Singing (Adj.)

Question

Dear teachers,How can I use "singing" as an adjective in a sentence? I'm sorry but I can't give any example.

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

.
'I was beaten into second place in a talent contest by a singing dog!'
(Sue Pollard)

Mudclay · Answer

Rover_KE.'I was beaten into second place in a talent contest by a singing dog!'(Sue Pollard)

Teacher, is "singing dog" an idiom? What does it mean?

BillJ · Answer

Well, singing is not an adjective; it's a verb, more specifically a present participle in this context. But you can use it in situations where it functions like an adjective, in which cases we call it a 'modifier':

"The singing nun". (attributive modifier of "nun")
"People singing out of tune drive me crazy" (clause with "singing" as head post-modifying "people")

BillJ

Anonymous · Answer

What does beaten into mean here , does it mean the dog got second place?
Thank you

Mudclay · Answer

Thank you teachers!

Can you check these please?

Jacob has a singing voice.
The man singing behind me is my uncle.

Anonymous · Answer

"Jacob has a singing voice." "Singing" is an adjective there, but idiom wants another one---"good singing voice" or "wonderful singing voice", etc. Everyone has a singing voice. "Singing voice" just happens to be a sort of two-word noun meaning "the quality of one's voice while singing," so we can't say a person's voice sounds like song that way (if that's what you meant).

"The man singing behind me is my uncle." I would say that that is not an adjective, it is a verb in an elliptical construction. I see the sentence as a shortened form of "The man [who is] singing behind me is my uncle," making "is singing" the verb in the dependent clause.

Anonymous · Answer

"Singing dog" is not a fixed expression. It means nothing more than a dog that sings. Of course, he doesn't do it very well.

Anonymous · Answer

AnonymousWhat does beaten into mean here , does it mean the dog got second place?

No. The writer made a poor choice there. It happens to the best of us. Forget that sentence. I had to read it three times to be sure of what I was looking at. You can't be beaten into second place. I think she was tring to be clever but achieved the opposite effect. I think she meant that she was beaten in the contest by the dog, and she would have gotten first place if the dog had not won.

BillJ · Answer

Anonymous"Jacob has a singing voice." "Singing" is an adjective there, but idiom wants another one---"good singing voice" or "wonderful singing voice", etc. Everyone has a singing voice. "Singing voice" just happens to be a sort of two-word noun meaning "the quality of one's voice while singing," so we can't say a person's voice sounds like song that way (if that's what you meant).

It's not a two-word noun. And there's no adjective anywhere to be seen! That's a rather silly analysis.

"Singing voice" is a noun phrase headed by the noun "voice", with the present participle verb "singing" functioning as an attributive modifier.

"Adjective" is a part of speech. Words don't change their part of speech category to suit their function.

Anonymous"The man singing behind me is my uncle." I would say that that is not an adjective, it is a verb in an elliptical construction. I see the sentence as a shortened form of "The man [who is] singing behind me is my uncle," making "is singing" the verb in the dependent clause.

It's actually a participial clause in modifier function, not an elliptical clause. The analysis is like this:

"The man singing behind me" is a noun phrase headed by the noun "man", with the participial clause "singing behind me" as post-head modifier. Although it has a similar meaning to the relative construction "The man who is singing" it cannot be analysed as a relative clause simply because there is no possibility of it containing a relative word - we can't say *"The man who singing behind me".

BillJ

Anonymous · Answer

BillJIt's not a two-word noun. And there's no adjective anywhere to be seen! That's a rather silly analysis. "Singing voice" is a noun phrase headed by the noun "voice", with the present participle verb "singing" functioning as an attributive modifier."Adjective" is a part of speech. Words don't change their part of speech category to suit their function.

It's better not to be insulting in a forum like this one. There are many legitimate ways of construing English grammar, and disagreements can such as this one can reveal much about its complexities if the parties communicate effectively. You say "attributive modifier" as if there is a governing body that has defined the terms of English grammar. There is no such thing. Anyhow, an attributive modifier is a form of adjective.

Of course a word changes part of speech according to its function. A word is only one part of speech or another in context. What is "adjective" but function?

Your analysis of "the man singing behind me" seems correct in its own framework, and I agree with it, but your criticism of the elliptical construction is unconvincing. We do agree that "singing" is not an adjective here, anyway, but we arrive at that conclusion by very different paths.

Singing (Adj.)

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