Odile and Bruce:
There is what is arguably a subclass of these constructions that sounds
odd (to me, at least) with a "to be" paraphrase:
The sheer badness of the movie rendered me speechless.
*The sheer badness of the movie rendered me to be speechless.
And to a lesser extent, and with an NP rather than AdjP --
They made me secretary.
?They made me to be secretary.
What these *mean*, of course, depends on what you want to count
paraphrases for in your approach. One possibility allows them as
evidence for taxonomic arguments. Another is to allow them as evidence
for elided or null elements (and you can do both, of course). I can't
think of an empirical way to support a claim that either or both of
those approaches is "right" or not.
If you *do* consider those examples relevant, though, I'd suggest that
they would support a view in which object complements can't be viewed as
subject complements to an elided predicate, unless you want to reserve
"object complement" as a label only for constructions for which the
paraphrase works (in which case you'd presumably need another label for
the second complement of "render").
Side note: "Predicate adjective," I think, has been defined in a number
of ways historically. Whether or not an OC can also be a pred. adj.
probably hinges on the specific definitions being used. In the K-12
school grammar tradition, I've only seen pred. adj. used for subject
complements...but then, the same tradition sometimes doesn't discuss
object complements at all.
Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Predicate adjectives: three questions
Odile,
These are interesting questions in that to me they seem to be asking
about what structure is.
1) You mention "slot" for the object complement and then ask about a
slot for the predicate adjective. This seems to suppose that it can be
both. Your "yes" answer suggest that you are willing to vies the
sentence at two levels of analysis simultaneously: the one that has an
object complement and the one that has a predicate adjective.
She painted the car red.
This adjective is normally called the object complement or the objective
complement. You don't say that the car "is" red until the painting is
done. The verbs that build this construction are normally causatives.
In my mind the sentence, "She considered the car red" is not the best
formed sentence and is interpreted on the basis of analogy with the
better formed sentence: "She considered the car to be red." The
implication for the object complement seems to be that her consideration
has something to do with what the color designation is, i.e., that it
might be some other color for other people, but her stance had made it
red for her purposes. Here again the car becomes red by virtue of the
consideration.
2) Here the question seems to be about whether the slot in a subordinate
structure can be inherited by the super-ordinate elements. Maybe the
problem is that an adjective in a subject complement slot needs a
subject to refer to, and the subject of the subordinate clauses, i.e.,
phrases, is missing. Your examples are not complete, so the possible
slot conflicts are not clear. Note: "The car, by her considered red, is
green" seems to be telling us that there is no problem in sharing
subjects. There are really two propositions, each having a "predicate
adjective." This would take the "predicate adjective" as a semantic
concept, in which terms it was originally defined. If it must be used
as a syntactic term, then it would appear that some mechanism for
subordination would have to be worked out.
3) This question displays perhaps more clearly the way slots in simple
sentences have to be modified to work in the related syntax of
subordinate structures. I think the theoretical constructs need to be
multiplied, i.e., divided. I have tried to do this in the past by
building a grammar in terms of a set of regular and systematic
paraphrases that will reduce even the most complex sentence into a
series of simple sentences containing a limited number of slots. I
think that paraphrases that are strict with maintaining semantic
"equivalence" can be most instructive to students learning English.
Where one language will permit one pattern with a certain
interpretation, another will not. The student's native language seems
to have its own set of patterns and pattern equivalences.
Bruce
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Odile Sullivan-Tarazi
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 4:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Predicate adjectives: three questions
I am tangled up in the throes of predicate adjectives, and I'm
wondering whether anyone can help. I have three questions.
* Question 1
Is an adjective in the object complement slot a predicate adjective?
(That is, with an understood copula.)
She considered the car red.
I think yes. The _to be_ relationship is understood, and the
adjective appears in the predicate phrase.
* Question 2
Is the adjective that follows a noun in the subject phrase a
predicate adjective when it follows a verbal (infinitive,
participial) form and refers back to that noun?
The car, being red . . .
The car, considered red . . .
The car, to be red . . .
I think no. The adjective is not in the predicate phrase. (The verb
form is not finite, but then neither is the understood "to be" in the
first example, so the limiting factor is that the adjective does not
appear in the predicate phrase, right?)
But if so, if this is the limiting factor, must the predicate phrase
be that of the entire sentence? Is the crucial point here not that
the adjective is not in _the_ predicate phrase, but that the
adjective is not in _any_ predicate phrase? (That's question 3,
actually.)
* Question 3
Is an adjective that appears within the predicate phrase of its
clause as a subject complement in that clause a predicate adjective,
regardless of whether it appears in the predicate phrase for the
entire sentence?
I like that car because it is red. (two main verbs, so no
problem here)
I like the car that is red.
I like the car, which is red.
I think that the car is red.
I think yes. Within the clause, the relationship is that of a
predicate adjective.
But does it matter that in the second, third, and fourth sentences
the main verb is transitive? There is a sense in which, for these
particular sentences, the embedded clause appears in the predicate
phrase, but not in the standard way in which we think of predicate
adjectives. And in the second and third, it might as easily have not.
The car that is red . . .
The car, which is red, . . . .
Does it matter, with respect to the entire sentence (for the purpose
of this one issue: is _red_ a predicate adjective here or not),
whether the relative clause falls within the subject phrase or the
predicate phrase?
_____
Predicate adjectives are most commonly spoken of in terms of being
subject complements with respect to the entire sentence, but is it
rather the case that the predicate adjective is linked to its noun
via _to be_ or another linking verb, whether explicitly or
implicitly, such that it appears in the predicate of some clause?
In other words, the limiting factor is not that the verb be
conjugated (it is not in the case of the object complement), but that
the adjective be situated as a predicate within a clause (it is not,
for instance, in the case of a relative phrase).
I think so.
Odile
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