Language Structures—Part 2: Around the Core / 1


 |  | 
 2.1 — COMPLEMENTS

Let us call complement anything which is found in a clause in addition to its core (i.e. beside its subject, predicate and - when requested - object).

    In some grammars complements are referred to under the names of call adverbials or prepositional phrases.
As an example of complement consider the following:

      With the new company Mary earns a good salary.

The removal of with the new company doesn't make the clause collapse. "Mary earns a good salary", being the core, ensures that the statement stays intelligible. The segment with the new company adds more information to what the core says but can be done without: it is a complement.

Let us now group complements into categories which, although arbitrary, clarify their role.

    Some of the categories listed below are helpful when studying languages like German, which make use of cases. Some complements are associated with particular cases: e.g, the genitive case is triggered by complements of belonging, the dative case by destination complements.
    2.1a — Place complements

Examples of "place complements" are:

  1. Along the way to the city hall … (Along the way to the city hall I bumped into another car.)
  2. On the hilltop … (They met on the hilltop.)
  3. Underneath the bridge … (The police found the stolen wallet underneath the bridge.)
  4. All over the country … (The same language is spoken all over the country.)
  5. Off the ladder … (He fell off the ladder.)
  6. To Glasgow … (This train travels to Glasgow.)
We may differentiate further between:
  • Stationary place complement
      [no movement is implied, something is located in one point in space or is circumscribed within an area — see examples 2, 3, 4 above]
  • Dynamic place complement
      [some movement from here to there is implied — see examples 1, 5, 6 above]

      • One of the languages needing this distinction is German, whose complements change shape depending on whether something happens within an enclosed space or whether there is movement from one place to another.
    2.1b — Time complements

Time complements are of the kind: last night, within 5 minutes, over the last century, immediately, soon, yesterday etc.

    Do not rely on the look of words to identify complements. The word since may point to a time complement (That hotel has been closed since last week) and may not: in Since you don't believe me, so be it "since" introduces a causal, explanatory complement (see below).

    2.1c — Instrumental complements

Examples:

  • With bare hands … (They fought the wolf with bare hands.)
  • By means of a laptop … (By means of a laptop our uncle cracked the bank code.)
  • Thank to their support … (Tony built his 11-feet boat thank to their support.)

    2.1d — Decoration complements

If the label "instrumental" seems far-fetched for with red flowers in a clause like The wedding room had been embellished with red flowers, one may want to think of a category labelled decoration complements.

    Since organising complements into categories is mainly functional to the study of languages based on cases, and in German and Latin both instrumental and decoration complements are handled with the same case, differentiating them doesn't really matter.

    2.1e — Modal complements (also: of manner)

Or we may want to conceive a larger category which lumps together both the "instrumental" and "decoration" categories. Let us call it modal complements.
In the image below, modal complements show as a container encompassing the other two sub-categories.

    Some complements, when found at the beginning of clause, trigger the swapping of places of subect and predicate. This differs from language to language. In English, time complements do not require any swapping: Yesterday I hurt myself.

    But modals do trigger subject/predicate inversion:

          Under no circumstances should you believe this.

    Modal complement "under no circumstances" moves the subject "you" behind "should" - an element of the predicate "should believe". This is called "subject-verb inversion". (For more, read an article on this.)

    2.1f — Relational complements

An example is "I went to the movies with some friends", where "with some friends" could be labelled accompaniment or togetherness complement, or relational complement.

Other relational examples are:

  • Shirley came with her fiancé
  • The storekeeper quarrelled with his niece
  • America struck a deal with Russia
  • Our accountants are at odds with the new tax laws

    2.1g — Complements of belonging, ownership

They clarify whereto something belongs as a sub-part, because it is owned or as a result of functional links. Examples:

  • The key of the door is lost.
  • The Company's headquarters are at 244 Ron St.

The 's form (as in "Company's") is known as Saxon Genitive(1).

In English, the "s" is dropped after a noun ending in –s. So, we write: The parents' house …, Francis' car … .

The Saxon Genitive may just string two words together to signify dependence, mutual relationship: house key (the key fitting the lock of a particular house). The two words may merge altogether (landlord) or be joined by a hyphen (week-end).

    Once again, be wary of identifying a complement on the basis of specific words: words like shotgun, milk-jug signal purpose - a gun for shooting, a jug for holding milk - not belonging (see "purpose complements" below)

    2.1h — Causal complements

They state the reason why something takes place:

  • Due to her flu, she could not drive her husband to the airport.
  • The workers went on strike because of their low pay.
  • For the sake of your mutual friendship, you should excuse his blunder.

    2.1i — Destination (Target) complements

They identify the recipient of something being transferred or addressed. Examples:

  • Little Arnold offered a red rose to his mother.
  • My dog yapped at a passing guy.
  • This parcel is for Messrs.* Ziszka and Thurow.
  • Show me your passport.
    • * "Messrs." is the plural of "Mr." and "Mmes." of "Madam", "Miss", "Mrs.".
    They derive from French forms: Mes sieurs, Mes dames.

    The "me" of the last example is evidently not an object (the object of showing is the passport) but a destination complement - as confirmed by the possible rewording into Please, show your passport to me. In a clause like "Do introduce me to your friend", "me" would be the object and "to your friend" the destination complement.

      This complement is called indirect object by some grammars, where what we called "object" (a core element, not a complement) is termed "direct object":

    • They gave him a watch

      • The direct object of transitive verb "gave" is "a watch".

      Placing indirect and direct objects side by side ("him", "watch") is known as "direct construction" or "double accusative construction".

        Accusative is the case signalling objects in such languages as Latin and German. Alongside English, also German may directly attach the destination complement to the predicate in clauses including an object, making the destination complement look as it were a second object (which, as noted above, it is not). When that happens, German has two unrelated entities set in accusative side by side: object and destination complement. Hence the "double accusative" expression.

        An example of this follows:

        Der Lehrer hat mich die starken Verben abgefragt.

        It means:

      • the teacher (der Lehrer)
      • has asked (hat ... abgefragt)
      • me (mich)
      • the strong form of verbs (die starken Verben - a peculiarity of some German verbs).

        • Both mich (the destination complement) and die starken Verben (the object) are set in accusative case. The regular German construction for the destination complement (equivalent to the English to me construction) is mir (dative case) instead of mich.

        Note that, in the double accusative construction, the complement precedes the object.

    Like Complements of Belonging, also Destination Complements can be seen as a sub-group of the Relational Complements.

        2.1j — Purpose complements

    Examples of Purpose complements(2) are:

    • He left, not to bother further.
    • Tell me more, better to understand the situation.
    • We brought our rod with a view to fishing salmon.
    • They wrote the letter in order to warn about the danger.
    • Let us go to bed early, so as to leave with the first train tomorrow*.
    • She said that for fun.

      Several complements in these examples incorporate verbs: "to bother", "to understand", "to warn", "to leave", "fishing". This is surprising, because one would expect to find verbs in predicates, not in complements.

      The riddle shall be clarified in Part 4, where complex language is discussed. There we shall realise that clauses are arranged in a hierarchy based on a main clause and branching out into a network of complementary (subordinate) clauses.

    The long and short of it is that language hinges on cores linked to more or less optional complements. So far we have mainly reviewed the complements found in a single clause.

    In the closing section of this document the notion of complement shall expand to include subordinate clauses within a complex sentence. The first four examples of purpose complements allow a glimpse of such constructions.

    The sections in between analyse more in depth the elements found in a self-standing clause, namely particles, nouns and their ancillary elements (articles, determiners, adjectives), verbs and their ancillary elements (adverbs).

     |  | 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    FOOTNOTES

    (1) – The Saxons are a sub-group of the Germans. Other Germanic languages are: English, Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    (2) – The Purpose Complement is the last mentioned here. Further ahead topical, agent, conditional and concessional complements are also introduced.