Delahunty and Garvey
(92) a. Mary and Terry became doctors.
b. Mary and Terry became a doctor.
c. Mary became doctors.
Because English APs are not marked for number, this test does not work for
AP subject complements.
Meaning can also help identify a subject complement. First, the subject
and the subject complement must denote the same entity. This may be in-
dicated by assigning the subject and the complement the same subscript:
(93) Maryi is a doctori.Thus Mary and a doctor apply to the same individual. As we noted above,
the semantic role of the complement is Attribute. The subject complement
denotes either a permanent or a temporary status, characteristic, or property
of the subject. Understanding the function in this way will allow you to dis-
tinguish pattern 3 from pattern 2, where the NP following the verb group
does not ascribe a characteristic to the subject:
(94) Mary visited a doctor.Of course, the entire VP assigns a characteristic (of visiting a doctor) to
Mary, but our test applies only to the structure after the verb. In (94) we are
referring to two distinct individuals; in (93) we refer only to one.
Semantics also enters into the identification of subject complements be-
cause of the nature of the head verb. We can describe the basic meaning
of the verb in subject complement clauses as BE/BECOME. These are the
primitive notions of state and change of state. (Do not confuse this dif-
ference with stative and activity meanings of verbs.) These are the linking
verbs we met in our chapter on Minor Parts of Speech. We list some of them
in Table 1.
be (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been)
appear become feel get
go grow look make
prove seem smell sound
taste turn
table 1. some linking verbs