He looks around the desolated street.
In this sentence, If I'm not wrong, 'desolated' is an adjective, right? Or is it a verb? In the dictionary 'desolate' is defined as an adjective. "Desolated" is defined as the past tense of "desolate".
- Only verb can be in past tense or even adjective can be in past tense?
- In the above sentence "desolated" is a verb or an adjective? My guess is it's an adjective here.
- Is "desolated" a past participle of the verb "desolate"?
- Is the above sentence wrong and should I have written the above as below?
He looks around the desolate street.
Mostly I'm sure my first sentence is correct, but I'm little confused.
Best Answer
Correct.
Desolated is certainly an adjective in your sentence.
Yes it is. And as so many past participles, it can be used as an adjective. The street could also have been deserted, darkened, emptied, forgotten or populated. All past participles that can be used in this sentence as adjectives.
No, it is just fine as you wrote it.
However, desolate on its own, can also be used as an adjective. And this is where the confusion starts.
There seems to be a nuance difference between desolate and desolated.
If you use desolated, you indicate that the state of the street is the effect of it having been desolated - or you could say ruined.
If you use desolate, it feels more as if you describe an overall attribute of the street, that might be comparable to it having been desolated, even if it has always been like that - a more apt synonym could be bleak in that case.