The idea was to have a
grammatical distinction between stative and eventive verbs, not only a
lexical one. Basically, there would be two sets of endings applied to the same root, which would, accordingly, be used for two meanings:
- one, called the stative, would denote a passive action, i.e. one that doesn't require actively doing something, for example a state (sitting on a chair, as in, currently being seated) or some kind of perception (seeing or hearing something);
- the other, called the eventive, would denote an active action, for example a transition towards a state (sitting on a chair, as in, going to sit down) or some kind of attempt to perceive (watching or listening to something).
This distinction felt cool because you could apply it to so much more. For example, the verb
to go still had a stative version, that meant
to be carried (e.g. by public transport, or by someone else driving).
So... why did I scrap this? Because it's a pain. My conlang already has three aspects, five moods and three tenses (and thank God it doesn't mark person or number on the verbs). That's too many endings already, multiplying them by 2 would be a pain. So I had the ingenious idea to just add an eventive marker (-i) at the end. Well guess what? Try to neutralize the verb and see how terribly that works. For example, since the verbal roots for
to know and
to learn where the same, the nouns
knowledge and
learning were also the same. When I realized I would need to duplicate the neutralizing endings to accommodate for this, I gave up and dropped the feature.
This is exactly the problem. Stative vs eventive is a lexical distinction, not a grammatical one. Neutralizing works in languages with aspectual distinctions because aspect is not lexical - the action is the same, the aspect just tells you how it's done or viewed. But stative vs eventive is much more than that.