broken tree

[keannu]

I learned from a grammar book that past participle denotes either "passive" or "completed" action. But sometimes some past particples seem to have both meanings.
Does this "broken" have both the meanings or only one? It might be it depends. I think the grammatical definition is only for definite cases. A chair could be "broken" by itself(completed) or "broken by someone(passive action)" or "broken by someone(passive) and in the state of it(completed)". What do you think?

gz108)I carried the broken chair to the kitchen.

 

[SoothingDave]

The "breaking" action is complete. Whether this happened because of someone's deliberate action, or if the chair just failed you can not tell. All it tells us is that the chair is broken.

 

[keannu]

Yes, that's what I thought. But grammar books divide past participle only to two categories such as "completion" and "passive(getting an action from an actioner)", but this is kind of artificial as all the verbs can't be defined in only two ways. There can be in-between or vague ones.

 

[5jj]

But grammar books divide past participle only to two categories such as "completion" and "passive(getting an action from an actioner)", but this is kind of artificial as all the verbs can't be defined in only two ways.

I don't know of any serious grammarians who divide categories into two, and only two, such categories.

 

[BobK]

:up:

Yes, that's what I thought. But grammar books divide past participle only to two categories such as "completion" and "passive(getting an action from an actioner)", but this is kind of artificial as all the verbs can't be defined in only two ways. There can be in-between or vague ones.

If there are such grammars, I agree that they are making an artificial distinction (as is so easily done in the field of grammar ).

b