adjective or adverb

Question

You are late!is late an adjective or adverb in this phase?It means 'you have arrived late' so I am guessing it's and adverb.

Jonglish · Accepted Answer

jonglishand adverb

an adverb no and.. woops just a typo honest

BillJ · Answer

jonglishYou are late!is late an adjective or adverb in this phase?It means 'you have arrived late' so I am guessing it's and adverb.

Wrong guess! It's an adjective denoting a property of the subject "you".

It is confusing, though, with adjective-adverb pairs like "late" where there is little if any difference in meaning between the adjectival and adverbial meanings.

It can be paraphrased as You have arrived late, where it would be an adverb. And it can also be an adverb in such examples as Our friends stayed late, and Ed arrived two hours late.

But in your example it is an adjective functioning as a subjective predicative complement.

BillJ

adjective or adverb

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