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The subject complement is bold in the following examples: The lake was a tranquil pool. – Predicative nominal; Here, was is a copula (a concomitant form of be) that links the subject complement a tranquil pool (which has the head noun pool), to the subject the lake (which has the head noun lake). The lake is tranquil. – Predicative adjective
In those examples, the subject and object arguments are taken to be complements. In this area, the terms complement and argument thus overlap in meaning and use. Note that this practice takes a subject complement to be something very different from the subject complements of traditional grammar, which are predicative expressions, as just ...
Example: She made me a pie. This clause pattern is a derivative of S+V+O, transforming the object of a preposition into an indirect object of the verb, as the example sentence in transformational grammar is actually "She made a pie for me". Subject + Verb (transitive) + Object + Object Complement Example: They made him happy. They did not make ...
Only sentences with a noun as the complement (e.g., "This is my sister") use the copular verb "to be": 是; shì. This is used frequently; for example, instead of having a verb meaning "to be Chinese", the usual expression is "to be a Chinese person" (我 是 中国人; 我 是 中國人; wǒ shì Zhōngguórén; lit.
For example, the independent closed interrogative does it work becomes the underlined text in I wonder whether it works. The open types begin with an interrogative word. For example, the independent open interrogative who did you meet becomes the underlined text in I wonder who you met. When the interrogative word is the subject or part of the ...
For example: The enemy was defeated. Caesar was stabbed. The recipient of a sentence's action is referred to as the patient. In sentences using the active voice, the subject is the performer of the action—referred to as the agent. Above, the agent is omitted entirely, but it may also be included adjunctively while maintaining the passive voice:
The nominative case (subjective pronouns such as I, he, she, we, they, who, whoever), used for the subject of a finite verb and sometimes for the complement of a copula. The oblique case ( object pronouns such as me , him , her , it , us , them , whom , whomever ), used for the direct or indirect object of a verb, for the object of a ...
This is a non-exhaustive list of copulae in the English language, i.e. words used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement). Because many of these copulative verbs may be used non-copulatively, examples are provided. Also, there can be other copulative verbs depending on the context and the meaning of the ...