What part of speech is 'inspired' here?

Question

I'm not sure if 'inspired' here is a verb in past participle or an adjective.

Director George Lucas was inspired to create the Wookiee character Chewbacca—a “gentle, hairy, non-English-speaking co-pilot”—after seeing his wife’s dog sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

It could be either, but it's probly a past participle in a passive construction. However, *after being seen his wife's dog is ungrammatical. — John Lawler, Dec 05 '20 at 15:23
Does this answer your question? Is 'stapled' verb or adjective in 'the blue page is stapled to the red page? or Is "rumored" a verb or an adjective (a participle adjective)? and compare 'Director George Lucas was encouraged to create the Wookiee character Chewbacca ...' — Edwin Ashworth, Dec 05 '20 at 15:33
It is passive voice of past indefinite tense; thus was + 3rd form of the verb. — Ram Pillai, Dec 05 '20 at 15:48
I'm with JL on this. I think we have to say it's ambiguous between an active VP and the more likely 'short' passive VP ("inspired by someone*). Modification by "very" would disambiguate, as in "Lucas was very inspired to create ...", clearly an active VP. — BillJ, Dec 05 '20 at 17:00
You have to search a bit: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150720-greatest-us-films-an-a-z-analysis — Hot Licks, Dec 05 '20 at 21:17

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 05 '20 at 15:34

"Inspired" is most likely a past participle here because "inspired" describes the state of George Lucas after seeing the dog.

It could also have been a verb in a sentence in the passive voice. However, if it were a verb, the structure, in my opinion, would be

Director George Lucas was inspired to create the Wookiee character Chewbacca—a “gentle, hairy, non-English-speaking co-pilot"—by (the act of) seeing his wife’s dog sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

because, then, we could turn it into an active-voice sentence as follows.

Seeing his wife’s dog sitting in the passenger seat of his car inspired Director George Lucas to create the Wookiee character Chewbacca—a “gentle, hairy, non-English-speaking co-pilot."

Because that is not the case, "inspired" is a past participle.

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 05 '20 at 15:36

-1

Good question. However, there is one mistake in this sentence:

Director George Lucas was inspired to create the Wookiee character Chewbacca – a “gentle, hairy, non-English-speaking co-pilot” – after having (not 'being') seen his wife’s dog sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

I am tempted to say that in this particular case it is a participle because it is followed by a to infinitive. In such structures you usually get participle + to do something. For example

He is tempted to cheat, they are convinced to try

On the other hand you do get constructions with adjective + to infinitive as well:

We are grateful to see you in good health.

But this could be rephrased as

We are grateful for seeing you in good health.

So I would rather think we have a participle in your sentence. Hope this helps.

answered Dec 05 '20 at 15:36

fev

33,009

"Seeing" is better than "having seen". You might say that the perfect is redundant because the past/anterior meaning is conveyed by "after". – BillJ Dec 05 '20 at 17:09
Yes, 'seeing' is definitely fine. 'after + present perfect' is not uncommon though, but it probably corresponds to my jolly care not make a mistake as a non-native speaker :) – fev Dec 05 '20 at 17:12
@user405662: No. What makes you think that? :) – fev Dec 05 '20 at 17:30
@user405662: My first answer was clear enough. I am not Italian. – fev Dec 05 '20 at 17:54
I think your real question is 'From which country are you from?' I think this is not relevant to the language question asked here, so let us not encumber the site with personal curiosities. – fev Dec 05 '20 at 18:00
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@fev Neither your country of origin nor your ethnicity is of any relevance to the question. However, as you say you are a non-native speaker, your native language is of relevance to the interpretation of your answer. – BoldBen Dec 05 '20 at 18:06
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@BoldBen: I am Romanian, and you may be right, a Romance language speaker does tend to see language as mathematics. I was only apprehensive to irritate the administrators of the site with irrelevant conversations. – fev Dec 05 '20 at 18:09
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@user405662: I have no problem answering questions about language. I am not embarrassed, I just think that for casual queries it is better to use a chat or something. I think the site provides that possibility. – fev Dec 05 '20 at 18:24

What part of speech is 'inspired' here?

2 Answers2