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Concept
Stative verb
Summary
According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are static or unchanging throughout their entire duration, whereas dynamic verbs describe processes that entail change over time. Many languages distinguish between these two types in terms of how they can be used grammatically.
Some languages use the same verbs for dynamic and stative situations, and others use different (but often related) verbs with some kind of qualifiers to distinguish between them. Some verbs may act as either stative or dynamic. A phrase like "he plays the piano" may be either stative or dynamic, according to the context. When, in a given context, the verb "play" relates to a state (an interest or a profession), he could be an amateur who enjoys music or a professional pianist. The dynamic interpretation emerges from a specific context in the case "play" describes an action, "what does he do on Friday evening? He plays the piano".
The distinction between stative and dynamic verbs can be correlated with:
the distinction between intransitive and transitive
the grammatical case used with a prepositional phrase associated with the verb
the possibility of using the progressive aspect with the verb
morphological markers
Some languages make distinctions between stative and dynamic verbs in sentences. In German, for instance, several prepositions (Wechselpräpositionen – "changing prepositions") take different noun cases when they accompany stative and dynamic verbs. For stative verbs, the corresponding preposition takes the dative case, whereas for dynamic verbs, the preposition takes the accusative case. For example:
Ich lege den Stift auf den Tisch. (I lay the pen on(to) the table.) – Den here is the masculine definite article in accusative case. [lege – infinitive: legen]
BUT
Der Stift liegt auf dem Tisch. (The pen lies on the table.
Official source
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