Talk:Stative verb

I came to this article to find out what a stative verb is, but all the examples given are of verbs that aren't stative. Does this not seem wrong somehow? --holizz 13:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Dowty

I have problems with Dowty's analysis. It would be original research if I were to put my criticisms into the article myself, but perhaps someone up on current literature on this can balance the argument by citing published criticism or alternative views. I agree that standard English would not normally put a stative verb into a progressive form, though some regional Englishes use progressives much more widely, so that this would not be true for example in Scottish Highland English. However, the other three "tests" are dubious even in standard English.

• A stative verb cannot be put into the imperative? What's wrong with an imperative of know as an expression of a wish that a person would have a (stative) understanding? "Be still and know that I am God."
• Can you not force a person to adopt a state? "My parents more or less forced me to like vegetables." That might be slightly humorous but certainly not ungrammatical or absurd.
• And the cleft sentence is entirely unproblematic. "What did she do to deserve such luck? Well, what she did was know how to work the system!" Dowty is right that "doing" is not a usual way to speak of a state, but he is wrong to think that sentences linking "do" to a stative verb are therefore unidiomatic.

(Assuming he has been represented correctly in this article, that is. I haven't read his work!) --Doric Loon 13:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Are the examples in the first box correct? should it not be

lay---lie who says..."be lying" set---sitPhebert61 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Doric Loon. There should be at least some mention in the article of the flaws of Dowty's analysis. I don't much like Wikipedia's policies on OR and so-called "reliable sources" but I suppose one must play by the rules if anything is to get done; so by all means, let's find ourselves something that can show how really quite silly this analysis is. D4g0thur 07:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think therefore I am

Are we sure that in this example think is stative? It refers to mental activity, which is a process which happens in time rather than a state, at least according to my POV. "I am thinking" is a perfectly legitimate sentence using the verb with the same meaning, for example. I'm removing this example, if someone believes it should stay for some reason, feel free to re-add it explaining why. --Army1987 10:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• I think "am" is the stative verb here. Perhaps we should put it back in and then bold or italicize the stative verbs in each sentence. Khepidjemwa'atnefru 15:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

All the other sentences have one verb, so that would be redundant. What about replacing it with a sentence with the same meaning such as "I exist."? --Army1987 19:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it was me who added that example, and it was indeed "think" I had in mind. But Army1987 is right, it is a bad example. --Doric Loon 20:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

English grammar series

Seriously, who put this box there? As if English were the only language that had stative verbs! 59.112.40.174 17:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Past tense statives

I would be interested to know whether stative verbs can have past tenses e.g. "I used to be an atheist" - or can this reanalysed as a state "I no longer believe in God"?

I'm not sure what you mean. That surely depends on the pragmatics of the language and the context. Yes, I guess if verbs have a past tense, then stative verbs may as well have one. E. g. Japanese: Kyou atsui "It's hot today", Kinou atsukatta "It was hot yesterday". —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 17:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, statives can have past tenses. Stative verbs simply say that somebody/something is/was/will be in a certain state. They are pretty common in semitic languages. As an example, in hebrew chakhmah, is an adjective meaning 'wise'. But it is also a verb, meaning 'to be wise, become wise, act wiselly'. That's a stative. These verbs generally translate into English as 'to be' + adj. Xavier 02:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Not really. What Semitic languages (and others) have is zero copula, by which "to be" in the present tense is left unmentioned when followed by an adjective. In tenses other than the present, "to be" does appear. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 01:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

A more extensive list of stative verbs?

I wonder if this page would benefit from a more extensive list of stative verbs in English, perhaps divided into the categories usually used for teaching English - long-term mental states, performative verbs, verbs that describe possession etc. (Although I realise one can apply Dowty's analysis to determine if a verb is stative or not). I also wonder if there should be a discussion of the fact that sense verbs can be both stative and dynamic, for example, 'I am tasting the soup' vs 'the soup tastes bad'. Finally, how about 'see', being a state verb when it means 'see with your eyes' but not when it means 'meet' or 'have a relationship with' ('I am seeing Julie tomorrow', 'I have been seeing my boyfriend for three years') Seonaidbeckwith 10:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Bad Explanation

The examples and explanation of the stative here seems rather vague. granted, my knowledge of it comes from Middle Egyptian, but I understood it to describe the state resulting from the action of the verb - for example, "the table is laid". I think it could do with some clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.253.63.241 (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

"[Stative verbs] have no duration and no endpoint"

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the duration and endpoints of verbs generally expressed by the aspect and tense as well as any supplemental expressions of time or duration accompanying the verb? Thus, you can have a progessive past tense stative verb like in this example: "I was being a real ass yesterday" or a perfect future tense stative verb like in: "I will have two children by the time I am thirty". With these examples, I do not understand how the claim that Stative Verbs have no duration and no endpoint can be made.

Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.85.38.169 (talk) 19:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I think Lexical aspect explains the intended meaning of endpoint. Endpoint doesn't mean the beginning of a situation, as in your example "I will have two children by the time I am thirty", but the end, the goal to which the situation naturally leads. Stative verbs don't have a goal; you simply have and the having may eventually end, but doesn't necessarily. You could continue having your children (in the sense of them belonging to you, not in the sense of giving birth) for your whole life. — Eru·tuon 03:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Dynamic vs Stative Verbs

I'm not a linguist, just an English teacher, so I can't pronounce on the validity of this article for languages such as Swedish. However, it contains some misleading material.

First of all, the affirmation that "An English phrase like 'he plays piano' may be either stative or dynamic ..." is confusing on many levels: 1) it introduces the notion that there are Stative/Dynamic "phrases" while the article is about "verbs"; 2) it's unclear what meanings the author is referring to (I presume he means Stative = "he knows how to play/he has the habit of practicing ...", Dynamic = "he is playing"); 3) if "play" refers to a general property of the subject "he" here, it's because that's a condition of the Present Perfect verb aspect, not because "play" is a stative verb (the putative subject of the article); at this rate all verbs are stative when put in this aspect ("he eats whole wheat bread", etc).

Next, the affirmation that "A stative verb is often intransitive, while a corresponding [dynamic] one would be transitive" may be useful in some languages, but doesn't hold up well in English. Stative verbs like "love", "contain" and "owe" are Transitive, while the Dynamic verbs "rain", "rise" and "snore", for example, are (or can be) Intransitive. "Look" is Dynamic and Intransitive, while "see" is Stative and Transitive. In the table of English verbs, all the "stative/intransitive" verbs are by my lights Dynamic! 1) position verbs like "lie", "sit" and "stand" can all take the Progressive form ("he's lying/sitting/standing on the sofa") and be imperatives ("Lie/Sit/Stand there!"); 2) the particles furnished in parentheses normally give these verbs an inchoative aspect (Sit = be sitting, Sit down = assume a seated position), drawing us even further from a Stative notion towards voluntary, punctual actions.

Now, I've always assumed that the Progressive test was sufficient proof that these position verbs were Dynamic, however strange that may seem (compare French "être assis" vs "s'asseoir"), suggesting that our English ancestors visualised these acts as implying some investment of the person. If not, I'd like somebody to explain what to do with these verbs. Caballerodelfebo (talk) 11:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

German examples

After reading this article I'm still not quite sure what stative verbs really are, but I think that the German preposition examples are not well chosen or at least not well explained. Those "Wechselpräpositionen", as they are called in the article, are not really determined by verbs. They take the accusative case if they express a change of location, but otherwise the dative case. You can easily make sentences with two prepositions, one of which takes the accusative and one the dative. For example: Auf dem Schulhof klettern die Kinder auf einen Baum. "In the schoolyard, the children are climbing on a tree." Auf dem Schulhof "in the schoolyard" is dative because it does not express a change of location (the children stay in the schoolyard), while auf einen Baum "on a tree" is accusative because there is a change of location (they climb to the top). So verbs don't (directly) determine the behaviour of these prepositions.