grammaticality - Can an adjective follow dynamic verbs ("leave", "declare")?


I know that an adjective can come after some verbs, such as: be, become, feel, get, look, seem, smell, sound. These verbs are "stative" verbs, which express a state or change of state. For example:



Dinner smells good tonight



But I also find this kind of sentence.



Seventeen years of war left the country bankrupt


The company was later declared insolvent



In those sentences, an adjective can follows other dynamic verbs (leave, declare) as well. Is it right for those sentences?


Or who knows what is another grammar point being used in those examples? Thanks.



Answer



It depends on the verb. The list you have is incomplete: both leave and declare take adjectives only when they are transitive or in the passive voice. These are called object complements; the list you have gives verbs that take subject complements. I don't know of a list that gives verbs which take object complements.


Why didn't these verbs go on the list you have? Maybe the compiler of the list didn't want to make it too complicated.


Only transitive verbs can be made passive, so these two cases go together.


The grammar gets complicated here. The verb paint can take an object complement, but only if it's a color.



He painted the barn red.
*He painted the barn polka-dotted.
He painted the barn with polka dots.



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