Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Subject complement
Summary
In grammatical terminology, a subject complement is a predicative expression that follows a linking verb (copula) and that complements the subject of a clause by either renaming or describing it. It completes the meaning of the subject. In the former case, a renaming noun phrase such as a noun or pronoun is called a predicative nominal. An adjective following the copula and describing the subject is called a predicative adjective. In either case the predicative complement in effect mirrors the subject. Subject complements are used with a small class of verbs called linking verbs or copulas, of which be is the most common. Since linking verbs are intransitive, subject complements are not affected by any action of the verb. Subject complements are typically neither clause arguments nor adjuncts. A predicative complement can be either a subject complement or an object complement.
A subject complement does not determine the verb. When there is a difference between the number, the verb agrees with the subject.
The subject complement is bold in the following examples:
The lake was a tranquil pool. – Predicative nominal as subject complement
Here, was is a linking verb (an inflected form of be) that equates the subject complement phrase a tranquil pool, with the head noun, pool, to the subject, the lake (with head noun lake).
The lake is tranquil. – Predicative adjective as subject complement
In this example tranquil is a predicative adjective linked through the verb is (another inflected form of be) to the subject the lake.
An example in which the subject complement is a dependent clause is:
That is what my point is. – Predicative clause as subject complement
Some languages do not use predicative adjectives with a linking verb; instead, adjectives can become stative verbs that replace the copula.
Eighteenth-century grammarians such as Joseph Priestley justified the colloquial usage of it is me (and it is him, he is taller than him, etc.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.