stative verb

Stative verbs (also known as state verbs) are verbs that describe a static condition, situation, or state of being. They are contrasted with action verbs (also called dynamic verbs), which describe an active, dynamic action that can be performed by a person or thing.

Stative verbs can be in the present, past, or future tense; however, because they describe static conditions, they are usually unable to progress through time, and they therefore cannot be used when forming the continuous or progressive forms of verb tenses. For this reason, they are sometimes referred to as non-continuous or non-progressive verbs.

However, some stative verbs can be used in a continuous tense in certain situations, as when describing a temporary state that has begun and will end.

sta·tive

(stā′tĭv)

adj.

Belonging to or designating a class of verbs that express a state or condition.

A verb of the stative class.

[Latin statīvus, stationary, from stāre, stat-, to stand; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

stative

(ˈsteɪtɪv) grammar

adj

(Grammar) denoting a verb describing a state rather than an activity, act, or event, such as know and want as opposed to leave and throw. Compare nonstative

(Grammar) a stative verb

[C19: from New Latin stativus, from Latin stāre to stand]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sta•tive

(ˈsteɪ tɪv)

adj.

(of a verb) expressing a state or condition, as know, like, or belong, and not usu. used in progressive tenses. Compare nonstative.

[1870–75]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

stative - ( used of verbs (e.g. `be' or `own') and most participial adjectives) expressing existence or a state rather than an action

grammar - the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics)

dynamic, active - (used of verbs (e.g. `to run') and participial adjectives (e.g. `running' in `running water')) expressing action rather than a state of being

Translations

stative

[ˈsteɪtɪv] ADJ (Gram) stative verb → verbo m de estado

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References in periodicals archive

An overview of the competition between nominalising suffixes is presented here, followed by a study on the competition between -ness and zero-affixation (2) for the expression of the semantic category STATIVE. The results are compared depending on whether frequencies are taken by entry, i.e., as given by the BNC, or by sense, i.e., after manual sense classification of concordances in order to put to test the relevance of sense separations.

Nominal competition in present-day English affixation: zero-affixation vs. -ness with the semantic category STATIVE

Third, oaths that refer to the past typically use preterite verb forms; those referring to the present tend to use "the prefixed stative ibassi" (p.

Oaths and Curses: A Study in Neo- and Late Babylonian Legal Formulary

In Mordvin and some of the distantly related, prevalently Samoyedic and Ugric, languages, verbal agreement markers adjoining an adnominal phrase encode nonverbal, or stative, predication (Honti 1992 : 266-270; [phrase omitted] 1967 : 163; Wiedemann 1865 : 57).

THE MORPHOSYNTACTIC MANIFESTATIONS OF THE COPULA IN ERZYA

[do' ([empty set] (x)), [use' ([empty set], water (y)])] CAUSE [[do' (water, [fill' (water (y), tank (z)])] CAUSE [BECOME be-in' (tank (z), water (y))]] (y) = marked actor, (z) = undergoer This two-place marked construction can, at the same time, alternate with a stative construction (26), which can be accounted for as another instance of marked undergoer assignment, since the slot for the potential actor has not been filled, which as a result triggers the codification of this non-selected potential effector actor as an OCA introduced by the preposition with.

Accounting for the Alternating Behaviour of Location Arguments from the Perspective of Role and Reference Grammar/Explicacion del comportamiento alternante de los argumentos locativos desde la perspectiva de la Gramatica del Papel y la Referencia

Moseten distinguishes between general and stative causatives.

Verbal Synthesis in the Guapore-Mamore Linguistic Area: a Contact Feature?