An English grammar question?

Question

How many adjectives are there in the sentence: "Jaguars are seldom seen?" Someone says "seldom" is an adjective. Besides, I learnt at high school that "seen" is the past participle of "see" and it can also functions as an adjective too. For instance, "I was drunk."; then "drunk" (which is the past participle of "drink") is an adjective in the example.

Back to my question: "Seldom" or "seen" or both, which is/are adjective(s) in that sentence?

Thanks.

Answer 1

This is a passive sentence in which seldom is an adverb and "are seen" is the verb.  The active transformation:  People seldom see jaguars.  Passive sentences use "be" plus the past participle of the verb.  So while you are right that past participles can become adjectives, that is not the case in this sentence.  There are no adjectives at all here.

Answer 2

Wow, tricky!  Just "seen" is  an adjective.  Many words are an adjective, depending on how they are used.  The word "seldom" is being used as an adverb to describe when or how the jaguar is "seen".

Answer 3

Jaguars -- noun, subject of the sentence

are seen -- passive tense verb

seldom -- adverb, modifying "are seen"

The passive voice is confusing here.  It might be simpler to view the same idea in active voice, with a different (but similar) adverb

People rarely see jaguars.

You're right, the past participle of a verb can be used as an adjective.  We can say "A box was observed." -- passive voice form of "Someone observed a box."  But, we can also say "The observed box was blue."  In that case, "observed" is a past participle acting as an adjective, telling us which box or what kind of box.

Compare these:

Jaguars are seldom seen.

Seen jaguars are seldom caught.

In the first, "seen" is part of the passive voice verb.  In the second, "seen" tells us which jaguars, so it's a participle acting as an adjective.

Here's another thing that will help.  If a participle is all by itself, it's probably not acting as a verb.  If the participle has a helping verb to connect with, it's certainly acting as part of the verb.

In your sentence, it's not just "seen" by itself.  It's "are seen".

Answer 4

I am not an English teacher, but I would say there are none.

At first I thought there were two because in this case "seen" is so close to meaning "visible"...yet it doesn't *exactly* mean visible.  Can the jaguars be 'seen' unless someone is doing the seeing?  No, so in this case it is just a past tense verb.  Jaguars are seldom seen [by the locals].  In this case "the locals" are doing the seeing, not the jaguars, and that is the meaning of the original sentence.

Then, since seldom is modifying the verb, I would say it is not an adjective but an adverb.

Rearrange the sentence like this: They seldom see the jaguars.

Did it lose its meaning?  Not at all, so that's how I would look at it, just because the the subject is assumed and not written doesn't make it any less the subject in my mind.  The jaguars are not the subject they are the direct object.

This could all be totally wrong!  I am just trying to help :)

Answer 5

'seldom' can be both an adjective and an adverb

'seen' is a verb