COMPLEMENT VS OBJECT

Let's take a break from the tenses discussion and turn to a different issue. As we can read, the post title may look simple and unchallenging. When it comes to grammar, however, even the seemingly simplest error may lead to grammatical imperfection. Practically speaking, this imperfection undoubtedly causes our losing score in tests (TOEFL test, IELTS, or our regular mid-term and final exams). The worst is probably we'll fail to convey our ideas smoothly and dishonoring ourselves while speaking in front of public or writing a formal business letter to a colleague for our company.

During my early years of learning English, I used to find distinguishing complement from object difficult. But I was lucky enough, I had relatively sound background knowledge on Indonesian grammar and I employed it as a tool to learn the same topic in a different language. Therefore, being a good English student might entail us to master our native tongue first. Understanding our national language might help us to understand foreign languages at times. That's what is called 'positive interference', a topic you can find in Phonetics/ Phonemics syllabus. Ok, with that being said, we're about to read a brief and succinct explanation on how to distinguish complement from object (and vice versa) as the topic. 

Some people tend to confuse between complement and object. And I bet some of you experience the same thing, too.  Both of them may follow predication of a sentence. So, what makes them dissimilar?

According to Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, complement is an added word or expression by which a predication is made complete (as president in “they elected him president” and beautiful in “he thought her beautiful”); whereas,object is a noun or noun equivalent (as a pronoun, gerund, or clause) denoting the goal or result of the action of a verb b : a noun or noun equivalent in a prepositional phrase. 

Based on the above explanation, you already know that complement's function is to  complete a predication (verb) and object's function is to show the goal or result of a verb's action. That's the first difference we can notice. 

The second is a complement may be in the form of noun (e.g. president) or adjective (e.g. beautiful). An object, nevertheless, must be a noun or word that is equal to noun, for instance a noun phrase (e.g. a gallant man, the selfish spinster),  gerund (a noun formed from a verb,e.g. washing, flying), clause (an expression including a subject and predicate but not constituting a complete sentence).

If you still can't get the point of the definitions Merriam Webster Online Dictionary gave to you, go get some cold drink in your fridge and put onto your forehead to cool your smokey brain (just serious, not kidding).  

 Scrutinize these sentences below.

1. The actress looked anxious. ('anxious' as a complement)
2. Alcohol lowers activity. ('activity' as an object)

Now, it's your turn to work a bit, can you change those two sentences into passive voice without ruining the sentences' logic? 

These might be your answers: 

1. Anxious was looked by the actress .(?)
2. Activity is lowered by alcohol. 

So? what conclusion can you draw after converting them into passive voice? Yes (nodding)...the third difference is that in a passive sentence, a complement can't serve as a subject but an object can. 

 

BYE FOR NOW, FOLKS!