Advanced English Grammar Concepts: Master Key Distinctions
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Question: What is complementational meaning in verbs and adjectives (as shown by 'deceive' and 'subject')?
Answer: It means the verb or adjective requires another element (a 'Y') in addition to the subject ('X') to complete the meaning (e.g., 'X deceives Y', 'X is
Question: Give an example showing that some verbs' objects are obligatory, and the same verb cannot appear without its object.
Answer: He deceived his father. But *He deceived. (The object is required for full meaning.)
Question: Give an example showing an adjective that requires a complement and cannot stand alone in similar contexts.
Answer: All sales are subject to tax. But *All sales are subject. (The adjective 'subject' requires a complement.)
Question: What is the difference between optional complementation and optional modification in meaning?
Answer: Omission of a complement implies some element of meaning in a preceding word is 'unsatisfied' and must be provided by context, whereas omission of a m
Question: Provide an example where complementation is optional but semantically implied.
Answer: Joan was eating (her lunch). Even when omitted, it’s implied Joan was eating something, so the complement is optional but still semantically required.
Question: Why might 'her lunch' in 'Joan was eating her lunch' be considered not strictly optional syntactically?
Answer: If verbs like 'eat' are dually classified as transitive and intransitive, omitting the object involves changing the verb’s classification, so the obje
Question: How can complementation relate to a premodifier separated from the head? Give an example.
Answer: A complement can relate to a premodifier rather than the head, e.g., 'Greek is a more difficult language than French' where 'than French' complements
Question: Show an example where omission of a modifier that functions as a complement produces an unacceptable sentence.
Answer: *Greek is a difficult language than French. (Omission of 'than French' makes it unacceptable because it complements 'more'.)
Question: Give an example where a complement relates to an adverb rather than the head adjective.
Answer: She was too ill to travel. Here 'to travel' complements the adverb 'too', not the adjective 'ill'.
Question: Why is there not a simple choice between optional and obligatory elements in phrases?
Answer: Because determination, modification, and complementation all depend on the presence of other elements (usually the head); heads are obligatory and mod