the barn .
  • No, it's not an object complement.
  • Such complements consist of either a noun phrase ( They elected him presiden t) or an adjective phrase ( I consider Ed untrustworthy ), but not normally a clause.
  • It's tempting to say that the underlined element is a so-called reduced relative clause modifying "guard", where the meaning is the same as the relative clause who was sleeping in the barn.
  • It could be, but I don't think that is the salient interpretation here.
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3 Answers
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I found the guard sleeping in the barn.


No, it's not an object complement. Such complements consist of either a noun phrase (They elected him president) or an adjective phrase (I consider Ed untrustworthy), but not normally a clause.

It's tempting to say that the underlined element is a so-called reduced relative clause m

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Laborious I found the guard sleeping in the barn.

The plain meaning of that absent context is "I went looking for the guard and discovered him in the barn asleep."

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Laborious

- I found the guard sleeping in the barn.

Does that mean "I found the guard who was sleeping in...", Or does that mean "I found the guard while he was sleeping in..."?

Most people would interpret it as the second one, i.e., as a catenative construction. I'd say "while" is unnecessary in the paraphrase. It's not exactly that two activ

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