Adverbial Complements
Adverbs or adverbial elements required to complete a verb's meaning, without which the sentence is incomplete.
Some verbs are not satisfied with just a subject and an object. They demand an additional element that tells us where, how, or in what direction — and without it, the sentence collapses. This required element is an adverbial complement, an adverbial phrase or word that is not optional decoration but a structural necessity. The simplest test is deletion: remove it, and the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
Consider the verb put. You cannot say Please put the book and stop — the listener will wait for more. The sentence only becomes complete when you supply a location: Please put the book on the shelf. The same is true of send in certain uses: The teacher sent Tim home is complete, but The teacher sent Tim is not. Even adverbs of manner can be complements: She worded the letter carefully implies that the wording required a particular manner — without it, the meaning shifts from how she worded it to the bare fact that she wrote a letter.
Adverbial complements most frequently express location or direction, and they cluster around motion verbs and placement verbs: put, place, send, go, set, lay, keep, treat. If you say I treated him, the sentence is incomplete — treated him how? Add the complement and it resolves: I treated him fairly or I treated him with respect.
The complement/adjunct distinction is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools in English syntax. An adjunct adds optional detail: She walked to the park slowly. Remove slowly and you still have She walked to the park — a complete sentence. An adverbial complement cannot be removed: Put the book is broken. This test works reliably across all verb types.
Some verbs can take an adverbial complement in one sense but not in another. He went can mean he left (complete, intransitive), but He went to the store uses a complement because the meaning of went in context of travel demands a destination. Pay attention to how the verb's meaning changes with context, and use the deletion test whenever you are unsure whether an adverbial element is required or optional.
Examples
Please put the book on the shelf.
The teacher sent Tim home.