Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1982, Síða 220

218
Jón Friðjónsson
(l)la Hann er sofandi (stative verb, vera ‘be’ + prp.’)
He is asleep
b *Hann er að sofa (stative v., progr. constr.)
He is sleeping
2a *Hann er sofnandi (non-stative v., vera + prp)
He is falling asleep
b Hann er að sofna (non-stat. v., progr. constr.)
He is falling asleep
Second, prp-forms corresponding to intr. verbs can occur in an apposition to a
subj./obj. These can be rephrased as sentences. The main verb in these constructions
is most frequently an intr. motion verb but it may also be a transitive verb:
(2)1 Hann kom
He came
2 Ég sá
I saw
grátandi
crying
hana sitjandi
her sitting
Third, prp-forms corresponding to intr. verbs of change can occur with the verb fara
‘go’ and the construction then indicates a gradual change. These constructions can be
either personal or impersonal:
(3)1 Veðrið(nom.)
The weather
2 Henni (dat.)
She
fer kólnandi
is getting colder
fer batnandi
isgetting better
In chapter 3, it is shown that prp-forms corresponding to transitive verbs also occur
in basically three different types of constructions. First, they can occur in (1)1 with
a stative intransitive verb but the transitive verbs seem to require adverbs of a certain
type (iterative) in order for the construction to be acceptable. In fact, intransitive non-
stative verbs can also occur in this type of construction if an appropriate adverb is
present:
(4)la Hann er alltaf takandi myndir
He is always taking pictures
b *Hann er takandi myndir
He is taking pictures
2a Hann var alltaf sofnandi
He was always falling asleep
b *Hann var sofnandi
He was falling asleep (cf. (l)2a above)
Second, constructions of the following type can be said to have an „active" meaning
or be of an active type in the following sense: It is possible to construct a semantically
related sentence without a prp-form but with the corresponding verb as the main verb
and the subject stays the same:
(5)a Myndin er hrífandi
The picture is fascinating