1

I read in a piece of news . " the amount of time that young people spend inactive." Inactive is an adjective . I consider it should be inactively . Is it right?

Faribaz
  • 11

2 Answers2

2

No, "inactively" doesn't work here. This is what the relative clause says:

Young people spend X amount of time inactive.

Which could be read along these lines:

Young people are inactive for X hours a day on average.

The adjective "inactive" says something about the subject "young people".

  • Yes. But one would say "He spent the afternoon inactively" since "inactive(ly)" is describing neither "the afternoon", nor "he". It is describing the way it was spent. – WS2 Feb 26 '20 at 10:53
  • That's right of course, but I'd think that "inactively" probably sits better modifying "one-time" events, as in your example, rather than serial occurrences as in the OP. I'd guess that there is also a slight difference in meaning between the adjective and the adverb. "Inactive" in the context of the noun phrase from the OP says "not engaging in physical activity" while your example rather suggests "I was being idle", "inactively" saying like "I wasn't doing anything particularly important." –  Feb 26 '20 at 11:18
  • A good comparison is "time that young people spend asleep". It's obvious here that "asleep" is an adjective. – Stuart F Feb 26 '20 at 13:51
  • A relative clause would be understood as Young people spend X amount of time that is inactive. But that's not what's happening here. – Tinfoil Hat Feb 27 '20 at 03:21
  • "Inactive" cannot be understood that way in the noun phrase from the OP. The nominal "amount of time" is the head of the phrase which is modified by the relative clause "that young people spend inactive". In no way can "inactive" be understood as modifying "time". It is predicated of "young people", it is them that it modifies, not the verb or "time". If you used the adjective suggested by Stuart F above, your analysis would lead to: "Young people spend X amount of time that is asleep". This obviously isn't a plausible reading. –  Feb 27 '20 at 06:29
  • Sorry, I though you were trying to call inactive a (reduced) relative clause (which it is not). I now see that you were referring to the original construction's relative clause: that young people spend inactive. – Tinfoil Hat Feb 27 '20 at 16:43
2

No. The adjective is correct.

"the amount of time that young people spend inactive."

means "the amount of time that young people spend as a result of being inactive."

This use of adjectives has two categories:

Resultative: https://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/resultative-adjective.html

I shot him dead = I shot him [and, as a result, he was] dead.

He beat the metal flat = He beat the metal [and, as a result, it was] flat.

Descriptive:

She arrived at the meeting drunk = She arrived at the meeting [and she was] drunk.

But

She arrived at the meeting drunkly = She arrived at the meeting [as if she were] drunk. Here she might not have been drunk - she might have been ill or injured.

There is an interesting and readable paper on this at http://wvw.broccias.net/research/SLE2001.pdf entitled "Unsubcategorized objects in English resultative constructions" by Cristiano Broccias (Università di Pavia)

Greybeard
  • 41,737
  • Young people spend time as a result of being inactive* is not correct. If it were, She arrived as a result of being drunk would be analogous. – Tinfoil Hat Feb 27 '20 at 03:48
  • @Tinfoil Hat I agree with you on this one. The OP phrase doesn't mean "the amount of time that young people spend as a result of being inactive". The adjective "inactive" is used descriptively in this phrase - ascribes a property to the subject "young people". So, it cannot be understood as modifying the situation of spending time. "Inactive" cannot be understood as a resulting state of the subject either. Not only in this sentence but in no other transitive clause can the resulting state expressed by the adjective be linked to the subject. –  Feb 27 '20 at 06:44
  • So, we can say : He drove her home drunk. , meaning that he was driving drunk, but we cannot read "drunk" in "He got her drunk" as referring to his drunkenness - it has to be "her" who ended up drunk. Resultatives in transitive clauses are always understood as predicated of the object, not the subject of the sentence. Or in the example with the adjective "inactive" - He made the account inactive. - "inactive" can only be understood as saying something about the account, not about him. It indicates the resulting state that the account is brought to. –  Feb 27 '20 at 06:50
  • @RejlanGivens: Summary: He drove the car drunk (depictive, subject oriented, he = drunk). He drank the beer warm (depictive, object oriented, beer = warm). He drove me crazy (resultative, object oriented, me = crazy via the verb action). – Tinfoil Hat Feb 27 '20 at 17:00
  • Sounds good to me Tinfoil Hat. In CGEL they label this function "predicative adjunct" . In literature I've also come across terms "secondary predication" and "small clause" for this same function. The other two terms stress the fact that this element is understood as predicate in the linking construction. We can often clearly see two predications, as in this example with drinking : He drove the car. He was drunk. –  Feb 27 '20 at 20:46