Complementation
Complementation refers to what follows a verb (or adjective/noun) to complete its meaning. In English, verb complementation patterns are largely lexically determined -- each verb selects specific complement types, and these patterns must be learned verb by verb.
Complement Types
That-clauses
- I know that she left.
- He suggested that we wait.
- She believes (that) it will work. (that often omitted in speech)
Common with cognitive verbs (know, think, believe, realise), communication verbs (say, tell, suggest), and emotive verbs (hope, wish, regret).
Infinitive Complements (to + base form)
- She wants to leave.
- He asked me to help.
- They decided to postpone the meeting.
Some verbs take a bare infinitive (without to): She made him leave. / I saw her go.
Gerund Complements (-ing form)
- I enjoy swimming.
- She avoided answering the question.
- He denied stealing the money.
Wh-clause Complements
- I wonder what she meant.
- She asked where I lived.
- They discussed how to proceed.
Verbs Taking Multiple Patterns
Some verbs accept more than one complement type, sometimes with meaning change:
| Verb | + infinitive | + gerund |
|---|---|---|
| remember | Remember to lock the door. (future action) | I remember locking the door. (past action) |
| stop | She stopped to smoke. (purpose) | She stopped smoking. (ceased) |
| try | Try to open it. (attempt) | Try opening it. (experiment) |
| forget | I forgot to call. (didn't do it) | I forgot calling. (don't recall doing it) |
| regret | I regret to inform you. (performative) | I regret telling her. (past action) |
The Learning Burden
Bourke (2005) identified verb complementation as a major pedagogical challenge. The difficulty lies in its lexical specificity:
- No reliable rule predicts which complement a verb takes -- enjoy + -ing but want + to-infinitive; suggest + that-clause/-ing but not *suggest + to-infinitive
- L1 transfer -- complement patterns rarely correspond across languages. Vietnamese learners may produce *I enjoy to swim by analogy with Vietnamese structure
- Fossilisation -- complementation errors persist even at advanced levels because the patterns are stored as individual lexical entries, not derived from general rules
Semantic generalisations offer partial help: verbs referring to actions already happening or completed tend to take -ing (enjoy, finish, avoid); verbs referring to potential or future actions tend to take infinitives (want, decide, hope). But exceptions are numerous.
Teaching Implications
- Teach complementation as part of vocabulary, not grammar -- when learning a new verb, learn what follows it
- Use collocations and chunks: decide to, enjoy -ing, suggest that
- Transformation exercises (infinitive to gerund) have limited value; contextualised practice with specific verbs is more effective
- Error correction should focus on high-frequency verbs with commonly confused patterns
- Corpus-based activities with Concordance Lines can help learners notice patterns in authentic data