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Cpu green 699 Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Subject or complement?

Hi!

We were discussing the following sentence in class the other day: "My teacher's favorite student in the whole school is Peter" and my question is what role "Peter" takes in this sentence? That of a subject complement or the subject itself?

I know that "is" is a linking verb and is usually followed by a complement. Furthermore, if we replace "Peter" with any other noun phrase/gerund/adjective the grammatical structure becomes crystal clear: "My teacher's favorite student in the whole school is dead/captain of the football team/singing in the hallway..." and impossible to reverse. But with proper nouns like "Peter" we can reverse the sentence into: "Peter is my teacher's favorite student in the whole school" where "Peter" clearly takes the grammatical role of subject.


So to summarize, in the sentence: "My teacher's favorite student in the whole school is Peter", what grammatical role does "Peter" fill? That of a subject complement or is he in fact the subject itself?


Kind regards,

André

  

Top answer

English sentences can have various word order patterns: SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO and SVOC. The assignment of function (subject, object, complement) to a word or phrase is determined strictly by word order. For linking verbs, there are exemplars where the subject and (nominal) complement can be switched without changing the meaning.

— AlpheccaStars

  • English sentences can have various word order patterns: SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO and SVOC.
  • The assignment of function (subject, object, complement) to a word or phrase is determined strictly by word order.
  • For linking verbs, there are exemplars where the subject and (nominal) complement can be switched without changing the meaning.
  • The author is Steven King.
  • Steven King is the author.
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1 Answers
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English sentences can have various word order patterns: SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO and SVOC.
The assignment of function (subject, object, complement) to a word or phrase is determined strictly by word order. For linking verbs, there are exemplars where the subject and (nominal) complement can be switched without changing the meaning.

The author is Steven King.
Steven King is the

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