Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 March 19

= March 19 =

what is the grammar of this sentence?
What is the grammar of this sentence: "This chair is designed for sitting on, not standing on." What is the grammatical form of "is designed"? It looks like the passive voice, but it is in the present tense, so I don't know what the active form would be ("A person designs this for sitting on," preserving the present tense, does not look right). So is "designed" an adjective? Because that seems a bit odd also. Thanks in advance, IBE (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I believe it is called a Participle. See link for more information. "Like other parts of the verb, participles can be either active (e.g. breaking) or passive (e.g. broken)." In the case you quote, it is a passive participle. The designing was done in the past, so it is technically a past participle, but you can still say "is designed" I guess because the resulting state is simply "designed". --Lgriot (talk) 19:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * From what I learned in school, I see it as follows. The sentence is in the active voice. The verb is "is". "Designed" is a past participle serving as a predicate adjective. The sentence basically means "The design of this chair does not permit standing on it." An equivalent sentence in the passive voice is "This chair was designed for sitting on, not standing on." Jmar67 (talk) 22:00, 19 March 2019 (UTC)


 * You're asking about "This chair is designed for [something]", and not the part "sitting on, not standing on". So for simplicity's sake let's substitute "This chair is designed for comfort". Yes, this is in the passive voice. The active voice equivalent is something like "[XYZ] designed this chair for comfort"; however, other than in very limited contexts (none of which are relevant here), English makes a subject obligatory: bare *"Designed this chair for comfort", with no agent, is ungrammatical. (The asterisk is conventional way of pointing this out.) The main function of the passive voice is to change the valency of the verb: "This chair is designed for comfort", again with no mention of the agent, is perfectly grammatical. "Designed" is indeed a past participle. It's not serving as a predicate adjective. "Designed for comfort" is a subordinate clause, serving as an internal complement in a catenative construction. &para; Please don't take en:WP's articles about English grammar so seriously. They're based on "consensus", largely a consensus of editors who are resorting to wretched grammar "authorities" that unthinkingly parrot their predecessors. What's currently the most authoritative treatment of English grammar is The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL). Linguists can and do disagree with this or that ingredient of what it says, but they don't ignore it; and it argues for its departures (few if any of which were at all new within linguistics when it was published) from the boneheaded orthodoxy of school grammar books. CGEL is very large (over 1800 pages) and expensive; but its two main authors have produced a highly simplified and much cheaper and more compact version, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, which I recommend. -- Hoary (talk) 23:21, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * PS on reflection, Jmar67 may have meant that "designed" was an adjective that etymologically was derived from a past participle. This kind of adjective has a name: "participial adjective"; and we see it in for example in the "annoyed" in "very annoyed" (as "very" modifies adjectives and not verbs). Jmar67 may be right about this (though I see no particular reason why it should be a participial adjective and not a participle); if they are right about this, then yes, the sentence is indeed in the active voice, and "designed for sitting on, not standing on" is an adjective phrase whose function is predicative complement. Just as "I'm hungry" is likely to be intended/understood as "Let's eat" (see illocutionary act), this sentence is likely to be intended/understood as "The design of this chair does not permit standing on it", but I wouldn't say that this is what it "basically means". -- Hoary (talk) 00:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I do claim that in this particular case "designed" is an adjective formed by the past participle of the verb "to design". It might very well be termed a "participial adjective" for convenience. But it is still the past participle form. Jmar67 (talk) 02:10, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd have to agree with Jmar here: "X designed the chair" is not the active version of "The chair is designed" because it changes the tense. The active form is the one I gave: "X designs the chair", which doesn't make sense. So I would go with participial adjective. It just seems strange, although perhaps there is a kind of continuous transformation from simple adjective to this participial adjective, something like: "The chair is red." -> "The chair is brightly coloured." -> "The chair is designed with bright colours." -> "The chair is designed for visual appeal." -> "The chair is designed for (any other purpose X)." Now, X can be anything: "designed for comfort." This transformation does not prove anything on its own, but it highlights the possibility. I think the transformation does not change the basic structure, it just introduces greater complexity to the bit after "is", which is what convinces me that it is in fact an adjective. The confusion arises because it sounds so close to the past passive: "The chair was designed for comfort." This tricks the mind into thinking it ought to be something else, but that does not win the argument, for me at least. IBE (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Another reason for the adjectival interpretation is that the focus is on the present design state of the chair, not the action of designing it. In contrast, I would consider the sentence "My car is designed by German engineers" to be in the passive voice. Here, the focus is on the ongoing (year-to-year) action "design" and the agent is named. I can formulate that in the active voice with "German engineers design my car." Jmar67 (talk) 12:50, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think "German engineers design my car" is a valid formulation. Unless your car is being constantly subjected to major modifications, it was designed at some point in the past. I would characterize the difference between "this chair is designed for comfort" and "this chair was designed for comfort" as being related to whether the chair is still being used as a chair. I would only use "is designed" if the chair is one that I actually use or that I expect to be used. If I am looking at an old chair (say in a museum or junk pile) I would only say that the chair "was designed". --Khajidha (talk) 13:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * My example was intended to mean the make of my car, for example "Volkswagen". The design is a continual process. Jmar67 (talk) 14:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The specificity of "my car" precludes its usage in that manner. --Khajidha (talk) 17:31, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I can use it in that sense, and coupled with "is designed" it can only refer to the make or model, not the physical car. The point was that "is designed" when referring to an ongoing design process is a verb in the passive voice and not a participial adjective construction. I am certainly open to other opinions. Jmar67 (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2019 (UTC)