Bruce's example of a sentence intended to impart the present state of
the party might be made even clearer if the very in the clause is put in
the present tense:
When I asked him about the schedule for today, he told us that the party
is cancelled.
Now cancelled is truly an adjectival subject complement, as locked is in
I can't get in; the door is locked.
_____
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Passive voice vs. adjectival
Jed,
My own sense of the language makes me want to be more precise in the
tense-aspect setting of the sentence you quote. In my mind the simple
past tense in "was cancelled" seems to be placing it at some definite
time in the past:
He told us that when the committee met the party was cancelled.
This would be distinct from the probable intended meaning of the
sentence that would be more precisely expressed:
He told us that party had been cancelled.
Both these sentences are passives; the action was performed to bring the
party into this state. However, if the topic and interest in making the
statement is to impart the present state of the party without reference
to the action that brought it about, then the predicate adjective would
be the natural interpretation:
When I asked him about the schedule for today, he told us that the party
was cancelled.
The line between the two interpretations is fine, especially when there
is no context against which to make the judgement.
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 03/16/06 6:47 AM >>>
Hi all,
I have a question about the following sentence:
He told us that the party was cancelled.
A student of mine was analyzing this sentence and suggested that
cancelled could be seen as an adjectival (a participal functioning as a
predicate adjective). My initial response was that cancelled was simply
the lexical verb in a passive voice verb string with was being the past
tense auxiliary. However, I'm hesitant to "veto" the student's
interpretation. Not to be too Humpty Dumpty about it, but is it
plausible to say that cancelled functions however the student perceives
it/means it to function? If he perceives this structure as a
modification of party and NOT as an agentless passive, then can I accept
and validate his interpretation?
! Thanks for helping me think through this!
Jed
*****************************************************************
John E. Dews
Instructor, Undergraduate Linguistics
MA-TESOL/Applied Linguistics Program
Educator, Secondary English Language Arts
English Department, 208 Rowand-Johnson Hall (Office)
University of Alabama
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