Michael's question can serve me as an example of my hesitation about the preponderance of linguists on the SSS committee. He notes that Martha agrees with the position he is taking (or rather that he sees himself as agreeing with Martha and others) . I'll bet that many of the linguists would not want him to be "drummed out." As a comp teacher, however, I have trouble accepting S/V/adverb as S/V/Complement patterns.  The adverbs answer the question "Where?" not "What?" 
     Faculty from other departments (electronics, forestry, etc.) have complained to me that when they ask students "Where?" "Why?" "How?" and other "non-what?" questions, the students answer as if the question asked "what?" I'd suggest that accepting adverbs as complements simply adds to students' confusion, whereas limiting "complements"just to words or constructions that answer the "What?" question results in making grammar an important, applicable tool for the writing that students are doing in their own career fields.
      What we are dealing with, I think, is a fundamental different in the way linguists look at language and the way the rest of us do. Linguists see "John is" as an incomplete pattern and thus want to SHOW that it needs a "complement." But if we teach grammar/syntax in conjunction with student's writing and reading, it would be EXTREMELY rare for a student to run across the 'sentence' "John is." Thus, from the students' perspective, I suggest that the whole question is irrelevant.
Ed V.

>>> Michael Kischner <[log in to unmask]> 03/09 8:04 PM >>>
In revising my own list of basic sentence patterns, I am ready to join
Martha Kolln and others in seeing  subject+BE+adverb of time* or place as
a pattern:

John is here.
John is in the kitchen.


Would I be drummed out of the profession if I called that adverb a
complement because it completes its verb  as much as  subject complements
or direct objects complete their verbs?

MIchael Kischner

*Actually, I can't think of an adverb of time that goes comfortably in
that slot.  "Choir practice is on Thursdays" doesn't seem to cut it; in
that sentence, BE seems to be just a shortcut for HAPPEN or OCCUR.  I know
that something similar is said of BE with an adverb of place -- that BE
then means EXIST.  But this isn't my main question.