Fine Print — Verbs and Adjectives


Although participle forms of verbs may be undistinguishable from regular (or native) adjectives, they don't completely abdicate their verbal nature. Consider "elaborate" - a native adjective - in the following clause:

    Katia wore an elaborate necklace.
Then add the adverb "manually" to inform that Katia's necklace is the product of craftsmanship:
    Katia wore a manually elaborate necklace.
The above form is incorrect in as far as the addition of "manually" prompts the replacement of "elaborate" with "elaborated" - a verb-based adjective:
    Katia wore a manually elaborated necklace.
Native adjectives inform about how something is (a yellow shirt, a short road ...), without hinting to the process whereby something became what it is.

When adverbs (i.e., verb modifiers - see #3.6) are added to a clause, performance of operations is often implied and the replacement of native adjectives with verbal adjectives may be necessary. Another example is:

    In the Bible, Israel is defined as the elect people.

    In the Bible, Israel is defined as the divinely elected people.

Adverb "divinely" evokes the process whereby God singles out Israel, therefore "elect" (a native, static adjective) is less appropriate than "elected" (a verb turned adjective via its past participle form).

Adverbs found beside non-verbal adjectives are of the kind of "amazingly", "disppointingly", "impressively":

    This car is amazingly fast.

    My performance at the test has been dismally low.

The above sentences carry no hint of operations being - or having been - underway. The reader is placed in front of a still pictures, with no information as to what determined what.

But in:

    This is a skilfully engineered car.
reference is made to the dynamic process of engineers at work in designing a car. Adverbs pointing to operations postulate adjectives of verbal origin - as "engineered" and "conditioned" in the foregoing examples.

While adverbs appropriate to native adjectives also fit verbal adjectives, the opposite may not be the case: "amazingly engineered" is conceivable expression, "skilfully fast" is not.