Do Any Languages Lack Transitive Stative Verbs?

[brandrinn]

I've been thinking about stative verbs, and I figured it would be possible to replace all transitive stative verbs with intransitive ones, or else transitive dynamic verbs. In many cases, the subject of a stative verbs has its agency somewhat diminished anyway (e.g. watch vs see), so it's not that much of a stretch. But of course why would I do any such thing? Then I realized I didn't know of any languages that lacked transitive stative verbs. A google search didn't help. So I put it to you: does such a language exist?

[Nae]

I had to find out what stative verbs mean but now I can firmly state that no, there is no language that doesn't have transitive stative verbs.

[Legion]

Stative/dynamic isn't that a solid and objective distinction anyway. In two languages that morphologically or syntaxically contrast dynamic/stative verbs, you can have the same verb be stative in the first language and dynamic in the second.

For instance English generally treats "to see" as stative and "to watch" as dynamic, whereas French treats both "voir" and "regarder" as stative.

It seems to be more like a hierarchy, with different language putting the separation between stative and dynamic at different point of the hierarchy.

So you get something like (from more stative to more dynamic):

state verb (to be, to exist, to inhabit) > passive perception verb (to see, to hear) > active perception verb (to watch, to listen) > process verb (to walk, to ride) > state-change verb (to become, to die) > single action verb (to kill, to enter)

There's nothing going against the idea of a language without such a contrast (in that case its verbs would be neither stative nor dynamic, the distinction would be meaningless for that language), though I have seen pointed out that such a feature tends to be one found in some pristine, uncarefully thought out nooblangs.

[all this is merely personal observation, please consult a professional if the symptoms do not disappear after a few days]

[Ser]

Moreover, a verb could possibly be both stative and dynamic in the same language. In Cantonese, 住 jyuh marks an imperfective aspect in stative verbs and 緊 gán in dynamic verbs. Sometimes verbs can take both, with different connotations: if it has the stative one it represents an ongoing and unchanging state of affairs, while the other one an ongoing action or activity (more deliberate, more likely to change).

Stative/dynamic isn't that a solid and objective distinction anyway. In two languages that morphologically or syntaxically contrast dynamic/stative verbs, you can have the same verb be stative in the first language and dynamic in the second.

For instance English generally treats "to see" as stative and "to watch" as dynamic, whereas French treats both "voir" and "regarder" as stative.

What sort of formal test we could use in French and Spanish to know this?

[chris_notts]

It also depends what you count as transitive. For example, many languages have a class of "extended intransitives" which take a dative instead of a direct object, e.g. gustar "to like" in Spanish. If transitive in Spanish means a verb that takes a subject and a direct object then verbs like "gustar" are intransitive, but if it means having two obligatory arguments then "gustar" is transitive because it has to have an indirect object. Compare:

me gusta
"I like it" (lit. it pleases to me)

* gusta
* it pleases

So it is easily possible for stative verbs with two arguments to have different case or argument marking patterns to normal transitive verbs.

EDIT: In Spanish it's actually a bit messy because "me" could also be a direct object. But in Basque the pattern for this kind of verb is clearly absolutive + dative:

niri gustatzen zait
I-dat like-imperf 3sg.abs-intrans-1sg.dat
"I like it"

Note that Basque has borrowed gustar from Spanish.

[Legion]

For instance English generally treats "to see" as stative and "to watch" as dynamic, whereas French treats both "voir" and "regarder" as stative.

What sort of formal test we could use in French and Spanish to know this?

Actually I think I spoke too fast: while French doesn't make a contrast between "voir" and "regarder", it seems to treat both as dynamic placing the dynamic/stative separation very high in the hierarchy I posted above.

A good test to see this is to see which French tense is used to translate an English preterit: dynamic verbs will use the perfect (or the preterit in some literary context), whereas stative verbs will use the imperfect, so we get:

He killed a man > Il a tué un homme
He became sad > Il est devenu triste
He walked to the beach > Il a marché jusqu'à la plage
He watched a movie > Il a regardé un film
He saw two men > Il a vu deux hommes
He was angry > Il était en colère
He had a dog > Il avait un chien
He lived in Paris > Il habitait à Paris

[Ser]

It also depends what you count as transitive. For example, many languages have a class of "extended intransitives" which take a dative instead of a direct object, e.g. gustar "to like" in Spanish. If transitive in Spanish means a verb that takes a subject and a direct object then verbs like "gustar" are intransitive, but if it means having two obligatory arguments then "gustar" is transitive because it has to have an indirect object. Compare:

me gusta
"I like it" (lit. it pleases to me)

* gusta
* it pleases

So it is easily possible for stative verbs with two arguments to have different case or argument marking patterns to normal transitive verbs.

EDIT: In Spanish it's actually a bit messy because "me" could also be a direct object.

It's not messy, you're just using the wrong person: le gusta "she/he likes it" (lit. it pleases him/her). Le can't be a direct object pronoun here (in my dialect at least, it could be in Spaniard Spanish, but then it doesn't matter because not even Spaniard Spanish could use lo here).

A good test to see this is to see which French tense is used to translate an English preterit: dynamic verbs will use the perfect (or the preterit in some literary context), whereas stative verbs will use the imperfect, so we get:

He killed a man > Il a tué un homme
He became sad > Il est devenu triste
He walked to the beach > Il a marché jusqu'à la plage
He watched a movie > Il a regardé un film
He saw two men > Il a vu deux hommes
He was angry > Il était en colère
He had a dog > Il avait un chien
He lived in Paris > Il habitait à Paris

I'm not sure. At the same time, I think it's English "to be", "to have" and "to live" that are severely restricted as for when they can take the past progressive (*I was being angry, BUT I was just being silly; *he was having a dog, BUT he was having a bad day). So "he was angry" could be translated with the passé composé as well: il a été en colère, just like "he loved her" could be either il l'aimait or il l'a aimé.

I've noticed in particular how English speakers studying Spanish tend to make mistakes on when to use the pretérito imperfecto (amaba) and the pretérito perfecto (amé) exactly with these verbs that have some restrictions on the past progressive ("to be, to have, to live, to love, to like", and others).

[chris_notts]

It's not messy, you're just using the wrong person: le gusta "she/he likes it" (lit. it pleases him/her). Le can't be a direct object pronoun here (in my dialect at least, it could be in Spaniard Spanish).

Good point. Somehow I didn't think of that when I wrote the example. I do speak Spanish (/Spanglish) quite a lot now because my girlfriend (and wife-to-be) is from Sevilla, but it's been a long time since I actually read a Spanish grammar so I don't really think in terms of paradigms most of the time.

[Legion]

A good test to see this is to see which French tense is used to translate an English preterit: dynamic verbs will use the perfect (or the preterit in some literary context), whereas stative verbs will use the imperfect, so we get:

He killed a man > Il a tué un homme
He became sad > Il est devenu triste
He walked to the beach > Il a marché jusqu'à la plage
He watched a movie > Il a regardé un film
He saw two men > Il a vu deux hommes
He was angry > Il était en colère
He had a dog > Il avait un chien
He lived in Paris > Il habitait à Paris

I'm not sure. At the same time, I think it's English "to be", "to have" and "to live" that are severely restricted as for when they can take the past progressive (*I was being angry, BUT I was just being silly; *he was having a dog, BUT he was having a bad day). So "he was angry" could be translated with the passé composé as well: il a été en colère, just like "he loved her" could be either il l'aimait or il l'a aimé.

Yeah but that's a problem with English verbs; the test still works in French if you ignore English; you just have to look at a narrative text and see how verbs behave provided they're in the same référence frame. So you get things like "Je suis allé au cinéma, et j'ai vu un homme, il était en colère et il avait un chien." That's the most unmarked way to say this. If you'd write "il a été en colère, et il a eu chien", that would imply a number of specifically marked things. "Il a eu un chien" for instance, could translate as, depending on context "He used to have a dog" or "He was given a dog". The important point is that "Il avait un chien" is the most natural way to translate "He had a dog".

Just likein English, you can write "He watches cartoons" and "I am seeing a girl", but those are marked, specific meanings compared to "He's watching cartoons" and "I see a girl".

[Ser]

I'm not sure. At the same time, I think it's English "to be", "to have" and "to live" that are severely restricted as for when they can take the past progressive (*I was being angry, BUT I was just being silly; *he was having a dog, BUT he was having a bad day). So "he was angry" could be translated with the passé composé as well: il a été en colère, just like "he loved her" could be either il l'aimait or il l'a aimé.

I've noticed in particular how English speakers studying Spanish tend to make mistakes on when to use the pretérito imperfecto (amaba) and the pretérito perfecto (amé) exactly with these verbs that have some restrictions on the past progressive ("to be, to have, to live, to love, to like", and others).

Actually, the more I think about this, what if English just has something similar to what happens in Cantonese?

"To have" seems to be restricted only when it's about possession: *I was having a dog, *I was having a beautiful house. But not when it's about having time (nobody can own time): I was having a terrible day; or when it's about giving birth to a child: My wife was having a child, for God's sake! In this sense, perhaps the restricted meaning is stative (the state of affairs of owning something), but the other two are more about activities (and thus dynamic?).

This is much more difficult to pinpoint with "to love" and "to like" though. *He was liking the food I prepared for them, BUT I was already liking how it turned out. *I was loving her back then, BUT I was loving you all along (Wynonna Judd). Hmm...

It's even worse with to be. *I was being single, *I was being sick, BUT I was just being silly!? Maybe "I'm just being silly" is just some sort of idiom breaking general tendencies in the language's grammar? (Cf. this.)
EDIT:

Yeah but that's a problem with English verbs; the test still works in French if you ignore English; you just have to look at a narrative text and see how verbs behave provided they're in the same référence frame. So you get things like "Je suis allé au cinéma, et j'ai vu un homme, il était en colère et il avait un chien." That's the most unmarked way to say this. If you'd write "il a été en colère, et il a eu chien", that would imply a number of specifically marked things. "Il a eu un chien" for instance, could translate as, depending on context "He used to have a dog" or "He was given a dog". The important point is that "Il avait un chien" is the most natural way to translate "He had a dog".

I don't see how they're marked... What if they just mean different things, and you just happen to talk less about the others? I fail to see how "he had a dog" is more naturally translated as il avait un chien (or ella tenía un perro), it's just that if it has an imperfective aspect it becomes il avait un chien (ella tenía un perro), and if it has perfective aspect it's il a eau un chien (ella tuvo un perro). One marks a state without a final bound (imperfective: she had a dog, it doesn't matter if she still has it), while the other one a state with such a bound (perfective: she once had a dog, but doesn't anymore).

Maybe it seems more natural for you to translate it as il avait un chien because you're assuming some context for it?

Just like in English, you can write "He watches cartoons" and "I am seeing a girl", but those are marked, specific meanings compared to "He's watching cartoons" and "I see a girl".

How is "he's watching cartoons" less specific or more marked than "he watches cartoons"? The first one is somewhat imperfective (he's watching cartoons right now, but he's watching cartoons every evening(!?)), and the other one habitual (he watches cartoons every evening). And both are present tense...

Maybe I tend to think of "marked" as "stigmatized" (sociolinguistics) or "rather ungrammatical" (like when you use a very uncommon word order), but "he's watching cartoons" isn't stigmatized or rather ungrammatical. And I don't know how it could be less "specific".

[Astraios]

*I was being sick

I question your asterisk. This is perfectly grammatical for me, and means "I was throwing up/vomiting".

[ol bofosh]

Me too, same with "I was being ill."

Although if the speaker of "I was being sick" means "I was being not well" or "I was being poorly", then it is ungrammatical.

[TomHChappell]

I've been thinking about stative verbs, and I figured it would be possible to replace all transitive stative verbs with intransitive ones, or else transitive dynamic verbs. In many cases, the subject of a stative verbs has its agency somewhat diminished anyway (e.g. watch vs see), so it's not that much of a stretch. But of course why would I do any such thing? Then I realized I didn't know of any languages that lacked transitive stative verbs. A google search didn't help. So I put it to you: does such a language exist?

What do you mean by "stative" and "transitive" and "intransitive" and "dynamic"?

There are two-participant stative verbs; was that what you meant?

[Bob Johnson]

*I was being sick

I question your asterisk. This is perfectly grammatical for me, and means "I was throwing up/vomiting".

yeah but you accept everything

also this is be+adj, not throw up

[Astraios]

yeah but you accept everything

Not as much as your mum.

[Ser]

*I was being sick

I question your asterisk. This is perfectly grammatical for me, and means "I was throwing up/vomiting".

...Yeah, as Bob said, that's not the meaning I intended, I meant to say "I had some disease" or the like. Bad example. Anyway, *I was being angry.

[clawgrip]

I'm not sure. At the same time, I think it's English "to be", "to have" and "to live" that are severely restricted as for when they can take the past progressive (*I was being angry, BUT I was just being silly; *he was having a dog, BUT he was having a bad day). So "he was angry" could be translated with the passé composé as well: il a été en colère, just like "he loved her" could be either il l'aimait or il l'a aimé.

I've noticed in particular how English speakers studying Spanish tend to make mistakes on when to use the pretérito imperfecto (amaba) and the pretérito perfecto (amé) exactly with these verbs that have some restrictions on the past progressive ("to be, to have, to live, to love, to like", and others).

Actually, the more I think about this, what if English just has something similar to what happens in Cantonese?

"To have" seems to be restricted only when it's about possession: *I was having a dog, *I was having a beautiful house. But not when it's about having time (nobody can own time): I was having a terrible day; or when it's about giving birth to a child: My wife was having a child, for God's sake! In this sense, perhaps the restricted meaning is stative (the state of affairs of owning something), but the other two are more about activities (and thus dynamic?).

This is much more difficult to pinpoint with "to love" and "to like" though. *He was liking the food I prepared for them, BUT I was already liking how it turned out. *I was loving her back then, BUT I was loving you all along (Wynonna Judd). Hmm...

It's even worse with to be. *I was being single, *I was being sick, BUT I was just being silly!? Maybe "I'm just being silly" is just some sort of idiom breaking general tendencies in the language's grammar? (Cf. this.)
EDIT:

Yeah but that's a problem with English verbs; the test still works in French if you ignore English; you just have to look at a narrative text and see how verbs behave provided they're in the same référence frame. So you get things like "Je suis allé au cinéma, et j'ai vu un homme, il était en colère et il avait un chien." That's the most unmarked way to say this. If you'd write "il a été en colère, et il a eu chien", that would imply a number of specifically marked things. "Il a eu un chien" for instance, could translate as, depending on context "He used to have a dog" or "He was given a dog". The important point is that "Il avait un chien" is the most natural way to translate "He had a dog".

I don't see how they're marked... What if they just mean different things, and you just happen to talk less about the others? I fail to see how "he had a dog" is more naturally translated as il avait un chien (or ella tenía un perro), it's just that if it has an imperfective aspect it becomes il avait un chien (ella tenía un perro), and if it has perfective aspect it's il a eau un chien (ella tuvo un perro). One marks a state without a final bound (imperfective: she had a dog, it doesn't matter if she still has it), while the other one a state with such a bound (perfective: she once had a dog, but doesn't anymore).

Maybe it seems more natural for you to translate it as il avait un chien because you're assuming some context for it?

Just like in English, you can write "He watches cartoons" and "I am seeing a girl", but those are marked, specific meanings compared to "He's watching cartoons" and "I see a girl".

How is "he's watching cartoons" less specific or more marked than "he watches cartoons"? The first one is somewhat imperfective (he's watching cartoons right now, but he's watching cartoons every evening(!?)), and the other one habitual (he watches cartoons every evening). And both are present tense...

Maybe I tend to think of "marked" as "stigmatized" (sociolinguistics) or "rather ungrammatical" (like when you use a very uncommon word order), but "he's watching cartoons" isn't stigmatized or rather ungrammatical. And I don't know how it could be less "specific".

It's not so much the verb itself as the fact that "have a ___ time," "have a ___ day," "have a baby," "be silly" are all idiomatic expressions that act as dynamic verbs that just happen to incorporate stative verbs.

Using continuous on like, love, etc. is just a colloquial way of describing a somewhat sudden and unexpected opinion on something. These would not be considered correct in more formal language.

[Legion]

Serafín > I think you're confusing things pointlessly; we're trying to observe morphosyntaxic behaviour triggered by dynamic/stative difference.

So we need to put the two verbs in the exact same conditions, with no other changing parameter than the dynamic/stative contrast.

In English, this is done with the neutral present tense:

to watch + present + 1SG > I'm watching (dynamic)
to see + present + 1SG > I see (stative)

"I watch" is marked because it also adds an habitual/generic truth value to the verb.
"I'm seeing" is marked, because it's generally idiomatic, with meaning synonymous to "I'm dating, I'm going out with"; it can also have an anticipative value "I'm seeing a doctor on Monday"; so there are additional parameters that makes comparison of these forms meaningless here.

In French we do the same thing, but with the neutral past tense:

être + past + 1SG > J'étais (stative)
sortir + past + 1SG > Je suis sorti (dynamic)

"J'ai été" is marked because it also implies completion, the state is no longer valid in the present (whereas "j'étais" is unspecified, it can work with characteristics that are still relevant or have ceased to be).
"Je sortais" is marked because it adds a durative/continous aspect (whereas "je suis sorti" can descibe both an instantaneous action or a long process); it also have more idiomatic meaning, it can also mean "I was about to leave" in some contexts.

It's pretty much like trying to make out phonemes: we have to compare minimal pairs with no other variation than what we want to observe.

I'm not sure if this is perfectly limpid, but at least it goes on to show how the dynamic/stative contrast influence the semantics of verbs and tenses.

[brandrinn]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I was thinking about a language where the subject and object are agent and patient, typically. A passive experiencer as a subject would sound weird, and might be dealt with in some paraphrastic way, eliminating stative transitives.

The thing is, leaving lexical aspect up to each situation doesn't sit well with me. Letting one verb be a state, an activity, an accomplishment, or an achievement depending on context just feels so... English.

[Wattmann]

Legion, you are putting them in different tenses, not the same.
"I see" and "I watch" are in the same tense, which is present simple, and "J'ai été" and "Je suis sorti" are in the same tense (passé composé, no matter the auxillary).
Now, I've read that the two participles differ in that one is used for dynamic, marginally (with what, twelve irregular verbs, some intransitive verbs and reflexive ones) while the other is used to mark everything else, usually statically.
Correct me if I'm wrong, since my French skills are mostly theoretical.

[Astraios]

Did you read what he said?

[Wattmann]

Did you read what he said?

Yes I did, and I see where he is going - he wants the same implicit marking (so to say...), whilst changing the verb's tense.
But, implicit is not explicit - "I watch" and "I see" are the same explicitly, but different in their implicit meanings.
That's allright. Legion, OTOH, is trying to equate "I'm watching" with "I see" in tense terms, which is extremely off for me.

Equating continuous present and simple present is... not cool (strictly morphologically speaking)

[Astraios]

But "I'm watching" and "I see" are equivalents, they're the neutral unmarked present tense form of "watch" and "see". If you say "I'm watching that guy over there" and "I see that guy over there", they're both unmarked plain old boring old events that are happening right now. If you say "I watch that guy over there" and "I'm seeing that guy over there", they're both marked habitual events that happen in an extended time-period.

[Wattmann]

But "I'm watching" and "I see" are equivalents, they're the neutral unmarked present tense form of "watch" and "see". If you say "I'm watching that guy over there" and "I see that guy over there", they're both unmarked plain old boring old events that are happening right now. If you say "I watch that guy over there" and "I'm seeing that guy over there", they're both marked habitual events that happen in an extended time-period.

I disagree, but I'm no native speaker. I won't really argue with you here, even though I see your reasoning, accept it and disagree on the conclusion.

[Wattmann]

But "I'm watching" and "I see" are equivalents, they're the neutral unmarked present tense form of "watch" and "see". If you say "I'm watching that guy over there" and "I see that guy over there", they're both unmarked plain old boring old events that are happening right now. If you say "I watch that guy over there" and "I'm seeing that guy over there", they're both marked habitual events that happen in an extended time-period.

I disagree, but I'm no native speaker. I won't really argue with you here, even though I see your reasoning, accept it and disagree on the conclusion.