Need help on subject complement

Question

Hi... I don't really get subject complement.... could someone explain to me please?

Also.. if someone can tell me which word is that subject complement in these examples:

Mr. Luengo took his elderly neighbour a chicken casserole.
The musician showed her agent a new composition.
We felt sorry for the homeless people on the street.
Helmut, please send your boss a fax.

Thanks in advance!

Rommie · Accepted Answer

I don't really get subject complement

Don't worry - nobody does. Especially not native speakers of English, who tend to ignore it completely.

Basically, the idea is that some verbs are allowed to be different from all the rest. Whereas any normal verb would take a subject and (possibly also) an object, these pesky little blighters don't have an "object", they have a "complement". It's exactly the same thing, it's just called something different. I believe that technically it's called a "complement" (instead of an "object") if it refers to the same thing as the subject, possibly by another name.

For example, in the sentence "She is a soldier", both the left hand item (she) and the right hand item (a soldier) refer to the same thing, the same person, so "a soldier" is here called a "complement", not a "subject". The verb "is" (aka "to be") is officially described as "intransitive", even though it takes a right-hand-side, because the right-hand-side is not, officially, an object.

None of your examples above have a complement. Instead, they all have objects.

Rommie

Need help on subject complement

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions