What is the grammatical topic of this shortening technique?

Extracted from an English cloze test: …..these virtual selves exist in the same online spaces that many people use every day. And this is a new and unfamiliar phenomenon that some people might find___________ — previously dead people were not present in this way. trouble troubled troubling be troubled to trouble The answer is 3 … Read more

Can ‘smart home’ and similar phrases be adjectives if followed by a noun, or do they become complements?

I’m having some confusion here as I’ve been tasked with checking that some texts fit a style guide for work, and it requires that two adjectives directly preceding a noun be hyphenated, e.g. ‘well-dressed woman’. That example is straightforward enough for me, but I have no clue how far it extends. I’m seeing a lot … Read more

What is the nature of, and syntactic distinction between, modifier and complement?

I am struggling to understand the syntactic relevance of the distinction between complement and modifier in theories such as the one presented in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum (henceforth CaGel). Specifically, I’d like to know (i) Is there a concise, precise definition of each of these functions, saying exactly … Read more

CaGEL equivalent to obligatory adverbial?

When I learnt grammar in school, I was taught that there are optional and obligatory adverbials. Trying to understand grammar in the form presented by Huddleston and Pullum (e.g. the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar), I’m wondering how to deal with “obligatory adverbials” such as the following: … Read more

How is transitivity defined in CGEL?

This ques­tion is specif­i­cally for those who are fa­mil­iar with the 2002 edi­tion of The Cam­bridge Gram­mar of the English Lan­guage by Hud­dle­ston and Pul­lum. The book has this pas­sage at page 272: Strictly speak­ing, an in­tran­si­tive prepo­si­tion may have a com­ple­ment other than an ob­ject NP – e.g. ow­ing in ow­ing to the rain … Read more

How to tell if something is a core complement or a non-core complement?

CaGEL on page 216 cite the following: “Kim gave the key to Pat” An NP indirectly related to the verb through the preposition is referred as an oblique. The phrase “to Pat” is a non-core compliment of the verb give, but the NP Pat is an oblique. In a double object construction where both the … Read more

How to analyze e.g., “The man had trouble finding shoes to fit”

In a sentence like "The man had trouble finding shoes to fit," how might "had trouble finding shoes to fit" be analyzed? Is this like a direct object ("trouble") and object complement (the gerundive "finding shoes to fit")? Furthermore, would the infinitive "to fit" be a complement to "finding"? Thank you for any thoughts on … Read more