alive, living, live, lively

[嘟嘟嘟嘟]

Hello, teachers！I am eager to know which word(s) you will choose to fill in each blank in the following sentences. It has long been a nightmare for me to tell the difference between the bold words. It is an exercise from one of my test papers.

alive, living, live, lively

（1）Many people are still buried ________ after the earthquake．
（2）All _________ things should be kept in a peaceful environment．
（4）His classes are __________ and interesting．
（5）Did you catch a __________ fish？

 

[嘟嘟嘟嘟]

（1）Many people are still buried alive after the earthquake．
（2）All live/living things should be kept in a peaceful environment．What is the difference between the two words?
（4）His classes are lively/alive and interesting．
（5）Did you catch a live/living fish？
What do you think?

 

[emsr2d2]

In 2, 3 and 4, you have given us two options. Pretend you're in a test situation and give us just one answer.

 

[Rover_KE]

... and use each option once only.

 

[嘟嘟嘟嘟]

（1）Many people are still buried alive after the earthquake．
（2）All living things should be kept in a peaceful environment．What is the difference between the two words?
（3）His classes are lively and interesting．
（4）Did you catch a live fish？
Why don't you just directly give me the proper answers? I think living/live things and fish are both OK. I also think his classes are lively and alive, which are of the same meaning.

 

[jutfrank]

You've given the correct answers in post #6.

In 2, living things are those things that can be studied by a biologist. Living things are organic—they grow, respire, excrete, and so on. Inorganic things, like stones and cars, are not living things. In this sense, living means organic, having a relation to the biological concept of life. You cannot use live things for this sense.

Sentence 4 is not a good example, but there a live fish is a fish that is not dead. In this sense, live has a contrastive sense, meaning not dead. The reason that the sentence is not a good example is that contained within its contrastive sense is the idea of catching a dead fish. Now I'm no fisherman, but something tells me that is not very likely. A much better context would be, say, a market where you can buy animals for food. Describing some of the animals as 'live' is a good way to contrast the fact that normally when you buy animals for food, they are dead.

Similar to sentence 1, He was buried alive means that he was alive when he was buried. You may notice that the adjective alive is predicative only. That means that it cannot go directly before a noun (like live can). The sense of alive is very similar to live, contrastively meaning not dead. One important difference between live and alive is the fact that alive can only be predicative whereas live is usually not predicative, but attributive.

In 3, describing his classes as 'lively' means that there is a lot of activity in his classes. In this sense, lively means with a lot of activity. You cannot use alive in this sense.

All four of these words have different meanings, and different uses.

 

[jutfrank]

Why don't you just directly give me the proper answers?

It is useful for us to know what you already know. You can understand how such knowledge might allow us to give you more useful, personalised answers, can't you? Be patient, and trust us.

Your correct answers show that you do have a good sense of the differences of use among these words. This is the kind of thing that teachers need to know.

 

[Tarheel]

A: Did you catch a live fish?
B: Yes, I did, and that's the only option.

A: Did you catch any fish?
B: Yes, I caught five fish.

 

[嘟嘟嘟嘟]

Thank you so much for your such detailed explanation! But I still have two questions.
1. Taking sentence 4 for example, what if I say"a living fish"? Does it have a proper meaning? What about this sentence "He’s one of the greatest living composers."? It means the composers that are not dead. Why can't I say "live composers"?

2. I found one definition of "alive" in the dictionary: 3 CHEERFUL full of energy, happiness, activity etc
e.g. The whole house was alive with activity.
Can't "alive" be used in sentence3 for this meaning?

 

[jutfrank]

But I still have two questions.
1. Taking sentence 4 for example, what if I say"a living fish"? Does it have a proper meaning?

2. What about this sentence "He’s one of the greatest living composers."? It means the composers that are not dead. Why can't I say "live composers"?

3. I found one definition of "alive" in the dictionary: 3 CHEERFUL full of energy, happiness, activity etc e.g. The whole house was alive with activity. Can't "alive" be used in sentence3 for this meaning?

1. No, you can't say that.

2. Because of the different meanings/uses of the words living and live. Think of it like this: In the phrase greatest living composers, living basically means continuing to live. That's why the -ing form is used. These composers wake up every day and carry on the processes of their lives. Their lives are ongoing.

The adjective live is a way of talking about the state of something, as in the example of the live fish. To describe a fish as 'live' is a way to comment on its state. This use is especially good when we view something as a commodity, to be used in some way.

3. No.

Look, you really don't need to analyse the deeper meanings of these words too much. You just need to look at several examples of use in context, and remember them.