Lie vs lay stative or action

Question

How do we confirm whether lie and lay are action or dynamic verbs? I lay (past tense of lie) in bed the whole day yesterday.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Jigneshbharati How do we confirm whether lie and lay are action or dynamic verbs? I lay (past tense of lie) in bed the whole day yesterday.

Context. It's that simple.

A lot of English speakers, I daresay most, don't bother to make the distinction. Even Bob Dylan caved and wrote "Lay Lady Lay" where "Lie Lady Lie" would have been correct. People avoid trouble, and the unfortunate coincidence that makes the verb for reclining the same as the verb for telling a falsehood coupled with the identity of the present form of the one for "put" and the past form of the one for "recline" makes people throw up their hands and just say "lay" to play it safe. We are seeing a similar problem with "drank/drunk" these days, where they don't want to say "had drunk" and say "had drank" instead because "drunk" sounds to them like somebody had too much liquor, and they never bothered to learn the language they speak.

CalifJim · Answer

JigneshbharatiHow do we confirm whether lie and lay are action or dynamic verbs?

There is some confusion about whether it's just the verb or the whole predicate that should be classified as stative or dynamic. It seems to me that the whole predicate should be considered.

I lay in bed all day is stative, but I have to lie down soon because I think I'm about to faint is dynamic.

I can't think of a stative use of 'lay': I laid the books on the table is clearly an action, so that's dynamic.

Similarly, 'have' is usually stative (I have two brothers), but it can also be dynamic (She had a big party last night. She had a baby last week.)

CJ

Lie vs lay stative or action

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