2 Compare the information presented in a and b and say if you consider we should treat statives as a separate part of speech.

А: Ilyish ( The structure of modern English)

The stative. The next item in our list of parts of speech is a controversial one. Such words as asleep, ablaze, afraid, etc. have been often named adjectives, though they cannot (apart from a few special cases) be attributes in a sentence, and though their meaning does not seem to be that of property. In spite of protracted discussion that has been going on for some time now, views on this point are as far apart as ever. We will expound here the view that words of the asleep type constitute a separate part of speech, and we will consider the various arguments for and against this view in Chap­ter IX. As for the term "stative", it may be used to denote these words, on the analogy of such terms as "substantive" and "adjec­tive". »

(1) Meaning. The meaning of the words of this type is that of a passing state a person or thing happens to be in.

(2) Form. Statives are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) Statives most usually follow a link verb (was asleep, fell asleep). Occasionally they can follow a noun (man alive). They can also sometimes be preceded by an adverb (fast asleep), (b) In the sentence, a stative is most usually a predicative (he fell asleep). They can also be objective predicatives (/ found him asleep) and attributes, almost always following the noun they modify (a man asleep in his chair).

B: Quirk R., Qreenbaum S., Leech Q., Svartvik J. (A University Grammar of English)

Characteristics of the Adjective

We cannot tell whether a word is an adjective by looking at it in isolation: the form does not necessarily indicate its syntactic func­tion. Some suffixes are indeed found only with adjectives, e.g.:

-ous, but many common adjectives have no identifying shape, e.g.: good, hot, little, young, fat. Nor can we identify a word as an adjective merely considering what inflections or affixes it will allow. [...]

Most adjectives can be both attributive and predicative, but some are either attributive only or predicative only.

Two other features usually apply to adjectives:

1. Most can be premodified by the intensifier "very", e.g.: The children are very happy.

2. Most can take comparative and superlative forms. The comparison may be by means of inflections, e.g.: "The children are happier now", "They are the happiest people I know" or by the addition of the premodifiers "more" and "most" e.g.: "These students are more intelligent", "They are the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen." [...]

Adjectives can sometimes be postpositive, i.e. they can sometimes follow the item they modify. A postposed adjective (together with any complementation it may have) can usually be regarded as a reduced relative clause.

Indefinite pronouns ending in -body, -one, -thing, -where can be modified only postpositively: I want to try on something larger (i.e, "which is large'').

Postposition is obligatory for a few adjectives, which have a different sense when they occur attributively or predicatively. The most common are probably "elect" ("soon to take office") and "proper" ("as strictly defined"), as in: "the president elect "the City of London proper". In several compounds (mostly legal or quasi-legal) the adjective is postposed, the most common being: attorney general, body politic, court martial, heir apparent, notary public (AmE), postmaster general.

Postposition (in preference to attributive position) is usual for a few a-adjectives (!!!) and for "absent", "present", "concerned", "involved", which normally do not occur attributively in the relevant sense:

The house ablaze is next door to mine. The people involved were not found.

Some postposed adjectives, especially those ending in "-able" or "-ible", retain the basic meaning they have in attributive position but convey the implication that what they are denoting has only a tem­porary application. Thus, the star visible refers to stars that are visi­ble at a time specified or implied, while the visible stars refers to a category of stars that can (at appropriate times) be seen.

If an adjective is alone or premodified merely by an intensifies postposition is normally not allowed. [...]

[...] Common a-adjectives are: ablaze, afloat, afraid, aghast, alert, alike, alive, alone, aloof, ashamed, asleep, averse, awake, aware.

Note (a) "Alert" and "aloof are freely used attributively. Some of the other a-adjectives occasionally function attribu­tively, though normally only when they are modified: the half-asleep children, a somewhat afraid soldier, a re­ally alive student ("lively"), a very ashamed girl.

(b) Some a-adjectives freely take comparison and premod-ification by "very", e.g.: afraid, alert, alike, aloof, ashamed, averse. Others do so marginally, e.g.: asleep and awake. "Alive to" in the sense "aware of” can be premodified by "very" and compared. Some of the a-adjectives, like many verbs, can also be premodified by "very much" (particularly afraid, alike, ashamed, aware), and "aware" can be premodified by "(very) well" too.