Tham khảo tài liệu 'longman grammar of spoken and written english part 34', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Copular verbs 439 Several adjectives are common as subject predicatives with be in academic prose but rare in conversation. Many of these adjectives occur with a following complement clause representing one of the major devices for expressing stance in academic prose . sure important difficult likely necessary possible . The following sections focus on the copular verbs other than be identifying the most common predicative adjectives co-occurring with each verb. Current non-sensory copular verbs Apart from be the current copular verbs are associated with three primary semantic domains likelihood marked by seem and appear continuation of some current state marked by remain keep stay personal attitudes marked by seem A Seem and appear Seem is the most common of these current copular verbs. Seem is particularly common in fiction combining with adjectival complements to mark personal 440 VERBS Table Most common adjectives as subject predicative of copula be occurring over 100 times per million words in at least one register occurrences per million words over 200 over WO CONV over 40 HCT 1 over 20 NEWS ACAD right 1 good 1 sure true 1 different 1 1 important difficult M possible 1 likely 1 1 nice i dead necessary afraid 1 available funny 1 1 lovely 1 present i useful 1 See for a full list and discussion of predicative adjectives. attitudes often indicating some degree of surprise. The most common adjectives associated with this use are absurd full of NP natural odd pleased strange surprised But today these dreams seemed absurd and presumptuous fict He seemed full of chuckles for a while fict It seems odd to me that s all. fict It seemed strange that it should still be there fict He seemed surprised by that fict Seem is also used commonly in fiction with the adjectives possible and impossible to mark degree of likelihood If scarcely seemed possible that all this could ever be eaten fict Sometimes it seemed impossible .
