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'. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~ > English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~ > San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~ > Tel. (805)-756-2184 Fax: (805)-756-6374 ~ > E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~ > Office hours Winter 1999: Mon/Wed 10:10-11am Thurs 2:10-3pm ~ > Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >