Chris Bates wrote:
> It seems to me that there are different meanings involved here. One, the
> one involving stative verbs, is about the properties things possess, eg
> the man is good. The other is about equivalence and identity, eg to
> defend is to attack. I believe that some languages treat these two
> differently.... You could require a verb for identity type clauses "That
> man is the teacher" etc, and still have your stative verbs for
> expressive properties.
Spanish and Irish are examples here. In Spanish you have "ser" and
"ester"; Irish "is" and "bí".