Verbal & Non-verbal Adjectives

Question

I'm not sure if this question is properly framed:
Is there a well-defined distinction between
verbal and non-verbal adjectives?
In particular, I am interested in past participles used in passive constuctions with "to be".
I have some ideas, but they're not very well
worked out, and I won't bore you with them.
An example:
"The door is closed"
This may mean
(1) The door is not open (adj).
(2) Someone shuts the door (part).
In case (2) we may add an agent:
"The door is closed (by him)"
I'm not sure if this is a good way, in general,
of testing for the presence of a participle.
Your comments much appreciated.
R.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

(Trimmed to AUE)
[nq:1]I'm not sure if this question is properly framed: Is there a well-defined distinction between verbal and non-verbal adjectives?[/nq]
According to what I've learned here, the difference is semantic rather than syntactic.
The following is part of a discussion that followed a similar question (mine) here last year.
The whole thread starts here: http://tinyurl.com/2t5n7 Below I've pasted John Lawler's comments.

==

Grammarians are in agreement that there is a difference between a participle and an adjective, but that difference lies in their use, not in the form of the words themselves. That means that you can't always tell the difference between them without making some tests. Here's a portion of a post I made on the subject in 1999:
cut here

The past participle form of the verb is not uniquely distinctive. There are many adjectives that are derived from and have the same shape as the past participle form of some verb, and if they can occur as predicate adjectives, as most adjectives can, they occur after a form of the auxiliary verb 'be', which carries the tense, person, and number inflections.
There are tests that distinguish between an adjective and a participle. An adjective (but not a participle) can occur with the intensifier 'very':
A very white whale was discovered in the press room. *A very fondled aide was discovered in the press room.

The passive allows an optional agent phrase with 'by':

*The whale was white by the spokesman.
The aide was fondled by the spokesman.
There's a difference here between 'opened' and 'closed'. 'Closed' is ambiguous between a participle and an adjective, while 'opened' is only a participle, since the adjective 'open' exists to constrast with it.

The door was open. (= an open door)
The door was opened. (= somebody opened it)
The door was closed. (ambiguous)
In one sense, 'closed' is the participle of the active verb 'close', and the construction is passive. On this reading, we're talking about an event that took place in the past:
The door was closed by the first lady.
=The first lady closed the door.
In the other sense, 'closed' is a stative adjective describing the condition of a door, with no necessary reference to any event of closing (a closed door need never have been open at all).

The 'very' and 'by Harry' tests show this up:
The door was very open. *The door was open by Harry. *The door was very opened. The door was opened by Harry. The door was very closed. The door was closed by Harry.

The last pair are both good, but have different senses, because of the ambiguity of 'closed'.
Historically, many adjectives come from participles, and may retain the form without retaining the grammatical function. Since English has almost no inflection left, it's not a good clue to grammar anymore. You have to pay attention to the syntactic constructions, not the canonical shapes of words.
cut here

In the sentences at issue,
[nq:2]a) I was flummoxed by her question. b) It's two ... he was injured in a fall. b) He is injured.[/nq]
the (a) sentences are passive, thus displaying participles, while the (b) sentences have simple adjectives. The "by" test is already applied in the first (a), and is implicit in the second, because "in a fall" is the same thing as "by falling".

On the other hand, the "very" test works in the (b) sentences:

... I'm still very flummoxed.
He is very injured.
These adjectives are stative, which means they describe a state rather than an event. Passives, and participles generally, on the other hand, describe events that occur rather than states. That's a semantic distinction, not a syntactic one, but it can give you a clue as to which syntactic tests to apply.

-John Lawler www.umich.edu/~jlawler Univ of Michigan Linguistics Dept
(Quoting John Lawler above)

Michael West

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1](Trimmed to AUE) (Quoting John Lawler above)[/nq]
Thank you for your message. I'll mull it over.
R.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I'm not sure if this question is properly framed: Is there a well-defined distinction between verbal and non-verbal adjectives?[/nq]
What is a non-verbal adjective?
I suppose one could print a book with pictures, and instead of saying "a red car" have a little blob of red ink in place of "red", but does anyone actually do that?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I'm not sure if this question is properly framed: Is there a well-defined distinction between verbal and non-verbal adjectives?[/nq]
[nq:1]What is a non-verbal adjective? I suppose one could print a book with pictures, and instead of saying "a red car" have a little blob of red ink in place of "red", but does anyone actually do that?[/nq]
We've been here before. The word has several meanings. One is:
2 : of, relating to, or formed from a verb

Would you prefer "verbish"?

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]We've been here before. The word has several meanings. One is: 2 : of, relating to, or formed from a verb Would you prefer "verbish"?[/nq]
Rhematogenic (as opposed to onomatogenic)?

Odysseus

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]What is a non-verbal adjective? I suppose one could print ... in place of "red", but does anyone actually do that?[/nq]
[nq:1]We've been here before. The word has several meanings. One is: 2 : of, relating to, or formed from a verb Would you prefer "verbish"?[/nq]
Ah, the penny drops!

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I'm not sure if this question is properly framed: Is there a well-defined distinction between verbal and non-verbal adjectives? I'm not sure if this is a good way, in general, of testing for the presence of a participle. Your comments much appreciated. R.[/nq]
Rolleston,
I am an expert in nothing, but that does not stop me from posting anyway.

In English a word like "closed" can serve either as an adjective or a past participle. In "the door is closed by him," "by him" clearly marks this as passive voice, and passive voice is always (to be) + past participle. Therefore there is no ambiguity. If you had also added "The closed door" as an example, although that would not be a complete sentence, it would again eliminate any ambiguity in that "closed" is clearly serving as an adjective.

But in your main example, "the door is closed," there is inherent ambiguity as to which construction it is. That is, it may legally be either one. Often the context of the sentence removes ambiguities like this.

So if you were to have asked, "is there a well-defined distinction between past participles and adjectives formed from the past participle," then the answer would have been something like, "no, not in the declension of the verb, yes in the context of the sentence." But that is not what you asked, and that is why others who have responded so far are stopping to ask what you mean by "non-verbal adjective." Can you clarify?

- Paul

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So if you were to have asked, "is there a well-defined distinction between past participles and adjectives formed from the ... why others who have responded so far are stopping to ask what you mean by "non-verbal adjective." Can you clarify?[/nq]
When I posted my message I thought there was a well-defined class of words, the verbal adjectives. And so the class of non-verbal adjectives would be equally well defined: it would consist of all adjectives that are not verbal adjectives.
But things are not so clear. After looking around the net, I realise that the words "verbal adjective" are not used consistently. Some people say that participles are verbal adjectives; others say the term refers to certain adjectives that are not participles. Is one set of people more poorly informed or insane than the other?

I do not know. But this is clearly not a very satisfactory situation.

R.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]So if you were to have asked, "is there a ... ask what you mean by "non-verbal adjective." Can you clarify?[/nq]
[nq:1]When I posted my message I thought there was a well-defined class of words, the verbal adjectives. And so the ... poorly informed or insane than the other? I do not know. But this is clearly not a very satisfactory situation.[/nq]
True enough. The problem, as usual, is that terms that made some sense when applied to Latin (a dead language with no native speakers to contradict one nor new usages to challenge the rules) are bandied around as if they applied as well to English, a language quite unlike Latin, although one with plenty of Latin words in it. And bandied quite imperiously, in fact; traditionalist grammarians lay down the law with great authority. Unfortunately, they don't agree with one another.
There are, in fact, several kinds of adjectives that look like past participles; for instance, there is the common adjective type that means 'provided with X' formed by adding a past participle ending to the noun X:

winged horse banded armadillo hard-shelled crab

There are, of course, verbs 'to wing, to band, to shell'; but they don't mean to have a wing, band, or shell. They have other meanings, and these can't be considered participles of them.
The fact is that English doesn't have the same lexical categories as Latin did, and the shape of a word is no guarantee of its usage. Sorry. It's a good story that it works that way, but it doesn't. This is what you tell people in third grade to get them to stop asking questions, and since it's never touched on again, they think it's a fact the rest of their lives.
As for who's crazy, I'd say that most people are just ignorant, and they tend to believe what they're told by those who arrogate authority. It's not their fault they're ignorant; after all, their teachers don't know, and their teachers didn't either. The authoritarians, who really don't know either, have to claim authority because they can't give any other reason to believe their claims. You can impute any motives you like to them; I'm satisfied with the facts.
-John Lawler www.umich.edu/~jlawler Univ of Michigan Linguistics Dept "Scholars who have made and taught from English grammars were previously and systematically initiated in the Greek and Latin tongues, so that they have, without deigning to notice the difference, taken the rules of the latter and applied them indiscriminately and dogmatically to the former." William Hazlitt 'English Grammar' (1829)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]What is a non-verbal adjective? I suppose one could print ... in place of "red", but does anyone actually do that?[/nq]
[nq:1]We've been here before. The word has several meanings. One is: 2 : of, relating to, or formed from a verb [/nq]
A further complication is the fact that the word "verbal" is also a noun, defined as "a verbal noun or adjective." To distinguish them, I guess you could call one a noun verbal, and the other an adjective verbal.

\P. Schultz

Verbal & Non-verbal Adjectives

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