yhemusa
'Well-read' and its class According to my understanding, English adjectives derived from past participles usually carry a meaning of passitive voice relating to the nominal phrases that they modify, such as ' a well-designed startpage', ' a carefully folded sheet'. But there are some (not many----am I right?) where there is no meaning of passive voice, but there is meaning of active voice, for example, ' a well-read and cultured woman', where 'read' in 'well-read' does not mean the woman is read but means she reads a lot. I once met such a word of the same type, but I cannot recall it now, when I was greatly confused. And now I see 'well-read', I decide that this is a 'special' class of words. Could you please give some other words of the same class? It's better that the words are commonly used. ( If no other commonly used ones, please give any as you know). Besides, if you give some more explanation of this kind of words, I'll be grateful.
22 de nov. de 2018 15:50
Respuestas · 4
2
"Well-read" is a combination of adverb+ participle, so it's a compound adjective. Compund adjectives don't necessarily have a passive meaning. Here you have some other examples: "deeply-rooted", "much- travelled", "recently-arrived","well-behaved". This link might help you:http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/learnit/learnitv224.shtml
22 de noviembre de 2018
Another example is 'well-spoken'. A well-spoken person is someone who has good diction and an educated accent. This is clearly not a passive construction.
22 de noviembre de 2018
a well-read woman is a woman who reads a lot, especially good books, notice habitual action a drunken man is a man who drank a lot , notice that his drunken state is not necessarily habitual, the drunken man staggered down the street, simple past action but an abused woman is a woman who someone abused the insulted woman is a woman who someone insulted So there are different verbs as you say that are either reflexive or not
22 de noviembre de 2018
By the way, if I want to find some use examples of ' adverb + past participles' in COCA, what shoud I do?
22 de noviembre de 2018
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