Craig,
I’m encouraged by your willingness to teach prototypes. I’ve done it in grammar classes, and some students grasped it quickly while others had trouble with the squishiness of prototypes. As to your examples, for any word, there is a range of meanings with a corresponding range of grammatical structures. This fact has long been the bane of judgments of grammaticality, raising doubts about whether such judgments are worth much. Granted that “closed” can be modified, when applied to Ontario Provincial Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula, near where we spend much of the summer, “closed” in the winter tends to be binary.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Hancock, Craig G
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2015 9:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Passive Voice vs. Copular + Predicate Adjective
Herb,
I think we can say that something is "partly" or "partially" closed. (window, door, bridge.) My university sometimes "partially closes" and is therefore "partially closed" as a result. (They cancel classes but keep the offices open.) "I didn't see who actually fired the shot because the door was partially closed." We can use "very" before open in some contexts ("He had a very open personality"), but it seems awkward to me in others. ("The window was very open" *?) I think we would probably say "wide open."
You could explain it also as a question of "construal." Someone closed the port, but for a boat approaching from sea, that may be irrelevant. The child who wants to know if he has a snow day doesn't care who closed the school. And, of course, the TV station will give a list of "school closings," which construes the whole action as a "thing." We also have "the close of the show" as an option.
I vote for teaching about prototypes early and often. We do a terrible job with parts of speech in our schools. Students memorize definitions that are close to worthless in application. Certainly, we should teach that the boundaries are not rigid or fixed and that words shift category routinely. Students recognize prototypes for things like furniture or fruit. My experience has been that they enjoy looking at language that way, not least of all because it seems to fit.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English
Grammar <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Stahlke, Herbert <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2015 8:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Passive Voice vs. Copular + Predicate Adjective
One of the standard tests for copula+predicate adjective is whether the adjective allows an adverbial modifier. Since “closed” is not gradable, It doesn’t allow “very” or other intensifiers that would show it to be an adjective. The present tense verb suggests a predicate adjective interpretation since “by order of the magistrate” works better than “by the magistrate.” “By order of…” is not an agent phrase and suggests that “closed” here is an adjective. With past tense, “The roads and ports were closed by the magistrate” works as a passive.” We can also have parallel structures, like “During the winter, the roads on the Bruce Peninsula are closed more often than they’re open,” where the parallel between “closed” and “open” suggests that “closed” is an adjective. Using “opened” in the same sentence sounds decidedly odd, since we have a clear morphological distinction between adjective and participle in “open/opened,” which is not the case with “closed.”
On your spin-off question, there is certainly a close relationship between the two. The copular predicate construction has historically been a pathway from verb to adjective, and the example you posted about is a good illustration of the close relationship.
Perhaps the most important upshot of this topic is the recognition that what we call “parts of speech” are, in fact, not discrete categories but rather represent prototypes. The prototypical verb is a transitive, with its agentive subject and a direct object. This type of verb, like “hit,” converts easily into the passive. Stative verbs like “have” do not generally allow passives, hence the oddity of “A good time was had by all,” and stative adjectives, like “tall” do not allow imperatives or progressives. You can say “She is tall,” but not “Be tall” or “She is being tall.” With an active adjective like “kind,” those are both possible: “Be kind!” “She’s being kind.”
I’m not sure I’d spend a lot of time in a writing class explaining prototype theory as it applies to parts of speech even though the concept is useful in answering your question.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of
English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Larry Barkley
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2015 3:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Passive Voice vs. Copular + Predicate Adjective
Good Afternoon, a colleague and I are debating whether the following sentence exhibits a passive construction or a copular/linking verb
and a predicate adjective:
The roads and ports are closed due to the weather conditions.
Observations are (1) the structure is passive, merely missing/excluding the prepositional phrase that would house the actor, e.g. "The roads and ports are closed by the magistrate due to the weather conditions"; (2) the sentence is simply one which exhibits
a copular/linking verb, "is," and a predicate adjective, "closed."
But I also have a spin-off question: can both structures exist simultaneously? Is the nature of passive voice to exhibit a copular/linking verb with a predicate adjective?
Thank you.
Best,
Larry
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