Why is the verb 'realise' used as a state verb and much less commonly as an action verb in English?

I mean 'hazard a guess' not 'caution a guess'

hazard a guess is a collocation

Reply to JJJJS The following is from my 1805 edition of Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language"

1) To bring into being--Gianville
2) To convert money into land.

So then in the 2nd sense, as in 'to realize an estate'.

If you didn't want to realize clichéd collocations before your very eyes you could have proffered a prediction or submitted a supposition. Who needs the hazards of guesses?

Jeremy Paxman uses it just after 0:15:

This is an example of what I mean

Reply to JJJJS In this sentence "realize" is an action / transitive verb: "I realized I hate coconut." "I hate coconut" is the insight created by realized, and is the direct object of the transitive verb. "By selling these bonds I will realize a profit." Same here, will realize is a transitive verb, profit is the direct object.

Does that seem not-right to you?

Reply to Bitter Crank It's technically a transitive verb there, but what I don't understand is the fact it's also classed as an action verb. There's no action happening there in terms of tangible reality

Unrealised gains on an asset are 'realised' when the asset is sold. This reflects that the gains are made 'real' in the sense that they will for the first time (unless the asset was held in the accounts at fair value) be incorporated in the balance sheet and profit and loss statement.

@JJJJS

Traditional grammar doesn't deal very well with this and stuffs 'to realize' in as a 'state' or 'stative' verb along with 'to be' etc. There's supposed to be a grammatical commonality in terms of the non-use of the present continuous among state verbs, but there are loads of exceptions to that and in terms of the complement, realize takes an object either usually in the form of a clause (Bitter's 1st example) or a simple direct object (2nd example). Verbs like "to be" and "to have", truer state verbs, don't. It's a bit of mess, basically.

So, I recommend looking at a functional grammar (see diagram below) to get this type of thing clear in your mind. It's in general a much better tool for understanding how the specific language you're looking at works than classical grammar is as the latter is stuffed with illogical rules, some of which are borrowed from other languages (Latin, for example, in the case of English).

Anyhow, "realize" does represent a kind of state, a psychological (but not a relational) one, in the first example, the state of realizing something. So, it appears somewhere between pure relations and pure actions. The diagram below helps visualize the gradual transformation. Verbs like "to be" and "to have" are true state (or relational) verbs—they describe the subject either in terms of identification (e.g. "I am an animal trainer") or attribution (e.g. "I am scared" (intensive)), (I have a knife (possessive)), (I am in the cage (circumstantial)). Verbs like "to do", "to put" etc., on the other hand, are pure actions. Verbs like realize then in the first sense describe conscious thoughts, feelings and senses and behave in the grammar somewhere between pure "state" and pure "action" verbs hence why it's confusing to think of them as either and why they don't behave grammatically as either. (Though realize in the second sense of "made something happen" is, of course, much closer to a pure action verb).



(BTW The "Existential" category refers to phrases like "There is a problem", "There seems to be a hurricane coming" etc...)

Reply to Baden I think verbs like 'understand' 'remember' and 'figure out' fall into the same category

Reply to JJJJS

Pretty much, I'd agree. I always find the above much more logical anyhow. Classical grammar is a confusing mish-mash of tradition and rationalization.

Bitcoin. I now realise that I cannot realise my assets.

Reply to JJJJS Reply to Baden Bill Clinton said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." referencing his affair with Monica Lewinsky, an intern who made it big.

Reply to Cuthbert So, a single noun a sentence doesn't make, but can, none the less, convey all sorts of meaning, as "Bitcoin." does here.