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MrPedantic Posted 21 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Use of Much with Adjectives

1. He is much loved.

2. He is much interesting.

3. Your thoughts were much appreciated.

4. This is a much needed development.

5. His face is much red.

6. It was a very stimulating discussion.

7. It was a much stimulating discussion.

If 1, 3, 4, 6, why not 2, 5, 7?

MrP
  

Top answer

OK, I'll bite-- the unstruck with 'much' are all passives?

— Mister Micawber

  • OK, I'll bite-- the unstruck with 'much' are all passives?
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182 Answers
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OK, I'll bite-- the unstruck with 'much' are all passives?

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I'm really getting mad!!! Can't get it!Emotion: angry
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That's what puzzles me, MM: why is it ok with past but not present participles?

Are past participles somehow gradable or non-count, since they imply completion; while present participles aren't?

(Little Cloud, I share your emoticon...)

MrP
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In Webster's Third New International Dictionary I found a usage note for the adverbial much:

[In the sense of] VERY -- usu. used with adjectival past participles "much interested", "much pleased by the compliment", "much gratified" and in negative constructions "not much good at all".

And in The Ameri
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I told this to my older sister, not everything and not so perfectly, but she told me it was not possible!!! Thanks for the explanaitian: I'm going to wake her up and let her see!! Ah! Ah! Ah!
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That explenation made it so clear, thanks RVW.
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In summary, I would say that it is usage, not logic, that dictates what is acceptable.
Yes; and it's the usage that puzzles me.

Did the usage evolve because of a difference in the nature of 'much' and 'very', or a difference in the nature of present and past participles?

A present participle when used as an adjective tends to have an explicit agent and i
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I think the following article from Webster's Dictionary of English Usage answers some of our questions.

very 1. "Very" and the past participle. Fitzedward Hall 1873 cited a Professor Maximilian Muller as asserting that expressions like "very pleased" and "very delighted" were Americanisms. Hall refuted the assertion, quoting "very concerned" from 1760
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Regarding the place of present participles, Webster's Dictonary of English Usage only mentions them in their article on participle:

.... The thrust of the argument is that very cannot modify a verb and therefore should not modify its past participle; very much is prescribed. That the basis of the argument is illogical is po
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A critical point in my long quotation above is: "Very by itself does not modify verbs, and therefore it cannot modify the past participle of a verb." Why not? From The Online Etymology Dictionary:

very
c.1250, verray "true, real, genuine," later "actual, sheer" (c.1390), from Anglo-Fr. verrai, O.Fr. ve
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