anybody tell me -
By abhinav
@aabhinav569 (4)
New Delhi, India
3 responses
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Oct 15
I think that there are problems with parsing 'asleep' as an adverb in the usual examples such as 'to fall asleep' which I believe to be more correctly a phrasal verb in which 'asleep' is an adjective, just as it is in the phrasal verb 'to be asleep'.
I suppose that a possible example might be 'He drove asleep at the wheel' where 'asleep [at the wheel]' is functionally an adverbial phrase rather than an adverb per se
(We might have to agree to differ on this!)
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Oct 15
'Asleep' is an adjective which describes what state a person is in ('asleep' or 'awake'). 'Sleep' can be either a noun (meaning ' state of unconsciousness') or it can be a verb (meaning 'to be in a state of unconsciousness').
All of the following sentences mean roughly the same but each would be used to emphasise a different part of the meaning:
The dogs are asleep (adjective describing a 'state')
The dogs are sleeping (verbal adjective describing 'what is being done')
Let sleeping dogs lie (adjective formed from the verb as above)
The dogs sleep (verb meaning 'what the dogs are doing')
Notice that 'asleep' and 'sleeping' are both adjectives but you cannot say "The asleep dogs"!
'A-' is really an old preposition meaning 'in', 'on', 'into' or 'towards' and you can see it in many words which we now think of as words in their own right:
Asleep; awake; ashore; aside; away; above; ablaze; agape; aglow; astride; awry; acknowledge and (mostly in dialect and poetic use and often with a hyphen) as in 'set the bells a-ringing'
1 person likes this
@tashauphill (13)
• United Kingdom
3 Oct 15
asleep is when you are actually sleeping , sleep is when you are going to sleep .
@vandana7 (99118)
• India
3 Oct 15
@PhredWreck ..why do you all need a separate word for the two. I am sleeping, she is sleeping. I was sleeping, she was sleeping. I fell asleep? I slept..as simple as that. English is very confusing bro.
@hereandthere (45651)
• Philippines
4 Oct 15
@vandana7 somehow 'i feel asleep during the meeting' sounds unintentional/understandable/forgivable than 'i slept through the meeting' or 'i was sleeping through the meeting.' 
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
4 Oct 15
@vandana7 It's not exactly a separate word, it's another form of the word 'sleep'. The 'a' suffix is a reduced form of a preposition meaning 'on', 'in', 'into' or 'toward'. So, as 'sleep' is the noun meaning 'a state of unconsciousness', 'asleep' is an adjective meaning, literally, 'in a state of unconsciousness'.
'Sleep' can also be a verb ('to sleep') which is conjugated in the normal way and which, like many verbs, forms a verbal adjective from the present participle ('sleeping') which is used in different situations to the adjective 'asleep'.
Examples
'The child is asleep' (an adjective used in the same way as 'The sky is blue')
'The sleeping child' (an adjective used in the same way as 'The blue sky')
Note that the phrase 'The child is sleeping' means something subtly different from 'The child is asleep' because the first one describes what the child is doing and the second describes what state the child is in.
1 person likes this
