"subject complement" with no linking verbs

Question

Hi!

Does anybody know the name of the syntactic function which corresponds to the adjective in the following sentence? :

After two hours cycling, we arrived exhausted.

The function is similar to that of the subject complement, but as far as I know, subject complements can only appear after linking verbs. In Spanish we call the above function "complemento predicativo", do you have anything similar in English?

Thanks a lot!!!

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Subject complements can also occur with other verbs. As Greenbaum & Quirk say, in the case, for instance of 'attributes resulting from the event described by a verb used dynamically'.

He drives me crazy.
They died happy.

Antía · Answer

I think in the first of your examples we should rather talk about object complements, don't you think so?

I've been consulting several grammars, and all of them say that the subject complement can only appear with linking verbs. I'm very confused...

Mister Micawber · Answer

OK, I'll replace the first example: 'We left the party angry'.

For the rest, you are on your own. I have offered you my opinion and an authoritative reference.

Antía · Answer

Yes, I forgot to say thanks...

Well, I'll go on investigating, and will let you know if I find something interesting.

Casi · Answer

The intransitive verb "arrived" doesn't subcategorize for a direct object. The past participle "exhausted" functions as an adverb describing how, or in what manner we arrived.

Test
Q: How did we arrive?
A: Exhausted. (adverb)

Antía · Answer

Ok, so I understand "exhausted" is an adjective which is functioning as an adverbial (what you call "adverb"), isn't it?

Paco2004 · Answer

I take this kind of construct as 'being' in the adverbial participle phrase being left off.

The ship sailed off (being) empty.
She married (being) young.
He returned home (being) a different man.

paco

Komountain · Answer

Antia seems to be looking for a technical term for the grammatical function 'exhausted' executes. I have been using the term "quasi-complement" but I have no idea where I got it from.

The major difference between the ordinary complements(subject complements and object complements) and quasi-complements is:

If you delete the ordinary complements from sentences, the remaining elements alone don't make any sense.

I am a student. -> You can't delete "a student."
He made me angry. -> You can't delete "angry."

If you leave out the quasi-complements from sentences, the remaining elements alone still maintain complete sentence structures and make sense.

He came home disappointed. -> You can leave out "disappointed," and the rest makes
sense.
The government allowed political activists to roam unfettered. ->The deletion of
"unfettered" doesn't hurt the sentence structure.

However, I should admit I sometimes find it difficult to draw the line between the object complements and quasi-complements, if not between the subject complements and quasi-complements.

He punched the window broken.
He knocked me senseless.

Here, "broken" and "senseless" are, in my opinion, object complements. If someone argues they are quasi-complements, I lack the means by which to defend myself.

Casi · Answer

Yes. That's correct.

Linking
We are exhausted. (Adjective)

'exhauted' functions as a subject complement, notably a predicate adjective. It's called a "subject" complement because it modifies the subject 'We'.

Non-Linking
We arrived exhausted. (Adverb)

'exhausted' functions as an adverb. It's called an adverb because it modifies the verb 'arrived'.

If we add ING (See Paco's contribution), the result is a participle phrase:

We arrived feeling exhausted.

'feeling exhausted' is an adjective phrase in form (it modifies the subject 'We'), but it's an adverbial phrase in function (it answers the question How? or In what manner?). Now if we omit the participle (feeling), like this,

We arrived exhausted.

The adjective 'exhausted' instead of functioning as part of an adverbial phrase, now represents that adverbial phrase.

Note, that 'exhausted' modifies the subject 'We' doesn't make it a subject complement. A subject complement is B of the structure A = B. There's a difference between:

We are exhausted. (A = B)
We arrived exhausted. (A doesn't equal B; B adds non-essential information to A)

As Komountain has pointed out, if you can delete it, then it's non-essential. Words, phrases, and clauses that are non-essential are called modifiers.

In our original example sentence (We arrived exhausted), 'exhausted' is non-essential (we can delete it), and in our linking example sentence (We are exhausted), 'exhausted' cannot be deleted. It's essential. In short, a subject complement is essential, whereas an adverb and other modifiers are non-essential.

Casi · Answer

That was nicely put, Komountain.

With regards to your last two examples, I agree. They're object complements:

He punched the window broken. (The window is broken.)
He knocked me senseless. (I am senseless.)

"subject complement" with no linking verbs

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