Predicative verb
|
|
A predicative verb is a verb that behaves as a grammatical adjective, that is, it predicates (qualifies or informs about the properties of its argument). It is a special kind of stative verb.
Many languages do not use the present forms of the verb "to be" to separate an adjective from its noun: instead, these forms of the verb "to be" are understood as part of the adjective. Egyptian uses this structure: "my mouth is red" is written as /dSr=f r=i/ (dSr=f "(it is) red", r=i "my mouth"). Other languages to use this structure include the Northwest Caucasian languages, the East Slavic languages, the Semitic languages, some Nilotic languages and the Athabaskan languages.