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Stative Verb




Some languages Morphologically distinguish stative and dynamic verbs, or transform one into another. Arabic , for example, can use the same verbal Root to mean ''ride'' (stative) and ''mount'' (dynamic).

Propositions that are expressed in most Indo-European Language s by noun qualifiers (such as Adjective s), are instead expressed by stative verbs in many other languages. In Japanese , so-called ''i-''adjectives are in fact best analyzed as Intransitive stative verbs (for example, ''takai'' alone means "is high/expensive", and ''samukunakatta'' means ''was not cold'').

In languages where the Copula is a verb, it is a stative verb, as is the case in English ''be''. Some other English stative verbs are ''believe'', ''know'', ''seem'', and ''have''. All these generally denote states rather than actions. However, it should be noted that verbs like ''have'' and ''be'', which are usually stative, can be dynamic in certain situations. The following are not stative:

:You are being silly.
:She is having a baby.

''Think'' is stative when it means "believe", but not when it means "consider".


FORMAL DEFINITIONS

In some theories of formal Semantics , including David Dowty's, stative verbs have a Logical form which is the Lambda expression

l(x): x

Apart from Dowty, Z. Vendler and C. S. Smith have also written influential work on aspectual classification of verbs.


ENGLISH STATIVE VERBS

Dowty gives some tests to decide whether an English verb is stative. They are as follows:

  • Statives do not occur in the progressive (the --- before a sentence means that it is Ungrammatical or absurd to most native English speakers):

  • ---''John is running.'' (non-stative)

  • ---''---John is knowing the answer.''

  • They cannot be complements of "force":

  • ---''I forced John to run.''

  • ---''---I forced John to know the answer.''

  • They do not occur as imperatives.

  • ---''Run!''

  • ---''---Know the answer!''

  • They cannot appear in the ''pseudo-cleft construction'':

  • ---''What John did was run.''

  • ---''---What John did was know the answer.''



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