12.2: To Be

When a form of be (am, is, are, was, were) serves as the main verb of a sentence, an adverbial of time or place, an adjectival, or a noun phrase will follow it. The following are the three sentence patterns that occur with the be verb:

For definitions and examples of the adverb, adjective, and noun phrase, see Chapter 11.

1. (subject)+(be verb)+(adverbial of time or place)

   Subject	Be	Adverbial of time or place
   The children	Were	Upstairs
   The meeting	Is	Tomorrow
   The nutmeg	Is	On the shelf

   Prepositional phrases often take the form of adverbials, as seen in the third example. For a definition and examples of prepositional phrases, see Chapter 12, Lesson 2.
2. (subject)+(be verb)+(subject complement [adjective])

   Subject	Be	Subject complement [adj.]
   The children	Were	Excited
   The meeting	Is	Boring
   Jacob	Is	In a bad mood

   Sometimes a prepositional phrase, in the form of an idiomatic expression, will fill the role of subject complement, as seen in the third example
3. (subject)+(be verb)+(subject complement [noun phrase])

   Subject	Be	Subject complement [NP]
   The children	Were	Angels
   The meeting	Will be	A success

Review Questions

Identify the subject and be verb of each sentence—as well as the adverbial, subject complement [adj.], or subject complement [noun phrase].

1. My neighbor is uncommonly thrifty.
2. The Oldsmobile was on its last legs
3. Celia is the CEO of a large multinational corporation.
4. The last performance of Death of a Salesman was on Friday.
5. The plumber will be here soon.