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In the sentence -

The boy saves his pet mouse from the cat.

what is the function of the prepositional phrase from the cat? I'm pretty sure it is not adjective describing MOUSE. I'm thinking ADVERB. do you agree? If it is, what type of adverb?

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  • Are you sure of the tense of your main verb save? It sounds like a fact and every day doing instead of an event that happened in a time in the past. Mar 3, 2019 at 8:54
  • @TasneemZh it can be a news title or a part of the story told in Present Simple Mar 3, 2019 at 11:16
  • The PP "from the cat" is a complement of "saves"
    – BillJ
    Mar 3, 2019 at 11:24
  • @AndrewTobilko | It is hard to imagine such a sentence as a title in news, but yes, those are some possibilities. It could also be something from describe what you see in the pictures exercises. Mar 3, 2019 at 17:17

1 Answer 1

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The boy saves his pet mouse from the cat.

"*His pet mouse from the cat" is not a constituent, so you are right that the PP is not modifying "mouse".

The PP "from the mouse" functions as complement of "saves". It's a complement, not a modifier like an adverb, because it is obligatory for this sense of "save", which means "keep safe from danger".

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