Most past participles can act as predicate adjectives:
"The island was inhabited."
but there are some words that may look like both parts of speech, but can only be used in one way or the other:
"The student was flabbergasted." Flabbergasted is adjectival, but there isn't really a verb "to flabbergast."
"The lazy employee was fired." Fired describes what happened to her (verb), but isn't really a trait she would possess.
So, is there a simple way to test whether a given -ed word is one or the other or both?
Here's what I've come up with and I'd like your assessment:
Put the word in these sentences:
- "the thing seems _____" if it sounds natural, it's a predicate adjective.
- "the thing has (been) _____" If it sounds natural, it's a past participle -- been is used for transitive verbs, omitted for intransitive verbs..
- If your word works in both, it can be used either way.
Does that cover my bases, or is there a better way?