Subject complements?

Question

I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

(from Three men in a boat -- to say nothing of the dog! by J.K. Jerome)

I've been thinking, without any doubt, that these noun phrases in navy blue above are subject complements.

I've just found, though, that my grammar book gives a list of verbs which can take a subjective complement, and there isn't included "to walk into the room" nor "to crawl out."

Such a list in those basic grammar gooks should be expanded? Can I take it that many intransitive verb phrases can take, in principle, a subject complement?

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Feathers, think of it this way:

[When] I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man. [When] I crawled out [, I was] a decrepit wreck.

Does that help?

Feathers · Answer

Thank you, GG, for your reply, but I wanted to ask further if I should understand those navy-blued nouns as subject complements and how I can expand this usage to other intransitive verbs. For example, can I write, in a novel (or something) hoping to make some stylistic effect:

# He was born an aristocrat. or # He died a begger.

Or ... how about # I studied feverish.

??

BarbaraPA · Answer

Absolutely.

Feathers · Answer

Thank you so much for your help, GG! So quick. I logged out minutes ago but came back just to make sure:
Can the sentence "I studied feverish" mean something like "I studied hard to the extent that I got feverish"...?

BarbaraPA · Answer

Nope, for that you need I studed feverishly. Although that sounds more like the way someone who has a high fever and is a little delirious might act, with papers everywhere and not a lot of focus - it doesn't sound like your studies were so extreme that you got a fever from doing it.

There is an old-fashioned way of writing -I think of Jane Austen, although she may not have done this herself, in which you read something like: He was devilish handsome. Today, we would have to say "devilishly handsome." Your "I studied feverish" sounded a little like that old style, but also like "I was really sick, and had a fever, but the exam was the next day, so I had to study feverish." Either way, it's not natural.

Sometimes just writing it out is the best option: I studied so intently I felt feverish.

Feathers · Answer

He was devilish handsome.

(...wow!)

Thank you again, GG! Very interesting. I see. (...Pity.)

You know, now I think I had in mind such a sentence: "He slept himself sober." I like these succinct expressions, kind of.

Maple · Answer

Hi, You guys discussion interesting and helpful!

I like this structure :

"I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck."

But what on earth do the "prevailing" analysis systems call the function of "a happy healthy man" in the above sentence??? A "subject complement"?? Somehow I sense it's more than that

PS: I sense "He slept himself sober" is a different structure, not quite the same as "I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man...."

Teo · Answer

She died young.

He went away sad.

Inchoateknowledge · Answer

He drank himself sober. For me sober is a subject comlement and an adjective which describes him, the subject.
I walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man.
A happy healthy man is also a subject complement and a noun phrase with adjectival modifiers: happy healthy.

I walked into that reading-room (as) a happy healthy man.
Ellipted preposition: as

Maple · Answer

Hi, Teo

The two threads are discussing things alike. Thank you

------

Hi, IK

You do have your way to dismember sentences.

I like this reading: I walked into that reading-room (as) a happy healthy man. [Y]

Subject complements?

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