What part of speech is this?

Question

In the sentence, "La puerta fue cerrada por el niño," what part of speech is cerrada--verb, adjective, adverb or something else? Gracias.

Great question...welcome to the forum! - --Mariana--, May 31, 2012

Answer 1

"Cerrada" is a past participle in this sentence. It is part of a verb phrase, ser + another verb, that functions to put the sentence into what is called "the passive voice". An "active voice" version of this sentence would be "The boy closed the door" and en español, "El niño cerró la puerta". The past participle is formed from the stem of the infinitive form of the verb. Here the infinitive form is "cerrar". To form the past participle, drop the ending, and you have your stem - "cerr". Then add "ado" or "ada". Since the action is in the past, we use the past tense version of "ser", namely "fue" - conjugated as 3rd person singular.

It is true that you have to add "ada" in this case to make "cerrada" agree in gender with the subject. But is it an adjective? I don't think so. I tend to think of it as part of a verb phrase "ser + verb", putting the sentence into passive voice. - Esteban3304, May 31, 2012

Lo deduzco así: El tipo de puerta es "cerrada" porque así está entonces si alguien la deja en tal estado, viene siendo adjetivo. En este caso, el niño la dejó en el estado de cerrada. Sea lo que sea la forma de frase, tiene que ser adjetivo - 005faa61, May 31, 2012

Julian, please look at this site: http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-voice_passive.htm The grammar rules for the passive voice are the same in English & Spanish. - Esteban3304, Jun 1, 2012

The structure of the passive voice is very simple: subject + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (past participle). The main verb is always in its past participle form. - Esteban3304, Jun 1, 2012

In Spanish, if the word "closed" was going to be an adj., then the verb would be "estar" not "ser". - Esteban3304, Jun 1, 2012

Now you have me wondering. Normally for passive voice, we say "Se cerró la puerta" with on identification of the "doer." By saying "por el niño," we have identified the doer even though he is not the subject. - 005faa61, Jun 1, 2012

So the question now becomes "If we have a "doer" is the phrase passive voice?" Unfortunately, the link doesn´t address this issue. - 005faa61, Jun 1, 2012

Yes, the sentence is in the passive voice, because we can turn it around and make it "active voice". See my original post. - Esteban3304, Jun 3, 2012

There are 3 ways to create the passive voice: (1) ser + past participle,(2) created by "se", (3)created by "hay que" - Esteban3304, Jun 3, 2012

View this link: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Using-the-Passive-Voice.topicArticleId-24013,articleId-23999.html - Esteban3304, Jun 3, 2012

Answer 2

"La puerta fue cerrada por el niño,"

The verb is fue and nothing modifies it, so no adverb. We can tell that cerrada is an adjective because it is conjugated to modify "La puerta" and it just makes sense that it describes "puerta."