Question

what they had in fact found was a ship which had been sunk many years before.

what they had in fact found was a ship which had been sunk many years before.我想知道在这句话中的“ sunk “ 属于什么词性？是动词的过去分词形式还是形容词形式？

Answer 1

sunk 在这里是过去分词，跟been 一起，构成被动式，表示船是“被沉没的”
然后 had been sunk 表示过去的过去，是过去完成时。