All subjects and most complements are nouns or noun equivalents (that is, pronouns, certain verbals and verbal phrases, and noun clauses). You will remember from the chapter on Parts of Speech that nouns and noun equivalents fall into three cases according to their use in the sentence: subjective, objective, or possessive.

Subjects are always in the subjective case, and most complements (all except the subjective complement) are in the objective case. With nouns, distinguishing between subjective and objective presents no problems--they look exactly the same in either case. In the sentence, "Mulroy lost his shirt," Mulroy is in the subjective case; shirt is in the objective. In the sentence, "The shirt belonged to Mulroy," shirt is subjective, and Mulroy is objective.

Only in the possessive case do we see a distinction: "Mulroy's shirt was lost." Mulroy's is possessive; shirt is subjective. In "Mulroy liked the shirt's color," Mulroy is subjective while shirt's is possessive. Nouns in the possessive case, such as the two above, usually function as adjectives modifying the thing possessed. Occasionally, however, you will see a noun in the possessive case used as a subject or an object when the thing possessed is clearly understood: "Mulroy's was purple!" "Did you see Mulroy's?" (Mulroy's shirt).

Although nouns present no problems in choosing between subjective and objective case forms, pronouns do present some problems. Most pronouns differ distinctly from case to case.

SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE POSSESSIVE

I, we me, us my, mine,

our, ours

you you your, yours

he, she, him, her, his, her, hers,

it, they it, them its, their, theirs

who whom whose

whoever whomever whosever

whosoever whomsoever whosesoever

It is important, then, to know the proper case forms for subjects and complements and sometimes, even, for modifiers when using pronoun forms for these parts of the sentence.

Subjects are always nouns or noun equivalents (pronouns, gerunds, certain infinitives, phrases made from these verbals, and noun clauses). The subject is the person, place, or thing that does or controls the action of the verb. It is the concept that answers the question who? or what? does or is in relation to the verb.

John eats flies. (Who eats? John does.)

Homer crawls nicely. (Who crawls? Homer does.)

Anything goes. (What goes? Anything does.)

It seems silly. (What seems? It seems.)

Minerva is tired. (Who is? Minerva is.)

There is a book missing. (What is'? Book is. In this

example there is a substitute subject;

Book is the real subject.)

If the subject consists of who or what does or is relative to the verb, the following kinds of words

and word groups can be subjects:

proper nouns (John, New Orleans, etc.)

common nouns (motorcycle, Justice, etc.)

personal pronouns (1, you, he, she, etc.)

relative pronouns (who, which, that, etc.)

possessive pronouns (mine, ours, yours, etc.)

indefinite pronouns (each, one, anybody, etc.)

gerunds (swimming, running, etc.)

What this all adds up to is this: a subject can be a noun, a pronoun, one of two kinds of verbal phrases, or one kind of dependent clause.

The verb is most often defined as the word or words that express action or state of being. The trouble with this definition is that it is so broad that it is difficult to pin down just when a word expresses action" or "being." Verbals seem to express action, and even some nouns seem to convey a sense of action (the race, his answer, my worry, for example).

Maybe a better way to pin down the sentence verb is to find the word or words in the sentence that express action or state of being but also display some of the formal characteristics of verbs, those characteristics which have to do with the different spellings of the word in question, that is, the different forms of the word.

With the possible exception of the personal pronoun, verbs have more different forms (or spellings) than any other part of speech. To find the sentence verb, then, look for the "action" or "being" word or words that have the most potential for change while still retaining the original sense of the sentence. Only the "time reference" or "tense" of the sentence changes. Consider this sentence:

In this example several words are candidates for "action" words: expressed, losing, worries. You would probably eliminate worries right away on the basis of what you have learned about nouns in Chapter One because it is modified by a noun in the possessive case, team’s. (This possessive noun functions as an adjective; therefore, worries has to be a noun.)

In addition to the fact that worries is clearly a noun being modified by team's, it has only limited potential for change in this sentence. Worry, the noun singular form, makes sense in this sentence, but has worried or is worrying, (verb forms) makes no sense.

Of the two candidates left, expressed and losing, only expressed has the potential of a number of different forms without drastically altering or destroying the meaning of the sentence.

worries." Lost, has lost, or am losing makes as little sense in this context.

There are any number of other tense forms that we could use here to show the potential for change in form displayed by the sentence verb.

The term complement refers to the word or words of a sentence (or clause) that complete the verb or, more specifically, that complete the subject-verb relationship when such a "completing" idea is

necessary to the sense of the sentence or clause. "Ada turnips," for example is not complete. Neither is "Grows turnips," for that matter. But "Ada grows turnips" is a completed idea. Turnips completes the subject and verb, "Ada grows." (Now, "Ada grows" is a complete thought, too, but it means something entirely different from "Ada grows turnips.")

In some sentences and clauses we have an "actor" (such as Ada) and an "action" (such as grows), and that is all that is necessary to the meaning of the sentence. In other sentences and clauses there are an "actor," an "action," and something "acted upon," such as turnips in our example above.

There are several ways by which the subject and verb of a sentence or clause can be completed, depending largely on the nature of the verb. In relation to their ability to take complements in a subject-verb combination, verbs may be divided into three categories: transitive (those which require noun objects to complete them), intransitive (those which do not require noun objects), and linking (those which establish a notion of "equality" between the subject and a noun or adjective complement.

A fourth category might be added: passive. Although passive voice verbs are always formed from transitive verbs, a passive voice verb may take a complement that is either a noun or an adjective. Here are all of the complements that are possible with their respective subject-verb combinations:

SUBJECT + INTRANSITIVE VERB (S iV) (NO COMPLEMENT)

SUBJECT + LINKING VERB (S LV) + SUBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT (SC)

SUBJECT + TRANSITIVE VERB (S tV) + DIRECT OBJECT (DO)

SUBJECT + TRANSITIVE VERB (S tV) + INDIRECT OBJECT (IO) &

DIRECT OBJECT (DO)

SUBJECT + TRANSITIVE VERB (S tV) + DIRECT OBJECT (DO) &

OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT (OC)

SUBJECT + PASSIVE VERB (S pV) + RETAINED OBJECT (RO)

These patterns may be simply expressed in the following way:

S V S V I O DO

S V SC S V DO OC

S V DO S V RO

"Linking" verbs are actually intransitive verbs, that category being divided into intransitive complete and intransitive linking. For the sake of simplicity, we simply refer to them as "intransitive" for intransitive complete and "linking" for intransitive linking.

Let's look at these complements one by one:

The subjective complement (sometimes called a predicate nominative when it is a noun or predicate adjective when it is an adjective) does just what its name implies--it completes the subject. There exists the idea of "equality" between the subject and the subjective complement established by the nature of the linking verb. (And of course that is why it is called a "linking" verb.) The verb to be in all of its forms (am, are, is, was, and were along with the various progressive and perfect tense combinations of these) is the most frequently used linking verb. In sentences or clauses using this verb, and other linking verbs, you can substitute the idea of "equals" (=) between the subject and its subjective complement.

When the complement is an adjective, it modifies the subject, but the idea of "equals" is still there; you simply have to supply the noun in the usual appositive position with its adjective to see the relationship:

Many other verbs other than the verb to be can establish this relationship of "equality" between a subject and its subjective complement: seem, become, look, feel, act, to name a few. Consider these examples: