Complement (linguistics)

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In grammar and linguistics, the term complement is used with different meanings,
so it is difficult to give a single precise definition and explanation.[1] In a
broad general sense however, a complement can be understood as a word, phrase o
r clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression.[2] The
terms complement and argument overlap in meaning and use. A given complement is
therefore often also an argument. Complements are not adjuncts, however.
Contents
1 Predicative, subject and object complements
2 Complements as arguments
3 Complements broadly construed
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Predicative, subject and object complements
In many traditional grammars, the terms subject complement and object complement
are employed to denote the predicative expressions (e.g. predicative adjectives
and nominals) that serve to assign a property to a subject or object,[3] e.g.
Ryan is upset. - Predicative adjective as subject complement
Rachelle is the boss. - Predicative nominal as subject complement
That made Michael lazy. - Predicative adjective as object complement
We call Rachelle the boss. - Predicative nominal as object complement
Although widespread in school grammar, this use of terminology is not employed b
y many modern theories of syntax. The expressions in bold are viewed as part of
the clause predicate, which means they are not complements of the subject or obj
ect, but rather they are properties that are predicated of the subject or object
.
Complements as arguments
In many modern grammars (for instance in those that build on the X-bar schema),
the object argument of a verbal predicate is called a complement. In fact, this
use of the term is the one that currently dominates in linguistics. A main aspec
t of this understanding of complements is that the subject is usually NOT a comp
lement of the predicate,[4] e.g.
He wiped the counter. - the counter is the object complement of the verb
wiped.
She scoured the tub. - the tub is the object complement of the verb scou
red.
The noun phrases (NPs) the counter and the tub are necessary to complete the mea
ning of the verbs wiped and scoured, respectively, hence they are complements.
While it is less common to do so, one sometimes extends this reasoning to subjec
t arguments:[5]
He wiped the counter. - He is the subject complement of the verb wiped.
She scoured the tub. - She is the subject complement of the verb scoured
.
In these examples, the subject and object arguments are taken to be complements.
In this area then, the terms complement and argument overlap in meaning and use
. Note that this practice takes a subject complement to be something much differ
ent from the subject complements of traditional grammar, which are predicative e
xpressions, as just mentioned above.
Complements broadly construed
Construed in the broadest sense, any time a given expression is somehow necessar
y in order to render another expression "complete", it can be characterized as a
complement of that expression, e.g.[6]
with the class - The NP the class is the complement of the preposition w
ith.
Jim will help. - The main verb help is the complement of the auxiliary v
erb will.
Chris gave up. - The particle up is the complement of the verb gave.
as a friend - The NP a friend is the complement of the particle of compa
rison as.
Construed in this broad sense, many complements cannot be understood as argument
s. The argument concept is tied to the predicate concept in a way that the compl
ement concept is not.
In linguistics, an adjunct is an optional, or structurally dispensable, part of
a sentence, clause, or phrase that, when removed, will not affect the remainder
of the sentence except to discard from it some auxiliary information.[1] A more
detailed definition of the adjunct emphasizes its attribute as a modifying form,
word, or phrase that depends on another form, word, or phrase, being an element
of clause structure with adverbial function.[2] An adjunct is not an argument (
nor is it a predicative expression), and an argument is not an adjunct. The argu
ment-adjunct distinction is central in most theories of syntax and semantics. Th
e terminology used to denote arguments and adjuncts can vary depending on the th
eory at hand. Some dependency grammars, for instance, employ the term circonstan
t (instead of adjunct), following Tesnire (1959).
See also
Adjunct
Argument
Predicate
Predicative expression
Subject complement
Notes
See Matthews (1981:142f.) and Huddleston (1988:note 2) for good overviews of
the different uses of the term complement.
See Crystal (1997:75).
For examples of grammars that employ the terms subject complement and object
complement to denote predicative expressions, see Matthews (1981:3ff.), Downing
and Locke (1992:64f.), Thomas (1993:46, 49), Brinton (2000:183f.).
For examples of this "narrow" understanding of complements, see for instance
Lester (1971:83), Horrocks (1987:63), Borsley (1991:60ff.), Cowper (1992:67), B
urton-Roberts (1997:41), Fromkin et al. (2000:119).
For examples of theories that take the subject to be a complement of the mat
rix verb/predicate, see for instance Matthews (1981:101), Pollard and Sag (1994:
23), Miller (2011:56).
See Radford (2004:329) for an explanation of complements along these lines.
References
Borsley, R. 1991. Syntactic theory: A unified approach. Cambridge, MA: Black
well Publishers.
Brinton, L. 2000. The structure of modern English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing Company.
Burton-Roberts, N. 1997. Analysing sentences: An introduction to English gra
mmar. London: Longman.
Cowper, E. 1992. A concise introduction to syntactic theory: The government-
binding approach. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Crystal, D. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 4th edition, Ox
ford, UK: Blackwell.
Downing, A. and P. Locke. 1992. English grammar: A university course, second
edition. London: Routledge.
Fromkin, V. et al. 2000. Linguistics: An introduction to linguistic theory.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Horrocks, G. 1986. Generative Grammar. Longman: London.
Huddleston, R. 1988. English grammar: An outline. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U
niversity Press.
Lester, M. 1971. Introductory transformational grammar of English. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Matthews, P. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, J. 2011. A critical introduction to syntax. London: continuum.
Pollard, C. and I. Sag. 1994. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago:
The University Press of Chicago.
Radford, A. 2004. English syntax: An introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Thomas, L. 1993. Beginning syntax. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
External links
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/objcompl.html
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/objects.htm
http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000020.htm
http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/cl_oc.htm
Categories:
Syntactic entities
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