John Kesler

You seemed to imply this when you said previously:

"Clean," in the example sentence, is not "used adverbially," since it describes the dog, not the manner of smelling. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, so for "clean" to be "used adverbially" as you stated, it would have to describe the dog's smelling ability, not the dog itself.

The Evil One

The point is, just because "clean" answers the question "how" does not mean it is an adverbial. Like "terrible" in the joke it is a subject complement.

I was pointing out that your argument, ie that it must be an adverbial because it answers "how?", is flawed, and trying to do so in a funny way. Clearly I failed.

Adverbials encode time, manner, means, location, reason, cause, etc. Subject complements encode characteristics of the subject. "Clean" in the sentence in question is an example of the latter.

"How does my dog smell?" could be answered by a subject complement or an adverbial of means. The "no nose" clause of the joke sets you up to expect an adverbial of means, but you get a subject complement instead.

jgibson000

It is? Gee, here I thought, as you yourself indicate, it answers the question of "how".

It is? I thought speaks of the quality of the smell the dog issues.

Jeffrey Gibson

Clivedurdle

The clean dog
The dog smells cleanly

?

jgibson000

May I suggest you consult the OED where you will see it noted and documented that in addition to being an adjective, the word "clean" is also an adverb.

JG

Chris Weimer

From the descriptivist POV, smells acts like a linking verb, and clean thus would be an adjective. But it could also be Jeffrey's suggestion.

Either way, it's not Greek, and thus irrelevant to the discussion.

The Evil One

Aaaargh. How hard is this? Answering the question of "how" doesn't mean it's an adverbial. It could be an adverbial or a subject complement. If "how" is asking "in what manner" then it anticipates an adverbial reply. If "how" is asking "to what level of goodness" (As in, for example "how are you today?") then it anticipates a subject complement reply.



Exactly. "the quality of the smell" is not "time, manner, means, location, reason, cause" etc.

The smell is clean. The dog is clean. A characteristic of the subject. Not an adverbial of manner.



Damn straight, but not in this context. This is a very straight forward case of subject-copula-subj.comp., where the subject's semantic role is a source.




Descriptivist is the only POV worth taking into account.

But yes, "smell" here is a copula.




Actually it couldn't. The interpretation of the semantic role of the subject of "smell" (which can be either an experiencer or a source) is forced by the content of the rest of the clause. "clean" is an attribute of the dog, which means the dog must be a source, which means that "smell" must be copular and "clean" must be a subject complement.

Damn straight, so perhaps a mod would be good enough to remove this digression to another thread....

jgibson000

It doesn't?

Except that the actual answer to "How are you today" is "I am well". And to my knowledge, "well" is an adverb.

And when does "how" ever ask "to what level of goodness"? It certainly doesn't in the question "how are you?" since the question is a shorthand form of "how are you doing?".

Now you are using "smell" as a noun.

Nope, it's a specification of the intransitive verb "smell" (to issue an odor).

It is? And here I thought it was a verb -- decsribing something that the dog does (he is issuing a pleasant odor)

To be what you claim it is the word in question would have to be "smelly" -- "the dog is smelly".

JG

The Evil One

Obviously not, because there are lots of adverbials that don't answer the question "how" and there are things that answer the question "how" that aren't adverbials. Such as the subject complement in question.

When referring to health it's usually an adjective, and in the sentence you give it is certainly a subject complement, not an adverbial; note that you could easily get "good" in that context, and any term other than "good/well" will occur in adjective form, not adverb.


Genetic fallacy. That might be where it comes from but that's not how it's perceived now.


It's called a "paraphrase", in an attempt to make the meaning clearer.



What is this term "specification"? I am unaware of this as a recognised grammatical term. If you mean "modifier" or "complement" then please say so.

What you seem to have failed to notice is that "smell" occurs with at least four subcategorisation frames, two intransitive, one transitive and one copula (and possibly others that I haven't thought of).

ETA to hammer the point home: an adverbial could occur with any of those subcategorisation frames, but the subject complement can't.


Of course it's not describing something the dog "does". It's a perception verb and the "dog" is the source, not an experiencer or an agent.

As for "is it a verb or is it a copula" -- it's both. As most perception verbs are.

Not that wiki proves anything, but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_copulae

Chris Weimer

Wrong. Smell could be an intransitive verb and clean could be an adverb modifying smell. In fact, that's how it's normally done. I'm just saying that smell could also be a copula linking dog and clean. English isn't specifying here.

The distinction between adverb and adjective don't play so hard and fast. Ask any descriptivist.