complement
The term complement describes that post-head (verb) sentence element that completes the meaning of the phrase.
| Pre-head string | Head | Post-head string | |
| Peter | plays | the piano | |
| Peter | plays | the piano | beautifully. |
| Peter | likes | coffee | with milk |
| complement | adjunct |
Generally, complements differ from adjuncts in that complements are obligatory, adjuncts are optional. Adjuncts are stackable, i.e. you can stack more multiple adjuncts onto one another:
| Peter | plays | the piano | beautifully | in the living room. |
On the difference between complements and adjuncts, see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/phfunc/compare.htm
linguisticsweb/glossary/complement.txt · Last modified: 2020/10/01 12:23 (external edit)
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