In Chapter 3 (pp. 36–7) we saw that a sentence consists of a subject and a verb, and perhaps other elements following the verb. If other elements are necessary to complete the structure of the sentence, they are called complements; and if they are ‘optional extras’, giving circumstantial detail, they are called adjuncts. The following examples illustrate these types of structure. Group 1 has no complement and no adjunct, just subject and verb. Group 2 has subject, verb and complement. Group 3 has subject, verb and adjunct. Group 4 has subject, verb, complement and adjunct. The boundaries between the sentence elements are marked with a vertical stroke. 1 The last train | has arrived Bill | drives She | was writing 2 Your uncle | left | a message They | are demolishing | a building The councillors | seem |very determined Bill | has been | a postman 3 The last train | has arrived | already Bill | drives | quite expertly She | was writing | in the library 4 Your uncle | left | a message | yesterday They | are demolishing | a building | with some dynamite The councillors | seem | very determined | this week Bill | has been | a postman all his working life Most of the elements of which these sentences consist belong to the types of phrase we have been looking at in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Thus, for example, the last train is a noun phrase; are demolishing and seem are verb phrases; in the library is a prepositional phrase. In group 4, very determined is an adjective phrase, and so on. One or two of the sentence elements are phrases of a type we have not yet studied, e.g. already, yesterday and quite expertly. These are adverb phrases. They will be dealt with later in this chapter (p. 74). In the sentences listed above, these adverb phrases are functioning as adjuncts. For the present we shall not pay any further attention to adjuncts. If they are left out of a sentence, the character of the structure remaining is not affected. Therefore, if we want to study the fundamentals of sentence structure, it is preferable not to include adjuncts. They can always be added on to the basic patterns afterwards. It would take us beyond the scope of this book to make a close study of all the types of sentence and to compare and contrast them in detail. We must content ourselves with listing the few
simplest and most sharply differentiated kinds and pass over the complex, problematic and marginal types. So let us set up six types of sentence pattern, as follows: 1 With no complement (subject+verb): The car crashed 2 With a transitive complement—also known as an object (subject+verb+object): John smashed the windscreen 3 With two transitive complements, known as indirect object and direct object (subject+verb +indirect object+direct object): John gave the children some food 4 With an ascriptive complement, also known simply, if confusingly, as ‘complement’ (subject +verb+complement): John seems happy 5 With a place complement, which unfortunately has no traditional name (subject+verb +place complement): John is at the office 6 With a transitive complement and an ascriptive complement (subject+verb+object+ complement): John made the children happy These types of sentence, and the terminology used to refer to them, need some explanation. The general idea of a complement has been dealt with in Chapter 3 (see p. 37), but now we need to distinguish between several kinds of complement, the kind called object, the kind called ascriptive complement, and the kind called place
complement.