Diane,

Under some conditions, subject-complement constructions are reversible.
Usually, there's a clear order:

1a.     Bjorn is a professor of robotics.
1b.     A professor of robotics is Bjorn.

1b simply sounds odd; it might work as a tortured line in a limerick or
some such, but it's clearly not normal speech. Other cases, though, are
reversible:

2a.     The only deciduous conifer is the larch.
2b.     The larch is the only deciduous conifer.

[Yes, I know 2a-b are a botanical overstatement -- but it makes the
point!]. 

I think your conundrum is from your construction's being reversible. The
pre-BE noun phrase probably has to be dealt with as the subject (it's
hard to test this kind of thing, since the same conditions that lead to
reversibility usually -- I *think* -- lead to the two NP's being
identical in singularity/plurality, so you can't test it with
subject/verb agreement). In other words, your example with "A fearful
thing" in subject position is a paraphrase that has changed the
grammatical structure of the original sentence in an important way, even
if it's not immediately clear from meaning out of context. In context,
where these constructions serve particular functions, one of the two
readings would be preferable to the other.


Bill Spruiell

Dept. of English
Central Michigan University

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Diane Allen
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 10:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Infinitival phrase

(1) It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.

I read the preceding sentence as having an infinitival phrase acting as
an
extraposed subject with an expletive.  After reinserting the extraposed
subject, it would read:

(2)  To love what death can touch is a fearful thing.

However, I can also see "a fearful thing" as the extraposed subject and
"to
love what death can touch" a complement, making the reconstructed
sentence:

(3)  A fearful thing is to love what death can touch.

Which reading do you prefer?

Diane

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