built of stone

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Fagin

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In this sentence

This house is built of stone.

Is 'built' an adjective or a verb?
 

emsr2d2

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In [STRIKE]this[/STRIKE] the sentence "This house is built of stone", is 'built' an adjective or a verb?

See my changes to your layout above. What do you think the answer is?
 

emsr2d2

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If you had Googled "definition of built", you would have got this as one of the hits. Can you work out what the answer is using those definitions?
 

Rover_KE

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Why do you need to know?
 

Fagin

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In another discussion I was asked to give an example of the verb 'build' used in the Present Simple. I wrote the aforementioned sentence. After which I was corrected by someone who said that in this sentence 'built' is not used as a verb but as an adjective.
Now I am not a linguist so I came here to seek help from English teachers. Is there anything wrong with this?
 
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emsr2d2

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"Built" is not the present simple.
 

gamboler

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In your sentence "built" is the past participle of the verb "to build", so it's not an adjective. You used the auxiliar verb to be + the past participle of the verb to build.
See the difference: He has a heavy build (he is burly, husky). In this sentence, build is an adjective.
We ate baked peas (adjective). The peas were baked too long (verb, passive voice). Do you understand the difference?

-----------------------------------------
Not a teacher or native speaker
 
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Fagin

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Fagin

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In your sentence "built" is the past participle of the verb "to build", so it's not an adjective. You used the auxiliar verb to be + the past participle of the verb to build.
See the difference: He has a heavy build (he is burly, husky). In this sentence, build is an adjective.
We ate baked peas (adjective). The peas were baked too long (verb, passive voice). Do you understand the difference?

A million thanks for your kind reply. But you are not a teacher.

Here's an example of 'built' used as an adjective with 'is' before it:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/built

a dancer who is really built
 
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GoesStation

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Fagin

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Ok gentlemen!
It's 2 in the morning here. I need to have a sleep.
Thanks for the interesting discussion and good bye.
 

teechar

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Gamboler, note my edit to your post. If you reply to questions on the forum, please indicate in your post that you're neither a teacher nor a native speaker.
 

Phaedrus

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Past participles are frequently used as adjectives in English. Indeed, we often forget that some adjectives, such as tired, bored, interested, were originally past participles - and can still be used as such.

It's strange that built (in the appropriate sense) is not lexicalized as an adjective, whereas made is: The house is made of stone.

In 'This house is built of stone', the italicised words are telling us about the appearance and structure of the house.

I find it interesting that the adjectival force of built becomes clearly verbal if we change of to with: The house is built with stone.
 
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