State Namespace
Core definition#
State frames profile an entity being in a stable situation. Maintained and resultant conditions are named subtypes. A general holding situation also qualifies without a producing or maintaining event in the definition, for example existing or being at risk.
| Reading | Constitutive content | Constructed example |
|---|---|---|
| Maintained | The condition continues or is held against change | A porta permanece aberta apesar da pressão. |
| Resultant | The condition is understood as the outcome of a producing event | O vaso está quebrado. |
| General | The entity is in a situation, with no maintenance or producing event required | Existem fósseis nesta região. / O paciente corre risco de infecção. |
State applies only after the more specific categories have been excluded: a bare property or value is Attribute, a holding connection between relata is Relation, and psychological or sensory content with a sentient experiencer is Experiential. Estado is the general FrameNet State anchor and belongs here; frames inheriting from it do not take State by inheritance.
MAINTAIN(Condition, [Maintaining_force])
RESULTANT(Condition, Producing_event)
An overt maintainer or producing-event FE is not required. But derivational relatedness alone (adjective ← verb) is insufficient evidence that a whole frame asserts a resultant condition.
Scope and exclusions#
- Maintained conditions, supported postures and resultant physical/functional conditions qualify when those dependencies are constitutive. General holding situations, such as bare existence and exposure to potential harm, qualify without them.
- Taking a risk as an intentional action is an Agentive reading. Being at risk is State.
- A psychological state or transition with constitutive sentience and mental/sensory content belongs to Experiential. Saber, temer and emotional happiness do not become State simply because they are stative in aspect.
- A plain height or colour property is Attribute, even though real objects acquired their properties through physical processes.
- Bare location, possession and kinship as holding connections are Relation, unless the frame genuinely profiles a different maintained/resultant condition.
- Becoming broken/open is Change; causing that change is Agentive. Neither is the resulting condition simply obtaining.
- Being subjected to an affecting event is Undergoing, not automatically a state merely because the participant is affected.
- An unfolding transformation is not its settled result. Compare Change, including gradual change, where internal progression is constitutive.
Evidence standard#
The primary test is semantic commitment in the frame definition and lexical meanings. Do not infer maintenance from universal biology, gravity or social history. A posture can be supported without intentional muscular effort, and morto is not an example of an actively maintained biological process.
A cause-specific medical LU cannot determine the namespace of a frame covering other health conditions. Similarly, marriage, retirement, naming, origin and functional status can be analyzed as results, properties or relations depending on what their frames actually describe. Defer these boundary classes if the evidence does not settle the analysis; a mixed definition may require structural separation.
Characteristic signature#
| Reading | Relevant participants |
|---|---|
| Maintained | Bearer, Condition, and Maintaining_force or persistence context where represented |
| Resultant | Bearer and resulting Condition/Value, with a semantically supported producing-event connection |
The FE inventory is frame-specific. No FE is added simply to fit this table.
Conceptual grounding#
The STATIVE schema represents active maintenance through Income = Outcome, with the relevant force and locus. Resultant conditions can use Attributes structure (Entity, Attribute, Value) plus a supported connection to a producing event's outcome. Both readings belong to this namespace when their defining criteria hold.
The lemma types are event, quality, value, etc., as documented in Lemmas; state is not a separate lemma type. Namespace membership and type compatibility are different questions.
Diagnostics and limitations#
- Check whether the condition holds, rather than a transition taking place or an event befalling the bearer.
- For the maintained and resultant subtypes, check whether maintenance/result dependence is lexical, not supplied only by the sentence context. A general state needs no such dependence.
- Homogeneity and temporal persistence support a state reading but do not distinguish State from Experiential, Attribute or Relation by themselves.
- Progressive/imperative judgments are not necessary conditions: permaneça sentado is grammatical. Ser, estar and ficar do not map directly to namespaces.
- A frame that profiles a process or activity continuing, as a phase between its start and its stop, is State (maintained). Measuring its duration and describing its in-progress phase still need separate analysis, and continuar, durar or every phase frame are not assigned here as a class: the frame's definition decides.
FrameNet's State/Gradable_attribute inheritance guidance is not a State-namespace test. Preserve event/state distinctions and verify the relevant links using FrameNet patterns.