Specific syntactic tests determine whether a verb functions as a stative verb
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Retrieved sources mention that syntactic tests and distributional diagnostics (such as restrictions on progressive aspect) exist for stative verbs, but do not comprehensively enumerate or establish the specific syntactic tests determining stativity.
ABSTRACTThe extension of the progressive form to stative verbs is a widely discussed feature of Outer Circle varieties of English. This paper examines the semantics of the stative progressive in three corpora, representing spoken and written Indian (IndE), Kenyan (KenE) and Black South African English (BSAfE). The results reveal that the progressive form is used more frequently in spoken than written data, and most frequently in BSAfE, followed by KenE, and then IndE. All three Outer Circle varieties use the progressive form proportionally more often with stative verbs than British English. The main use of the progressive form is to convey a sense of extended duration. This Outer Circle prototype is termed an on‐going state, and clearly differs from the sense of a temporary state, which is prototypical for Inner Circle varieties. There are nevertheless a substantial minority of limited duration (temporary state) uses, especially in the written data, but at the same time, a number of examples where the progressive conveys the sense of states with unlimited duration, especially in BSAfE and the spoken data. The main conclusion is that the progressive is not simply extended to stative verbs, as is argued by many previous researchers, but rather that of a different prototype, of extended duration, sanctions a wider range of uses of the progressive form with dynamic verbs and stative verbs alike.
... stative verbs . These word classes can be defined in terms of the bundle of syntactic features that each word class ... tests to distinguish them : Test 1 is whether a word can constitute an utterance on its own ; Test 2 is whether ...
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present moment. With stative verbs in senses that do not use progressive aspect, to refer to a present or general state, whether temporary, permanent
Modern standard English has various verb forms, including:
Finite verb forms such as go, goes and went
Nonfinite forms such as (to) go, going and gone
Combinations of such forms with auxiliary verbs, such as was going and would have gone
They can be used to express tense (time reference), aspect, mood, modality and voice, in various configurations.
For details of how inflected forms of verbs are
This time tomorrow I will be taking my driving test.
I imagine we will already be eating when you arrive.
The usual restrictions apply, on the use both of the future and of the progressive: simple rather than progressive aspect is used with some stative verbs (see § Progressive aspect), and present rather than future constructions are used in many dependent clauses (see § Conditional sentences and § Dependent clauses below).
The same construction may occur when will or shall is given one of its other uses, for example:
My father went to Japan.
As usual, this tense would be used if a specific past time frame is stated ("in 1995", "last week") or is implied by the context (e.g. the event is part of a past narrative, or my father is no longer alive or capable of traveling). Use of this form does not in itself determine whether or not the subject is still there.
# Formal test determining whether a verb is stative
Tags: english, progressive, statives
- Score: 4
- Views: 448
- Answers: 4
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: user132181 (145 rep)
- Asked: 2016-01-13
- Edited: 2016-02-20
- Site: linguistics
## Question
Is there a formal test determining whether a verb is stative? For example, the following predicate looks stative, but it's not:
It's Valentine's Day. I have the chocolate, but I'm still missing the flowers.
You either are missing the flowers, or you're not. Also, there is no action involved. There is no degree to which you can be missing the flowers. Does not that imply that the verb is stative? How does one account for such cases?
## Answers
### Answer by StoneyB on hiatus (score: 1)
MISS is one of those verbs Yellow Sky alludes to which changes its sense in the progressive: in other casts it ordinarily means regret the absence of, but in the progressive it takes the sense lack (or in the intransitive be lacking). The progressive might better be understood as copular BE + adjective missing.
But there are a number of tests for stativity. Some have been questioned as really involving agency, not stativity, but here are a couple
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