1

Kindly consider the following sentence.

She sat bored at the edge of a cliff.

I have a few issues while identifying its structure. I can see sat is a verb; therefore, it's starting with S+V.

The next word bored is either an adjective or an adverb. I'm not sure. Can I get some help here?

Lastly, at the edge of a cliff is a prepositional phrase, which is working as an adverb.

Overall, the structure might be S + V + C + C but not so sure.
(Subject + Verb + Adjective + Adjective Complement)

Appreciate any help. Thanks!

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    Why not two adverbs?
    – Kris
    Commented Dec 20, 2018 at 6:35
  • 1
    "Bored" is an adjective here functioning as a predicative adjunct. It's predicative because it refers to a predicand, "she", and an adjunct because it is an optional modifier in clause structure, i.e. it's part of the predicate verb phrase, not part of the NP subject. "At the edge of a cliff" is a PP functioning as an adjunct of place.
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 20, 2018 at 9:11

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

In the sentence the verb 'sat' is used not only as an action verb but also as a link verb. The real semantics of the sentence can be structured like this: 'She was bored, and she sat ...' So in this sentence 'bored' is an adjective and functions as the predicative.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Oh, then the prepositional phrase at the edge of a cliff has nothing to do with the adjective bored. It is actually an adverb referring to the verb sat. Looks I get this! Thank you so much :)
    – AgentS
    Commented Dec 20, 2018 at 9:12

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .