Usage of 'have/ are gathered'

Question

1) Representatives from one-hundred-95 UNESCO member states are gathered here.
2) Representatives from one-hundred-95 UNESCO member states have gathered here.

Is there a meaning difference between them? Generally, I think that the word gather is used as an intransitive verb, isn't it? Thank you so much as usual in advance!

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

No difference in meaning.

Yes, this is an intransitive use of "gather." The representatives aren't collecting anything; they are just coming to the same place.

Hans51 · Answer

Thank you so much but gather is used as a transitive verb in 'are gathered', isn't it?

Deadrat · Answer

No, "gathered" is a participle describing the Representatives.

Transitivity is the aspect of conveying action. In the active voice, the subject of the sentence acts upon the object of the sentence; in the passive voice, the subject is acted upon and the actor may be mentioned in the object of the preposition "by." Some verbs have no transitive uses. These includes verbs of being, seeming, and feeling, and they simply describe the state of the subject. For example, "I am sad." Most verbs have intransitive and transitive uses. For example, take the verb to hit: "I hit the ball." The subject (first person "I") strikes something, namely the direct object "ball." Since the subject is doing the action, this is active voice. We can transpose this into the passive voice by saying "The ball was hit by me." Now the subject ("ball") receives the striking action, and the striker is the object of the preposition "by" (which is to say "me.") Now consider an unruly child named Bobby:

A. What's Bobby's problem?
B He hits.

Although hitting is certainly an action, there's no object specified to receive the action, so the usage is intransitive. Because there's no object for intransitive verbs, you can't transpose them into the passive. Try it with Bobby. The form would be "X is hit by Bobby," but there's nothing in the original sentence to replace X.

In the sentence "The Representatives gather," there's no object to to receive the action, so "gather" is intransitive, which means that you can't transpose to the passive. In the sentence "The Representatives are gathered together," "gathered" is an adjectival participle that serves as the complement for "Representatives."

We can find a transitive use of "gather" by saying "Their aides gathered the Representatives." Now the subject ("aides") perform the action of herding the object ("Representatives"). Transposing to the passive gives us "The Representatives were gathered by their aides."

Usage of 'have/ are gathered'

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