Complement

A complement normally follows the verb phrase. The main verb is usually BE.

A complement tells us something about the nature of the subject (or object). It can be an adjective, a noun phrase, or a pronoun or number. Let's see some examples in the tables below.

An adjective (sometimes with modifiers like very)

subject	verb phrase	complement ...
His brother	was	(very) famous.
The bottle	is	(nearly) empty.
These pears	must be	ripe (enough to pick).

A noun phrase

subject	verb phrase	complement ...
His brother	was	a famous singer.
These	are	my best shirts.
He	must be	Mr Brown.

A pronoun or number

subject	verb phrase	complement ...
His advice	is	this.
That book	is	mine.
My father	will be	fifty (years old) on 21st February.
This	is	me*.

* The choice of pronoun in "This is I" and "This is me", etc. is discussed under Personal Pronoun.

Also some adverbs and prepositional phrases can be complements.
(1) The TV is on.
(2) His father is in good health.

The complement can follow the verb BE, as in examples in the tables above, or another LINKING VERB such as seem or BECOME.

Another LINKING VERBS

subject	verb phrase	complement ...
The judge	seems	(extremely) annoyed.
Sam and James	became	our friends.

A complement can also follow the object of the clause.

subject	verb phrase	object	complement ...
He	calls	his wife	"darling".
Many people	thought	Kane	mad.
This work	is making	Sam	lazy.

In this case, the complement is called an Object Complement: it describes some quality of the object, not of the subject. In contrast, the complement we showed in the first four tables above is called a Subject Complement.

I hope this article helps. If you have any question, please leave a comment below.