inchoative
Sep. 29th, 2008 07:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordAs promised ...
inchoative - adj., of or being a verbal form that designates an action, state, or event.
Also known as inceptive. Technically a grammatical aspect, rather than a tense, as it can be combined with tenses. Latin created inchoatives as separate verbs with a stem suffix, as in tumēre, to swell, and tumēscēre, to begin to swell (the latter whence we get tumescent). English can approximate an inchoative form with auxillary verbs, as in "I'm going to swell". From Latin inchoātīvum, the name for such a form, from inchoātus,from the past participle of incohāre, to begin, literally to hitch up, from in-, on + coh(um), a strap fastened to the oxen's yoke. From whence also the English inchoate, partially formed.
---L.
inchoative - adj., of or being a verbal form that designates an action, state, or event.
Also known as inceptive. Technically a grammatical aspect, rather than a tense, as it can be combined with tenses. Latin created inchoatives as separate verbs with a stem suffix, as in tumēre, to swell, and tumēscēre, to begin to swell (the latter whence we get tumescent). English can approximate an inchoative form with auxillary verbs, as in "I'm going to swell". From Latin inchoātīvum, the name for such a form, from inchoātus,from the past participle of incohāre, to begin, literally to hitch up, from in-, on + coh(um), a strap fastened to the oxen's yoke. From whence also the English inchoate, partially formed.
---L.
