[Grammar] The 'past participle' skilled

[donnach]

Was skill ever a verb? If not, skilled is not a past participle adjective. If not a past participle adjective, what is it?

Can nouns be made into adjectives by adding -ed?

What about experience? Experienced derives more from the noun than the verb sense.

Are there other words (nouns) that function as past participles of ghost verbs?

Thanks!

Donna

 

[Tdol]

Oxford give it as a verb, though usually used in the skilling form:
definition of skill from Oxford Dictionaries Online

And de-skilling is used. I can't recall coming across things like They skilled us.

 

[Raymott]

I don't think that all these adjectives ending in '-ed' are necessarily past participles, or derived from verbs.
"You are talented. Someone has talented you." (?)
"People who aren't blind are sighted. They have been sighted." (?)
"He is prejudiced. Who prejudiced him?" (?)
...

 

[5jj]

A few past participles actually have an active meaning when used as adjectives.

a fallen leaf
advanced students
an escaped prisoner
the collapsed hotel
a retired general
the curtains are faded
I'll be finished in a few minutes

The examples are from Swan's Practical English Usage, 3rd edition, page 380.

 

[BobK]

...
Can nouns be made into adjectives by adding -ed?

-...

Almost any noun can be verbed, and often is - especially in the world of business. After being verbed, they can undergo other transformations: with skill you can have skill (v), whence skilling, skilled, upskill, downskill, reskill, deskill...

However, as Ray said, an '-ed' ending doesn't always mean 'past participle'. It seems to me that there are two sorts of 'skilled' out there, one meaning 'having skill' and a more modern one meaning 'given a skill'.

b

 

[birdeen's call]

The suffix "-ed" can be used to form adjectives directly from nouns, as others have said. Its meaning is similar to that of "-ful" and opposite to that of "-less". "-less" can often be replaced with "un- -ed".

We have the following. (I'm not taking all meanings of these words into account and some of these words are archaic or obsolete.)

sightless = unsighted
voiceless = unvoiced
pointless = unpointed
skill-less, skilless = unskilled
wontless = unwonted

Longer words only seem to take "un- -ed". We only have "unconcerned" and "unprincipled". "Concernless" and "principleless" aren't words.

It's interesting that the pattern of adding the past participle ending directly to nouns can be found also in Latin.