Now, the verb 'to stand' is flexible enough for lots of periphrastic things, but it'd seem this kind of 'gap' in its meaning would lead to even more periphrasis.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Detail #75: Lack of a verb for 'to stand'
Imagine a language where the closest to a verb such as 'to stand' really only signifies 'to do something in an upright position'. In English (and all other languages I know), when walking, you do not stand - you're doing so in an upright position, but you're not standing. Thus, to express 'I am standing (still)', you'd say something like 'I am and do so in an upright position', or 'I do nothing, and in an upright position'.
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You could do this type of thing throughout the language: dissect typically monomorphemic verbs like "stand," "sit," "lie," "walk," "scoot," "crawl" into motion type+position type. So "stand" could be "remain stationary in an upright position," while crawl could be "move forward in a prone position." I suspect that this would be pretty productive, e.g., "eat in an upright position" vs. "eat sitting down."
ReplyDeleteSure, that is one possibility. However, having a gap of just one common kind of verb for movement or pose or location and just one in particular to be rendered by somewhat periphrastic constructions seems more interesting to me at least. ymmv, of course.
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