A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

76 Chapter 4 Clause structure, complements and adjuncts

This provides further evidence that English grammar distinguishes the PC and 0
functions - though it is not as generally applicable a test as the other three, because
be is really the only verb that accepts these pronouns as predicative complement.

4.2 Subjective and objective predicative complements

In the examples given so far the predicative complement relates to the
subject. Most predicative complements are of this kind, but there is also a second
kind in which they relate to the object:

[2 5 ] SUBJECT + SUBJECTIVE PC OBJECT + OBJECTIVE PC
a. Max seems highly untrustworthy. b. I consider lim highly untrustworthy.
In [a] the PC relates to the subject, Max: the property of being highly untrustworthy
is ascribed to Max. In [b] the same property is ascribed to Jim, but in this case lim
is a direct object.
The element to which a PC relates is called its predicand. Where the predicand
is subject, the PC is said to be subjective, or to have subject orientation. Where the
predicand is object, the PC is said to be objective, or to have object orientation.

4.3 Ascriptive and specifying uses of the verb be

There is an important distinction to be made between two uses of the
verb be, as illustrated in [26]:

[26] ASCRIPTIVE

i a. Mike was a loyal party member.

ii a. What they gave me was useless.

SPECIFYING

b. The last person to leave was lane.

b. What they gave me was a gold pen.

In the ascriptive construction the predicative complement denotes a property

that is ascribed to the referent of the predicand. In [ia] a loyal party member

denotes a property that Mike is claimed to have had - it doesn't specify who

Mike was, it only ascribes party membership and loyalty to him. And in [iia],

useless denotes a property that I claim is possessed by their gift to me - but it

doesn't specify what the gift was.

In the specifying construction there is a relation of identity between the two ele­

ments. In [ib] lane specifies the identity of the last person to leave, and similarly

in [iib] a gold pen implicitly answers the question What did they give you?

Ambiguities

There may be ambiguity between ascriptive and specifying uses of be. Example [27]
has this kind of ambiguity:

[27] I thought he was afriend of mine.

One salient context for this is where I am reporting a mistake I made. But it could
be a mistake about either the PROPERTIES he has or his IDENTITY.