The second complement is quite as often an adjective as a noun; for example,
“Shafts of sunshine from the west
Paint the dusky windows red.”
—Longfellow.
We understand from this sentence that the windows undergo the action denoted by the words paint red, and are therefore changed from dusky windows to red windows.
Such a word as river in the first sentence or red in the second is called an objective complement. A noun used in this office somewhat resembles an appositive, being a second name for an object already named; but the appositive has no relation to any word except the noun it explains, while the objective complement has a very important relation to the predicate verb. So close is this relation that we may often express the meaning of the two words, the verb and the objective complement, by one word; as, “Political freedom makes every man an individual.”—Higginson. Here the verb makes and the objective complement an individual may be combined into the one verb individualizes.
The close complementary relation of the objective complement to the predicate verb is still further brought out when a sentence of this type is changed to the passive form. There arises the sentence discussed in section 5 in the preceding chapter, a sentence wherein the direct object of the active verb has become the subject of the passive verb, and the objective complement still remains after the verb but becomes a subjective complement.
Verbs that take an Objective Complement:—
(a) Verbs of making, such as render, elect, appoint, called factitive verbs; as, “Old habits of work, old habits of hope, made my endless leisure irksome to me.”
(b) Verbs of thinking, such as consider, regard, look upon; as, “The student is to read history actively and not passively, to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary.”—Emerson.