Adjective or Adverb: unconsciously vs unconscious

Question

Position of Adjectives: An adjective nearly always appears immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. The source is here.

But if you look at the following sentence, the adjective "unconscious" doesn't appear before a noun, why? The source of the 1st and 3rd are here. The source of the second is here.

He was knocked unconscious by a fall.

An injured motorcyclist is lying unconscious in the road.

She was unconscious for three days after the accident.

In the 2nd sentence, why can't it be "unconsciously"? Lying is a verb, so "lying unconsciously" is valid, is itn't?

That's not a definition of adjective, that's close to a definition of attributive function. — , Sep 02 '13 at 21:16
@snailboat sorry for the mistake. I meant "Position of Adjectives". I updated the question and added the source. — T2E, Sep 02 '13 at 21:21
I'm not sure, I can post others answer. But the best answer for this question is here, answered by snailboat — T2E, Sep 02 '13 at 21:34
A related question: “waterway … flowed sombre” - Should Joseph Conrad have used an adverb, not an adjective? — CowperKettle, Jan 12 '15 at 15:47

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 02 '13 at 21:27

I can't think of any context where lying unconsciously could mean anything except telling lies without knowing they are lies.

As to why it can't mean prone and unconscious, I think it's at least partly because the adverbial -ly suffix attached to an adjective xxxx normally means in an xxxx manner. You can't normally lie [prone] in an unconscious manner, but you can certainly be unconscious in that position.

Taking a different adjective, it's perfectly possible to lie quietly (or sit quietly, to choose a more common verb/adverb pairing). OP's particular example is invalid for semantic, rather than "grammatical" reasons.

Peter Flom · Answer 2 · 2013-09-02T21:27:55.707

It's because it's the motorcyclist that was unconscious, not the lying.

e.g.

He was tapping his finger unconsciously

Where it is the tapping that is unconscious

vs.

Unconscious, he was tapping his finger

which would mean he was tapping his finger while asleep.

Another way to think of it is that both "lying" and "unconscious" are describing the person. Then the position becomes a common one for an adjective: Noun was adjective.

Adjective or Adverb: unconsciously vs unconscious

2 Answers2