Learn English – How to identify whether an infinitive phrase functions as a direct object or an object complement

Numerous adjectives like “glad”, “anxious”, “sure”, “amazed” etc. license infinitivals, and hence such clauses are complements. By contrast, adjuncts (your adverbials) do not have to be licensed by the head.

I don't know why the authors talk of 'nominal to-infinitive clauses. Infinitivals are not nominals; they are clauses, not noun-like expressions.

Consequently, they don't functioning as direct objects. Take the cited example:

We want everyone [to be happy].

"Everyone to be happy" is not direct object of "want". “Want” is a catenative verb and “to be happy” is its catenative complement. The intervening NP “everyone” is the syntactic object of “want”, but only the understood subject of “to be happy”. “Everyone” is called a ‘raised’ object because the verb that it relates to syntactically is higher in the constituent structure than the one it relates to semantically.

"Worth" is often called a transitive adjective because in addition to clauses, it licenses NP complements: "It's not worth the money".

@BillJ is correct, but let me explain why.

an object complement noun is usually a noun or adjective that modifies the direct object. The phrase "to stop complaining" is neither a noun or an adjective, which gives us the hint that it's not an object complement noun.

The sentence construction is catenative, meaning that the verb (in your case, "told") is followed by a function word ("to," "on," "for," etc.). In other words, a sentence of the form:

Subject verb1 [to|on|for|...] (predicate or...) verb2 (predicate)

Examples:

You stopped to observe the painting.

You stopped at the painting to observe.

In both examples:

• Subject = "you"
• Verb1 = "to stop"
• Verb2 = "to observe"
• Predicate = "the painting"

Catenative verbs can be thought of as verbs that need or are benefited by a following or associated action. Using my examples above, you could say...

You stopped at the painting.

Which is a complete sentence. By adding the "to observe" at the end puts the sentence in its catenative form and adds context to why you stopped.

For more information, please read this article at Wikipedia.