They're the only family he has left now.

[diamondcutter]

I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now.
Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling

Is “has left” the present perfect here? Or is “left” an adjective, which modifies the noun “family”?

 

[Ostap]

No.
No.
"Left" is a passive verb (or a past participle) which takes "family" as a direct object.

 

[Tarheel]

"They're the only family he has left now."

They are the only family he has. There is nobody else. It's rather sad, isn't it?

 

[Peedeebee]

And it doesn't mean he has left them. It means they remain, and nobody else does , as Tarheel says.
"Left" here is an adjective, isn't it?

 

[Ostap]

"Left" here is an adjective, isn't it?

How is it an adjective if it takes two objects - "family" as direct and "he" as indirect?

 

[Tarheel]

It's not left. it's has left

 

[Ostap]

It's not left. it's has left

It's usually said when the present perfect is implied.

 

[5jj]

They're the only family he has left now.

There is no present perfect there.

 

[emsr2d2]

It means exactly the same as "They're the only family he has now". "Left" simply means "remaining".

Bob: Have you got any biscuits?
Helen: Only ginger nuts. I had loads of different biscuits last week but they're the only ones I have left now.

Sam: Can I borrow some money?
Louise: It depends on how much you need. I had to pay for a new boiler last month so twenty-five pounds is all I have left now.

 

[jutfrank]

"Left" is a passive verb (or a past participle) which takes "family" as a direct object.

That's not right. Don't you mean that family is the direct object of have?

Th word left here is equivalent to 'remaining'. I think it's an adjectival phrase functioning as an object complement. Anyway, grammatical terminology isn't at all necessary here. Learners just need to focus on the pattern: have something left

 

[Ostap]

There is no present perfect there.

That was the point.

That's not right. Don't you mean that family is the direct object of have?

I beg to differ. Although family is the direct object of have, still, family is also the direct object of left.

Th word left here is equivalent to 'remaining'.

Yes, but remaining is a linking verb, while left transitive, taking objects.

I think it's an adjectival phrase functioning as an object complement.

I believe if you are left with something, it implies someone/something, e.g., God or fate, has left you in that condition. For a structure with an object complement, I'd expect something like, "Her words left him speechless.", where "left" is still a transitive verb taking a direct object.

 

[Peedeebee]

Apologies for throwing the term "adjective" into the mix. It probably wasn't helpful, and possibly was just inaccurate.
But let me try one more paraphrase:
The Aunt and Uncle are the only family who have been left (behind). That is, they have not been taken.
So he has them. He hasn't left them. They haven't left him. In fact no-one has departed from anyone in the original passage.
The subject of "left" is, I believe, not in the sentence at all.
I'll leave someone else to comment about "passive" and whether passive verbs can have direct objects.

 

[probus]

"Left" in this context is NOT a verb. If you consider "have left" to be a phrasal verb, then "left" is perhaps a fragment of it.

 

[Ostap]

Why was my last post proving it is a verb removed?

 

[Lycidas]

I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now.
Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling

Is “has left” the present perfect here? Or is “left” an adjective, which modifies the noun “family”?

From the two sentences in the quotation, we can infer this one: Harry has only his aunt and uncle left as family members now.

And that sentence implies this one: Harry's aunt and uncle are left.

Is left an adjective or a verb in the sentence They are left?

Parsing it as an adjective doesn't seem very plausible. If left were an adjective there, are should be a copula, replaceable by other copular verbs. But we can't say:

*They seem/appear left.

What about the verb analysis? That seems more plausible. If left is the past participle of leave in They are left, then are left is a passive construction of some kind.

Some passives have a stative meaning applying to the state resulting from an action. E.g., The building is demolished implies The building has been demolished.

We could say that those family members whom Harry has lost apart from his aunt and uncle have, in departing this life, left only his aunt and uncle behind.

 

[diamondcutter]

Maybe we can think this way.
The destiny took the lives of Harry Porter’s other family members and only left his aunt and uncle.

 

[emsr2d2]

Maybe we can think about it this way:

The Destiny took the lives of many/most of Harry Potter’s other family members and only left only his aunt and uncle.

If that helps you, you can think of it like that. However, the original has nothing to do with destiny. I think you're trying to make it too complicated.

They're the only family he has left now = His aunt and uncle are the only relatives who are still alive. The rest of his relatives are dead.

 

[Lycidas]

I think it's interesting to compare the use of the past participle "left" in sentences like the one in question with the past participle "parked" in similar sentences:

1a) Those are two only two relatives he has left in his family.
1b) He has only those two relatives left in his family.
1c) Only those two relatives are left in his family.

2a) Those are the only two cars we have parked in our parking lot.
2b) We have only those two cars parked in our parking lot.
2c) Only those two cars are parked in our parking lot.

In each case, the past participle conveys the sense of "remaining" (indeed, "parked" could be replaced with "left" in 2a, 2b, and 2c), and yet each past participle has its own meaning. The only difference is that we can clearly postulate a "parker" in the second example set; the vehicles came to be in a state of being parked in the parking lot by virtue of having been parked there by someone. We don't know who parked them there, but we know that someone must have.

In contrast, there is no clear "leaver" in sentences like those in (1). At most, we can say that it is as if the relatives were left by destiny, fate, God, the relatives who "departed," etc. In neither case is the speaker really thinking about an agent, or even about the act related to the past participle; yet we can't say that the past participle is devoid of verbal meaning. There is something of the stative/quasi/generic-subject passive voice in each case—in my humble opinion.