Re: Different types of roots; temporary/permanent stative verbs?

Eric Christopherson wrote:


> Also, I was wondering how different natlangs handle the distinction in
> stative verbs or adjectives between conditions that are permanent and those
> that are temporary? I know of <ser> and <estar> in Spanish, but what other
> ways of dealing with them are there? (Conlang examples would be welcome
> too.)
>
> I'm also wondering about different ways of actually *defining* the
> difference -- how fleeting does something have to be to be "temporary," and
> how long-lived to be "permanent"? Of course, there can be some flexibility
> and irregularity -- in Spanish you say <estar muerto> as if the dead are
> only temporarily dead :)
The contrast you're referring to is probably best thought of not in terms of the
length of time for which the property holds (temporary versus permanent), but
rather in terms of how 'integral' that property is to the individual it is
predicated of (what semanticists call the "stage-level" versus
"individual-level" distinction).  Individual-level predicates denote properties
which are (in some contextually determined sense) 'inherent' or 'essential' to
the entity of which they are predicated, while stage-level predicates denote
'non-essential' or 'accidental' properties of entities.  Compare these
sentences:

  That snake is frightened.  [stage-level]
  That snake is poisonous.  [individual-level]

Being poisonous is an essential, consistent, defining property which an
individual may possess (hence "individual-level").  On the other hand, being
frightened is not an essential property of an individual, and is usually not a
consistent or defining property either; rather, it is a property which the
individual happens to possess in a given situation or 'stage' (hence
"stage-level").

Thinking of this as a distinction between essential versus non-essential
properties, rather than permanent versus temporary properties, may explain why
predicates like "muerto" take "estar" rather than "ser" in Spanish.  Being dead
is a permanent property in the sense that it's irreversable, but it's also an
accidental property:  You aren't dead simply by virtue of the kind of entity you
are (individual-level); you're dead because you happen to have died, because
you've reached the 'stage' of death (stage-level).

Note that whether a predicate is stage-level or individual-level often depends
on the context in which it is used.  In "My eyes are blue", "blue" is
individual-level, since it denotes an inherent, consistent property of my eyes
(cf. "My eyes are itchy").  However, in "The chameleon is blue right now",
"blue" is probably stage-level.

In Tokana, I am toying with marking the difference between stage-level and
individual-level predicates by using different suffixes for nominalizing stative
verbs:

  munt-a     "be drunk"
  munt-i     "one who is drunk (at the moment), a drunk person"
  munt-u     "one who is characteristically drunk, a drunk(ard)"

  mout-a     "be sick"
  mout-i     "a sick person, one who is sick"
  mout-u     "a sickly person, one who has a chronic illness"

  niokoin-a     "be remembered"
  niokoin-i     "that which is remembered, a memory"
  niokoin-u     "that which has a tendency to be remembered, a memorable thing
or event"

There may be some idiosyncrasies built into the system as well:

  tioik-a     "be dead"
  tioik-i     "a dead person, one who is dead"
  tioik-u     "the Dead [as opposed to the Living]"

Matt.

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