Timeline for Which part of speech is "left" in "now there are only 5 cars left"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 22, 2022 at 14:37 | comment | added | Stuart F | "One car drove away. Now there are only five cars parked." Here "parked" is a participle. You can also use a present participle: "Now there are only five cars waiting". | |
| Apr 14, 2022 at 17:23 | history | edited | ColleenV | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited body
|
| S Feb 15, 2019 at 11:38 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Feb 15, 2019 at 11:38 | comment | added | ColleenV | Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. | |
| Feb 13, 2019 at 11:07 | comment | added | virolino | @brilliant: your points are very interesting. Actors exist many times, even if they are not known. Somebody must have driven the cars there before leaving. When you refer to "existential meaning", I understand philosophy rather than grammar. And passive voice does not include a meaning of intent. You are right, the robber did not plan to "leave" 5 people, he merely robbed (and killed) one. But as overall picture, 6 people existed, and 5 people are left. | |
| Feb 13, 2019 at 10:58 | comment | added | brilliant | (2) Consider this case: "In the whole world there were only 6 people who had this particular phenomenon. Sadly, we heard that one of them was killed yesterday by a burglar. So now there are only 5 such persons left." - The burglar here knew nothing about the person he was killing. It's not like the burglar had a goal to kill all six people that had that particular phenomenon. So you can't possibly say that the burglar "left" the other five alive. He doesn't even know anything about those five. So, in this case "left" is definitely an adjective, not participle. | |
| Feb 13, 2019 at 10:58 | comment | added | brilliant | (1) "As it is usual with passive voice, the actor who performed the action is not mentioned" - The problem is the actor is not only not mentioned, but he is not even implied and even cannot possibly exist. I think the right way to go about it is to see whether the existential meaning is being conveyed (in which case it's an adjective) or not (in which case it's a past participle). | |
| Feb 13, 2019 at 6:13 | history | edited | virolino | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 78 characters in body
|
| Feb 13, 2019 at 6:08 | history | answered | virolino | CC BY-SA 4.0 |