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Glite Dictionary
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resultative

resultative

9.6
A word or phrase showing something's new state after an action, like 'red' in 'painted the door red'
  • noun
  • /rɪˈzʌltətɪv/
  • Specialized
: resultativo
  • The teacher explained that in 'He painted the wall red', 'red' functions as a resultative, indicating the outcome of the painting action.

Examples

  • In the sentence 'She arrived exhausted', the phrase 'exhausted' is a resultative that shows her state after the action of arriving.

  • This is precisely because the continuous reading concerns something true up to the present, while the resultative concerns a present state of affairs that is the consequence of a past event.

    Academic text (2006)

  • When they broke the door open, the phrase 'broken' served as a resultative, illustrating the state resulting from their action.

Surface Forms

resultative singular
resultatives plural

Morphology

resultative = resultative (semi-transparent) = result + ative

The noun is formed by conversion from the adjective 'resultative', and the grammatical meaning is related to 'result' but is specialized.

Etymology

The word resultative is built from result 'the outcome' plus the ending -ative 'related to' or 'showing'. As a noun, a resultative names a grammatical element that shows the new state or outcome produced by an action.