Examples of direct and indirect objects are, direct, “She seldom saw her course at a glance;” indirect, “I give thee this to wear at the collar.”

[Sidenote:  Complement:]

344.  A complement is a word added to a verb of incomplete predication to complete its meaning.

Notice that a verb of incomplete predication may be of two kinds,—­transitive and intransitive.

[Sidenote:  Of a transitive verb.]

The transitive verb often requires, in addition to the object, a word to define fully the action that is exerted upon the object; for example, “Ye call me chief.”  Here the verb call has an object me (if we leave out chief), and means summoned; but chief belongs to the verb, and me here is not the object simply of call, but of call chief, just as if to say, “Ye honor me.”  This word completing a transitive verb is sometimes called a factitive object, or second object, but it is a true complement.

The fact that this is a complement can be more clearly seen when the verb is in the passive.  See sentence 19, in exercise following Sec. 364.

[Sidenote:  Complement of an intransitive verb.]

An intransitive verb, especially the forms of be, seem, appear, taste, feel, become, etc., must often have a word to complete the meaning:  as, for instance, “Brow and head were round, and of massive weight;” “The good man, he was now getting old, above sixty;” “Nothing could be more copious than his talk;” “But in general he seemed deficient in laughter.”

All these complete intransitive verbs.  The following are examples of complements of transitive verbs:  “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;” “He was termed Thomas, or, more familiarly, Thom of the Gills;” “A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the world.”

345.  The modifiers and independent elements will be discussed in detail in Secs. 351, 352, 355.

[Sidenote:  Phrases.]

346.  A phrase is a group of words, not containing a verb, but used as a single modifier.

As to form, phrases are of three kinds:—­

[Sidenote:  Three kinds.]

(1) PREPOSITIONAL, introduced by a preposition:  for example, “Such a convulsion is the struggle of gradual suffocation, as in drowning; and, in the original Opium Confessions, I mentioned a case of that nature.”

(2) PARTICIPIAL, consisting of a participle and the words dependent on it.  The following are examples:  “Then retreating into the warm house, and barring the door, she sat down to undress the two youngest children.”

(3) INFINITIVE, consisting of an infinitive and the words dependent upon it; as in the sentence, “She left her home forever in order to present herself at the Dauphin’s court.”