General notions the verb
The verb is a word representing phenomena of objective reality as processes, that is, as changes in substances as well as in relationships between them.
Actions and states
Processes are usually referred to as actions or states.
The word action (L. actio, s.) literally means a process of being active and implies an exhibition (conscious or unconscious) of force or energy. In the sentences "A welcome smile lit up her eyes and lips" (G. Gordon) and "He lit a cigarette for her" (D. Cusack) the verb light refers to actions whose active doer is expressed, respectively, by' the noun smile and the pronoun he.
A state (L. status condition) is a process of being in a certain mode or form of existence conditioned by a set of temporary or permanent properties or circumstances. Examples of states:
He had a shotgun in one hand (G. Gordon); He had a tapering face and a high forehead (Th. Wolfe); Outside, the streets are deserted and dark (G. Gordon); "You're sitting in your father's chair, Mary" (A. Cronin); A moment later he was sleeping (I. Shaw).
Qualitative characteristics of processes
Processes take place in space and time, but though they may go on at the same time and in the same place, the way they do so may be different due to certain differences in their quality. Compare:
1. Alice was watching the kettle and tapping her foot impatiently (J. Braine); 2. "The picture's falling!" he cried (J. Galsworthy)//"He's coming!" she whispered, "lock the door, son!" (Th. Wolfe); 3. She was crawling about the road (J. Braine) // The fellow was rushing along (J. Galsworthy).
The processes above are either continuous (non-repeated, single-act) or intermittent (repeated, multiple-act) (Ex. 1), momentary or durative (Ex. 2), relatively static or relatively dynamic (Ex. 3).
Features, such as repetition, duration, speed of development, that characterize a process qualitatively and show how it goes on in time are known as modes (manners, kinds) of action (L. modus actionis; German Aktionsart).
Verbal modes of action
In Russian some of the modes of action are denoted by the verb itself. For instance, verbs beginning with за- often express the ingression of a process, e. g., запевать, заиграть, засиять; such verbs as похаживать, посвистывать, покачивать imply repetition; встрепенуться, заикнуться, кувыркнуться are single-act momentary actions. Such modes of action, which are a purely lexical category, are not characteristic of the English verb.
General and variant lexical meanings of verbs
A verb is a sign of a concept, which is a generalized abstraction from certain phenomena and relations of objective reality. Being a sign for one concept, a verb, as a language unit, has one lexical meaning known as general (invariant, language) lexical meaning. In particular instances of speech, however, a verb can be used in various senses, as for instance the verb run in the sentences below:
1. He ran fast (R. Bradbury); 2. The small green car ran quietly down the wide street (D. Russell); 3. Down below the river ran muddy and fast (E. Hemingway); 4. Just above the knuckles ran a long new scratch (A. Berkley); 5. She ran her fingers along my forehead (J. Braine); 6. His horse ran a nail in his hoof (Th. Dreiser).
Senses are given in dictionaries. The general lexical meaning of a verb is a generalized abstraction from all the senses in which it is used in speech.
TERMINATIVE AND NON TERMINATIVE VERBAL PROCESSES
Any process of limited duration goes through the following three stages, or phases: the beginning (ingression), the going-on itself, and the end (egression). The moments of time when a process begins and
ends are known as the ingressive and the
e
gressive
limit, respectively.
The three
stages of a limited-in-time process are
represented graphically in Fig. 1, the vertical lines showing its ingressive (to
the left) and egressive (to the right) limits. A verbal process implying the achievement of either of the qualitative limits (ingressive or egressive) will be said to be terminative (e. g.: Он запел; Он открывал (открыл) окно), that with no implication of a qualitative limit achieved or to be achieved will be referred to as non-terminative (e. g.: Он сидел у окна). Examples of terminative and non-terminative processes:
1. She fell backwards onto a nearby bed (W. S. Gray); Now the night was falling (W. S. Maugham) // Rain fell steadily (Th. Wolfe); Snow was falling lightly (P. Wodehouse); 2. She hung the dress in the wardrobe (M. Mitchell); Jane was hanging up her clothes in the wardrobe
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(V Kershaw) // A bundle of dresses hung over her arm (A. Huxley); His belt was hanging over the back of his chair (B. Shaw); 3. "And now I must go." He rose (G. Gordon); Meanwhile he was rising to his feet (Th. Dreiser) // Wood smoke rose from cottage chimneys (J. Galsworthy); Smoke was rising from a score of farmhouses (M. Gold).
Statistic counts show that about 80% of all English verbs can be used in speech to refer to both terminative and non-terminative processes. About 15% of all verbs are terminative.