Language Overflow

Anonymous

2:41 AM

@userr2684291 PPs usually aren't objects, it's true. Let's look at your example:

Anonymous

> I can barely see in front of me.

Anonymous

We could add an explicit object here:

Anonymous

> I can barely see anything in front of me.

Anonymous

And the function of the optional phrase in front of me is unchanged.

Anonymous

The motivation for making sub-types of the complement function is that not all complements have the same distribution.

Anonymous

2:44 AM

For example, adjectives can be complements:

Anonymous

> I was happy.

Anonymous

(Or more precisely, adjective phrases.)

Anonymous

But happy can't be a complement of kick.

Anonymous

Kick certainly does take a complement: She kicked the wall. But that complement can't take the form of an AdjP.

Anonymous

And a lot of words are like kick, taking a specific kind of complement with some additional restrictions, prototypically a noun phrase.

Anonymous

2:50 AM

There are other distributional properties associated with this group of complements, too. Passivization is an important one.

Anonymous

You might want to check out CGEL pages 244–247, but please note that there are very few verbs in English (if any) which actually always require an object.

Anonymous

CGEL was written while the current major corpora of English were still being assembled.

Anonymous

See the errata page: lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/cgelerrata.html

Anonymous

But in any case, object is just a label for a more specific kind of complement function.

Anonymous

I don't think it's true that PPs can't be objects, but most of the time PPs don't really fit when we're expecting an object.

Featured Questions

4:54 AM

2

Q: "This is one of the most important lessons I've learned" – Present Simple with Present Perfect?

Let's say you are describing your professor back when you were in college. His sustained commitment to learning, while never forgetting how to loosen up a bit or de-stress, is one of the most important lessons I have learned from him. (Re-constructed, sentence #2) ''His sustained commit...

CowperKettle

6:10 AM

> - Hi, is this the club for nostalgizing?
- Yes! But you know, it's not what it used to be..

Captain Bohemian

7:01 AM

if people ask me what is the physical problem I suffer the most often, I would answer them hunger trouble.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer: Reflexive pronoun in the passive by marvin on ell.SE

Captain Bohemian

7:13 AM

hunger haunts me more than once a day--it affects me so often that I can't afford to treat it.

like I just ate in the morning when I waked without sleeping much and felt sleepy, but in the afternoon when I wanted sleep for a while, hunger came to disturb me again--it haunts me so hard that I can't fall asleep.

CowperKettle

8:38 AM

20

Q: Is it ok to adopt a kitten if you have a murderous cat?

So my sister wants to adopt a little kitten that is roughly 3 weeks old. My fear is, our cat is somewhat a murderer, he just kills for fun and not eating. You may see him hunt a rat, slash the back, make the rat run, then slash the hind legs, make the rat run again, until he cut off the legs of...

cats adoption

О_О

12

Q: What is the point of teaching variance?

I am a teaching assistant for a sophomore engineering laboratory. We use standard deviation a lot during the semester. It is an incredibly useful concept that can be used in a lot of engineering applications. We also teach students how to calculate variance, which is simply the square of standard...