Re: Non-static verbs?

On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> I'm just wondering if this occurs in any natlangs or any other conlangs:
>
> In my conlang, verbs are *never* used to describe state but specifically
> only for describing changes in state.
I've never heard of a system that doesn't use verbs for states.  It is,
however, not unusual to split verbs into two classes: one that denotes
actions, the other that describes states.  My conlang Telek does this, as
does the natlang I study - Chickasaw.

> For example, the sentence "I have a car" in the language will be
> translated to a noun-phrase -- there is no equivalent of the verb to-have
> because possession is regarded as static.
In Chickasaw and Telek (and many other languages) this is expressed by a
sentence meaning something like "the car exists for/to me" where "exist"
is a stative verb.

 Instead, the sentence will be
> translated to the equivalent of "There is a car in my possession", and the
> verb to-be is dropped because the language is zero-copula.
I'm curious what this would actually look like.  Is there an equivalent of
"there" in the phrase, or is it something like "car [be] in my
possession"?

> "I hate apples"
> can be translated two ways: (1) with a (adjectival) noun indicating the
> currently static dislike for apples, or
Would this be a sentence with three nouns then?

> I'm still working out the details of this system, so I'd appreciate if
> anyone knows any natlangs/conlangs that exhibit this same behaviour, so
> that I can take a look and find out what has been done in this area
> before.
I'm not sure how this system works for transitive states (like "hate",
"love", etc.).  How could you tell the difference between an adjectival
noun and a "stative verb" in these contexts?

Marcus