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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Function of noun phrase

The Dursley's had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

Can anyone help me figure out what function 'no finer boy anywhere' is in this sentence? I'm fairly certain 'a small son' is the direct object.
  

Top answer

" is an idiomatic expression to state the existence of something. "no finer boy" is the complement of this ("no" serves to negate). "anywhere" is adverbial.

— GPY

  • " is an idiomatic expression to state the existence of something.
  • "no finer boy" is the complement of this ("no" serves to negate).
  • "anywhere" is adverbial.
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3 Answers
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"there was ..." is an idiomatic expression to state the existence of something. "no finer boy" is the complement of this ("no" serves to negate). "anywhere" is adverbial.
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AnonymousCan anyone help me figure out what function 'no finer boy anywhere' is in this sentence?
It's the subject of "there was no finer boy anywhere", at least in terms of subject-verb agreement.

Note, however, that for purposes of subject-verb inversion for questions, "there" is the subject.

CJ
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GPY"there was ..." is an idiomatic expression to state the existence of something. "no finer boy" is the complement of this ("no" serves to negate). "anywhere" is adverbial.
I ought to clarify that by "complement" I just meant something that completes the expression "there was ...". It may not have been the best choice of word.
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