I've always thought (perhaps, erroneously) that if there is some ambiguity in determining whether the given word is an adjective or a past participle, you need to look at whether the "source" of action is mentioned in the sentence. If the source is not mentioned, then it is an adjective. For exam...
You rule of thumb is for situations involving the copula. Do you find the following ambiguous? Only five apples had been left on the plate. It doesn't mention any agent who left them there.
No, I'm asking if find that sentence ambiguous.
Imagine I wrote cars instead of apples and lot instead of plate. Your change is irrelevant.
Well then there's little use having a conversation with you about something far more complex than my question. My question is a yes or no question.
Sorry that was a typo. Should be "I am asking if you find that sentence ambiguous". Only five apples had been left on the plate. Do you think left is possibly an adjective there?
As a native speaker, I understand had been left to refer to a past act of placing the apples on the plate, whereas were left to refer either to a past act of placing the apples on the plate or to the current state of the apples, that is, they are "remaining". The copula were with past participle is ambiguous to me in a way that had been left is not. I do not think that is an idiosyncratic understanding on my part; I think it would be shared by most native speakers.
It is still ambiguous with the copula. Three people were left in the room. could mean "Three people had not departed yet" and thus left refers to their state of remaining, or it could mean something like "Three people had not been fetched from the room" (perhaps by a nurse who was showing patients in to an examination room and had forgotten to show them in). But Three people had been left in the room is clearly a case of them not having been fetched from the room.
Yes, you have to assess the predication. There were three apples left. With that existential construction, "There were", the past participle left refers to the existential state of the apples, and that is usually labeled "adjectival". Three apples are left. Again, their existential state is referred to. Three apples had been left would refer to an act that resulted in them being there, and there left is a perfective verbal. The perfective with transitive verbs and the state the perfective entails are flip sides of the same coin.
I removed my answer because I explained that: to be left in the OP's sentence can only mean remain. Now we get from the OP that that should be entered as an answer. To be left is a verb form whereas remain is a verb. Only 5 cars remained in the parking lot. Call the left in *to be left an adjective at your own risk. The "left" cars will surely be in need of help. I wasted my time on this question. I was asked to "prove" that to be left means remain. But BillJ is not being asked to do that. Different strokes for different folks, eh?
Oxford Living Dictionaries,online: VERB: 2.1be left - Remain to be used or dealt with. [caps not mine]
Wikipedia en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leave leave, verb: left: cause or allow (something) to remain as available.There's not much food left.
I think @BillJ is addressing were left on the table not had been left on the table. Actually, the question has been edited to talk about "cars were left in the lot" (the apples are gone) but it's the same , cars were left in the lot vs cars had been left in the lot. with were the word left can be a stative adjective or a passive, but with had been the word left is not adjectival.
Also, a complement can change your view of things: The apples were left to rot. There, left means "abandoned". It's not a pure adjective. And it shows you that the rule of thumb is not air-tight.
@Tᴚoɯɐuo I spent a lot of time on this. This sentence was and is: "There are only 5 cars left in the parking lot." which is semantically equal to: There remained only 5 cars in the parking lot. (I used the variation: Only 5 cars remained etc.) Be that as it may. the structure "to be left" is a verb, from the verb leave. Not an adjective: my left foot. And I think there has been tons of bad faith here. So, I now take my leave. The discussion was not: to leave or abandon something (were left on the table). That is not even in the question.
@Lambie. The question originally had apples on plate not cars in a lot, and it was about a rule of thumb the OP had developed for slapping labels on the word left. I don't think there's any "bad faith" just a mutating question where small changes can make a major difference.
@Tᴚoɯɐuo Makes no difference: There are only five cars left in the lot. There are only five apples left on the plate. Left there would not be viewed as: I left money on the table, due to the There are. There is no ambiguity. Anyway, none of that was discussed with me anyway. There were other objections: prove that "to be left" means to remain. To be left is a verbal structure.
@Lambie, dude, you don't need to school me on this. If you would take the time to read the comments, you will see that I introduced the "There is" version to OP above: There were three apples left. With that existential construction, "There were", the past participle left refers to the existential state of the apples, and that is usually labeled "adjectival".
@Tᴚoɯɐuo I myself pointed out what you said about that "labeling" to the OP. A label is not a function, is it? It functions like the verb remain. Why call it adjectival? So confusing. The boy was exhausted. The exhausted boy, there OK, exhausted existential. The left boy is not doable.
@Lambie: A part of speech is merely a convenient label for the word's function in situ.
@Lambie: IMO, with past participles of transitive verbs there is always a potential for functional ambiguity when that verbal form is predicated of the predicand using was or were. With It is broken the word broken is clearly a stative adjective, absent other context such as: Bread is broken at meals as a symbol of amity.. But with It was broken we can understand this to be a statement about the action or about the result of the action.
@Tᴚoɯɐuo Excuse me, but to be left is dictionarized (as they say in Portuguese) under the verb leave. Like I said: a left car, a left letter, etc. does not work. Ergo, it is not a good idea to call it a stative adjective. Stative adjectives generally can be pre-positioned....Let's just leave this,shall we?
@Tᴚoɯɐuo I really do not like this type of discussion. It becomes a battle of the wits and academic trifles. I asked you: let's leave it, shall be> Most predicative states: I am tired, I am sick. I am bored. will allow the adjective to be moved. X number of Y left does NOT. That is why, it is not a good idea to call it an adjective. You can't take that stative adjective and MOVE it to a pre-position.
I'm interested in producing utterances with repeatability. Not with providing astute grammatical analyses of no interest at the point where a person considers himself or herself to be an ELLer. Only by actively using a form, can it be internalized; it cannot be internalized using grammatical nomenclature.
Discussion between Lambie and Tᴚoɯɐuo
Discussion between Lambie and Tᴚoɯɐuo