Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Whitehead  You too are not understanding the issue with 'reads'.
You say it is describing a 'state', but where is the stative quality in the verb 'reads'? I have asked this several times now but it has not been answered. |
Here are
some examples of "the X reads well". (Note how often it turns up in an academic context, by the way. This is by no means a slangy, new construction: if anything, it's slightly formal.)
If you examine the examples, you'll find that the phrase "the X reads well" almost always implies "X has the
quality of being well written, fluently written, smoothly written, attractive, worth reading, etc."
Naturally, the speaker will have had to read the text in question, to perceive that quality. But the phrase doesn't directly relate to that particular act of reading. It relates to a quality that the speaker believes will be present for
all readers. (That's why the present tense is used.)
Therefore it relates not to an act, but to a state.
MrP
PS: Earlier in this thread, I mentioned the use of active progressive constructions with passive meaning in previous centuries. For those who find such things interesting, I came across an example today:
1. Our garden
is putting in order by a man who bears a remarkably good character. (Jane Austen, Letters, 1807.)
(= "...being put in order...")