Parts of speech!

[Ferretyone]

If I say "I have a red coat" then "red" is an adjective.

If I say "My coat is red" then what part of speech is "red" in that context?

Huh?! What's your point?

First of all, red is still an adjective even if you move the words around.

Second, this is a place for people who work in higher education. It’s not a place for people to ask questions about grammar and spelling.

It's still an adjective - in this instance it is what's called a complement (the verb 'to be' takes a complement with the subject - this can be either a noun or an adjective -> the lecturer is excellent, the lecturer is a woman, both 'excellent' (adj.) and 'woman' (noun) are complements).

This is a board (complement) for people working in higher education, were you looking for the Pedants' corner, where they chat grammar?

@Pota2 @Deianira

I was asked this and it has been "preying" on my mind for a long time!

Thank you anyway and for directing me to pedants' corner. If it does exist then I shall certainly look there

I just came across this. I know it was ages ago but this is my area of expertise so I couldn't leave it unanswered. Plus I was puzzled by the one response, because it's a reasonable question to ask.

The answer is yes, red is an adjective in both sentences. Adjectives describe nouns but the noun does not always come directly afterwards.