passiveadjectival

Passive adjectival, in linguistics, refers to a class of adjectives that are formed from verbs in the passive voice and convey a resulting state rather than ongoing action. They are often called passive participial adjectives or participial adjectives with passive semantics. In many languages they originate from past participles of transitive verbs and function as adjectives that describe the noun rather than perform the action on it.

In English, passive adjectivals commonly take the form of past participles such as broken, opened, or interested. They can occur attributively (a broken window) or predicatively (the window is broken). They frequently express a resultant state brought about by an underlying action and may be capable of describing both animate and inanimate nouns. Some participial adjectives are stable in meaning and usage, while others admit subtle shifts in nuance depending on context.

Cross-linguistically, languages differ in how these forms are created and inflected. German uses prefixed or suffixed past participles as adjectives (die geöffnete Tür). Romance languages form adjectives from past participles with agreement in gender and number (una puerta cerrada). In many languages, the line between passive participles used as adjectives and other deverbal adjectives can blur, with some forms serving both descriptive and evaluative purposes.

Key distinctions include separating passive adjectivals from dynamic verb forms and from non-deverbal adjectives. They are a common feature of many languages and contribute to expressing state, result, or affectedness without explicit verbal action. See also participial adjective, past participle, and stative adjective.