English Language & Usage Asked on August 3, 2021
While analyzing essays, I often get confused between whether a word is a predicate adjective of an action verb.
I found the definition of a predicate adjective to be “An adjective used in the predicate, especially with a copulative verb and attributive to the subject.”
I also found the definition of an action verb to be “A verb that expresses something that a person, animal, object, or process in nature can do.”
However, even with these definitions, I am confused about how to tell these apart.
For example, the sentence “A list of objects was written.”
In this sentence, what would the word “written” function as? Would the “was” be a linking verb and the word “written” a predicate adjective? Or would “was” be a helping verb and the “written” be an action verb?
In a comment, John Lawler wrote:
A list of objects was written is a good example. It's ambiguous. It can refer either to the past event of writing the list (which is a passive, and therefore a verb), or it can mean that the list was a written list, in which case it's an adjective. Generally native speakers will choose the first -- and often not even notice the second -- because that's not a normal way to use a predicate adjective and it's easier to interpret it as a past tense passive. So you're not the only one who has trouble with this; everybody does, and one has to interpret in context.
Answered by tchrist on August 3, 2021
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