1

In a movie, the interviewer wanted to interview someone, and then his friend offered him a drink, but the interviewer said " They want me to do this sober ". "They" refers to his bosses.

Shouldn't he say "soberly" instead of "sober" ?

Thanks in advance

John Lawler
  • 107,887
Smap
  • 23
  • 3
    It means "while in a sober condition", similar to straight to mean 'serious(ly)'. Adverbs and adjectives are not as different in English as they tell you in school. – John Lawler Oct 26 '21 at 21:15
  • 4
    Sober is a predicative adjunct which describes the direct object me. Because the adjunct is describing a noun phrase, an adjective is used. – Araucaria - Him Oct 26 '21 at 21:16
  • 3
    It’s what Bas Aarts calls the Eating Pizza Naked construction. – Araucaria - Him Oct 26 '21 at 21:17
  • 4
    He's using the "not affected by alcohol; not drunk" meaning of sober, not the "serious, sensible, and solemn" meaning. The adverb soberly only has a meaning that corresponds to that latter definition for sober ("in a serious, sensible, and solemn manner"). A lot of actual usage of English omits words; what the speaker means is "They want me to do this while I'm sober", but they've dropped the "while I'm" part. – Anthony Grist Oct 26 '21 at 22:13
  • @JohnLawler, they're different enough that if you said "they want me to do this soberly" it would have a different meaning. – The Photon Oct 27 '21 at 01:01
  • Same reason people often say I need you to come quick! rather than ...come quickly!. – FumbleFingers Oct 27 '21 at 13:31
  • Thank you @livresque – Smap Oct 27 '21 at 15:53
  • 1
    @FumbleFingers (Actually, I'd argue that that's not a parallel case... but that would be abusing the comments section to digress from the original question... so I wouldn't do that.) – Andy Bonner Oct 27 '21 at 16:28
  • 4
    Does this answer your question? In ‘catch me off guard’, is the ‘off guard’ an objective complement or adjective phrase? (' ... Secondary predication is commonly classified into the two types of constructions –– depictives and resultatives –– illustrated in (1) and (2) respectively.

    (1) Depictives a. John left the room angry. ‘subject-oriented’ ...)

     – Edwin Ashworth Oct 27 '21 at 18:16
  • 1
    @livresque 'They want me to do this sober' is, as Araucaria points out, the subject-orientated depictive construction; here, sober is an adjective, not a flattened variant of soberly. 'They want me to do this while sober' is very similar. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 27 '21 at 18:26
  • 1
    @AndyBonner: You're right. As penance, I've copied Anthony Grist's comment (which after due consideration I now think nails the matter) into an actual Answer. – FumbleFingers Oct 28 '21 at 11:13

2 Answers2

1

In the sentence " They want me to do this sober ", why is an adjective being used to describe a verb ( do )?

It isn't. "Sober" is an adjective: It is not a flat adverb (if such beasts exist.)

"They want me to do this sober" = "They want me to do this whilst I am sober."

The "whilst I am" has been omitted. Of course, "whilst I am sober." is adverbial but "sober" itself, is not.

Edit: I had missed the post by Anthony Grist when I answered. I see that this is practically a repeat.

Greybeard
  • 41,737
1

As commented by @Anthony Grist below the question...

He's using the not affected by alcohol; not drunk meaning of sober, not the serious, sensible, and solemn meaning. The adverb soberly only has a meaning that corresponds to that latter definition for sober (in a serious, sensible, and solemn manner).
A lot of actual usage of English omits words; what the speaker means is They want me to do this while I'm sober, but they've dropped the while I'm part.

I can't see anything useful to add to that.

FumbleFingers
  • 140,184
  • 45
  • 294
  • 517
  • This errs perhaps on the side of over-prescriptiveness. Lexico has: 'drunkenly [adverb]: In a drunk or intoxicated manner. ‘He stumbled drunkenly along the street.' And Collins Spanish Dictionary includes the subsense << soberly [adverb]
    1. (= not drunkenly) → sobriamente >>. But certainly 'soberly' almost always has the other senses, and would carry that sense if used here. 'Sober' is the only choice for that reason.....
     – Edwin Ashworth Oct 28 '21 at 11:42
  • But also, the adjectival usage (if available) may be the better choice in these situations anyway. 'John left the room angrily' (or, better styled, 'John angrily left the room') has the cohesiveness of the verb + adverb coupling, There is a strong hint of resultativeness: the anger precipitates the exit. But with 'John left the room angry', there is essentially mere synchronicity. Perhaps John was still angry, after a long argument, when he left the room. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 28 '21 at 11:43