16. Even in books I like a confined locality.—Miss Mitford.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SUBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT
Function.—When we wish to assert that a thing possesses a certain quality, we do it by a predicate made up of some form of the verb be together with an adjective; as in the sentence, “The very name was uncanny.”—Page. Here the idea words are the subject noun and the adjective in the predicate; the verb was serves merely as a copula, or tie-word, necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but having little, if any, meaning.
The verb is employed in the same way when we wish to denote—
(a) The identity of two ideas; as, “The secret of success is concentration.”—Schreiner.
(b) The class to which a thing belongs; as, “Ben Battle was a soldier bold.”—Hood.
In such sentences as the three quoted, we call the adjective or noun in the predicate a subjective complement of the verb. The noun is often termed a predicate nominative, and the adjective a predicate adjective. In either case the complement tells some attribute of the subject, and it is for the express purpose of telling this attribute that such sentences are made. These sentences are very common, being framed to answer certain questions that it is natural for the mind to ask; namely, who is he? what is it? what kind of person is he? what sort of thing is it?
The noun used as base-word of a subjective complement does not necessarily agree with the subject in number; as, “Justice and Reverence are the everlasting central Law of the Universe.”—Carlyle.
Neither does the subjective complement have to succeed its verb. Sometimes the whole order of the sentence is inverted; thus, “Fair as a summer dream was Margaret.”—Lowell. “A very attractive person is that child-loving girl.”—Miss Mitford.