daijobu Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 Can you help us with this distinction? These two examples come from MCT Practive Voyage: (1) We were not impressed. MCT says: WERE is a linking verb. IMPRESSED is an adjective/subject complement. (2) The captain's rule was best described as a benevolent dictatorship. MCT says: WAS BEST DESCRIBED is a passive voice action verb. I can not for the life of me figure out how to make this distinction. Thank you for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 Here are some easier examples: The bank was eighty years old. (linking) The bank was robbed. (passive equivalent of Someone robbed the bank.) The students are argumentative. (linking) The topic was argued throughout class. (passive equivalent of The students argued the topic throughout class. The active voice would be better.) At a certain point, the distinction becomes fairly trivial, and I think that's true of the examples you gave from the book. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 Can you help us with this distinction? These two examples come from MCT Practive Voyage: (1) We were not impressed. MCT says: WERE is a linking verb. IMPRESSED is an adjective/subject complement. (2) The captain's rule was best described as a benevolent dictatorship. MCT says: WAS BEST DESCRIBED is a passive voice action verb. I can not for the life of me figure out how to make this distinction. Thank you for your help. I didn't agree with this when we went through Voyage this year either, but I can see it both ways. He is saying that impressed is an adjective describing the pronoun we (comparable to "we were purple"). it's listed as an adjective in dictionaries, but it's formed from a verb, and if you flip the construction around and say the captain's ability impressed you, then it's clearly a verb, making the first phrasing passive. In a grammar class in college, we were allowed to make a case either way for these sorts of things; our teacher allowed it if she could see our point. I know other people need more certainty than that. The second sentence is a parallel construction if you ignore the prepositional phrase, but I think the prepositional phrase that follows strongly suggests that "described" is part of the verb. If it's not part of the verb, the sentence would not be passive, and "described" would be a subject complement. If it's a subject complement, then I am not sure the prepositional phrase "as a benevolent dictatorship" makes as much sense as a modifier for described. It technically works, but it seems odd somehow. I think I agree with whitehawk that the distinction is trivial here, but I am sure some dogmatic folks would ding for passive voice if the first sentence showed up in a composition. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted July 30, 2015 Author Share Posted July 30, 2015 Also keep in mind that in the passive voice, "BY (someone/something)" is either directly stated or implied. So in your sentence: The captain's rule was best described (BY SOMEONE/SOMETHING) as a benevolent dictatorship. You can't do that to the first sentence. Thank you. But I argue that one can use BY SOMEONE/SOMETHING in the first sentence: Kinsa was not impressed by my knowledge of grammar. :laugh: ..or wait a minute, maybe that should be "impressed with..."? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Can you help us with this distinction? These two examples come from MCT Practive Voyage: (1) We were not impressed. MCT says: WERE is a linking verb. IMPRESSED is an adjective/subject complement. (2) The captain's rule was best described as a benevolent dictatorship. MCT says: WAS BEST DESCRIBED is a passive voice action verb. I can not for the life of me figure out how to make this distinction. Thank you for your help. Can you rearrange the sentence to add a hidden subject? It's passive voice then. For example in sentence 2: They described the captain's rule as a benevolent dictatorship at best. Can't do that with sentence 1. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Can you rearrange the sentence to add a hidden subject? It's passive voice then. For example in sentence 2: They described the captain's rule as a benevolent dictatorship at best. Can't do that with sentence 1. Why couldn't it be rearranged this way: "The sentence did not impress us." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clear Creek Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Can you help us with this distinction? These two examples come from MCT Practive Voyage: (1) We were not impressed. MCT says: WERE is a linking verb. IMPRESSED is an adjective/subject complement. (2) The captain's rule was best described as a benevolent dictatorship. MCT says: WAS BEST DESCRIBED is a passive voice action verb. I can not for the life of me figure out how to make this distinction. Thank you for your help. In sentence 1 there is a stated doer of the verb. Who was not being? We were not being. In sentence 2 there is no stated doer of the verb, it is just passively occurring. Who was describing the captain's rule? No one. That qualifies it as being in the passive voice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classical Katharine Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 I agree with others that the distinction in this case is pretty fine, but here's a thought on why the program may have assessed these two this way: "impressed" can definitely be used in clearly adjectival contexts, while "described" isn't used that way. We can say "Impressed, he took a moment to let the words sink in" but we wouldn't say "described, the the man hung his head in shame"--not likely, anyway! This usage fact may have colored the author's assessment that "impressed" in the first example should best be classified as an adjective. I think also the somewhat metaphorical and evolved character of "impressed" here may be playing a role--in which it has evolved into a description of a state, not so much a description of the receiving of an action. So, if I say "the wax was impressed with the shape of the seal," that's a passive verb construction. I really do mean there that something made a mark--the action is very definitely an action, a verb for sure. But if I say "the speaker was brilliant and I was impressed," my focus isn't really on the action by which his brilliance made its mark on me, but more on the state I found myself in as a result. I'd classify "impressed" there as a predicate adjective. [Edited after reading Steven's remarks, below, to supply a stronger example.] I'm not sure this is the last word, but interesting examples and good question! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 The distinction between adjective and passive construction often depends on the intent of the speaker/writer and the context. Whenever there is a prepositional phrase indicating an agent, the sentence should be considered a passive construction. Consider these sentences: The door was closed. The door was closed by the wind. The second is clearly a passive construction. Absent any other context, I would consider the first an adjective. But if you added more context, my view would change. Consider this sentence: The door was closed with a bang. The emphasis has shifted from the state of the door, to the action of the door closing. I would consider this sentence a passive construction. The grammatical analysis is not always clear. But if you primarily consider the past participle as indicating the state in which the subject was in, then the past participle is probably best considered an adjective. If the focus of the sentence is on the action of the past participle (as it always is when there is an agent named in a prepositional phrase), then I would consider the sentence to be a passive construction. In your original sentence (We were not impressed), impressed could be seen as a state of being, the condition in which the subject (we) exists. But if the context focuses on someone's effort to impress the subject, one could argue that it is passive. I suggest telling the student that the distinction is often unclear, and that often it is possible to view a sentence both ways (albeit with a subtle difference in meaning). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 Passive voice and linking verbs have a blurred line between them, as you have discovered. An answer book that is too rigid does the student a disservice. I would let the student's answer stand, as long as he or she can explain why it makes sense. One thing that may help in making the distinction, is that a linking verb in some sense serves as an equal sign. But that's most helpful when the verb links two nouns. In a case like "We were not impressed", the equal sign is wobbly---are we talking about our state of being, or are we talking about a (metaphorical) action that was (not) done to us? Incidentally, if we are talking about a non-metaphorical action, then it's definitely a passive verb. "Jason and Gwen dodged the stompers. Although they lost Jason's gun, they themselves were not impressed." (For fans of Galaxy Quest.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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