Nahian:
| Hello. I really have a problem. I found a sentence from a book . The sentence is ‘ heat is applied but the temperature remain unchanged’. So in this sentence why the verb (unchange) gets its past participle form due to the word ‘remain’? I hope that you’ll give me the answer of my question soon. |
Hi Nahian,
First of all, there is a minor mistake in the sentence you are asking about: it should say remains with an -s as the verb “remain” is in the third person singular.
Now, on to your question, why the form “unchanged”?
What you need to see is that unchanged is not really a verb in this sentence. It is an adjective meaning not changed or unaltered.
Of course, it is an adjective that comes from the verb (un)change, but that doesn’t really matter in this case. There are plenty of adjectives that come from verbs, and many of them end with -ed. They are called Verbal Adjectives.
Look at these examples:
- bore (verb) – bored (adj.)
I’m so bored, I can’t stand grammar rules. - frighten (verb) – frightened (adj.)
Stop scaring her, she’s frightened. - annoy (verb) – annoyed (adj.)
She’s annoyed with her cheeky little brother.
Verbal Adjectives can also be formed using the -ing ending:
- This lesson is so boring, I want to go home.
- The book was so frightening, I had to stop reading it.
- Her brother is such an annoying little boy.
To read more about Verbal Adjectives, see What is a Verbal Adjective?
