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Clause acting as an object complement

English Language & Usage Asked by user392924 on August 10, 2021

If I take the sentences "The sky grew dark" and "They made him captain", the last word of each of these sentences is an object complement (adjective and noun, respectively).

If a similar sentence is made but with a clause attached at the end instead of one word, how could one tell how that clause functions?

Take for instance this sentence:

Books and words have made me what I am.

Here again the part "what I am" is an object complement that describes the object "me".

Is the clause an adjective clause or a noun clause?

Both an adjective as well as a noun would fit well at the end of this sentence (Books and words have made me smarter/a poet), so how can one tell in case of a clause appearing in such sentences?

Regards,

One Answer

[1] The sky grew dark.

[2] They made him captain.

[3] Books and words have made me what I am.

In [1] "dark" is PC (predicative complement), but it refers to the subject "the sky", so it is subjective, not objective.

In [2] "captain" is objective PC, as you say.

In [3] "what I am" is not a clause but a noun phrase in a 'fused' relative construction, where the meaning is "that which I am" (or, depending on context, "the person that I am").

The NP functions as objective PC, just as "captain" does in [2].

Answered by BillJ on August 10, 2021

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