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a. I love you.

Here, you is the object of the verb love. It's also a complement, because it completes the meaning of the sentence.

Per Wikipedia, complement is defined as:

In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression.

What is the given expression in (a)? Is it love or love you? Does you complete the meaning of the verb itself or the meaning of the predicate?

Just because example (a) is elementary doesn't mean the question also is. By the same token, just because the above sentence is quoted from a wiki doesn't mean it's a bad idea to start a question based on the sentence.

I believe the quoted sentence is a good place to start a serious question because it cites three authoritative references:

Crystal, D. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 4th edition, Oxford, UK: Blackwell. (75).

Matthews, P. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (142f.)

Huddleston, R. 1988. English grammar: An outline. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.(note 2)

listeneva
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    I think you should ask this question on our sister site ELL, which is more suited to elementary questions about English. link – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 06:36
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    @BillJ It might not be as elementary as you think. – listeneva Apr 18 '20 at 06:42
  • By your standards, probably not. – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 07:17
  • In any case, Wiki's definition is defective since the syntactic concept construction is preferable to the semantic concept meaning. – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 07:21
  • What is your purpose in making the distinction? In general, Wikipedia's introduction definitions are not to be nitpicked; they are just a concise introduction. More rigourous definitions/classifications exist according to your purpose. – xngtng Apr 18 '20 at 08:22
  • @zhantongz It makes a huge difference if one wants to correctly distinguish complements and adjuncts. – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 08:26
  • @BillJ Yes, then the purpose is to make difference between complements and adjuncts, and the answers can propose other useful distinctions. I don't think Wikipedia's definition alone is useful in this regard. – xngtng Apr 18 '20 at 08:29
  • Consider this example: “The plane leaves at 14.45”. Here the expression “at 14.45” could mistakenly be assumed to be a complement since it is a vital part of the information being conveyed (some might say that it "completes the meaning”). But it’s not a complement – it’s an adjunct. Which is why I said the syntactic concept construction is preferable to the semantic concept meaning. – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 08:34
  • And in the particular case, your title and the question asked in the body are different. The object can be the complement to the verb and and still complete the meaning of the verb phrase (as well as the verb itself). I love you vs. I love him. I love you vs. I love tea. – xngtng Apr 18 '20 at 08:35
  • @BillJ I'm agreeing with you... I'm responding to OP's question. I was asking OP their purpose. – xngtng Apr 18 '20 at 08:36
  • @BillJ If you think it's elementary, I'm sure you can give your answer easily. Why don't you just post your answer in the comment and let me explain to you why it's not as easy as you think. – listeneva Apr 18 '20 at 09:58
  • @BillJ Please see the edit. – listeneva May 02 '20 at 04:22
  • Given expression is not a grammatical term. The expression you gave is I love you. What you want to call the things in that expression depends on what grammatical or linguistic framework you wish to apply to it. – Tinfoil Hat May 03 '20 at 13:54
  • @TinfoilHat I'm not saying that given expression is a grammatical term. Nor is the wiki. I'm asking what the given expression means in the wiki's definition of 'complement', not what it means as a grammatical term. – listeneva May 05 '20 at 02:48
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I know that objects, direct or indirect, are subsumed under 'complements'. But somehow calling you object of the VP love you is weird, but calling you complement of the VP isn't. In fact, it's more logical than calling you complement of the verb love. – listeneva May 06 '20 at 15:55
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. When I say you can be complement of the VP love you, I'm not intending another you to be added to the completed VP. I'm simply intending the you to be analyzed as complement of the VP. – listeneva May 07 '20 at 07:20
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    @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I like the way you put it. Yes, complements do fill 'slots' or 'spaces'. The question is, what does the setting up of such a slot or space? If, as you say, "another word" (e.g., the verb love) does the setting up, how can you say things like You have to love in order to be loved, where love doesn't set up anything? In your teach examples over on the linked answer, the same verb teach can set up from nothing to two slots. Are you going to treat teach differently in each of your examples? Or are you going to think that it's the VP that does the setting up? – listeneva May 08 '20 at 05:52
  • @Araucaria - is that all "complement" means in the new recension? Just DO or IO? Are there any other syntactic tests, or is it all handwaving? – John Lawler Jan 23 '22 at 17:44

1 Answers1

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The object of a verb is included in the verb phrase headed by the verb.

A clause may be analyzed at different levels and it is important to differentiate function and category of the elements.

For example I love you deeply.

At the most general level, it is typically split into predicate love you deeply and subject I.

At a more detailed level we have complements I and you, predicator love and adjunct deeply. Both object and subject are categories of complement as they are permitted - or licensed - by the predicator. The subject I is an external complement and the object you an internal complement. The adjunct deeply is part of the verb phrase in this case as it is a degree modifier. So we have VP as the category of love you deeply which happens to be the same as the predicate in the functional analysis at the clause level in this case.

As for complements completing the meaning of a sentence, complements may be required or optional: required for verbs like become, and optional for verbs like ate. In this view of complements, they do not seem to complete the meaning of the sentence where optional, but rather clarify or modify it where they are found.

* The house became.

I ate.

The first is ungrammatical and requires a predicative complement. The second is grammatical as it is, but could take an object as a complement to make clear what was eaten.

As to the meaning of expression, this is not a term that is typically used in grammatical analysis.

Taking expression to mean a word or group of words used in a particular situation, the expression in (a) is I love you. In grammatical terms, this is a clause with predicator love and complements I (subject) and you (object).

If complete the meaning is the same idea as make grammatically acceptable, then we see that you is required in this sentence as love is a verb that requires an object. Love by itself has meaning, but the clause I love would not generally be considered good English. The fault clearly lies in the predicate, not the subject, so we may say that the predicate is incomplete as it is lacking the required object. The addition of you would make the predicate grammatically acceptable or complete and at the same time make the whole clause grammatically acceptable and hence complete.

DW256
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  • Please edit your answer to specifically address my question, which apparently you didn't. I didn't ask for some general lecture on syntax. – listeneva May 02 '20 at 06:39
  • I tried my best to answer your specific question. Which part of my explanation do you find confusing? – DW256 May 02 '20 at 06:52
  • The issue of grammatical terminology has been at the heart of many posts on this site. I am interested to know what term, other than expression, is typically used to denote any given string of words. Radford in the glossary of his Analysing English Sentences (p488) states: "A complement is an expression that is directly merged with (and hence is the sister of) a head word, thereby projecting the head into a larger structure of essentially the same kind." – Shoe May 02 '20 at 09:09
  • @Shoe That's just the trouble: expression could be a word, a phrase, a clause or something longer. I've not seen it used as a technical term in English grammar in any case. It may be useful as a catch-all for string of words, but it sure doesn't help narrow things down any. – DW256 May 02 '20 at 10:11
  • Thanks. I agree that if it is clear that the string of consecutive words in a given context is a phrase or a clause etc., then the term expression is unnecessary. But my question is: Which term is used for 'the string of words under analysis' - without prejudging it to be a phrase or clause or complement etc., Which word could Radford use instead of expression? Does constituent work here? – Shoe May 02 '20 at 10:49
  • Trying your best to answer the specific question is one thing, and actually answering the specific question is another. Your answer is not confusing; it's lacking the answer to my questions, and I repeat the questions: "What is the given expression in (a)? Is it love or love you? Does you complete the meaning of the verb itself or the meaning of the predicate?" Where in your answer can I find any answer to these questions? – listeneva May 02 '20 at 12:54
  • @listeneva Does the additional explanation added answer your question? – DW256 May 05 '20 at 04:01
  • Oh I didn't know you'd edited the answer. So you're saying that the given expression in (a) is not love but love you, right? – listeneva May 05 '20 at 04:06
  • @listeneva I clearly stated what I took to be the expression in my answer. – DW256 May 05 '20 at 04:11
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    I know. But I wanted to double-check that. So, you think the given expression is love you and that you completes the meaning of not love but love you, and I agree. But the problem is, most grammars say that you completes the meaning of the verb love in (a), if you know what I mean. Are such grammars all wrong? – listeneva May 05 '20 at 04:16