2

I read the following paragraph from a book and I want to confirm whether the bold phrase is an object complement or a subject complement?

Then The New York Times wrote an absolute rave review of the food, giving the restaurant its highest rating, and suddenly, I thought the room looked pretty good after all. The newspaper’s analysis and praise of the restaurant completely changed my mind. That’s power.

Personally, I think the sentence is an object complement since it shows more information about the review. But somehow, the subject of the bold sentence is The New York Times, and if so, it will be the subject complement.

I'm totally lost here. Which one is the correct answer?

Improve this question
1
  • 2
    I think it's a reduced non-restrictive adjective clause of which gave the restaurant its highest rating.
    – Yuri
    Feb 28, 2017 at 8:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

This clause is not a complement at all. The commas which bracket it mark it as a supplement which lies outside the syntax of the main clause. Since its head verb is a gerund-participle rather than a finite form it is 'subordinate' to the main clause, 'anchored' to the main clause by the fact that its subject is inferred to be the preceding NP, an absolute rave review of the food.

Improve this answer
2
  • Why not consider the subject of the clause to be the agent of the participle? Doesn't it make more sense for the newspaper to take an action than a review, especially given that a single review shouldn't have a range of ratings to give?
    – Gary Botnovcan
    Sep 26, 2017 at 21:11
  • @GaryBotnovcan That's certainly a plausible reading. Of course professional solidarity requires me to point out that the author of the passage got it wrong either way: the actual agent of the participle is neither the NYT nor the review but the reviewer. :)
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Sep 26, 2017 at 21:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .