Circumstantials functioning as central clause elements
Certain verbs predict a circumstantial element, without which the clause is incomplete syntactically and semantically. They then have the status of a Complement, and are summarized again here:
• Location in place or time, after a verb of position such as be, stay, live, lie, etc., as in: We live in troubled times, The farm is situated in a valley.
• Extent in time or place with verbs such as take, as in The journey takes several days, or last, as in The performance lasts (for) three hours, in which the preposition is optional. In discourse, the time duration may be omitted if it is understood, as in Their love didn’t last, meaning ‘didn’t last a long time’.
• Direction and Goal after verbs of movement such as go, come or of movement + manner such as fly, as in We flew south (Direction), We flew to New York (Goal).
• Source in She tiptoed out of the bedroom, We flew from London.
• Manner with behave, as in, She is behaving rather strangely. Also with one sense of the transitive verb treat, as in: They treated the prisoners badly.
