Learn English – I feel loved. What part of speech is ‘loved’ here

grammaticality-in-contextparts-of-speech

What part of speech is 'loved' here? I think it is adverb.

Adverbs help us to know the: when, where, why, how, and to what degree.

In this sentence, the loved asks the question,
How did he feel? He feel loved.

The loved modifies the verb feel.

Dictionary says loved is an adjective.

I know lovelily is an adverb. But in the context above, what is loved?

I look forward to your answers.

Best Answer

A predicative Complement is a Complement of a verb that describes the Subject or Object of that verb.

  • Bob is a doctor.
  • Bob is happy.

In the sentences above, the phrases a doctor and happy are Predicative Complements, because they describe the Subject, Bob.

The verb FEEL also takes Predicative Complements:

  • I feel hot.
  • I feel an idiot.

Adverbs cannot function as Predicative Complements:

  • *He is happily. (ungrammatical)
  • *I feel hotly. (ungrammatical)

The verb feel usually takes adjectives as Predicative Complements.

The Original Poster's example

I feel loved.

The word loved cannot be an adverb in the Original Poster's example because it is appearing as a Predicative Complement of the verb FEEL. It looks quite a lot like a verb. However, we can show that it is not a verb in the following sentence where we use the word very to modify it. We cannot use very with verbs:

  • I feel very loved.
  • *I very love you. (ungrammatical)

The word loved is an adjective here.

However, loved could be a verb in this sentence where it appears with a by preposition phrase:

  • I feel loved by my parents.

The word loved could be either a verb or an adjective in the Original example.

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