The city had once known prosperity. "Known"?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello, everyone.
The city had once known prosperity. There are two ways to analyze this sentence.
The first one is: The city had once been known prosperity. A passive sentence and the main verb Be is omitted.
The second one: known is actually an adj.
What is your opinion?

2

Your first analysis doesn’t make sense to me, Davy.
Do you mean ‘The city had once been prosperous’?

Known is an adjective meaning ‘familiar with’.

The city was once familiar with prosperity.

3

know something to have personal experience of something
He has known both poverty and wealth.
She may be successful now, but she has known what it is like to be poor.

  • Isn’t that the case, Beees?
    Regards.
4

That’s spot on, Eugene. (Except you seem to have changed the gender of your example!)

5

The city had once known prosperity. This sentence is from New Concept English. Yup, the first analysis is not correct. The city had once been known as prosperity or just like you said “the city had once been prosperious.” So do you mean the second one does make sense?
Thank you.

6

Hi Davy,
The word ‘known’ can be used as an adjective in some sentences, but in your sentence it is NOT used as an adjective. It is used as the past participle of the VERB ‘know’. The past participle ‘known’ is used with the word ‘had’ to form the past perfect form (active) of the verb ‘know’ in your sentence.

In your sentence, the verb ‘know’ has a meaning similar to ‘be familiar with’ or ‘have experience of’. Thus, ‘had known’ would mean about the same thing as ‘had been familiar with’ or ‘had had experience of’.

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[size=75]“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” ~ Mark Twain[/size]

7

Hi Amy,
Thanks for the correction of the word part, given with no hint of sarcasm and without undermining my answer. :slight_smile:

8
  1. I had known better times.
  2. I had known for better times.

Is #1 correct and #2, not?

Thanks

9

Hi E2e4,

Yes, #1 is correct, but #2 is not.

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[size=75]“Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?” ~ Clarence Darrow[/size]