Odile,
I think neither traditional grammars nor modern linguistic ones would
limit terms like "subject complement" or "predicate adjective" only to
independent clauses "Predicate adjective" isn't used much as a label in
a lot of the modern stuff, but not because any of us think people don't
use adjectival constituents as complements after linking verbs. Many
theories just don't use the term "predicate" ("VP" is used instead) and
"predicate adjective" seems awkward without "predicate" being used
somewhere else.
Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Odile Sullivan-Tarazi
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 5:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Predicate adjectives: three questions
Bill,
I am so sorry -- I didn't spot your response until just now. Well,
what got me started down the object complement path was seeing a
reference to it in Curme. He says that a predicate adjective can be
either a subject or object complement, but I have not read deeply
into that passage. Perhaps it is better to set this one aside and
think of it independently of the other questions.
In terms of the predicate adjective as subject complement, is there
any compelling reason for that structure to be limited to the main
clause of the sentence? That is, and here I'm repeating myself, can
not adverbial, adjectival, and nominal clauses (all of which, to my
mind, demonstrate the same structural capabilities as main clauses in
terms of the relationship of the predicate phrase to the subject of
the clause) all contain predicate adjectives? Adjectives, that is,
functioning as predicate adjectives within their own clause.
What is your take on this issue?
Odile
At 2:52 PM -0400 3/18/10, Spruiell, William C wrote:
>Odile and Bruce:
>
>There is what is arguably a subclass of these constructions that sounds
>odd (to me, at least) with a "to be" paraphrase:
>
>The sheer badness of the movie rendered me speechless.
>*The sheer badness of the movie rendered me to be speechless.
>
>And to a lesser extent, and with an NP rather than AdjP --
>
>They made me secretary.
>?They made me to be secretary.
>
>
>What these *mean*, of course, depends on what you want to count
>paraphrases for in your approach. One possibility allows them as
>evidence for taxonomic arguments. Another is to allow them as evidence
>for elided or null elements (and you can do both, of course). I can't
>think of an empirical way to support a claim that either or both of
>those approaches is "right" or not.
>
>If you *do* consider those examples relevant, though, I'd suggest that
>they would support a view in which object complements can't be viewed
as
>subject complements to an elided predicate, unless you want to reserve
>"object complement" as a label only for constructions for which the
>paraphrase works (in which case you'd presumably need another label for
>the second complement of "render").
>
>Side note: "Predicate adjective," I think, has been defined in a number
>of ways historically. Whether or not an OC can also be a pred. adj.
>probably hinges on the specific definitions being used. In the K-12
>school grammar tradition, I've only seen pred. adj. used for subject
>complements...but then, the same tradition sometimes doesn't discuss
>object complements at all.
>
>Bill Spruiell
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
>Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:55 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Predicate adjectives: three questions
>
>Odile,
>These are interesting questions in that to me they seem to be asking
>about what structure is.
>
>1) You mention "slot" for the object complement and then ask about a
>slot for the predicate adjective. This seems to suppose that it can be
>both. Your "yes" answer suggest that you are willing to vies the
>sentence at two levels of analysis simultaneously: the one that has an
>object complement and the one that has a predicate adjective.
>
> She painted the car red.
>
>This adjective is normally called the object complement or the
objective
>complement. You don't say that the car "is" red until the painting is
>done. The verbs that build this construction are normally causatives.
>In my mind the sentence, "She considered the car red" is not the best
>formed sentence and is interpreted on the basis of analogy with the
>better formed sentence: "She considered the car to be red." The
>implication for the object complement seems to be that her
consideration
>has something to do with what the color designation is, i.e., that it
>might be some other color for other people, but her stance had made it
>red for her purposes. Here again the car becomes red by virtue of the
>consideration.
>
>2) Here the question seems to be about whether the slot in a
subordinate
>structure can be inherited by the super-ordinate elements. Maybe the
>problem is that an adjective in a subject complement slot needs a
>subject to refer to, and the subject of the subordinate clauses, i.e.,
>phrases, is missing. Your examples are not complete, so the possible
>slot conflicts are not clear. Note: "The car, by her considered red,
is
>green" seems to be telling us that there is no problem in sharing
>subjects. There are really two propositions, each having a "predicate
>adjective." This would take the "predicate adjective" as a semantic
>concept, in which terms it was originally defined. If it must be used
>as a syntactic term, then it would appear that some mechanism for
>subordination would have to be worked out.
>
>3) This question displays perhaps more clearly the way slots in simple
>sentences have to be modified to work in the related syntax of
>subordinate structures. I think the theoretical constructs need to be
>multiplied, i.e., divided. I have tried to do this in the past by
>building a grammar in terms of a set of regular and systematic
>paraphrases that will reduce even the most complex sentence into a
>series of simple sentences containing a limited number of slots. I
>think that paraphrases that are strict with maintaining semantic
>"equivalence" can be most instructive to students learning English.
>Where one language will permit one pattern with a certain
>interpretation, another will not. The student's native language seems
>to have its own set of patterns and pattern equivalences.
>
>Bruce
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Odile Sullivan-Tarazi
>Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 4:19 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Predicate adjectives: three questions
>
>I am tangled up in the throes of predicate adjectives, and I'm
>wondering whether anyone can help. I have three questions.
>
>
>* Question 1
>
>Is an adjective in the object complement slot a predicate adjective?
>(That is, with an understood copula.)
>
> She considered the car red.
>
>I think yes. The _to be_ relationship is understood, and the
>adjective appears in the predicate phrase.
>
>
>* Question 2
>
>Is the adjective that follows a noun in the subject phrase a
>predicate adjective when it follows a verbal (infinitive,
>participial) form and refers back to that noun?
>
> The car, being red . . .
>
> The car, considered red . . .
>
> The car, to be red . . .
>
>I think no. The adjective is not in the predicate phrase. (The verb
>form is not finite, but then neither is the understood "to be" in the
>first example, so the limiting factor is that the adjective does not
>appear in the predicate phrase, right?)
>
>But if so, if this is the limiting factor, must the predicate phrase
>be that of the entire sentence? Is the crucial point here not that
>the adjective is not in _the_ predicate phrase, but that the
>adjective is not in _any_ predicate phrase? (That's question 3,
>actually.)
>
>
>* Question 3
>
>Is an adjective that appears within the predicate phrase of its
>clause as a subject complement in that clause a predicate adjective,
>regardless of whether it appears in the predicate phrase for the
>entire sentence?
>
> I like that car because it is red. (two main verbs, so no
>problem here)
>
> I like the car that is red.
>
> I like the car, which is red.
>
> I think that the car is red.
>
>I think yes. Within the clause, the relationship is that of a
>predicate adjective.
>
>But does it matter that in the second, third, and fourth sentences
>the main verb is transitive? There is a sense in which, for these
>particular sentences, the embedded clause appears in the predicate
>phrase, but not in the standard way in which we think of predicate
>adjectives. And in the second and third, it might as easily have not.
>
> The car that is red . . .
>
> The car, which is red, . . . .
>
>Does it matter, with respect to the entire sentence (for the purpose
>of this one issue: is _red_ a predicate adjective here or not),
>whether the relative clause falls within the subject phrase or the
>predicate phrase?
>
>
>_____
>
>Predicate adjectives are most commonly spoken of in terms of being
>subject complements with respect to the entire sentence, but is it
>rather the case that the predicate adjective is linked to its noun
>via _to be_ or another linking verb, whether explicitly or
>implicitly, such that it appears in the predicate of some clause?
>
>In other words, the limiting factor is not that the verb be
>conjugated (it is not in the case of the object complement), but that
>the adjective be situated as a predicate within a clause (it is not,
>for instance, in the case of a relative phrase).
>
>I think so.
>
>
>Odile
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