On the possibility of proper verbs

Coates, Richard

Abstract

© 2016 by De Gruyter Mouton. The quality of being proper is always presumed, for perfectly understandable reasons to do with its function in acts of reference, to be restricted to nouns or noun phrases. This article is an exploration of the idea that a defensible case can be made for the real, if often ephemeral, existence of proper verbs. Evidence is presented from four categories of usage, mainly in English, but also in French and Dutch.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 8, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 25, 2017
• Journal: Linguistics
• Print ISSN: 0024-3949
• Electronic ISSN: 1613-396X
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 411-431
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2016-0005
• Keywords: verbs, language
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/918129
• Publisher URL: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ling.2016.54.issue-2/ling-2016-0005/ling-2016-0005.xml?format=INT
• Contract Date: Mar 18, 2016