adjective

Question

I saw from the bridge the running water.Is "running" and adjective or verb?and if it were an adjective.. can it be preceded by "very" ?

GPY · Accepted Answer

It's a verb participle used as an adjective. "very running" isn't right; you can't have different degrees of "running". As far as I can think, the same is true for most -ing adjectives, but there are exceptions such as "very loving" and "very caring"*

*I guess "very" is more likely to be possible in the cases where the grammatical connection with the original verb has weakened, and the words seem more like pure adjectives. Further examples are "very interesting", "very tiring", etc.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

running water

Running is a (participial) modifier
Modern grammarians distinguish different kinds of modifiers.
An adjective is a type of modifier that has comparative and superlative forms, and can be modified by adverbs such as "very."
Determiners, quantifiers and prepositional phrases are other types of modifiers.

GPY · Answer

AlpheccaStarsAn adjective is a type of modifier that has comparative and superlative forms, and can be modified by adverbs such as "very."

What about non-gradable adjectives?

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousI saw from the bridge the running water.Is "running" and adjective or verb?and if it were an adjective.. can it be preceded by "very" ?

You have a word order problem not related to your question: I saw the running water from the bridge.

'running' is derived from the verb 'run'. It is the present participle of 'run'. Nevertheless it passes enough tests of an adjective to qualify as an adjective. I think the best term to describe 'running' in your sentence is 'participial adjective'.

See the tests for an adjective below. You will note that 'running' passes and fails the same tests as the adjective 'finished'. running water, is running, *very running, already running, cold and running water. It fails the test with 'very' because it's a non-gradable participial adjective.

CJ

The tests for an adjective are as follows. An adjective generally can be used before a noun, after a linking verb, with the adverbs very, rather, more, or most, (sometimes with already), and coordinated with another adjective with and. Not all of these are possible for every adjective, but they are generally possible for most adjectives. The following examples show, with these tests, how finished is an adjective.
a finished product (use before a noun)
The work is finished. (use after a linking verb)
*very finished (not possible since finished is not gradable)
already finished (use with already)
It is finished and ready. (with and and another adjective)

RandomGuy · Answer

AnonymousI saw from the bridge the running water.
Is "running" and adjective or verb?

It’s a verb (participle) _FUNCTIONING as attributive modifier. It fails three crucial adjective tests:

1. It is non-gradable.
2. When used predicatively, it is clearly a verb. You can hardly call running an adjective in The water is running.
3. There are some adverbs that can modify adjectives but not verbs. They include very, pretty (in the sense “fairly, quite”), and too (in the sense “excessively”), none of which can modify running.

If you call running an adjective, then you’ll also have to call, say, brick an adjective in a brick wall.

I think BillJ makes an excellent point here:

“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 adjective 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 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.”

()

CalifJim · Answer

Aspara GusIt fails three crucial adjective tests: 1. It is non-gradable.

That means that 'perfect' and 'unique' and 'true' and 'false' and ... and ... are not adjectives. This claim eliminates as adjectives all words in the traditional class "non-gradable adjective".

— in which case, which category do 'perfect', 'unique', ... belong to?

Aspara GusYou can hardly call running an adjective in The water is running.

OK. Bad example. I imagine you wouldn't accept 'running' as an adjective under any circumstances, so I'm not even going to try to come up with a better example.

Aspara GusIf you call running an adjective, then you’ll also have to call, say, brick an adjective in a brick wall.

I don't see that this is a necessary jump in logic. I'd say 'brick' is a noun and 'running' is a (participial) adjective.

Aspara GusThis gives no real concept of adjective at all. It becomes the largest category of all

It goes without saying that one of the categories will contain more items than the others. What's so scary about the fact that this category might be "Adjectives"? Bill may have a point, but hyperbolic concerns about which category contains the most words does not support it.
_____________

I can almost accept most of what you're saying, but not the claim that being non-gradable disqualifies a word from being an adjective.

I am uneasy, though, about calling a modifier of a noun a verb, giving the analysis verb + noun to such combinations as 'found object', 'walking stick', 'parking space', and 'united voice'. The fact is that the verb must be altered to give it the property of being able to modify nouns. Verbs can also be altered to give them the property of being able to be subjects or objects of sentences: divide > division. So it seems that, to be consistent, maybe 'division' should also be called a verb.

In other words, I don't see the logic of "It is derived from a verb; therefore, it IS a verb". Once you start down that road, you get nonsense. "unfortunately" is derived from the noun "fortune"; therefore, it IS a noun.

CJ

RandomGuy · Answer

CalifJimI don't see that this is a necessary jump in logic.

Why not? It fails all the same tests that running does.

CalifJim…but not the claim that being non-gradable disqualifies a word from being an adjective.

I didn’t intend to make that claim, but after re-reading my post, I can see why you got that impression. Of course unique, perfect, etc., are adjectives. The point I was trying to make is that because running fails all three tests, it can’t be an adjective.

Gee whiz! My feelings have really changed on this topic. Last year I would have just called it an adjective. Maybe I’m getting too uptight.

CalifJim · Answer

Aspara GusGee whiz! My feelings have really changed on this topic. Last year I would have just called it an adjective. Maybe I’m getting too uptight.

Mine have changed too. It's just that I keep seeing what I think are inconsistencies that puzzle me too much to think about. The words 'old', 'new', 'dog', and 'tricks' come to mind.

I haven't noticed the uptight part, but then I'm not always as observant as I should be.

I'll need to think some more about those adjective tests. I suspect they may be arbitrary and that there is a way to restructure them so that 'running' fits into the adjective category.

CJ

Grammarfreak · Answer

Just my 2 cents from the side line. Let it be known. I am humbled by the linguistic expertise demonstrated by the experts. I have learned a few terms here and there along the way which are new to me. However, what I discovered is, my undertanding of the this language seemed to be more in line with CJ explanations, and therefore tend to see things in the same light from a former-learner perspective. As I was taught long ago, "ing" verbs placed in front of a noun was explained simply as an " adjective for the sake of easy understanding of basic- general grammar, which is more or less the level of Englsih of most people learning English as a second language here, if I am not mistaken. Majority of the questions posted are about general grammar. So the linguistic explanation may or may not help them in identifying the linguistic function and property of an "ing" verb as they may be beyond their ability to comprehend. I went through the same confusion myself.

Example sentence: In some parts of the world, people still live in places where running water is considered a luxury. In this sentence, I was taught, "running" was an verbal adjective. That was all. Then later, I learned the term "ing" adjective, and present participle adjective respectively. So I guess my question is, for someone who may be taking TOEFL or similar test, what should the general grammar term be with this kind of "ing" verb which may be showing up in the test. Comments are appreciated.

Fivejedjon · Answer

We have here a problem of labelling similar to one that has cropped up in other threads,

Life was simpler when I was at school in England in the 1950s and 1960s. In those days, dictionaries and those writers on grammar and style known to teachers largely agreed on the 'rules' and on the terminology. Unfortunately, when my generation began to think for ourselves, we discovered that some of the rules were arbitrary and prescriptive, having little to do with the language spoken my many people in their everyday lives, and that many of the labels used were very difficult to justify.

The growing popularity of linguistics as a field of study and the increasing acceptance of a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach to grammar, and the tendency of writers to invent new terminology and/or use traditional terminology to mean new things have led to a confusing situation. I have several times, in this and other forums, have had slightly warm disagreements with others about some topics, only to realise that we agreed on how the language was used, but disagreed completely on the terminology.

Whenever I read new grammars, I spend some time trying to work out what labels the writer is using and exactly how they are using them - and don't always succeed.

grammarfreak As I was taught long ago, "ing" verbs placed in front of a noun was explained simply as an " adjective for the sake of easy understanding of basic- general grammar, which is more or less the level of Englsih of most people learning English as a second language here, if I am not mistaken. Majority of the questions posted are about general grammar. So the linguistic explanation may or may not help them in identifying the linguistic function and property of an "ing" verb as they may be beyond their ability to comprehend.

I have a great deal of sympathy with this point of view, though I don't entirely agree. I have had to un-teach many of the 'helpful' rules and explanations my students have been given in their learning career - such rules and explanations are frequently too general, and sometimes downright misleading.

On the other hand, some of us (I admit my own guilt) are so caught up in what we consider to be the 'correct' theoretical explanation of structures that we lose sight of what may be the learners' immediate needs,

I'd better end my ramble here before it becomes even more irrelevant to the original question.

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