Re: Activity and Agency in niKòmbá

David Stokes <dstokes@...> writes:

> > I don't see why you treat it as an aspect.  It is an inherent semantic
> > property.
>
> Thats the point of my question. Must stative-ness be an inherent semantic
> property ? Or is it possible for a word to be used both actively and
> statively.
No, but it is possible to derive active verbs from stative verbs (e.g.
by forming a causative, such as "to lie" -> "to lay (down)"), and
stative verbs from active verbs (e.g. by forming a resultative, e.g. "to
lay (down) -> "to lie").

>       In the examples I tried to find ways to use "stative" verbs
> actively and "active" verbs statively.
Some of the examples are ungrammatical in English, and they show a
complete failure to get the meaning of "stative".  "I am owning a horse"
is ungrammatical, and it is just as stative as "I own a horse".  "I run"
is not stative in the least.  A stative verb is a verb that expresses a
state rather than an action.  Examples of stative verbs are "stand",
"lie", "own", etc.

And I cannot make anything of the following lines:

> I see(stative).         Óvò onùki.              I can see.
> I see(stative) the dog. Óvò kyuzúdli onùki.     I the dog is in sight.
What do the things in the third column mean, and how do they relate to
the first column?  What is the pronoun "I" doing in the 3rd column in
the second line?  And does "Óvò onùki" mean "I see" or "I can see"?

> Perhaps I'm picking up some other distinction and calling it by the
> wrong name.
Indeed you do!  What you call "stative" seems to be an aspect usually
called "habitual".  However, stative verbs don't have aspects at all.
Aspects refer to whether an event is viewed as ongoing, completed, or
whatever, but stative verbs do not denote events.  (Am I wrong here?)

>       Or perhaps what I'm trying to do is take two related semantic
> ideas, one active one stative, asign both of them to one root, then
> distinguish between them with sufixes.
First learn what these term mean.

> Does any of this make sense, or am I completely messed up and need to
> rework the grammar completely?
I'm sorry that I have to tell you that you are completely messed up on
this, but this is the most hideous mess I have ever seen in a conlang
grammar, and it MUST be reworked completely.

David