“. . . I’ve wanted to go to see you and Adam but I didn’t think I
could do any good.”
“Well, you can’t do any harm. I thought he’d
get over it. But he still walks around like a ghost.”
“It’s over
a year, isn’t it?” Samuel asked.
“Three months over.”
“Well, what do you think I can do?”
“I don’t know,” said Lee.
“Maybe you could shock him out of it. Nothing else has
worked.”
. . . . . .
Suddenly he plucked his hard thumbs
out of his neighbor’s throat.
(John Steinbeck, East of Eden)The second prepositional phrase seems to be adverbial, while the first predicative complement over the object-him. What are the two’s role in their sentences?
Answer
On consideration, I’m going to go with my original instinct. Both phrases are resultative complements rather than adjuncts of their respective verbs, and both describe the final ‘position’ which the verbs cause their respective direct objects to lie in.
-
You could shock him out of it
INITIAL STATE: He is in ‘it’ = a state of depression.
ACTION: You cause him to ‘depart from’ that state.
RESULT: He is out of it. -
He plucked his hard thumbs out of his neighbor’s throat.
INITIAL STATE: His thumbs are in his neighbor’s throat.
ACTION: He he caused his thumbs to ‘depart from’ his neighbor’s throat.
RESULT: His thumbs are out of his neighbor’s throat.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Listenever , Answer Author : StoneyB on hiatus
