WOOPS I goofed. After thanking others for their carefulness. >But the subject is not a noun in adverbial guise: > > I leaned it against the wall Try this example instead: It is Thursday. heh... Judy >Does it sound sensible to you, making use of Plato's insight, that >there are two 'parts of speech' - participants and processes; the >participants may be "onema" OR complements, while the processes are rhema > ? > >I hope the discussion continues. > >Judy > > >At 06:54 AM 3/10/99 -0500, you wrote: >>John is here. >>John is in the kitchen. >>John is in for it. >> >>When is the exam? >>The exam is Thursday. >>The exam is next week. >> >>Complement? Adverb? Adverbial? >> >>I'm afraid I can't see much of a problem here. >> >>A. >> >>First a definition: >> >>'Complement' is a general term denoting that there is more than just the >>verb (or rather the verbal part) in a sentence. Everything that MUST be >>added to create a sentence is a complement. With 'shine' only one >>complement is necessary, namely the subject, with 'put' three complements >>are necessary (subject, object, adverbial of direction). >> >>There are several types of complements - S,O,A, subject complement, object >>complement. Which of these are necessary depends on the individual verb. >>See discussion on valences some time ago. >> >>'Be' is a verb that needs two complements, a subject and a subject >>complement or an adverbial. >> >>Subject complements: >> SC >>His clothes were / wet /. >>You are /teachers/. >>The point is /that nobody was aware of what was going on/. >>This is /what happened. >> >>Adverbials (see the above sentences). >> >>There is a great number of adverbial types: apart from the obvious ones >>like place, direction, time, etc. there are many others, most of which have >>no traditional name. >> >>The adverbial slot in a sentence with 'be' is mostly an adverbial of place, >>but adverbials of time are not rare (see sentences above). Whether the >>meaning of 'be' is a little different with place or time adverbials is of >>no avail, because this is regularly the case when the valence changes. A >>good example is 'take' - as any dictionary will illustrate. >> >>Apart from place and time adverbials after 'be', there are also others, e.g. >> A >>They are/to be married in June/. >>He's been /to see his uncle/. >> >>This is one of the (traditionally) nameless adverbial types. >> >>B. >> >>Some problems that have been discussed arise only because 'adverb' and >>'adverbial' are often used as synonyms, which, of course, they aren't. >> >>'Adverb' denotes a word class, like 'noun', 'adjective'. 'Adverbial' refers >>to a function in the sentence, like 'subject', 'object'. (In the same way >>'verb' and 'verbal part' must be distinguished, or 'noun' and 'subject'...). >> >>The function of ADVERBIAL can be performed by all sorts of structures: >>adverbs of course(here),but also adverb groups (quite nicely), noun >>(Thursday), noun group (every morning), prepositional phrase (on the roof), >>wh-sentence (where no man has ever been), subclause structure (because he >>wasn't home), to-inf sentence (to make her happy), etc. >> >>On the other hand, ADVERBS can perform a great number of functions, not >>just adverbial, e.g. they can be attributes in adjective groups (very >>fast), they can be disjuncts (fortunately, the man turned up), conjuncts >>(however, this was quite different), and many more. >> >>Neither the term 'adverb' nor the term 'adverbial' should be seen as a >>wastepaper basket term, as some will have it, where you put what you can't >>explain. If things can't be explained, it just means that we don't know >>enough yet, either as individuals or as linguists. In the latter case more >>research is needed, that's all. >> >>By the way, in the scope and sequence discussion it was said that teachers >>cannot be expected to understand linguistic models when they are a little >>more adequate than the usual school grammar. Teachers are not that dumb, >>good heavens, we are all teachers, one way or another. The problem is that >>most teachers have never learned anything else. They were taught school >>grammar in school (instead of learning to look at language itself), then >>the same at college, and then by the textbooks they use as teachers. By the >>time they have taught for a few years, they have internalized the >>traditional rules and have learned to negate their brains' protests against >>illogical terminology and rules, and after that it is very difficult to >>open their eyes and make them look 'naively' at language itself and at the >>models they use. And so they teach school grammar again, and the cycle >>starts anew. >> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Burkhard Leuschner - Paedagogische Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany >>E-mail: [log in to unmask] [h] Fax: +49 7383 2212 >>HTTP://WWW.PH-GMUEND.DE/PHG/PHONLINE/Englisch/index.htm >> > Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352 Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey 10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183 Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake