# adverb or adjective



## passengerman

"Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty"


Hi all;


What's the function of "ing" here? Is it an adjective or an adverb ?


Sincerely


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## Thomas Tompion

I don't see how it can be anything other than an adjective referring to_ him_.

_Enabling_ is also an adjective referring to_ technique_, I'd say.


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## passengerman

Many thanks Thommas


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## exgerman

I agree with TT. This is an accidental anacoluthon. The original plan of the sentence requires _enabling him to play...., to perform etc...._ Since Belmomdo is the one who is performing, it's a very easy anacoluthon, one I wouldn't have noticed in reading unless someone points it out.


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## boozer

I would have said it was a participial phrase, introduced by a present participle (performing), modifying the sentence subject - Belmondo/him. 
http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/partphraseterm.htm

PS. Failing that description, my second choice would be "an absolute phrase" modifying the whole preceding clause:
http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/absoluteterm.htm

Indeed, I find it a bit hard to decide if it modifies only the sentence subject or the whole main clause...


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## Thomas Tompion

boozer said:


> I would have said it was a participial phrase, introduced by a present participle (performing), modifying the sentence subject - Belmondo/him.
> [...]


Interesting Boozer.  I feel the participle is referring to the _him_ rather than to the subject; I know they are the same person, but grammatically they needn't be.  If it referred to the subject, couldn't we rearrange the sentence correctly like this?: 

_Throughout his career, Belmondo, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strength and frailty, has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts.

_That seems to me critically to alter the emphasis.


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## Alxmrphi

boozer said:


> I would have said it was a participial phrase, introduced by a present participle (performing), modifying the sentence subject - Belmondo/him.


I'd agree.


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## Pertinax

I think that the sentence is so poorly structured that it could be argued either way.  I think that TT's interpretation is more plausible, since it was Belmondo's acting technique which enabled HIM to perform both comic & tragic roles so well.


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## boozer

Thomas Tompion said:


> Interesting Boozer.  I feel the participle is referring to the _him_ rather than to the subject; I know they are the same person, but grammatically they needn't be.  If it referred to the subject, couldn't we rearrange the sentence correctly like this?:
> 
> _Throughout his career, Belmondo, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strength and frailty, has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts.
> 
> _That seems to me critically to alter the emphasis.


Yes, TT, I think you are right. I suppose it has to do with the peculiar affinity of participial phrases to attach themselves to the nearest noun as grammatically they do not agree with anything in particular. This gives them the freedom to sort of "go wherever they want". In this particular instance the phrase has indeed attached itself to "him" and "him" happens to coincide with the subject in the main clause (Belmondo). It's what I meant, actually.

Indeed, we can rearrange the sentence in a number of ways changing its emphasis but roughly preserving the original meaning. The participle phrase can easily be kicked to the front of the main clause:
Perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty, throughout his career Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts. 

All in all, I agree with you that the phrase refers to "him", rather than Belmondo, in its original position. I put a slash between them in my initial post because they are the same person... Technically I was probably wrong mentioning the "sentence subject"


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## berndf

_performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty_
is an adverbial phrase.



boozer said:


> Indeed, we can rearrange the sentence in a number  of ways changing its emphasis but roughly preserving the original  meaning. The participle phrase can easily be kicked to the front of the  main clause:
> Perform*ing* both comic and tragic  roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty,  throughout his career Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique  enabling him to play a variety of parts.


The ability of occurring in different position in the sentence is one of the characteristics of of adverbials.

EDIT: 





boozer said:


> I would have said it was a participial phrase,  introduced by a present participle (performing), modifying the sentence  subject - Belmondo/him.


A _participial phrase_, yes, but not attributing the subject but the predicate:
- _has employed a versatile acting technique_.

There are two participial phrases with adverbial function supplementing the predicate:
- _enabling him to play a variety of parts_,
- _performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty_.


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## Thomas Tompion

What verb does it modify, Berndf?  I think that's a characteristic of adverbials too. _ In what way did he employ this technique?  __Performing._  I don't buy it.  I'm going to need persuading.


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## boozer

If it is one, berndf, it then modifies the whole main clause and still appears in the form of a participle phrase... But I'm not sure it is.


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## Thomas Tompion

If adverbials can be moved about a sentence without changing the meaning much, that suggests this isn't an adverbial, of course.


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## berndf

boozer said:


> If it is one, berndf, it then modifies the whole main clause and still appears in the form of a participle phrase... But I'm not sure it is.


Participial phrases can have different syntactic functions in a sentence. Let's take the simplest possible case where the phrase consists only of the participle:
_*Singing*, the man walked down the street._ (adverb)
_The *singing* man walked down the street._ (adjective)


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## Perseas

Adverbials are used to show time/cause and effect/condition etc relationships. If we could spot such relationships in "performing", then why not being an adverbial ? However, I couldn't exclude the possibility of functioning as an adjective. It could be either way as Pertinax said.


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## berndf

Thomas Tompion said:


> What verb does it modify, Berndf?  I think that's a characteristic of adverbials too. _ In what way did he employ this technique?  __Performing._  I don't buy it.  I'm going to need persuading.


The text book test for adverbials is that you ask for it by "how?":

Q: _How did he employed a versatile acting technique?_
A: _By performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty_.

I agree, this is not the only possible interpretation. The other one is: 
Q: _How did he play a variety of parts?_
A: _By performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty_.

In both interpretations, it is an adverbial clause.


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## Thomas Tompion

Thanks for answering the question, Berndf.

You make the point clearly. Were the original as you suggest, _*by* performing both comic and tragic roles etc., _then certainly we would be dealing with an adverbial.

But it isn't. The original has _B has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles... _For me this is not saying how he employed this technique, but what he was doing as he was employing this technique. That's what makes it adjectival for me.


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## berndf

Thomas Tompion said:


> For me this is not saying how he employed this technique, but what he was doing as he was employing this technique. That's what makes it adjectival for me.


You explained it yourself: the phrase complements the predicate (_as he was employing this technique_) and not a single noun. An adjective always describes a property of a noun, either as part of a noun phrase (attributive) or as a predicate in conjunction with a copula verb (predicative) where if refers to the subject:
_The red ball_ (attributive),_
The ball is red_ (predicative).

In both cases, an adjective qualifies the noun it refers to: _What kind of ball it is? A red ball.

_If it were an adjective phrase, it had to qualify a noun; _Belmondo _would be the only possible choice. But this is not the case. The phrase does not describe a characteristic of _Bolmonda _as such but in relation to _him employing this technique_, i.e. to the entire predicate of the sentence.

(It may become clearer to you if you compared it to equivalent constructs in strongly inflected languages where adjectival and adverbial participles are distinguished morphologically. On "English Only" I cannot elaborate this any more.)


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## Thomas Tompion

It's an interesting point, but you haven't persuaded me yet.

For me the adjective _performing_ describes a property of the noun _him_. Who was he? The man employing this technique.

I suspect that in the sentence _a running man fell over_, you'd agree that _running_ is an adjective. This man fell over as he was running. That fact doesn't turn the _running_ in the original sentence into an adverb. It describes what he was doing as he fell over; adjectives can do that.


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## PaulQ

I see the original as 2 sentences: "Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts.  *[He has been]* performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty"

I can only see it as the present participle and doing its job as part of a verb. It could be argued that *performing *is modifying '*has been*' to tell you more of *has been*, but I would leave it as a verb, as it is part of the conjugation.

I can't find it now, but there was an earlier thread on _"a plank lying over a stream"_; a similar case.

Found it: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2266316&p=11375313#post11375313


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## Pertinax

berndf said:


> Participial phrases can have different syntactic functions in a sentence. Let's take the simplest possible case where the phrase consists only of the participle:
> _*Singing*, the man walked down the street._ (adverb)
> _The *singing* man walked down the street._ (adjective)



If "singing" is indeed an adverb in the first sentence, then I agree that the phrase in the convoluted example in this thread is adverbial.

I am not sure that it is.  "Singing" is describing concurrent action to walking.  I would have thought that it describes the man rather than the way he walked.

I am uneasy with the idea that participles can be adverbs.  I am aware that they can be used as prepositions which can form adverbial phrases (e.g. "considering his age"), but I question whether it is necessary to consider them adverbial in isolation.


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## berndf

Thomas Tompion said:


> I suspect that in the sentence _a running man fell over_, you'd agree that _running_ is an adjective. This man fell over as he was running. That fact doesn't turn the _running_ in the original sentence into an adverb. It describes what he was doing as he fell over; adjectives can do that.


I am afraid you are mixing up a few things here. First, _was running_ is a continuous form a should be analysed as a compound finite verb form. But for the sake of the argument let's pretend there were no continuous form in English and _was running_ were to be analysed as copula+predicative adjective then _running _would be an adjective within the subordinate clause _he was running_ only but not within the main clause. The entire expression _as he was running _is an abverbial clause (clause, not phrase!) complementing the main clause _This man fell over_. The sentence in question has not subordinate clauses and _performing_ is the head word of its phrase within the entire sentence.

Back to the original question: Let me give you a more formal description (which as already been mentioned): While adverbial clauses can occur in different positions, adjectival participial clauses are limited in where there can stand. As there is no verb in that sentence that could function as a copula in the sentence, we can ignore predicative adjectival clauses: the clause would have to be a attributive adjectival one, if it weren't adverbial. An attributive adjectival participial clauses follow the attributed noun.

 To illustrate the difference, Let me simplify the sentence a bit: _The man employed this technique performing many roles _(replaced _Belmondo _be _the man_ because the ability to use of adjectives with proper names is limited).
Using _performing many roles_ in an attributive function the sentence becomes: _The man __performing many roles __ employed this technique._

I hope you agree with me that there are not only syntactic but also the semantic difference between the two sentences:
_The man employed this technique performing many roles. _(_performing many roles _pertains to _employed this technique_)
_The man __performing many roles __ employed this technique._(_performing many roles _pertains to _the man_, independently of what is said about him in the rest of the sentence)


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## Pertinax

berndf said:


> I am afraid you are mixing up a few things here. First, _was running_ is a continuous form a should be analysed as a compound finite verb form. But for the sake of the argument let's pretend there were no continuous form in English and _was running_ were to be analysed as copula+predicative adjective then _running _would be an adjective within the subordinate clause _he was running_ only but not within the main clause. The entire expression _as he was running _is an abverbial clause (clause, not phrase!) complementing the main clause _This man fell over_. The sentence in question has not subordinate clauses and _performing_ is the head word of its phrase within the entire sentence.
> 
> Back to the original question: Let me give you a more formal description (which as already been mentioned): While adverbial clauses can occur in different positions, adjectival participial clauses are limited in where there can stand. As there is no verb in that sentence that could function as a copula in the sentence, we can ignore predicative adjectival clauses: the clause would have to be a attributive adjectival one, if it weren't adverbial. An attributive adjectival participial clauses follow the attributed noun.




That's very interesting.  If I understand you correctly, then in the sentence:
_The man walked down the street._
.. if the participle "singing" were inserted anywhere in the sentence but before "man" then it should be parsed as an adverb, and if the phrase "singing loudly" were inserted anywhere in the sentence but after "man" then it should be considered adverbial.


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## berndf

Pertinax said:


> I am uneasy with the idea that participles can be adverbs.


Wiki:





> The present participle in English is in the active voice and is used for:
> 
> 
> forming the progressive aspect: _Jim was *sleeping*._
> modifying a noun as an adjective: _Let *sleeping* dogs lie._ (= _Let dogs *that are sleeping* lie._)
> modifying a verb or sentence in clauses: _Broadly *speaking*, the project was successful._




Some earlier grammarians seem to share your unease. E.g. in _Modern English Syntax_ (1905), Onions does not include adverbial in the list of uses of the participle in §169 but in the chapter about adverbial clauses he admitted _A participle which has no subject of reference in the sentence, or, which, id referred to its grammatical subject, makes nonsense, is not uncommon when a writer intends to use the absolute constructions_. An example he gave: _Calling upon him last summer, he kindly offered to give me his copy_.


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## MikeLynn

I really think that Boozer, and the ones who agree with him, is/are right. If I should try to "expand" it into a clause, I'd say something like-as/when he was performing... and the HOW question fishing for an adverb feel would be out of question . I may be wrong, but the present participle "always" has an adjectival flavor and in this case it feels like a predicate adjective used as a participial phrase/clause. Any comments are welcome&appreciated.


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## berndf

MikeLynn said:


> I may be wrong, but the present participle "always" has an adjectival flavor and in this case it feels like a predicate adjective used as a participial phrase/clause. Any comments are welcome&appreciated.


Onions lists many used as predicative adjectives:
_The city lies _sleeping_.
I saw him _coming_.
The birds came _hopping_ about the window.
_
This interpretation is fine for those sentences but it cannot explain sentences like
_Broadly _speaking_, the project was successful._


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## PaulQ

the project was {Broadly speaking successful.} - Broadly speaking is an adjectival phrase, *qualifying*)) successful.


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## berndf

PaulQ said:


> the project was {Broadly speaking successful.} - Broadly speaking is an adjectival phrase, *qualifying*)) successful.


Adjectives qualify nouns, not adjectives.
Adjectives are qualified by adverbs: _The project was clear*ly* successful._


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## Pertinax

Also, there's no adjective to hand in a statement like this:

_Broadly speaking, dogs chase cats._


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## Pertinax

There is no doubt that these phrases are adverbial.
_Considering his age__, he did well.
__Broadly speaking__, dogs chase cats._

But what about:
_The man, singing, walked down the street.
_
Is "singing" there to be understood adjectivally or adverbially?
_The man, who was singing, walked down the street._ (adj)
_The man, while he was singing, walked down the street._ (adv)

I'm also having difficulty classifying the adverb "singing", if that's what it is.  It is hardly an adverb of manner - it's not clear what it means to walk in a singing way.  Walking is something done with one's legs, not with one's mouth.


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## berndf

Pertinax said:


> I'm also having difficulty classifying the adverb "singing", if that's what it is.  It is hardly an adverb of manner - it's not clear what it means to walk in a singing way.  Walking is something done with one's legs, not with one's mouth.


I intended this as an example of a sentence-modifying and not of a verb-modifying adverb. The difference is explained e.g. here.


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## Pertinax

Ah, OK.  That makes sense.  Yes, a "sentential adverb", as they put it, though I would prefer a term without the word "adverb" in it at all.

So, in my example, "singing" could be taken as either an adjective or a sentential adverb?


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## berndf

Pertinax said:


> Ah, OK.  That makes sense.  Yes, a "sentential adverb", as they put it, though I would prefer a term without the word "adverb" in it at all.


We could invent a new word for it, but why bother? Sentence modification is a classical "job" of adverbs, e.g. temporal or spacial determination: _*Today*, my parents will come for dinner_._ *Here*, we do like beer very much._ 


Pertinax said:


> So, in my example, "singing" could be taken as either an adjective or a sentential adverb?


Yes, that would be my in interpretation, too.


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## Pertinax

Thank you very much, berndf.  Your explanation has cleared up something that's been bothering me for quite a while.


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## berndf

My pleasure.


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## boozer

berndf said:


> ... performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty[/I]is an adverbial phrase.The ability of occurring in different position in the sentence is one of the characteristics of of adverbials.EDIT: A _participial phrase_, yes, but not attributing the subject but the predicate


You know what, berndf, after giving it some more thought, I decided to check what the authority has to say about this. "Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language" by Randolph Quirk, p. 705:"The fuller clausal equivalent is a participial adverbial clause expressing contingency (cf 15.46):Having so many essays to write, I won't have time to go out tonight."Therefore, strictly speaking, the law is probably on your side.  However, miscreants like myself  (and, I suppose, Thomas Tompion) are not quite happy with this classification. Indeed, it is a participial phrase (even clause, in fact) and now I am more inclined to accept the fact that it refers to the whole main clause. This is probably why grammarians classify it as an adverbial modifier - for lack of better alternatives. On no authority whatsoever, I am more inclined to see it as an independent participial clause simply adding more information to the main clause. Indeed, as TT says, this clause does not answer the question "How has Belmondo done this or that?" but rather "What else has Belmondo been doing?"Alternatively, it can be seen as an elliptical full sentence (see PaulQ's post) reduced to a non-finite one and loosely attached to the main clause, using its subject as its own.





berndf said:


> There are two participial phrases with adverbial function supplementing the predicate:- _enabling him to play a variety of parts_,


This one refers to technique and is, I think, a post-modifying participial clause. It does not refer to the main clause the way the other participial clause does.


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## berndf

boozer said:


> This one refers to technique and is, I think, a post-modifying participial clause. It does not refer to the main clause the way the other participial clause does.


I accept your explanation concerning that clause (_enabling him to play a variety of parts_). I agree that an adjectival interpretation is possible.



boozer said:


> This is probably why grammarians classify it as an adverbial modifier - for lack of better alternatives. ... Indeed, as TT says, this clause does not answer the question "How has Belmondo done this or that?" but rather "What else has Belmondo been doing?


Pertinax had the same valid counter-argument against the classical "how?" test for adverbial character which I've brought up as well but probably shouldn't have. I think we clarified this (maybe more terminological) issue in #30-#33. Sentence-modifying adverbials indeed do not (necessarily) respond to a "how?" question.


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## Perseas

"Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty"





> On no authority whatsoever, I am more inclined to see it as an  independent participial clause simply adding more information to the  main clause. Indeed, as TT says, this clause does not answer the  question "How has Belmondo done this or that?" but rather "What else has  Belmondo been doing?


I think "performing both comic and tragic roles..." does not answer the question "what else has Belmondo been doing?" (in that case it would be an object to which verb?) but "in what way has Belmondo employed a versatile technique...?" which expresses manner; therefore it is adverbial. It could function as an adjective if it modified directly "Belmondo", i.e. " Belmondo performing (who performed)..." , but the meaning is different here, in my view.



> Sentence-modifying adverbials indeed do not (necessarily) respond to a "how?" question.


Where can I find these terms: "sentence-modifying/verb-modifyng adverbials" ?


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## berndf

Perseas said:


> Where can I find these terms: "sentence-modifying/verb-modifyng adverbials" ?


See the link in #31.


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## PaulQ

berndf said:


> Adjectives qualify nouns, not adjectives.
> Adjectives are qualified by adverbs: The project was clearly successful.


Let me dig a deeper hole... I have a pale red car; my wife's is a dark blue car. Or are you going to say it's "palely"

In my post, http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2268841 I argue that performing is simply preceded by the ellipsis of [He has been] - this seems readonable and a continuation and tense variation of the initial verb to be. Hence performing is simply part of the verb.

To look into this, I went to, http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1282556, in which you posted and which shows that the origin of the continuous form and a comparative version in present Dutch. in which you quote 





> Also continuous tenses http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7532/English-and-its-Relationship-with-French came into being: the present participle began life as a noun preceded by the preposition on, (He was on reading); the on developed into the prefix –a (He was areading) before being dropped entirely to form the continuous form we have today (He was reading).


 from which you conclude the present continuous participle is a gerund.

I'm not at all sure that it is necessary to categorise such words as "performing" other than as part of the verb - I remain convinced that they are now - after 1000 years - simply part of the verb and nothing more complex than that. Time is a wonderful thing when applied to language. So I look at 'performing' as a verb and the place-marker/an ellipsis for the whole verb, as, I hope my post at the bottom of the first page and the link in it show.

We are happy enough with "Jump!" as being a complete sentence; the imperative shows that it is not necessary to have everything on show.


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## berndf

PaulQ said:


> Let me dig a deeper hole... I have a pale red car; my wife's is a dark blue car. Or are you going to say it's "palely"


You mean _dark_ is as adjective in _a dark blue car_ like _midnight_ in _a midnight blue car_?

Now seriously: Adjective expressions like _dark blue, pale red_ or _midnight blue_ are best understood as compound words similar to compound nouns like _shop lifer_ or like _ink jet printer_. Besides, not all adjective-derived adverbs carry the suffix _-ly_. Sometimes adverbial derivations with and without _-ly_ even have different meanings, as in _he worked hard_ today vs._ he hardly worked today_.


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## PaulQ

berndf said:


> You mean _dark_ is as adjective in _a dark blue car_ like _midnight_ in _a midnight blue car_?


only insomuch as that you can have a dark car but not a midnight car.


> Now seriously: […]compound words similar to compound nouns like _[…]_ _ink jet printer_.


inkjet [ink jet, ink-jet] is a compound noun. There is nothing wrong with putting two nouns together to form a third idea (whether contiguous or not); Germanic languages are famous for it. I suggest ink-jet printer = a printer using *an* ink-jet. This does not mean that it is an adjective; just a series of nouns such as you might find in a tabloid headline “Girl Death Shock Horror!”. The understanding is complete but you would not say that “Girl” is an adjective.


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## berndf

PaulQ said:


> This does not mean that it is an adjective; just a series of nouns such as you might find in a tabloid headline  “Girl Death Shock Horror!”. The understanding is complete but you would  not say that “Girl” is an adjective.


Exactly. The same applies in to _dark blue_. It is simply a compound word.


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## PaulQ

and the compound is of two adjectives?


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## berndf

Of two "whatever"s. Compound expressions aren't that picky.  But back to your point in #40, The dark blue car didn't dig the deep hold you promised. And, rewriting a long sentence as two shorter ones is almost always possible. I can't see how that should convince us to interpret the the long sentence as it they were two.

The three syntactic interpretations of the present participle I quoted in #24 are absolutely clear and straight forward. I see no reason to become too cleaver and not simply use them. (There is actually a forth one: As a nominalized adjectives as in: _the living and the dead_)


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## PaulQ

berndf said:


> The dark blue car didn't dig the deep hold you promised.


I didn't make myself clear, I was referencing the idiom of "digging oneself out of a hole" - i.e. I was in the hole - I would *pick *holes in arguments 


> And, rewriting a long sentence as two shorter ones is almost always possible. I can't see how that should convince us to interpret the the long sentence as it they were two.


We are looking for the function of a single word in a phrase/clause - simplifying can be justified. The comma separates two quite distinct ideas, prohibiting separating the  two would be akin to prohibiting the separation of clauses separated by  'and'. (See my final paragraph below.)



> The three syntactic interpretations of the present participle I quoted in #24 are absolutely clear and straight forward. I see no reason to become too clever and not simply use them. (There is actually a forth one: As a nominalized adjectives as in: the living and the dead)


I note that the example given in #24 is a single sentence that we could easily extend by suffixing a main clause. Further, the author simply refers to it as a participle and is susceptible to ellipsis  [When I was] Calling upon him last summer, he kindly offered to give me his copy. Thinking back to the state of English when that was spoken, you can see that ellipsis was very common. 

In "Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, performing both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty" it is clear that performing is what Belmondo was doing and that [he has been - or as I see now - and has been] performing is the verb that belongs to the subject, Belmondo.


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## lucas-sp

> "Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, perform*ing* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerety, strenght and frailty"



I'm a huge fan of exgerman's explanation, and it's the same as the one I would have given: *accidental anacoluthon* (post 4). The sentence should be rewritten in either of the following ways:

"Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts *(and / ,) to perform* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty"
"Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of *parts, both comic and tragic, *with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty" 

(Sorry, I just had to take the spelling errors out too.)

I would suggest that the original writer of this sentence intended one of these two forms, and then felt compelled - by the imperatives of a literally misplaced parallelism - to put "perform" in the same form as "enabling." This is the accidental part: the anacoluthon comes when the parallel form is applied to the _wrong_ part of the sentence. "To play" and "to perform" should be parallel; but as written "to perform" and "enabling" are constructed in parallel. Meaning-wise, it's clear that "to perform" is supposed to have the same function as "to play." In fact, we all auto-correct the sentence upon reading it: it's the technique that _allows him_ to perform a variety of roles, not that the fact of performing a variety of roles coincides, arbitrarily, with the technique.

We can also rewrite the sentence to have a *properly-formed anacoluthon:*

"Throughout his career, Belmondo has employed a versatile acting technique enabling him to play a variety of parts, *for the performance of* both comic and tragic roles with a mixture of cynicism and sincerity, strength and frailty"

Here the structure shifts - from a participle-introduced phrase to a preposition-introduced one - and all of the part-of-speech questions are entirely resolvable. The logic is clear: [a versatile technique] [that facilitates (enabling/for)] [his performance of (him to play/the performance of)] [a multiplicity of roles (a variety of parts/both comic and tragic roles...)]

When we analyze the logic of the sentence, it's clear that the -ing form for "perform" is incorrect.

I don't think you are going to resolve this question, because you're dealing with an improperly-constructed sentence. The mere fact that we all understand what it's saying does not itself prove that the sentence is grammatical. Humans are notoriously creative interpreters; we're able to get meaning out of almost anything. And once we re-write the sentence to fit grammatical rules, it turns out to be easily classifiable by those rules. If you still want to take this sentence as written, you would, I think, have to link up "performing" with "to play": it is what "the actor is enabled to do." So if it absolutely has to be a participle, it's "what the actor is doing" - it's modifying "him," and looks more like an adjective... although in fact it's a gerund, a verbal noun.


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## PaulQ

Hmmm... By showing the sentence is flawed, I think you might have shot our fox. 

(As I had not come across Anacoluthon before, I will add this for the reference of others like me)





> _Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary_ (11th edition) defines _Anacoluthon_ as a:
> 
> “syntactical  inconsistency or incoherence within a sentence; especially a shift in an  unfinished sentence from one syntactic construction to another (as in  ‘you really ought—well, do it your own way’).”​



​


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## lucas-sp

It's also perhaps important to note that in my discussion I sortof warped the meaning of "anacoluthon." According to Longinus (well, not really Longinus, but the guy who wrote the book that was known as Longinus's), rhetorical devices are supposed to represent the speaker losing his command over grammar and syntax because he is overcome with such intense emotion. So they aren't meant to be grammatical, strictly speaking; however, since you can form the anacoluthon either grammatically or ungrammatically, I emphasized that criterion as "accidental" vs. "properly-formed."


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## berndf

PaulQ said:


> Thinking back to the state of English when that was spoken, you can see that ellipsis was very common.


Where do I see that?


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## boozer

I have been thinking and reading about this and I found something in the same book, Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by R. Quirk, that might potentially clear all doubts as to the nature of this participial clause. I apologise for the fairly longish quote, but I think it is quite relevant and elucidating in its entirety. Here it goes, p. 1124:





			
				11394458 said:
			
		

> In [7] the connection is one of reason without temporal sequence:Julia, being a nun, spent much of her life in prayer and meditation. [7]Sentences ..  and [7] all contain subordinate clauses, but only _, [4], and [7] are adverbial clauses, since they can be positioned initially, medially, and (except for [l]) finally. Adverbial participle and verbless clauses without a subordinator are SUPPLEMENTIVE CLAUSES; like nonrestrictive relative clauses and clauses in an and-coordination, they do not signal specific logical relationships, but such relationships are generally clear from the context. Subiectless supplementive clauses, ie those that (unlike supplementive absolute clauses, cf 15.58) do not have their own overt subject, resemble nonrestrictive relative clauses in another respect: the implied subject in the supplementive clause provides a link with the matrix clause rather as the relative pronoun provides a link in postmodifying relative clauses. The formal inexplicitness of supplementive clauses allows considerable flexibility in what we may wish them to convey. According to context, we may wish to imply temporal, conditional, causal, concessive, or circumstantial relationship. In short, the supplementive clause implies an accompanying circumstance to the situation described in the matrix clause. For the reader or hearer, the actual nature of the accompanying circumstance has to be inferred from the context. _


_ In other words, this is what other posters and I have argued all along – I am ready to accept that, technically, “performing…” is a participial phrase acting as an adverbial modifier. However, even though it is classified (perhaps for lack of better alternative) as adverbial, it happens to be a subordinate supplementive clause modifying the main clause by adding to it an accompanying circumstance. Therefore, I still say it answers the question “What (else) has Belmondo been doing?”, Perseas. It is certainly not an adverbial modifier of manner, in my view _


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## berndf

boozer said:


> It is certainly not an adverbial modifier of manner, in my view


I can still see reasons for calling it "a modification of manner"; but it doesn't really matter for the syntactic analysis. I am perfectly happy with calling it a _supplementive clause_ (I'd prefer _phrase_, but that is a minor terminological twist) leaving the nature of supplementation open.


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