grammar and, particularly, pronunciation, but there is a common core
of the language. This makes it possible for educated native speakers of the
various national standard varieties of English to communicate with one
another.
see also received pronunciation, national languagestanine n
also standard nine
a normalized standard score sometimes used in testing, in which stan-
dardized scores are arranged on a nine-step scale. A stanine equals one
ninth of the range of the standard scores of a distribution^1.
statement n
an utterance which describes a state of affairs, action, feeling or belief, e.g.
It’s very cold here in winter; I don’t think she looks very well.
A statement occurs in the form of a declarative sentencebut not all
declarative sentences make statements. For example:
I suppose you’ll be there.
could be said to be more a question than a statement.
statesn
see stative verb
static– dynamic distinction n
verbs are sometimes divided into two groups: stative verbs and dynamic
verbs.
Stative verbs usually refer to a state (an unchanging condition). They
express emotion, knowledge, belief (e.g. love, hate, know) and show rela-
tionships (e.g. belong to, equal, own). As stative verbs describe a state of
affairs, they do not occur in the progressive form, for example:
Monica owns a house.
not
*Monica is owning a house.
Dynamic verbs express activity and processes (e.g. run, come, buy, read).
When they express something that is actually in progress, the progressive
form of the verb can be used, for example:
She is reading the paper.
Some English verbs such as have and think, can be used statively, describ-
ing a state, or dynamically, describing an action or activity, for example:
statively: I have a really bad headache. (state)
dynamically: We are having a party tonight. (activity)
statively: I think it’s going to rain. (opinion, mental state)
static–dynamic distinction