Stative Verbs or How to run in suspended animation
We'll show you a trick today ... how you can run without moving.
But first, we have to consider what on earth a stative verb is. It's quite easy really, you can basically sort all verbs (in those languages that have verbs that is) into two groups. Verbs which describe an outright action and verbs which describe a state (hence 'stative') or a relationship. "Hit" is a very good example of an active verb. You need to lift your arm, bring it down with force and make contact with something/someone else. On the other hand, "sleep" doesn't really involve any great actions, you can sleep for hours without moving about at all.
Now in English, it doesn't really matter whether a verb is active or stative. English treats both the same way in terms of the grammar - "he is hitting" or "he is sleeping" don't require you to do different things. Well, you could argue that depending on how you use a verb influences the choice of available tenses. So, "I am drinking Espresso" (which uses "drink" as a stative verb) would be stative and "I drink Espresso" (which uses "drink" as an active verb) would be active, but that's a bit silly really.
Anyway, there are lots of languages where active and stative verbs are treated VERY differently. For example, in Lakhóta (Sioux), you have to use two entirely different personal markers depending on what kind of verb it is - either ya, for active verbs, or ma, for stative verbs:
iyápsica | wimáchaša |
I jump | I am a man |
Now what does this have to do with Gaelic? Well, Gaelic treats active and stative verbs differently. Luckily enough though, there aren't many stative verbs in Gaelic.
The one's that are though use the 'na paradigm:
tha mi 'nam chadal | I am sleeping |
tha thu 'nad chadal | You are sleeping |
tha e 'na chadal | He is sleeping |
tha i 'na cadal | She is sleeping |
tha sinn 'nar cadal | We are sleeping |
tha sibh 'nur cadal | You are sleeping |
tha iad 'nan cadal | They are sleeping |
So, how many stative verbs are there in Gaelic? Well, maybe 20 or so, I don't think anybody has ever made an exhaustive list but here are the most common one's:
tha Màiri 'na breislich | Màiri is confused |
tha Màiri 'na cadal | Màiri is sleeping/asleep |
tha Màiri 'na dùisg | Màiri is awake |
tha Màiri 'na faireachadh | Màiri is conscious/awake |
tha Màiri 'na gurraban | Màiri is crouched down |
tha Màiri 'na laighe | Màiri is lying down (in a state of) |
tha Màiri 'na ruith | Màiri is running |
tha Màiri 'na seasamh | Màiri is standing |
tha Màiri 'na sìneadh | Màiri is stretched out |
tha Màiri 'na suidhe | Màiri is sitting (in a state of) |
tha Màiri 'na tost | Màiri is silent |
It's interesting that with some of them you can make very neat distinctions. For example, tha mi a' seasamh and tha mi 'nam sheasamh are both correct but mean rather different things. In the first case, you are actively standing up, as in, you were sitting or lying a moment ago and are now trying to get on your feet. In the second case you're already standing and simply stating that that is the case. That's why traditionally you do not need to use suas or sìos with seasamh and suidhe in Gaelic. Depending on how you use them, one of them describes the action, the other the state: tha mi a' suidhe (or tha mi a' dèanamh suidhe even) and tha mi 'nam shuidhe. Perhaps we should better call them "potentially stative" rather than "stative verbs". Anyway.
Now, funnily enough, not all languages agree on whether the same action is considered active or stative. For example, in Basque, the verb for "to begin" is considered 100% stative ... And that's where the trick comes in. In Gaelic ruith is considered a stative verb: tha mi 'nam ruith. From the English point of view that's weird because running is considered a very active action ... but not so in Gaelic and so you can think of Gaelic running taking place as some sort of frozen action!
But just to touch all bases - even ruith can be an active verb: ruith e a-mach. That's because, in this case, you're not focusing on the ongoing running (as at a Marathon) but the action that's (suddenly) taking place. So a good contrastive example would be bha mi 'nam ruith nuair a chuala mi fuaim "I was running when I heard a sound" and chunnaic mi gun robh a' chidsin air theine is ruith mi a-mach ás an taigh "I saw the kitchen was on fire and ran out of the house".
Time for a walk I think ...
Beagan gràmair | ||||||||||||
᚛ Pronunciation - Phonetics - Phonology - Morphology - Tense - Syntax - Corpus - Registers - Dialects - History - Terms and abbreviations ᚜ |