Adjective

Question

a sentence with rent as an adjective

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

a sentence with rent as an adjective

Sounds like a good idea.

Clive

PS - Tom received a rent increase.

BillJ · Answer

Anonymousa sentence with rent as an adjective

Not possible! Rent is either a noun: 'The rent is due', or a verb: 'I rented the car'. If you use 'rent' with another noun, as in 'rent book' or 'rent collector', it's still a noun but it's functioning as a modifier. The mistake is to confuse word class (like adjective, noun, verb etc.) with function (like modifier, subject, predicate etc.).

BillJ

CalifJim · Answer

How about a rent fabric?

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

BillJit's still a noun but it's functioning as a modifier.

Why can't it be a verb functioning as a modifier -- since it can be either a noun or a verb?

And anyway is it really functioning as a modifier (without being a modifier)?
Or is it simply a modifier?
Or should we say that its function is to modify?

CJ

BillJ · Answer

CalifJimHow about a rent fabric?

Nice try CJ, but still a noun I'm afraid. The noun 'rent' (meaning a large tear in a piece of fabric) comes from the verb 'rend' which essentially means 'to tear' or cause 'emotional pain'. Typically one says 'there's a rent in this fabric', not 'this fabric is rent', but even as a past participle (rare) it still wouldn't be an adjective.

BillJ

BillJ · Answer

CalifJimquote user="BillJ"]it's still a noun but it's functioning as a modifier.

Why can't it be a verb functioning as a modifier -- since it can be either a noun or a verb?

And anyway is it really functioning as a modifier (without being a modifier)?
Or is it simply a modifier?
Or should we say that its function is to modify?

CJ

It can indeed be a verb functioning as a modifier (though, as I said, its use as a past participle is rare -possibly archaic even - in any case it still wouldn't belong to the word class adjective, which is the point the OP asked about).

Incidentally, I very much doubt that the OP was thinking of 'rent' as a past participle of the verb 'rend'.

BillJ

CalifJim · Answer

BillJNice try CJ, but still a noun I'm afraid.

a rent fabric, as in a torn fabric? Seriously? A noun?

Sorry, I don't buy it. Verb maybe, but not noun, archaic or not.

As a noun, we'd have this analogy:

a rent fabric ~ a tear fabric

which is nonsense, I think.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

BillJI very much doubt that the OP was thinking of 'rent' as a past participle of the verb 'rend'.

So do I, but given your rejection of the examples thus far given in the thread, what was left as an answer to the OP? I thought it was worth a try that you might believe rent (the archaic past participle of rend) was an adjective. If not, your answer to the OP is that there is no answer, I suppose.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

BillJIt can indeed be a verb functioning as a modifier

I think you failed to address one of my points here, as you continued the use of the phrase functioning as.

If you continually use the phrase "It functions as a modifier" instead of saying "It is a modifier", I believe you may have a problem. It seems that a great many things function as modifiers in your way of looking at syntax, but nothing is a modifier.

To function as something is not the same as to be that something. (A dictionary can function as a door-stop. That doesn't mean it is a door-stop.)

Given that that is the case, what objection can you have (if indeed you do at all) to such turns of phrase as "In the rent bill, rent functions as an adjective" -- since there is no claim that it is an adjective? Isn't 'functioning as an adjective' the same as 'functioning as a modifier' where the modification of a noun is concerned?

CJ

BillJ · Answer

CalifJim
BillJIt can indeed be a verb functioning as a modifier
I think you failed to address one of my points here, as you continued the use of the phrase functioning as.

If you continually use the phrase "It functions as a modifier" instead of saying "It is a modifier", I believe you may have a problem. It seems that a great many things function as modifiers in your way of looking at syntax, but nothing is a modifier.

To function as something is not the same as to be that something. (A dictionary can function as a door-stop. That doesn't mean it is a door-stop.)

The tradition is to call things "adjectives" whenever their intuitive (semantic) function is to modify the meaning of a noun or add information about the referent of a noun. This gives no real concept of adjectives at all. It becomes the largest category of all, because every noun must be in it as well as every real adjective and every past participle form of a verb and every gerund-participle form of a verb and every other item that can ever modify a noun. They even call relative clauses "adjective clauses". It's madness.

So we distinguish the function "modifier of" from the category (or word class) "adjective". In general, we try to keep the decisions about whether some word is an adjective (which can be decided independently of any particular expression) separate from the ones about whether some constituent in a given expression has a certain function.

BillJ

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