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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

fientive en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /fiˈ(j)ɛntɪv/

Etymology

From Latin fīēns (“becoming; happening”, present active participle of fīō (“to become; to happen”)), on the pattern of words such as stative, durative, iterative, causative etc.

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable, qualifier:Semitic linguistics) designating a durative and dynamic action performed by the subject
    • This underlines again that a contrast of nominality versus verbality conveys a stative versus fientive purport. 1977, Haiim B. Rosén, Contemporary Hebrew, page 182:
  2. (not-comparable, qualifier:Indo-European linguistics) designating entering into a state as opposed to being in a state
    • The basic idea is that what previous scholarship categorised as a stative, viz. the various forms going back to a derivation with a long ē, is in fact a fientive, i.e. it designates the becoming and not the being. 2007, George Hinge, “The Proto-Indo-European essive and fientive in Greek”, in glossa.dk, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2023: