Miaows and other fun linguistic things

[The fish]

"I'm loving it" as the slogan for McDonald's makes sense, because if someone asked you "How's the burger?", the natural response would be "I'm hating loving it.", as opposed to "I love it", because in a few minutes it will be no more.

 

But what are you doing to love it? For a verb to be dynamic, an action is required. It's the same reason think, like, hear and have (as in "I have blue eyes") are stative.

[The Peeps]

One could be a loving person, so would 'I feel loving towards it' be acceptable?

[Diageo]

Think is a dynamic verb....

[The fish]

One could be a loving person, so would 'I feel loving towards it' be acceptable?

 

You're not loving them, you love them!

 

To be loving towards someone is to act with love, to "be loving them" is an erroneous way of saying to "love them".

 

Think is a dynamic verb....

 

Think is both. It is stative when it means "believe" and dynamic when it means "pondering".

 

For example, "I'm thinking ghosts don't exist" is incorrect, whilst "I think ghosts don't exist" is correct. "I'm thinking about whether or not ghosts exist" is correct.

[/crazy thread crossover]

Edited October 26, 2010 by The fish
Automerged Doublepost

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

But what are you doing to love it? For a verb to be dynamic, an action is required. It's the same reason think, like, hear and have (as in "I have blue eyes") are stative.

 

Hear and have can also be both stative and dynamic, can they not?

[Cube]

This thread has gone completely over my head. I was lost at the mention of "verb".

[Twozzok]

but surely grammar evolves, and with this current generation getting olde rit's gonna become 'da standard'

[jayseven]

[To The Fish;] The only reason you think it's a stative verb is because you think love can only be of the endless variety. That's the only way I can explain why you have this wrong. I don't see why you can't understand that someone may choose to use "I'm [verb]ng it" rather than "I [verb] it," for while it may be incorrect in some cases, it simply has a different meaning in others. As soon as you change the format, then it stops being one type of very and becomes the other. "I love it" is stative, "I'm loving it" is not. Simple as.

[chairdriver]

This thread has gone completely over my head. I was lost at the mention of "verb".

 

Verb is a "doing word". Eg: kicked is the verb in "I kicked the ball".

 

A stative verb (in simple terms) is a verb which is independent of time - there is no concept of time or an endpoint involved.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

[To The Fish;] The only reason you think it's a stative verb is because you think love can only be of the endless variety. That's the only way I can explain why you have this wrong. I don't see why you can't understand that someone may choose to use "I'm [verb]ng it" rather than "I [verb] it," for while it may be incorrect in some cases, it simply has a different meaning in others. As soon as you change the format, then it stops being one type of very and becomes the other. "I love it" is stative, "I'm loving it" is not. Simple as.

 

To be fair to The fish, I have been taught that this is a question of grammar, not subjective opinion. However, I personally don't see why it's a problem, either.

[The fish]

I don't see why you can't understand that someone may choose to use "I'm [verb]ing it" rather than "I [verb] it,"

 

I can't understand what action you are undertaking to love it. I can't understand why you think you're no longer going to love an identical meal the next time you eat it. I can't understand what you're doing in the process of having a headache, or having blue eyes.

[The fish]

[To The Fish;] The only reason you think it's a stative verb is because you think love can only be of the endless variety.

 

No, I think it's a stative verb because it fucking is one. That's what's annoying me here - not the fact that McDonald's is spreading an change in the English language which I find personally painful to my ears, but that you're arguing that a word that is a stative verb is not one. Trust me on this one, love is a stative verb.

 

A totally incomplete list off the top of my head: like, know, belong, love, realise, fit, hate, suppose, contain, want, mean, consist, need, understand, seem, prefer, believe, depend, agree, remember, matter, mind, recognise, see, own, appear, look (=seem), sound, taste, smell.

Edited October 26, 2010 by The fish

[ReZourceman]

I make sure I have a verb with every meal.

 

Solve the above grammar equation.

[jayseven]

No, I think it's a stative verb because it fucking is one. That's what's annoying me here - not the fact that McDonald's is spreading an change in the English language which I find personally painful to my ears, but that you're arguing that a word that is a stative verb is not one. Trust me on this one, love is a stative verb.

 

A totally incomplete list off the top of my head: like, know, belong, love, realise, fit, hate, suppose, contain, want, mean, consist, need, understand, seem, prefer, believe, depend, agree, remember, matter, mind, recognise, see, own, appear, look (=seem), sound, taste, smell.

 

I understand perfectly what you are saying. Perhaps there's something we should amend;

 

I am saying that "I'm loving it" is not a stative verb phrase, which is still a 'verb' but it helps to distinguish it from verb as a type of word.

 

You are saying Love is a stative verb.

 

Stative verbs can become dynamic verbs in conjunction with other words, depending on teh context of the sentence as a whole!

[Supergrunch]

A little clarification: love is a stative verb (that's one of those pesky 'fact' things). The rules and usage regarding stative verbs, however, are changing.

 

I find the change irritating to my ear as no action is taken to love something. To love something is not progressive - you have no intention of ceasing to love something at a future point in time.

No, I think it's a stative verb because it fucking is one. That's what's annoying me here - not the fact that McDonald's is spreading an change in the English language which I find personally painful to my ears, but that you're arguing that a word that is a stative verb is not one. Trust me on this one, love is a stative verb.

 

A totally incomplete list off the top of my head: like, know, belong, love, realise, fit, hate, suppose, contain, want, mean, consist, need, understand, seem, prefer, believe, depend, agree, remember, matter, mind, recognise, see, own, appear, look (=seem), sound, taste, smell.

What makes "love" a stative verb? As far as I can tell, your argument is "love is a stative verb because it is one," which isn't an argument at all. Grammarians classified "love" as stative because of the way it behaved in a particular variety of English, which is where your "fact" comes from - this doesn't mean it can't change category. There are few "facts" about language that are immutable and resistant to change - indeed, some (but not me) might say there are none, but all linguists agree that something as minor as the aspectual usage of a single lexical verb is very likely to undergo changes diachronically, even if it doesn't synchronically.

 

You seem to think that the change is one that's happening to all stative verbs, but this is in fact not the case. Stative and dynamic verbs are still treated the same, but "love" has changed so that it may now be used both dynamically and statively. We can see this quite clearly by comparing it to a canonical stative verb like "know," which enters into no dynamic uses (I've put in "run," a canonical dynamic verb for a control). Let's compare how they behave with respect to Dowty's tests (you still haven't given me your judgement on these, I'd be interested to see whether your "love" is at all dynamic). Note that we only call things stative because of how they behave syntactically, so if a verb is grammatical in all these cases, then it can be used dynamically - there's not really a coherent semantic defintion of stative/dynamic.

 

Progressive:

 

I am running.

I am loving her.

*I am knowing your height. (the star is used to mean unacceptable/ungrammatical)

 

Imperative:

 

Run!

Love me!

*Know your height!

 

Complements of "force":

 

I forced him to run.

I forced her to love me.

*I forced him to know his height.

 

Pseudo-cleft:

 

What I did was run.

What I did was love. (this one may be slightly questionable for me)

*What I did was know my height.

 

It seems fairly clear that for my dialect at least, "love" satisfies many if not of the criteria for being dynamic, so it seems reasonable to at least suggest that it can have both dynamic and stative readings. This is not particularly unusual - another example is "smell," which can be used in both ways "I smell / I am smelling." Which is incidentally from your list of apparently God-given stative verbs, so it's not as absolute as you think. Stativity is a property which verbs may always have, sometimes have, or never have, depending on each specific usage - it's not necessarily coded into the verb itself.

 

And I don't see why you think it's so hard for words to change categories like this. It happens very often over long periods of time - for instance the French word "chez" today behaves something like a preposition, but it's cognate with latin "casam," which is just a noun meaning house. Indeed, these sorts of changes are far more common than changes in the whole system like your suggesting, although large-scale changes do indeed sometimes happen, like the formation of the English class of modals from Old English preterite-present verbs.

but surely grammar evolves, and with this current generation getting olde rit's gonna become 'da standard'

Yep.

Verb is a "doing word". Eg: kicked is the verb in "I kicked the ball".

Not always - what are you doing when you "love." I believe other languages express the concept of "fire" using a verb rather than a noun. It's much better to decide what word classes are using distributional and syntactic criteria rather than semantic ones.

To be fair to The fish, I have been taught that this is a question of grammar, not subjective opinion. However, I personally don't see why it's a problem, either.

 

I can't understand what action you are undertaking to love it. I can't understand why you think you're no longer going to love an identical meal the next time you eat it. I can't understand what you're doing in the process of having a headache, or having blue eyes.

It's just a temporary thought, which can be viewed as an action. This shows all the more why semantic criteria are rubbish.

I understand perfectly what you are saying. Perhaps there's something we should amend;

 

I am saying that "I'm loving it" is not a stative verb phrase, which is still a 'verb' but it helps to distinguish it from verb as a type of word.

 

You are saying Love is a stative verb.

 

Stative verbs can become dynamic verbs in conjunction with other words, depending on teh context of the sentence as a whole!

Not really, it's about the verb itself, but you sort of have the right idea. And note that lots of stative verbs can't be used dynamically at all.

 

Overall I don't see why this seems to be angering some people so much. It's just a case of scientific grammar, and what I'm saying is entirely uncontroversial in linguistics.

Edited October 26, 2010 by Supergrunch

[Raining_again]

Supergrunch used EndThread...

 

It was very effective!!

[Rummy]

You're not loving them, you love them!

 

To be loving towards someone is to act with love, to "be loving them" is an erroneous way of saying to "love them".

 

 

 

Think is both. It is stative when it means "believe" and dynamic when it means "pondering".

 

For example, "I'm thinking ghosts don't exist" is incorrect, whilst "I think ghosts don't exist" is correct. "I'm thinking about whether or not ghosts exist" is correct.

[/crazy thread crossover]

 

A little clarification: love is a stative verb (that's one of those pesky 'fact' things). The rules and usage regarding stative verbs, however, are changing.

 

I find the change irritating to my ear as no action is taken to love something. To love something is not progressive - you have no intention of ceasing to love something at a future point in time.

 

I'll be honest, I'm no linguist nor a grammatacist*, yet it seems to me for someone who earlier seemed prepared to accept that they might be wrong or mistaken, you seem unable to accept the arguments being presented to you and I take an impression that you are not prepared to accept any other possibility but your own, which I hope to address simply(in the same vein as what jayseven has already said) with regards to the following post/question of yours;

 

I can't understand what action you are undertaking to love it. I can't understand why you think you're no longer going to love an identical meal the next time you eat it. I can't understand what you're doing in the process of having a headache, or having blue eyes.

 

'I love fish and chips' and 'I'm loving these fish and chips'. That's the difference right there imo. How do you still love something once it is gone?

 

EDIT: Though when I posted this, I think I had found an exception to what I had said which did not earlier make sense. I am not sure, and will leave it to you. I think I have just taken your point, but take both as acceptable.

 

*(lolitsajokeguyschillout)

Edited October 27, 2010 by Rummy

[The Peeps]

I make sure I have a verb with every meal.

 

Solve the above grammar equation.

 

Albatross.

[chairdriver]

Not always - what are you doing when you "love." I believe other languages express the concept of "fire" using a verb rather than a noun. It's much better to decide what word classes are using distributional and syntactic criteria rather than semantic ones.

 

I was being slightly (can't think of the word), giving a primary school explanation.

[Dyson]

Supergrunch used EndThread...

 

It was very effective!!

 

Super effective, Han! Don't you know anything?!

[heroicjanitor]

So the conclusion in here is that Fish is correct but if you want to use colloquialisms you can.

[Shorty]

Wrong, the conclusion here is that Fish is wrong about stativity being absolute and the idea that the class of stative verbs is changing in use, despite the fact that "love" may be stative in his dialect.

Edited October 28, 2010 by Supergrunch
;)