Passive or adjective?

Question

Hi
I am now learning to distinguish between passive and adjective use of past participle.
And one way for this distinction is putting 'very' in front of a past participle : if the sentence becomes ungrammatical, it is a passive sentence and if not, a sentence with an adjective.

So the text book says sentence B and D are UNgrammatical because they are both passive sentences and thus cannot be modified by an adverb 'very', which i sadly do not agree. To me, all four look grammatical. Is the text book wrong or am i wrong? Please check the grammaticality of the following sentences and explain reasons.

A. I am very disturbed by your attitude.
B. *I am very disturbed by you.
C. They were relieved by the next group of sentries.
D. *They were very relieved by the next group of sentries.

And no offense, but if English is your second language, please inform it in your answers because native speakers' intuitions are what i am desperately looking for.

Fivejedjon · Accepted Answer

Sang A KimAnd no offense, but if English is your second language, please inform it in your answers because native speakers' intuitions are what i am desperately looking for.

Please don't impose conditions on people who give up their free time to assist others. We have non-native-speaking members whose knowledge is rather more reliable than the intuition of some native speakers.

Sang A Kim · Answer

I appreciate your opinion. I'll have that in mind.

Any intelligence on my question, though?

Thanks.

Anonymous · Answer

I'm a native English speaker in the US. Your question is interesting and difficult to answer. This "very" rule that you describe seems valid, but with qualification, and that qualification is that all the parties in a passive sentence have to be animate things in order to apply the rule. So:

A. "I am very disturbed by your attitude" is grammatical. But what is the function of the past participle here? If it is adjectival, the rule holds - "very" can be put before the p.p.

However, the sentence can apparently be looked at as a passive, the active being: "Your attitude disturbs me." - passive version: "I am disturbed by your attitude." But the subject of the active sentence is inanimate, and so the rule is not valid here, and putting "very" before the p.p. does not make the sentence ungrammatical.

B. "I am very disturbed by you." is ungrammatical. So the example itself is bad. The following is correct:

"I am disturbed by your conclusions." If the p.p. is considered adjectival, then the rule holds, and "very" can be put before the p.p.: "I am very disturbed by your conclusions."

If the p.p. is considered passive, then the active version would be: "Your conclusions disturb me." The subject of the active sentence is inanimate, so the rule is invalid, and "very" can be put before the p.p. without making the sentence ungrammatical.

C. "They were relieved by the next group of sentries." is grammatical. This is a passive sentence with all parties animate, so the rule holds: putting "very" before the p.p. makes the sentence ungrammatical.

D. This is C. with "very" put before the p.p., which makes the sentence ungrammatical.

CalifJim · Answer

Sang A Kimcheck the grammaticality of the following sentences

A. I am very disturbed by your attitude.
B. I am very disturbed by you.
C. They were relieved by the next group of sentries.
D. They were very relieved by the next group of sentries.

I'm inclined to accept B (as well as A and C), but not D. I have no particular coherent explanation for why B seems OK to my ear. For C and D I believe we are meant to take "relieve" as "take the place of (as when on guard)". Sentries can be replaced or not replaced; they can't be "very replaced"; that would be like saying "very equal".

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

CalifJimI'm inclined to accept B (as well as A and C), but not D. I have no particular coherent explanation for why B seems OK to my ear

I think it's because there are two possible meanings.

If the person is causing me concern, then they cause me to be disturbed, troubled in my mind. The words for this state are more modifiers than predicators, and so, like adjectives, can be themselves be modified by 'very.'.

If the person is interrupting my work, they are bothering me. The words for this state are predicators, which cannot be modified by 'very'.

The sentence is not a good example for what the writer is talking about.

Passive or adjective?

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