Re: Dynamic vs. Stative Verbs

The dynamic versus the stative interested me tremendously several years ago
when I was refining Teonaht, and Teonaht makes distinctions very much like
the ones Roger and Scott note below.  In fact, what I was also calling the
medio-passive, after a lot of discussion about the use of this term, has its
own distinct grammar, which may be the only potentially "ergative" aspect of
Teonaht, in that the experiential subject is thrown into the object case.
However, I'm even loath to call it that:

The girl smells the garbage.  Experiential (non-volitional)  (-ned verbs):
    Il   coffenlisp li                    gwenda    olin
   OBJ garbage SUB-NV-art. girl          smells-NV
The girl smells/sniffs the rose.  Agentive (volitional)  (-rem verbs)
    Il     rohsa le                gwenda oli
    OBJ rose  SUB-V-art girl        sniffs-V
The garbage smells bad.  Medio-passive or stative.
     Il coffenlisp    o            bauo olib
    OBJ garbage adv-part. bad    smell+ib (passive ending)

Here, the subject "garbage" that smells is put in the object case, and the
verb has an ending that indicates passivity or stative status.

There are other examples:

        Il jentwar cosib, "the door closes."
        Il tyel hsakab, "the rain hurls"
        all of them with the object article.

I preferred the term medio-passive because Teonaht already has a category
called "stative verbs" (or ndi-verbs):

    hejvanndi, "be absent"
    vannendi, "be sick,"
    vlarendi, "be loud," etc.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html#middle

More below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <rfmilly@...>


> Scott wrote:
> \> I'm trying to come up with a list of verb "pairs." Please
>> add to the list or correct me....
>>
>> For example, taste.
>> - "John, taste this sauce."  (dynamic)
>> - John tasted the sauce.  (dynamic)
>> - Wow it was hot. He could really taste the chilis in the sauce.
>> (stative)
> I'm a little in doubt about the stativeness of #3; still seems dynamic, or
> perhaps "experiential".
>
> Whereas: "This sauce tastes funny ~tastes of pepper" is stative.
Right.  In Teonaht:  Il tsalhsak fippryema mahomnib.
                            the sauce  pepper-like tastes.

> Same sort of 3-way distinction with "smell":
> He smelled the flowers (= he put his nose to them) dynamic
> He smells flowers (somewhere) experiential??
> The flowers smell good/bad etc.  -- stative
Example given above.

> Another: We pushed the car (dyn.)
> The car pushed easily (stat.)
Yes.  Il auto o mear nisimib

> Comparable to : He wrote a letter vs. This pen writes smoothly.
>
> Another: John cooked for 10 years (he used to be a chef) ???
> John cooked the steak/the rice/dinner -- dyn.
> Rice cooks in 20 minutes -- stative?
Yes: Il korma o nimra kwecyb, "the pork cooks quickly."

> In some cases, these "stative" examples are also termed "middle" or
> "mediopassive" voice-- there may be more going on than simply a 2-way
> distinction.
Well exactly.  In Teonaht, because there is a volitional and non-volitional
system, the mediopassive is considered a third or median distinction.  It is
different, though, from the Teonaht form of passive.  You can also say: Li
korma kwecyrem aillis, "the pork gets its cooking."  Teonaht doesn't really
have a passive voice but prefers these periphrastics.

> Chris Bates' comments are also relevant.
> -----------------------------------------
>> feel (stat.)   |   touch (dyn.)
>
> Personally, I'd reverse these: though both are transitive, "touch" unlike
> "feel" can connote "accidental, non-deliberate" action:
> John touched a live wire and got electrocuted.
>
> Or: John touched her breast vs. John felt her breast. Ahem.
It depends on how you are defining "feel."  In English, "feel" has several
meanings--agentive, experiential, stative, dynamic:  You feel the breeze on
your face involuntarily. You reach out to feel the cat's fur.  You feel for
the pencil under the desk.  You feel out his meaning.  You feel up your
girlfriend in the car.  You feel his pain.  You feel bad.  So when you're
talking about a conlang, it's best to define what you mean with this broadly
encompassing English verb.  In Teonaht, the word for touch and feel are the
same, with different endings, depending on whether it is agentive or
voluntary, experiential or involuntary, or mediopassive.

So I'm with Scott on this one, Roger! :)  It seems to me that there are more
examples in English of "feel" as stative than as dynamic, whereas there are
more examples in English of "touch" as dynamic than as stative.  "I touched
the ceiling.  He touched the cat's nose.  He touched a sore point.  He
touched his sore tooth with his tongue. She touched his arm."  Granted,
there are also examples of stative "touch," as in the one you gave, but in a
conlang, I would translate "feel" as stative, and "touch" as dynamic.  Or in
Teonaht parlance, non-volitional and volitional.  "John touched her breast"
is ambiguous.  Did he do it deliberately or accidentally?  And did he feel
her breast because she embraced him?  Lovely topic!  :)

Sally