COMPLEMENT
COMPLEMENT. A constituent of GRAMMAR that completes the meaning of a word. Broadly, complements can be found for every major word class: VERBS (in Canada in They live in Canada); nouns (of their debt in the payment of their debt); ADJECTIVES (that we're late in I'm aware that we're late); ADVERBS (for me in luckily for me); PREPOSITIONS (our place in at our place). Some grammarians use the term complementation for the constituent or the process of complementing the word. More narrowly, complements refer to constituents that complete the meaning of the verb, including direct objects (their debt in pay their debt), indirect objects (me in Show me the way), and adverbial complements (at them in Look at them). In an even more restricted use, two kinds of complements are recognized for verbs: (1) Subject complements, which follow the verb be and other copular verbs, my best friend in Tom is my best friend. (2) Object complements, which follow a direct object and have a copular relationship with the object: I consider Tom my best friend. Complement clauses are subordinate clauses that function as complements of a word: that they were too noisy in She told them that they were too noisy. The subordinator that introduces a complement clause is sometimes known as a complementizer: for example that in the sentence just cited.
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COMPLEMENT