Re: Aspect vs. case; stative and dynamic verbs

On Friday, November 12, 2004, at 11:36 , Andrew Patterson wrote:

> Sounds like I've got to use my words more carefully. There seems to be
> some
> confusion over what I meant by "not in the conventional sense."
I understood it to mean "not in the conventional [linguistic] sense". I
would have thought that was clear enough from the context.
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On Friday, November 12, 2004, at 09:09 , Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 12, 2004 at 08:48:26PM -0000, caeruleancentaur wrote:
> "Stative" and "dynamic" are aspects of verbs.
>
>>> Not in the conventional sense of the word their [sic] not.
>>
>> I was not speaking in the conventional sense, whatever that may
>> mean.  I was speaking in the linguistic sense.
But "stative" and "dynamic" are simply _not_ aspects in the conventional
*linguistic* sense.

>> I am not a professionaly trained linguist,
Nor am I.

>> but do have substantial background in
>> the field.  I rely on the professionals to help me with definitions.
>> David Crystal in "A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics" (p. 326)
>> writes this about stative: "A term used in grammatical classification
>> referring to one of two main aspectual categories of verb use, the
>> other being dynamic."
>
> I think the objection was to your use of the term "aspect", which has a
> very specific meaning with regard to verbs.  I admit that I don't know
> what
> your dictionary means by an "aspectual category", but "stative" and
> "dynamic"
> are certainly not "aspects".  Aspect refers to the (in)completeness of
> an action.
Yep - and in fact under _aspect_ in the "A Dictionary of Linguistics and
Phonetics" , David Crystal does not give either 'stative' or 'dynamic' as
examples of 'aspect'. His definition is a little verbose but conforms as
far as I can see with the conventional linguistic use of the term.

It would seem from reading the relevant entries in Crystal's Dictionary
that he is saying that verbs can be categorized by _syntactically_
criteria as either dynamic or stative, and that this categorization
determines (among other things) the aspects in which we may expect a verb
to occur; for example a stative verb will not occur with 'progressive'
aspect.

>> Perhaps, in the future, I should quote my sources so as to have some
>> credibility when I try to answer a question in the group.  No one
>> else seems to have to do that, though.
Eh? I do so quite frequently. If you look back in the archives (or even
fairly recent mails) you will find I often quote from Trask and/or Crystal.
  I have certainly read other conlangers quoting from Trask.

> And of course you don't have to do that, either.  But you do have to be
> careful with the terminology you cite - there are lots of subtle
> differences.
This is very true. That is why I do often quote my sources.

> See the recent thread in which I discovered for the first
> time that there is a difference between "rhoticization" and
> "rhotacization", for instance.  So it's wisest not to do things like
> shorten "aspectual category" to "aspect", since that may change the
> meaning of the term (as it did in this case).
Yes - it did. I have checked Trask also. He slightly inconsistently refers
to "dynamic" as a 'superordinate aspectual label' and to "stative" as a
'superordinate aspectual category'  :)

But it is quite clear from his entries that such superordinate aspectual
labels/categories are not the same as aspects themselves.

> Above all, though, when corrected, you should not be offended or
> insulted or feel the need to get defensive.  On this list, the criticism
> is not meant to accomplish anything but teaching
Yep.

> So, speaking as
> someone who's been on the reciving end of a lot of that teaching,
> it's best to take it in stride.  :)
Indeed - I am indebted to some members (current & not-current) on this
list for putting me right on several occasions over the past few years.

Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
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as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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