Bruce,

I agree that it the distinction is fuzzy or imagined, but isn't that often
the nature of language?

Thanks for your explanation. Let's see if I understood it. I'm a baby
linguist.

I noticed that he curtains were always closed whenever I visited the
reclusive artist.
This is a gradable adjective with an adverb or extent.

Now I'm trying to use curtains and closed in a passive construction and my
mind is blank. Can anyone help?

Christine Martin







--

Christine Reintjes Martin
[log in to unmask]




>From: Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Past participle as Adjective or Verb
>Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:43:54 -0700
>
>Christine & Carol & al.
>
>I wonder if this distinction we make between the passive voice of a verb
>and
>the past participle used as an adjective is more imagined than real.  It
>seems
>clear enough that the decision would help us when it came to translating
>our
>sentence into Latin or another language where the passive voice has a
>distinct
>form.  Yet even then there are times when their constructions are
>ambiguous.
>The presence of the adverb of extent ("widely") modifying the participle
>makes
>us want to claim that the participle is now an adjective for sure.  Still,
>its
>meaning is virtually the same as the agent phrase ("by many people") would
>be,
>so that translation into an active sentence could occur.  So the
>distinction
>is
>not so much in the meaning as it is in the syntax.  And in English the
>syntactic
>differences are negligible, 1) passive voice is more or less clear when
>there
>is
>an agent phrase, and 2) the past participle as a gradable adjective is
>clear
>when there is an adverb of extent.  We're on the borderline when the agent
>phrase looks like a manner phrase or when there is no adverb of extent
>expressed.
>
>Bruce
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 2/3/2005 1:25:01 PM >>>
>
>Carol,
>
>I asked a similar question last year. One explanation I received was that
>there are two possibilites with the passive construction.
>
>The curtains were closed by the nurse. (Obviously passive voice)
>
>When I entered, the curtains were closed. (More of a description unless the
>action happened just as I entered)
>
>I find this hard to explain to students who are just learning passive
>construction and linking verbs.
>
>
>
>--
>
>Christine Reintjes Martin
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
> >From: Carol Eisenhower <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> ><[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Past participle as Adjective or Verb
> >Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 13:47:01 -0500
> >
> >Hi All
> >I teach a basic grammar class for college freshmen, and the text that
> >I'm using identifies the following sentence as S+LV+SC
> >"Martin Lurther King Jr. was widely admired."
> >To me "was admired" looks like a passive verb phrase similar to the
> >following:
> >"The children were frightened by the monster."
> >Can someone help me with what I'm missing here?
> >Thanks
> >Carol
> >
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>
>
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