Complement of an intransitive verb.
An intransitive verb, especially the forms of be, seem, appear, taste, feel, become, etc., must often have a word to complete the meaning: as, for instance, "Brow and head were round, and of massive weight;" "The good man, he was now getting old, above sixty;" "Nothing could be more copious than his talk;" "But in general he seemed deficient in laughter."
All these complete intransitive verbs. The following are examples of complements of transitive verbs: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;" "He was termed Thomas, or, more familiarly, Thom of the Gills;" "A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the world."
345. The modifiers and independent elements will be discussed in detail in Secs. 351, 352, 355.
Phrases.
346. A phrase is a group of words, not containing a verb, but used as a single modifier.
As to form, phrases are of three kinds:—
Three kinds.
(1) PREPOSITIONAL, introduced by a preposition: for example, "Such a convulsion is the struggle of gradual suffocation, as in drowning; and, in the original Opium Confessions, I mentioned a case of that nature."
(2) PARTICIPIAL, consisting of a participle and the words dependent on it. The following are examples: "Then retreating into the warm house, and barring the door, she sat down to undress the two youngest children."