Alive vs living

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Ricky06

#320081 Fri, 26 Jan 07 02:51 AM

Do the following two sentences mean the same?

1. No living chickens are sold here.
2. No alive chickens are sold here.

Thanks.

Ricky

Ricky06

Joined on Tue, Feb 7 2006

Junior Member (53)

Mister Micawber

#320109 Fri, 26 Jan 07 05:04 AM

Same meaning, but alive is not used as a premodifying adjective; it is a predicate adjective. Live is the equivalent attributive adjective: No live chickens are sold here. Chickens sold here are not alive.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (22,613)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Predicates

Ricky06

#320122 Fri, 26 Jan 07 05:33 AM

Mister Micawber wrote:

Same meaning, but alive is not used as a premodifying adjective; it is a predicate adjective. Live is the equivalent attributive adjective: No live chickens are sold here. Chickens sold here are not alive.

Thanks a lot. Is there any rule governing if an adjective is predicative or not? I've looked up the word "alive" in the dictionary but it doesn't mention anything about premodifying or predicate adjective.

Ricky

Ricky06

Predicates

milky

#320126 Fri, 26 Jan 07 05:51 AM

Aside, I wonder if it's a love of euphemism which makes people write such signs as "No live chickens sold here" and not "Only dead chickens sold here".

Wink [;)]

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

Mister Micawber

#320129 Fri, 26 Jan 07 05:58 AM

No rule, Ricky. Most adjectives can be used both ways. A few can only be used attributively (live, mere, elder) and a few can only be used predicatively (alive, asleep, afraid). There should be a list somewhere in your grammar book.