Scott --

I'd say it was an adjective, of the type that's made out of a verb (if the class has talked in some way about participles, with or without the term actually being used). You can put "very" in front of it easily, which supports the idea that it's an adjective or adverb, and you can rule out adverb fairly easily too (it's not movable, you should be able to say "excitingly" there if it were an adverb, etc.). If the class hasn't talked about verb forms being used as adjectives, maybe this would be a good place to bring it up. You can nudge the word verbwards by adding something interpretable only as an object: "What had been exciting everyone now just made them confused" (but then the "very" test bombs).

If you're talking about grammatical role, it's a subject complement inside a wh-clause acting as subject… but I was guessing that seventh grade probably hasn't focused much on nominal clauses and embedding.

--- Bill Spruiell

From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Reply-To: ATEG English Grammar <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 09:59:33 -0800
To: ATEG English Grammar <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: grammar question--verb v. participle

Dear List,

How would you describe "exciting" in the following sentence?

<What had been exciting gave her a feeling of dazed helplessness.>

How would you explain your reasoning to 7th graders?

Thanks,

Scott Woods
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