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Originally Posted by CHOMAT  It would be interesting to see whether this linguistic phenomenon is underway in other languages. But I doubt that this seemingly decline of static verbs is linked to our changing walks of life. Nevertheless, our vision of how the world is overlaps the linguistic field. Naturally,dyna verbs go along with adverbs as much as static v call for adjectives . Are we prone to avoid predicative forms ? What about TO BE ? I find your " information density " proposition quite relevant .I grant that information have to be given as quick as possible through the "lightest medium" but to what extent does this fact alter the linguistic stratum ? Adverbs point out " how...". On the contrary,adjectives put the stress on nouns to the detriment of processes. Eventually it's worth meditating upon this subject.
Thank you
Does language follow extra-linguistic facts? or stand against? It reminds me of old structuralist theories ... but Dr J Ibrahim knows this subject.
Alain |
There are many issues on the agenda here:
1. In my linguistic predictions I wrote about information density and speed in communication. Maybe one day our natural languages will be too slow for future communication. We might need a different tool. Academic English for example makes nouns superior to verbs. Hopefully brain research can help us understand more. Still you should know I am only speculating or making predictions here based on my personal observation.
2. Maybe the number of adverbs that end in -ly will become smaller and smaller or as in German there won't any difference between adjectives and adverbs at least in form. Spoken English is doing it.
3. As far as BE and HAVE are concerned you might be interested in E-Prime or in an article I wrote about these two central verbs.
4. You may have noticed the number of irregular verbs has been declining (why do we have - BE- dreamt and - AmE- dreamed? Certain tenses like past perfect are not so often used as they used to be. Maybe the more complex our vocabulary becomes the simpler grammar will be. I mean the two areas in language behave like two powers struggling. Accuracy is becoming less important than fluency as long as communication is successful. In addition, I believe grammar is complicated and time consuming for our future needs.
Best
Jamshid