Ensomih
Adjective question Hello all, I'm trying to comprehend the following matter. In the following example 'I'm convinced' is it a simple Passive Voice or a pronoun with adjective? I'm just trying to understand it in general.
Oct 21, 2019 5:16 PM
Answers · 4
1
Note in your example “I’m convinced” usually doesn’t convey that any convincing occurred. It just means “I think” To introduce the idea of convincing, you would say either “He convinced me that ... “ “I was/am convinced by ...that ...” I was convinced by his arguments that leaving the EU would be foolish.
October 21, 2019
They're two ways to describe the same phrase. Just as Matthew says, you can regard "convinced" as an adjective OR a passive participle.
October 21, 2019
Matthew, does that mean it’s contextual or simply just two ways to describe the same thing/phrase?
October 21, 2019
Hi Ensomih, This is a very controversial question among grammarians. Many say past participle forms which are very often used by people just like the one you have brought up here are forms of passive voice. other grammarians say they are linking verb+ past participle form as adjectives. However, grammarians like Marcella Frank believe that we cannot distinguish all of them, but the ones which are not followed by the preposition "by" when the doer/agent is mentioned could definitely be considered adjectives. An example could be "I'm interested in the book." so this is something that cannot be settled in the English grammar well; of course, this is the view of a descriptive linguist, but prescriptive linguists would probably say these are forms of passive voice.
October 21, 2019
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