Questions tagged [verbs]
Part of speech whose members indicate an action or a state of being.
209
questions
8
votes
0answers
65 views
Are there any studies on some English passive verb constructions currently being replaced by new intransitive senses?
In the past couple of years I've noticed a new trend in younger generations of native English speakers, at least in American English and Australian English. But I can't find it discussed anywhere on ...
0
votes
1answer
100 views
What's the precisest term for verbs that belong to the same stem without any affixes?
RA Duff. Intention, Agency and Criminal Liability (1990). p 33.
Notice too the various cognates of 'intention' which are used in ordinary
language. We talk of intending to ...
0
votes
1answer
100 views
Both subject and object of an act defined by same verb?
I have in my hand a rather ancient text in Arabic. There's a frequent construction which I couldn't grasp the full meaning. It is [ transitive verb + preposition ], in which the preposition is fixed ...
2
votes
0answers
34 views
Is there a principled reason behind differing compound verb stress in English?
Is there a principled difference between compound verbs in English with stress on the first root and those with stress on the second root?
First root stress compound verbs:
Dropkick
Spoonfeed
...
0
votes
0answers
33 views
Is “in favour of John” a resultative here?
In the sentence, "The judge settled the dispute in favour of John", is "in favour of John" a resultative? I am being asked to explain what this string shows about the verb "settle".
Thanks!
2
votes
0answers
57 views
Does anyone know the history of the infinitive?
I teach grammar, and I think it is no mystery to anyone that infinitives are strange. I think it might help me to know the history of this verb-cum-noun-adjectiv
3
votes
0answers
133 views
Why don't modern Romance languages have the verb “to stand”?
I noticed that modern Romance languages don't have a specific word for the verb "to stand", or - you could say - don't consider the notion of standing to be a verb.
For example, in Spanish - you can ...
-2
votes
1answer
77 views
Pattern of use of modal verbs across languages
So I am toying with language and understand how to treat basic verbs and nouns and adjectives. But I am stuck on modal verbs like "I should have gone home". I would like to know basically a cheat ...
0
votes
2answers
159 views
When an existential verb is used existentially as the predicate to a subject, is it true in all languages that it cannot take another predicate?
When an existential is used existentially verb as the predicate to a subject, is it true in all languages that it cannot take another predicate?
In other words, when the existential to-be verb means '...
0
votes
2answers
237 views
Is there a linguistic term for replacing past tense verb with present tense?
In my dialect of English (North West England), we sometimes use the present tense of a verb when standard English employs the past tense, such as in the sentence below:
"I waits for the bus ...
4
votes
2answers
284 views
What is the proper term for a verb that can be used transitively with the patient as object or intransitively with the patient as subject
For example:
I am cooking the chicken
The chicken is cooking in the oven
Cp:
I am building a sandcastle
x The sandcastle is building on the beach
9
votes
1answer
235 views
Origin of -s verbs in Norwegian and Swedish
(Disclaimer: I am not a linguist.)
I am learning Norwegian now, and they have some verb form when you attach -s to the end. It is often called passive voice (used in Present tense and in infinitive ...
0
votes
0answers
21 views
Automated Verb Correction for Subject Agreement Using Penn Treebank Tags
I'm working on a software method to correct the verb in an English sentence based on the subject count (singular or plural) and using a corpus of verbs tagged with their Penn Treebank Tags. (I have ...
0
votes
0answers
61 views
Is “be set to” a subject-to-subject raising predicate?
Consider the sentence "Conservative Party (is) Set to Win (a) Majority".
Is it right that "set" in this case is a subject-to-subject raising? I don't think "set" has an agent theta role. However, all ...
2
votes
0answers
53 views
What was the role of “compound” verbs in Middle English?
I was just reading a book where it is said that when perfect started to acquire modern meanings, "compound" verbs appeared. Here are some examples (I`m assuming with "compound" verbs on the right):
...
0
votes
2answers
114 views
How regular were Latin verbs compared to Spanish?
Compared to English, Spanish is very consistent within its rules about verbs. The endings for the three kinds of verbsāgrouped as -ar, -er, and -ir verbsāare pretty consistently regular, and few words ...
3
votes
2answers
146 views
Why can Japanese Godan verbs only have nine possible consonant sounds before the final -u?
The dictionary form of Japanese verbs always ends in a -u syllable. Ichidan (one row or single-step in German) verbs will always end in -ć (-ru, e.g. é£ć¹ć, taberu, to eat) while godan (five rows or ...
1
vote
1answer
127 views
What can these verbs be called as a group?
I'm going to teach my students about different patterns of usage of these verbs: marry (e.g. get married, marry sb, marry to), die (e.g. die of , die from, die for), match (e.g. match (something), ...
7
votes
2answers
155 views
Is it normal for only one verb class to be productive in Indo-European languages?
In another question on this site, there is some discussion on the view that the so-called "strong verb" class in English is no longer "productive" - that is, newly formed or coined words (neologisms) ...
0
votes
2answers
165 views
why can't we have two main verbs in a sentence in syntax
Would you please exlain to me why can't we have two main verbs in a sentence in syntax?
Thank you so much
-4
votes
2answers
105 views
Where can you find a list of all nouns and verbs “forms” in each language? [closed]
The only languages for which I have found a book (not even a webpage) is for Hebrew and Arabic. Are there books or webpages that contain all the noun declensions and verb "conjugations" (or noun and ...
2
votes
0answers
37 views
How do languages express multiple simultaneous applicatives?
Some languages use an applicative voice construction exclusively for certain meanings.
Applicatives may also be the only way of expressing such roles, as in
the Bantu Chaga languages, where ...
3
votes
4answers
693 views
Is “imperatives have invisible subjects” a universal?
In English, it's widely held that imperative verbs have "invisible" subjects, on the syntactic level. For example, we see look at yourself in the mirror, rather than *look at you in the mirror, which ...
3
votes
1answer
108 views
Why a verb “to be” has a lot forms [duplicate]
I really can't understand why this verb changes to "am", "is", etc. The common answer is "just became as historical legacy", but how actually it happend?
4
votes
1answer
266 views
What kind of verbs take three arguments?
"The man paints the wall red".
The verb to paint can take three arguments, the object, the subject and the colour of the paint. What kind of verb is this?
"The man colours the paper blue".
I think ...
2
votes
1answer
44 views
Indexing outside of NP
I am familiar with indexing and co-indexing NP's but I've come across indexing that looks like this:
"Gregory(i) seems to enjoy (ti) Marvel Films." Does the (ti) indicate some kind of movement? ...
0
votes
1answer
375 views
How to understand semelfactive aspect of a verb? How is it varied/similar to iterative aspect?
How semelfactive aspect of a verb that represents a single occasion of an event like knock,hit etc..is perfective and moment defined.
whereas,iterative aspect is event that is repeated on single ...
8
votes
2answers
128 views
Name for a verb form meaning “feign or pretend to do sth”
Is there an accepted name for a derivational process applied to a verb which conveys the meaning "feign or pretend to do sth".
As a corollary, is anyone aware of any languages (especially ...
1
vote
1answer
184 views
Does each verb have a corresponding noun with the same meaning
I believe that each main verb has (at least) one corresponding noun with the same meaning that is formed from gerund and derivation. For examples, discovery is from discover; reading is from read; ...
1
vote
1answer
215 views
If you can use nouns as verbs for different languages
Along the same lines of If you can use Chinese nouns as verbs, or vice versa, I am wondering if you can treat nouns as verbs or verbs as nouns in languages such as these:
Inuktitut
Hebrew
Japanese
...
10
votes
2answers
708 views
Do most languages have the same basic verb tenses?
I am a student learning languages who is interested in linguistics! In trying to keep myself organized with my own study sheets, I wanted to know, do all languages have the same basic verb tenses? I'm ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
Cross-linguistic study of distribution of number of verbal arguments
I think I remember reading once that cross linguistically, at least in "normal" spoken or written language, verbs almost never take more than ~4-5 obligatory arguments. This seems to be true in my ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views
Where can I find an analysis of the semantic overlap of English “to have” and “with”?
For years I've understood via my native speaker intuition and my interest in languages and linguistics that the preposition "with" can carry the semantic meaning of the verb "to have".
The man who ...
-2
votes
2answers
124 views
Why some verbs have -tion while others don't, when being nounified
Verbs like animate become a noun animation, and others like graduate become graduation. But then there are verbs that are just straight converted into nouns, like capture the verb and a capture the ...
0
votes
1answer
67 views
The most different meanings a verb has been found to have
After considering How we can use the same word in multiple different ways and distinguish it so easily, I'm wondering now how complex it can get. I'm wondering what an example is from any language ...
1
vote
3answers
253 views
How Nesting Verbs Works (and if it is Even Possible)
Wondering the different ways you can nest verbs, and what is technically allowed from a mental perspective, not necessarily from a grammatical perspective b/c I imagine it would vary significantly ...
7
votes
3answers
185 views
Is there a language where another verb form is simpler/more basic than the imperative?
Imperative tends to be the simplest verb form, cf. Latin dic, fac. English is not very inflecting, so other verb forms can be just as simple as the imperative. Nevertheless, is there a language, where ...
0
votes
2answers
271 views
Stolen, part of speech
I've checked several dictionaries for the word "stolen" only to find it labeled a verb. Virtually all of the examples sentences use it in a manner that I would have considered an adjective:
"The ...
1
vote
2answers
105 views
Is there a language where semantic aspect determines which tense is unmarked in a verb?
For every language there is a tense that is morphologically closest to the root, e.g. English present is more basic than perfect since perfect either adds a suffix -(e)d or has ablaut as tense marker. ...
1
vote
0answers
65 views
Resource for getting agentive noun from verb automatically
I am trying to get (in some automated fashion) the agentive noun of a given verb. For instance we have
buy, buyer
sell, seller
invest, investor
I was wondering whether there is some resource that ...
10
votes
5answers
12k views
What is the past tense of 'yeet'?
Yeet (/ji:t/) is a recently coined verb in English that seems to have taken on the characteristics of a strong verb, as seen in this hilarious urban dictionary definition.
In English, the strong ...
0
votes
1answer
337 views
Why is there not passive imperative? [closed]
It doesnāt exist. I have the proof. Look. Itās missing.
1
vote
0answers
51 views
English verbs requiring PP
Are there a set of English verbs that require a prepositional phrase? For example:
"The set consists of A and B." = GOOD
"The set consists" = BAD
Is there a name for this type of verb? They seem to ...
5
votes
1answer
138 views
(A)Telicity & Events
Dowty's (1979) classified predicates into:
1. States 'the woord is burning' ---Atelic
2. Activities 'Mary pushed the cart' ---Atelic
3. Accomplishments 'Mary melted the chocolate' ---Telic
4. ...
5
votes
3answers
275 views
Is there any language where the past tense is the base form of a verb?
The fictional language Flaidish has this feature. But I recently found out about a natural language (Mixtec) where the present isn't the base form of a verb, its the future tense.
I found this ...
1
vote
3answers
109 views
What functional motivations are there for the choice of light verb constructions over full verbs?
I am doing a reasearch on light verbs and wondered if anyone could give some opinions on why people tend to use light verb cosntructions, such as "take a shower", "make a decision" etc., over the ...
2
votes
1answer
106 views
Is there a language in which personal suffix precedes the temporal suffix in conjugation?
A fictional example:
zelun (zel- (verb stem: "to make leather") + u (personal suffix, 3rd person sg.) + n (temporal suffix, present))
vs. zelud (u (3rd sg.) + d (preterite))
zelun = "He/She/It is ...
5
votes
1answer
147 views
What is the concept of verb agreement with passive-active level in Hebrew?
In this Duolingo discussion, 'S.Liebermann' mentions that in Hebrew and Arabic, "the verb needs to agree with the level of passive/active" and "Hebrew has 7 degrees of passive/active, while Arabic has ...
0
votes
1answer
143 views
Periphrastic verb forms in Gothic
What periphrastic verb form are attested in the Gothic language, the oldest Germanic language we have substantial records from?
Skimming through a grammar of Gothic I found that for the past tense ...
-1
votes
3answers
219 views
Is there a natural language that doesnāt use an action verb to describe death?
English uses āactivityā verbs such as the verb āto beā to describe that a person is dead, as in āHe is dead,ā or āHe died.ā Is there a language that doesnāt do this?
I know that some languages have ...
