COMPLEMENTS.

+Hints for Oral Instruction+.--When we say, _The sun gives_, we express no
complete thought. The subject _sun_ is complete, but the predicate _gives_
does not make a complete assertion. When we say, _The sun gives light_, we
do utter a complete thought. The predicate _gives_ is completed by the word
_light_. Whatever fills out, or _completes_, we call a +Complement+. We
will therefore call _light_ the complement of the predicate. As _light_
completes the predicate by naming the thing acted upon, we call it the
+Object Complement+.

Expressions like the following may be written on the board, and by a series
of questions the pupils may be made to dwell upon these facts till they are
thoroughly understood.

The officer arrested -----;
the boy found -----;
Charles saw -----;
coopers make -----.

Besides these verbs requiring object complements, there are others that do
not make complete sense without the aid of a complement of _another_
kind.

A complete predicate does the asserting and expresses what is asserted. In
the sentence, _Armies march_, _march_ is a complete predicate, for it does
the asserting and expresses what is asserted; viz., _marching_. In the
phrase, _armies marching_, _marching_ expresses the same act as that
denoted by _march_, but it _asserts_ nothing. In the sentence, _Chalk is
white_, _is_ does the asserting, but it does not express what is asserted.