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I’ve noticed recently that certain constructions with present active participles (meaning, -ing forms acting adjectivally) prefer to be modified by adjectives rather than by adverbs.
For example, it sounds better to say:
than it does to say:
even though rough, an adjective, is clearly modifying looking, another adjectival word.
Is there any rule that explains this? Or is this just a strange corner case of English?
It’s because sense verbs like look, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels customarily take adjectives rather than adverbs. Notice how normally it is good that goes with each of them, and how using well there would mean something altogether different.
Now go back and swap in well for each good in the five example sentences above. In all cases it changes the meaning significantly, and in most cases it is sheer nonsense.
This is even more apparent if you try it with poorly.
It's impossible to divorce syntax from meaning here, though some try to. I've seen the word 'modify' given very strange and forced shades of meaning to ensure that the definition of a central adverb as a word that modifies a verb 'works'.
However, let's start with a couple of easy cases:
Contrast:
The teacher marked the question wrong.
The teacher marked the question wrongly.
In the first example, wrong is used in secondary predication, and is an adjective addressing (I'm happy with modifying here) the (teacher's assessment of) the accuracy of the answer.
In the second example, wrongly is used as an adverb modifying marked.
Now, in the example rough-looking neighbourhood (used prenominally, a hyphen is often inserted) the neighbourhood is described as rough looking; it may or may not deserve the first impression it invokes. Rough looking or rough-looking is unitary, a compound adjective modifying the noun neighbourhood.
Look has two related but different senses.
On the one hand it aligns with verbs like gaze and stare, intransitive verbs denoting the action of an animate subject.
Jack stared nervously at the girl.
Jack looked nervously at the girl.
In these cases nervous is an Adjunct which modifies the verb stare and thus must be cast in adverbial form. If you to transform the predicate into an adjunct modifying Jack it retains this form:
Looking nervously at the girl, Jack shuffled his feet.
On the other hand, look aligns with verbs like be and appear, copulas which attribute a particular character to the subject.
The girl was nervous.
The girl looked nervous.
In these cases nervous is an Argument of the sentence; it is attributed to the subject, the girl, and is therefore cast in adjectival form. When you transform this predicate you employ a different structure but retain the adjectival form:
The nervous-looking girl licked her lips.
Other verbs of sensation have similar but not always identical properties. Taste for instance is a transitive verb in its agentive use:
Amy tasted the candy. — The candy tasted sweet. — sweet-tasting candy
With hear, the distinction between agentive and copular is expressed lexically, with a different word — and that word has its own copular and agentive senses:
Bob heard the bell. — The bell sounded loud. — the loud-sounding bell ... BUT ALSO
Frank heaved on the bellrope and the bell sounded loudly, waking the entire quarter. — the loudly sounding bell.
So the rule governing adjective vs adverb depends on how the verb is used; but how any given verb may be used is a matter of historical contingency.
