Questions tagged [verbs]
Part of speech whose members indicate an action or a state of being.
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List of Lexical and Auxiliary verbs [closed]
I am wanting to know if anyone knows where I get a list of the verbs that are Lexical and Auxiliary. Not what the differences are, but what the actual verbs are. And maybe which are which. I've tried ...
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Is there a word for a pair of verbs that mean the same thing but with subject and object swapped?
In logic, you can say:
(A and B) --> A / 'A and B' implies 'A' (as the 'B' is just discarded)
Computer programmers working from a specification to an implementation, sometimes talk about ...
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Why is a verb omitted in English coordination?
In English coordination, it is very common that a verb should be omitted so that the whole expression sounds natural as exemplifed below.
Ann came with, and Bob without, a date. (Langacker 2012).
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What are the subcategories of the verb "perplex"? [closed]
Is this verb transitive/intransitive/ditransitive/complement VP?
And are these subcategories stay the same when the tense changes?
For example, for the verb: perplexed.
Thanks!
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What is the subcategorizarion of the verb "thought"?
I'm writing a grammar and I see that VP->thought SBAR.
The sentence "the president thought that a sandwich sighed ."
In the stanford parser.
But what is this type of verbs?
Transitive/...
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Verb subcategoriztion - intransitive, transitive, ditransitive, Verb with a complement clause
I'm trying to avoid building grammatically incorrect sentences in some small toy grammar I'm building.
I find subcategorization of verbs bit confusing.
Can there be more then one classification per ...
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Object of certain constructions
I am sure you have all come across constructions such as these:
She slept a long sleep
He lived a productive life.
These verbs are traditionally intransitive verbs, and yet here are transitive. ...
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OVS in English dialogue
English is an SVO language. When writing dialogue, especially in literature, writing a sentence with the speech first is considered grammatically correct. Take for example this extract from Ursula K ...
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Is it possible to make a statement without involving time?
All verbs seem to assume time. Is, was, will be, etc. I don't mean specific times, but the concept of time in general. Is it possible to make any statement without involving time?
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How would you classify a verb that denotes a close temporal relation to another verb?
I am looking at a Papuan language that uses a serialized verb to denote temporal proximity to the main verb's occurrence. I am translating it as "just" in English, as in "he just left&...
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What is the proper definition of a verb?
I do apologise if the question is wordy, but I feel some context is required for me to stand any chance of finding a satifactory answer.
I have been struggling to understand why the word "is"...
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What percentage of verbs in English take both a direct and an indirect object?
I am assuming that the number of transitive verbs that take both a direct and indirect object in English is a subset of those that just take just a direct object. Does anyone know how much smaller? ...
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Does "Inchoative Construction" mean constructions with intransitive inchoative verbs?
The following is the sentence I extracted from a book, Binding Theory, written by Daniel Burning.
The fact that a language like English, which lacks a simple reflexive, has extremely few reflexive ...
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a term for the type of ambi-transitive verb that can do away with an object
I found some terms like (non)ergative, inchoative, but neither quite fits the type of transitive verb that can do without an object, for example, "eat"
I ate.
Have you eaten?
I ate an apple.
...
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What is "mupigane" in Swahili? [closed]
In this sentence: "Wazazi waliwaambia watoto wao: 'Badala ya kufa nyumbani nendeni mupigane.'", I assume "mupigane" is a conjugated form of the verb "kupiga" (fight). ...
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Why is tense obligatory in some languages and not in others?
In some languages like Chinese, it isn’t imperative that the tense of the verb is explicitly marked. So if you mean an action that will occur in the future, you can still refer to it in an all-...
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What determines the valency of predicates?
According to this example, arrive takes only one subject valent.
Can somebody specializes in syntax help me apprehend this notion of valence? Specifically, what factors are used to determine the ...
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Why does the pronoun and verb order vary in Polish language?
My go nie lubimy - we do not like him
On nie kocha mnie - he does not love me
Why in the first example go is followed by nie lubimy, but in the second sentence we have the opposite: nie kocha followed ...
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Is there a name for the type of word that the word, “scarecrow,” is? (a transitive verb conjoined with its object)
The English word, “scarecrow,” spontaneously came to mind the other day, and I realized just how similar this word is to other words and phrases in other languages.
For example, there are many ...
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Is 'love' transitive?
I was just watching a linguistics video in which it was stated that in the sentence "John loves Mary", the verb love requires the direct object Mary, implying that it would be incorrect to ...
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Is there any database with English verb argument structure?
To simplify -- different verbs require different number of nouns to be complete. Some of arguments may be implicit in the real usage of language. So, my question is there any database containing many ...
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Languages with definite and indefinite conjugation
Apart from Hungarian, are there any other languages with definite and indefinite conjugation (verbal inflections)?
For example (in Hugarian):
Definite conjugation: I see the tree. – Látom a fát.
...
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Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle?
Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle applicable to all languages despite the differences between them?
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Why do verbs use 1st singular present active indicative instead of infinitive as the "canonical" or "representative" form in Latin?
I see many dictionaries use the 1st person singular present active indicative form as the "canonical" or dictionary entry for verbs in Latin. For example, a typical dictionary would show ...
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What do "finite" and "non-finite" mean in linguistics?
What do "finite" and "non-finite" mean in linguistics? I know that they occur in other languages and in some cases not only in verbs.
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what is the difference between reference time and event time
what is the difference between reference time and event time , also i am native Arabic speaker , i tried to translate by google translate two examples the reference time before and after event time ...
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Simple cases of gapping (verb ellipsis in coordinate structures)
What are some simple cases of V or Verb Phrase gaps?
For instance:
I love the location and the apartment.
Is this considered a gap (missing 'love' in the second conjunct)?
If not, why not?
What about ...
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The aspect of imperative mood in English
What is the aspect of imperative mood in English?
e.g., Go home!
I know the mood of the verb is imperative here, but I am not sure about the aspect.
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Question about a specific grammatical feature
In one Conlang I am developing there is a feature where owned items are treated as the subject of a verb, and the owner as the Object.
So, for example:
Car sohi Amelia
Would mean Amelia's Car, with ...
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What is the history behind the use of the infinitive form with an imperative function in Germany, Dutch, and other languages
In German, Dutch, and other languages, the imperative is distinct from the infinitive:
Dutch would be doe mee! (singular), doet mee! (plural or formal, dated).
German would be mach mit (singular) or ...
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What is meant by "s/he flies" in Plains Cree dictionary?
The Plains Cree Dictionary has things like this:
ᐋᐦᑕᐦᐅᐤ âhtahow VAI-1
s/he flies to another place
The VAI (animate intransitive verb) page doesn't have a description.
In English we have verbs "...
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What is the term for the role of "believe", "think", and "feel" in a sentence?
I remember vaguely that there is an encompassing terms for these words when used in a sentence. Something that represent it is not a normal factual claim, but something that is subjective to the ...
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Are there such things as verbs that are experiential AND ditransitive?
Does any natural language have verbs that are both ditransitive and experiential?
I'm working on a conlang in which ditransitive experiential verbs exist. For example, we could have verbs that mean &...
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What sort of "root" patterns do languages have that don't have infinitive verbs?
I am trying to gather the "base" form of verbs across languages. The form that is used to generate all the other various verb forms. But it seems some languages don't have infinitive forms ...
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How did verb conjugation by person, number and gender appear? Why do we still use it?
I'm Russian native,learning German and English. I'm interested in teaching myself some linguistics.
Russian verb inflects for person, number in present and future tense; for gender in past tense.
...
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What is the reason for having irregular verbs?
Having irregular verbs makes the language more complex. Users have to memorize more rules.
Is there a historical reason, or some other reason, that English had all these irregular verbs?
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Where do nominal sentences (null/lacking verb sentences) come from and what does their existence imply?
Nominal sentence is a grammatical feature of some languages that a grammatical correct sentence can have no explicit verb. The implicit verb at least in Arabic is simple present form of 'to be', e.g. ...
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Are there languages that mark mood but not tense or aspect?
Are there languages where verbs inflect for mood but don't inflect for tense and aspect?
For instance, if a language had one set of indicative forms and another set of subjunctive forms, but didn't ...
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Is there a database out there for mapping verb tense to its base form?
Obviously, almost all the online dictionaries could map some verb forms like "spoke, spoken, speaking, speaks" to its base form "speak".
I've searched this on github but didn't ...
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Are Turkish aorist (wide-tense) verbs originally finite or nonfinite?
There are countless examples in Turkish of third person aorist forms in -A/Ir or -mAz (negative form) which are employed as nouns:
gelir (income), gider (spending), yazar (writter)
or adjective
su ...
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Across languages, what, if any, syntactic or semantic differences distinguish compound verbs from serial verb constructions?
Across languages, what semantic or syntactic differences distinguish serial verb constructions from compound verbs? Let's disregard phonological differences for the purposes of this question.
Let's ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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
...
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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!
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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
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 '...
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