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Re: implicational and factive verbs

From:J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 23, 2001, 21:12
daniel andreasson wrote:

> A somewhat OT-question, although it concerns linguistics > in general. What's an implicative (implicational?) verb > and what's a factive verb? A compling friend of mine wants > to know and I don't know what to tell her.
I don't know about "implicative verb", but "factive verb" could mean one of two things: (1) I have occasionally heard the term "factive verb" used to refer to verbs of making/creating--that is, verbs whose direct object comes into existence as a result of the event: build a house cook a meal erect a monument make a sandwich construct an argument (2) Alternatively, the term could refer to a verb which selects a factive clause as its complement. Factive clausal complements are complements which are entailed by the sentence in which they are embedded. For example: "Frank realised/remembered/forgot/discovered that Lisa hates sushi" entails "Lisa hates sushi". Thus, "realise", "remember", "forget", and "discover" are all factive verbs. By contrast, "Frank believed/thought/imagined/denied that Lisa hates sushi" does not entail "Lisa hates sushi". Thus, "believe", "think", "imagine", and "deny" are non-factive verbs. Hope that helps... Matt.