I was under the impression that every sentence has a subject–verb–object (SVO) where S and V are compulsory and O is optional.
So basically I was wondering in the sentence "I'm Tom." is the subject "I" and the verb "am" ? But what about the "Tom" ? It simply can't be an object right?
Answer
Not every sentence is SVO. SVO refers to the general pattern of those primary constituents for English and a variety of other languages when discussing language typology. It's not a language requirement.
Intransitive verbs in English, for example, don't need an object. In fact, they can't take an object:
- He died, for example, doesn't have an object.
- *He died poison, is not grammatical.
be (the copula) is a strange verb in most languages. Some would analyse simple sentences such as I am Tom as stative passive, with Tom being the complement of I.
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