A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

74 Chapter 4 Clause structure, complements and adjuncts

term 'predicative complement': the complement typically represents what is predi­
cated of the subject-referent in a way that is similar to that in which a whole
predicate does.
A few verbs can take either a PC or an 0, but with obvious differences in
meaning:

[19] PC o

a. This proved a �reat asset. Th is proved my./loint.

11 a. He sounded a decent �uy'.

b.

b. He sounded the �on�.

Again, the objects denote participants but the predicative complements don't. This
is perhaps made clearer by examples contrasting a reference to one person with a
reference to two:

[20] i Honestly, I fe lt a fo ol standing there alone on the platform.

ii Suddenly, I fe lt a fo ol pushing in front of me on the platform.

[afool = PC]

[afool = Od]

The obvious meaning of [i] involves just me, feeling foolish alone on the platform;
but [ii] refers to two people: me, and the fool I could feel pushing in front of me on
the platform.

4.1 Syntactic differences between predicative complements

and objects

The two functions PC and 0 are distinguished syntactically in a number
of ways. Our survey covers four of them.

(a) PC can have the form of AdjP

Both 0 and PC can have the form of an ordinary NP, but only PC can also have the
form of an adjective phrase (AdjP):

[21] PC

a. He seemed a vea nice guy'.

11 a. He seemed vea nice.

b.

b.

He

*He

met

met

o

a vea nice guy'.

vea nice.

With seem, a very nice guy is PC and hence can be replaced by the AdjP very

nice.

With meet, no such replacement is possible because a very nice guy is object.

(b) PC can have the form of a bare ro le NP

A bare role NP is a singular NP that is 'bare' in the sense of lacking the determiner
which would elsewhere be required, and that denotes some kind of role, office, or