The Major Parts of Speechare in the simple past tense (The ice melted describes the completed
change) and in the progressive aspect (The ice is/was melting describes
the melting in progress but not yet complete). By comparing their in-
terpretations in the past tense and the progressive, show that the fol-
lowing verbs are also change of state verbs: freeze, evaporate, arrive,
ignite, die.
- A change of state verb simply represents some entity as undergo-
ing or having undergone a change from one state to another. However,
sentences may also include information on what caused the change of
state; compare The cook thickened the sauce with The sauce thick-
ened. The former sentence tells us who caused the sauce to thicken;
the latter does not. Let’s call clauses that include information on the
cause of a change of state action clauses, and their verbs action verbs.
(Remember, activity and action verbs are different.) Generally, simple
change of state clauses are intransitive with the entity undergoing the
change of state represented as the subject, while action clauses are
transitive with the subject representing the cause of the change of
state and the object representing the entity changed. Here are some
instructions from recipes whose verbs are action verbs:
a. Preheat oven to moderate.
b. In a saucepan melt the butter.
c. Boil the milk.
d. Thicken the sauce.
e. Brown the meat.
f. Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water.
Why do you think that the instructions in recipes use so many action
verbs? - Here are some sets of verbs from the instructions in other recipes:
(a) peel (potatoes), core (apples), bone (meat); (b) cube (meat); (c)
cut (meat), chop (vegetables); (d) place (ingredient in pot), layer (in-
gredients in pot); (e) add (ingredient to pot); (f) fry, sauté, broil; (g)
boil, simmer. What information, other than simply “do something to
something,” do the verbs in each group convey? - Think of ten verbs that include the meaning “movement to/from
somewhere,” for example, go, come, run, and bicycle. What informa-
tion other than just movement to/from somewhere do these verbs in-
clude? If you know Spanish, translate float (e.g., The log floated into