Complement (linguistics) - Predicative Subject and Object Complements

Predicative Subject and Object Complements

In many traditional grammars, the terms subject complement and object complement are employed to denote the predicative expressions (e.g. predicative adjectives and nominals) that serve to assign a property to a subject or object, e.g.

Larry is upset.

Susan is the boss.

That made Fred lazy.

We call Susan the boss.

Although widespread in school grammar, this use of terminology is not employed by many modern theories of syntax. The expressions in bold are viewed as part of the clause predicate, which means they are not complements of the subject or object, but rather they are properties that are predicated of the subject or object.