I never suggested that adverbials such as "Thursday" in "The exam is
THursday" could be considered a noun subject complement.  Agreeing that it
is certainly an adverbial, I merely ask whether it could be considered a
_complement_ -- one as yet unnamed in most traditional grammars.  That is,
isn't "THursday" a completer rather than a modifiers of "is"?

On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Consider:
>
> When is the exam?
> The exam is Thursday.
> The exam is next week.
>
> I know sticklers for exactitude might object to these expressions,
> preferring 'when will the exam take place' or some such, but these are in
> very broad use. The question, especially, sounds very natural to me.
>
> Some might say 'Thursday' and 'next week' aren't adverbs, and that's true,
> but they are _adverbials_ -- in other words, they are performing an
> adverbial function. Noun phrases can do this in English. Certainly, it
> would be incorrect to interpret the above expressions as containing
> noun-phrase subject complements. I.e.,They aren't statements equating
> 'the exam' with 'Thursday' or 'next week'.
>
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