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Is this subject complement a predicate nominative or predicate adjective?

At the park is where she grabbed my attention.

Note: At the park is a prepositional phrase that functions as a subject.

3 Answers 3

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"Where she grabbed my attention" is a nominal clause. It would therefore function as a predicate nominative and not as a predicate adjective.

Note that this interpretation requires the prepositional phrase "at the park" to function as the sentence's subject, as you recognized. However, prepositional phrases don't usually function as subjects. Therefore, many people will prefer to construe "where she grabbed my attention" as the subject and "at the park" as a predicate adjective. This word order (predicate adjective--simple predicate--subject) can be found in many other contexts, e.g.: "Blessed are the meek."

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    Where have all the comments gone?
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 18:09
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    @BillJ Oh, good question! I didn't do anything. I don't even see anything in the "show activity" screen. Maybe someone got annoyed by our back-and-forth, haha! Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 20:36
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At the park is where she grabbed my attention.

That sentence contains a be verb inversion. The normal order is: Subject Verb Predicate.

The normal order would be:
Where she grabbed my attention was at the park.

The subject is the entire noun clause: Where she grabbed my attention.

at the park is part of the predicate.

noun clauses as subject

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    That is a completely confused and wrong analysis. There is no inversion. The subject is the PP "at the park", and "where she grabbed by attention" is predicative complement. Two tests prove that the PP is subject: (1) we could have an interrogative tag, "isn't it?", where "it" is anaphoric to "at the park", showing that the latter is subject; (2) apply the interrogative test for subjects: the interrogative of "At the park is where she grabbed my attention" is "Is at the park the place where she grabbed my attention? with "at the park" in the distinctive subject position following the verb.
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 15:24
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    As I said, one can view "at the park" as the subject. Adding a tag, however, changes the discourse. The normal order here in spoken English would be: Where she grabbed my attention is at the park. Question: Is at the park where she grabbed my attention? But it makes no difference since they both mean the same thing. However, few speakers start sentences with a prepositional phrase. The sentences are basically bi-valent.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 15:29
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At the park is where she grabbed my attention.

I don't see a problem with the PP "at the park" being the subject here. A similar attested example is Under the mat is the place where we used to leave the keys, where the PP "under the mat" is subject.

The expression "where she grabbed my attention" is a noun phrase (not a clause) in a 'fused' relative construction in which "where" is interpreted as "the place where", i.e. the place where she grabbed my attention.

The noun phrase is functioning as subjective predicative complement of "be"

Incidentally, the above analysis shows that there is no inversion involved.

Note that we could have an interrogative tag, "isn't it?", where "it" is anaphoric to "at the park", showing that the latter is subject.

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    Starting a sentence with a prepositional phrase followed by is, is an inversion. The place where we used to leave the keys is under the mat. There's nothing wrong with inversions.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 14, 2021 at 18:55
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    The PP is subject, so there's no inversion. To repeat, we know it's the subject because, firstly, we could have an interrogative tag, "isn't it?", where "it" is anaphoric to "at the park", showing that the latter is subject and, secondly, because of the interrogative test for subjects: the interrogative of "At the park is where she grabbed my attention" is "Is at the park the place where she grabbed my attention? with "at the park" in the distinctive subject position following the verb.
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 14:50
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    That is your opinion. If it is an inversion I don't need to add anything to it. "Where she grabbed my attention was at the park." No need to add anything. Adding the tag also changes the discourse. Who says this is spoken English??
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 14:53
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    No, it's fact. The tag and interrogative are just tests to establish the subject. Testing is a very common way of establishing the syntactic status of a constituent.
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 15:27
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    "Where she grabbed my attention is at the park". "Is where she grabbed my attention at the park?" Since starting the sentence with "at the park" OR "where she grabbed my attention" can pass your question test, it can't prove anything here. "Where she grabbed my attention" can be a subject and works the same way.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 15, 2021 at 15:37

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