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A recent word game used
"dwelt",
which surprised me because they usually don't include conjugations of verbs, unless they are also adjectives, like e.g. "burnt". Can
"dwelt"
be an adjective? The only example I could come up with was something like "the house looked ______ in", but then that probable needs a hyphen, and even then, is it really an adjective?
Is there perhaps a rule that all past participles can be adjectives, even if their use would make no logical sense?
To paraphrase John Lawler's comment, any past participle can potentially serve as an adjective if the occasion arises. Whether it pleases readers' stylistic senses is another matter. Here are a few examples of dwelt serving as an adjective in pre-position:
Every compressed house thus became a place with its own memory, part of the larger collective memory of the dwelt place. (Place as Material Culture: Objects, Geographies, and the Construction of Time, 2013.)
In this world, the dead mark the time in the life of communities - dead bodies lay the foundations of dwelt space, and they inhabit it after the occupation ended, as happens at many other tells. (Far from Equilibrium: An Archaeology of Energy, Life, and Humanity, 2021.)
But they've auxiliars there from many a town, / Spear-wielding men, that every effort mine / Put quite abroad, nor suffer me to crown / My wish, and overthrow fair Ilium's well-dwelt town. (The Iliad of Homer, Literally Rendered in Spenserian Stanza, 1864; note the use of the adverb well to modify dwelt.)
Conventionally, such an adjective usage is rare. You'll find many guides (like this from the University of Victoria Continuing Studies) focus on narrower sets of participial adjectives, like those showing emotion. Nonetheless, occasionally other participles are used as adjectives.
