Bill and Craig,

My use of the word "intransitive" was misleading--because I certainly 
don't consider "be" a member of the intransitive family.  As I 
mentioned, I separate "be" from the other verb classes(linking, 
intransitive, and transitive)--and give it three different sentence 
patterns in my scheme of ten patterns: one is "be" with the ADV of 
time or place; one with the Adjectival as subject complement; and one 
with the nominal as subject complement.  (I also have two patterns 
for linking verbs determined by the form of the subject complement 
and two for the object complement patterns.)   I have no problem in 
thinking of the ADV, whether prepositional phrase or simple adverb, 
as a complement in the "completer" sense of the word.  I do consider 
it adverbial, however, and diagram it in that way (as you know, the 
R&K diagrams, which I use, distinguish a subject complement from an 
adverbial).  So I do want to differentiate the adverbial from the 
subject complement--and thus give be + ADV a pattern of its own.

When verbs are classified as linking, transitive, or intransitive 
(and, as Herb includes, intransitive + locative), the linking 
category includes "be." In that scheme, NP + be + ADV is considered 
linking.  It really gets left out because "linking" assumes the 
presence of a subject complement, and I don't think the ADV 
qualifies.   When I called it the "intransitive be," I simply meant 
that, like intransitive verbs, it has no direct object or subject 
complement.

   Martha


>Hi folks --
>
>I'm adding a few notes below (in my unfortunately-common "I can't
>organize these, so here's a numbered list" format), but first, I'd like
>to thank everyone for the feedback -- it's enormously useful. Figuring
>out a good pedagogic "balancing point" on the amount of detail is not an
>easy thing.
>
>(1)	The complement/adjunct distinction is obviously of primary
>importance,	as Bob and Karl both point out. The reason I bring in
>clause patterns	is that the course, as it's currently designed,
>is partly devoted to	familiarizing students with common grammar
>terminology, so I need some
>	way of getting to "direct object," "indirect object," and
>"subject
>	complement." In terms of usage rules, though, only "subject
>	complement vs. any kind of object" is relevant, since that
>affects
>	pronoun choice in formal writing. Were I focusing on
>copy-editing
>	only, I'd probably just skip direct vs. indirect objects
>altogether.	Were I doing an introduction to English syntax, I'd
>focus more on	the range of variation and then skip specific labels
>(since there	would	be too many types). In other words, some of my
>decisions here	have to be motivated directly by the master syllabus for
>the course.
>
>(2)	Based on Miller's notion of "The magic number seven, plus or
>minus	two," Herb's list of types seems to hit the sweet spot dead on.
>
>(3)	Martha -- I'm not sure how to interpret your phrase about "the
>'be'	version of intransitive verbs." It's certainly the case that it
>acts
>	like an auxiliary rather than the main verb (e.g., you just move
>it
>	to make a y/n question rather than having to add a DO form ("Was
>the
>	meeting at 5:00? Did the meeting seem boring?"). It's in a frame
>	(for want of a better word) that canonical linking verbs usually
>go
>	in, though. I typically call these "subject complement
>constructions,"
>	which might let me dodge the issue entirely -- but only if the
>	time/place PP can be called a subject complement.
>
>(4)	One of my students earlier, trying (I think) to refer to
>intransitive	verbs, asked if one of the class examples included an
>"intransigent	verb." Is there a term for a misapprehension whose
>result is better
>	than the original? Can one have a beneprop?
>
>And again, thanks for the feedback! -- Bill Spruiell
>
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