Statives

The essence of the words asleep, afloat, ablaze, etc. And their position in the system of parts of speech is still under the discussion. We take the view that they constitute a special part of speech, which may be called “stative” and is char-zed by the prefix a-.

The main function of the statives is that of predicative and in this case they are preceded by a link verb, most usually the verb “be”, but occasionally also fall, keep, feel. Ex. to be asleep, to fall asleep, to feel ashamed.

Statives are also occasionally found in the function of objective predicatives, particularly after the verb find and have and N or ProN, as in the s-ces: He found his sister alone. Then Skene spoke, and in a moment had his audience afire.

The phrase ‘be + stative” may sometimes be synonymous with the continuous form of the corresponding verb. Ex. He is asleep → He is sleeping, he was asleep → He was sleeping. But they are not always interchangeable.

We find that the statives in Eng. and in Russ. do not correspond to each other, i.e. a Russ. stative is, it seems, never translated by an Eng. stative, and vice versa. Ex. мне его жаль – I pity him, I feel pity for him, жаль усов – I fell sorry for my moustache; уму лень было вставать – he felt too lazy to get up; здесь тепло – it is warm here; ↔ he is asleep - он спит; the ship is afloat; судно в плавании дом был в огне – the house is ablaze. It follows that the phenomena which can be expressed by statives in Russ. and in Eng., are far from being the same.

L. Barhudarov in an article (1958) denies the existence of statives as a separate part of speech in Eng. the conclusion L.Barkhudarov arrives at is that words of this type are adjectives, which of course is the traditional view.

PREDICATIVE ADJECTIVES, A-WORDS, APROXIMATELY 30 FIXED AND ABOT 100 NONCE-FORMATIONS, NOWADAYS VERBS ARE TURNING TO STATIVES.

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