Bruce,

I’ve heard constructions like “the bright colored dress” (I don’t know if it’s a dialect issue, but I’m from Alabama and the person posting was from Texas). There’s an important way in which stress figures into the interpretation, though: it’s usually pronounced like “a bright-colored dress,” not “a bright, colored dress.” In fact, I’m not sure anyone would ever describe a dress simply as “colored”; after all, even white is a color, and transparent dresses would probably violate local statutes.

One possible explanation is that speakers vary in the extent to which they regard “colored” as basically verbal. “A bright-hued dress” is not very odd, possibly because we don’t use commonly use “hue” as a verb.

Bill Spruiell

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 10:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: bright and brightly

Steve,

I agree with David. But the process viewpoint of deep structure may be helpful. It is of some interest that "colored" is an adjective built from a verb and called a participle. The -ly on "brightly" is normally a formative for making a manner adverb so that there seems to be a covert relation to the verb phrase "color in a bright manner," but this is deceptive.

The names for the various colors in English are structured as nouns. But they often appear as attributes: "the dress is red" instead of "the dress is of red." When we say "bright red" we are describing a noun with an adjective, but the phrase again appears as an attribute: "the dress is bright red" instead of "the dress is of bright red." (This is a predicate adjective rather than a predicate noun, which would imply equivalence.)

I belive that the locution "the bright colored dress" is saying that the dress is bright and that it is colored, and that it is not necessarily the brightness of the colors that make it so. In fact we could be asking for two conflicting attributes here; that the dress be colored, but also bright. (A dress that is bright red might fill both requirements.)

The dress could be "colored red." This construction is often called an objective complement: "someone colored the dress red." It is possible to extend this construction to: "someone colored the dress bright red." There might be a blending with another objective complement: "someone colored the dress bright." But the manner interpretation does not really seem possible: ??"someone colored the dress brightly." I believe the -ly does not form a manner adverb here, but comes from the adverbalization of "bright" (was objective complement) in conjunction with the adjectivalization of the verb "color" to its participle form.

Bruce

>>> [log in to unmask] 11/3/2005 7:24:34 AM >>>

On Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:12:31 +0900
Steve Cornwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This may be a very simple question for this list, but a
>student asked me why we can
> use "brightly" before "color" as in "the brightly
>colored dress," but we use "bright" before "red" as in
>"the bright red dress." We cannot/do not normally say
>the "brightly red dress."
>
> Any insights will be appreciated.
>
> thanks,
>
> steve c.

In my opinion, Steve, "brightly" is an adverb modifying
"colored," and "bright" is an adjective modifying "red.

Peace,

David Brown
ESL/EFL Teacher
Long Beach, CA
USA

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