To fully clarify matters about how verbs work in the English language, we need to go back to the basic definition of the verb and make a full-dress review of the various kinds of verbs.
Recall that a verb is a word that expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, and it can be any of three types—
transitive,
intransitive, and
linking.
Transitive verbs. Transitive verbs are those that have the ability to pass on their action to something that can receive that action, and they can be any of three types:
1. One-place transitive verb. This type of transitive verb requires only a direct object to work properly. Examples are the verbs “receive,” “deliver,” and “damage.” See how they work in the following sentences: “The accused
received the summons.” Typhoons
damage infrastructure.” “The judge
pronounced the verdict.” There’s a simple test to find out if a verb is a one-place transitive verb—a sentence that uses it becomes nonsensical if the direct object of that verb is removed: “The accused
received.” “Typhoons
damage.” “The judge
pronounced.” Note that each of these sentences hang in mid-air with an incomplete thought—a clear sign that they are not complete sentences.
2. Vg two-place transitive verb. This type of transitive verb requires a direct object and may also take an indirect object. (The term “Vg two-place transitive verb” used here is short for the linguistic label “two-place transitive like give”; the “g” in “Vg” stands for give.) Examples are the verbs “buy,” “bring,” “serve.” See how they work in the following sentences: “He
buys her diamonds.” “She
brings him clients.” “The sheriff
served Joanna the subpoena.” In the case of Vg two-place transitive verbs, an indirect object is optional. The sentences will work perfectly even with only the direct objects around: “He buys diamonds.” “She brings clients.” “The sheriff served the subpoena.”
3. Vc two-place transitive verb. In this type of transitive verb, the action actually takes place within the subject or doer of the action, or is done to the subject itself, then is transmitted to the direct object. (The term “Vc two-place transitive verb” is short for “two-place transitive like consider”; the “c” in “Vc” stands for consider.) Examples are the verbs “consider,” “make,” and “believe.” See how they work in the following sentences: “They
considered the rebellion a lost cause.” “Factual errors like this
make the judge extremely suspicious.” “The beauty queen’s detractors
believe her legal victory to be a fluke.”
Intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs are those that that can’t pass on their action to anything in the sentence. Because an intransitive verb doesn’t have the power to transmit its action to a direct object, this verb generally dissipates that action in itself. Examples are the intransitive verbs “go,” “arrive,” “disappear,” and “appear.” They can only function in objectless sentence constructions like the following: “The case file
goes missing.” “The plaintiffs
arrived.” “The witness
disappeared.” “The sheriff
appeared.” One distinct peculiarity of a sentence that uses an intransitive verb is that it can’t be constructed into a passive-voice sentence. We can’t say or write the following sentences: “Goes missing the case file.” “Arrived the plaintiffs.” “Disappeared the witness.” “Appeared the sheriff.” In each case, the sentence doesn’t work because there’s no subject or doer of the action to begin with.
Linking verbs. Also known as
copular verbs, linking verbs don’t act on an object but simply make English sentences flow correctly and smoothly. Their primary function is to connect the subject to a complement, which we will remember is the word or group of words that complete the predicate. (As I observed in my book
English Plain and Simple, English without linking verbs may still work but the language will be like a paraplegic dragging itself around a room.)
Linking verbs are of two kinds:
1. Current linking verb. This kind of linking verb indicates a state of the subject at a particular moment in time (whether in the past, present, or future). Examples of current linking verbs “appear,” “be,” “feel,” “lie,” “look,” “remain,” “seem,” “smell,” “sound,” “stay,” and “taste.” See how they work in the following sentences: “Adele
appeared at peace when she testified in court.” “Her testimony
seems fishy.” “The perfume
smelled good that time, but not anymore.”
2. Resulting linking verb. This kind of linking verb indicates that in a particular sentence, the role of the verb complement is a result of the process described in the verb. Examples of resulting linking verbs are “become,” “get,” “grow,” “fall,” “prove,” “run,” and “turn.” See how they work in the following sentences: “The witness
became a suspect.” “Justine
fell in love with her defense lawyer.” “The legal strategy
proved very useful.”
Distinction between action verbs and stative verbsNow, in English grammar, a verb can also be classified as either a
dynamic verb or a
stative verb.
Dynamic verb. It is one that describes actions or events that happen in a particular moment in time, like the verb “break” in “He
broke her heart that night” (the verb “broke” here is transitive, with “her heart” as its direct object) and “The storm
raged all night (the verb “raged” here is intransitive, with no direct object). We can see here that a dynamic verb can either be a transitive or an intransitive verb—but not a linking verb. So long as the verb describes an action or event in time, it’s a dynamic verb regardless of whether that action is done to a direct object (in the case of transitive verbs) or that action can’t be passed to an object in the sentence such that the verb dissipates that action in itself (in the case of intransitive verbs).
Stative verb. It is one that shows a state or condition and not an action, like the verb “know” in “She
knows algebra” (the verb “knows” here is transitive, with “algebra” as its direct object); the verb “believe” in “They
believe in miracles” (the verb “believe” here is used intransitively, with no direct object); and the verb “is” in “He
is reliable” (the verb “is” here is a linking verb, simply connecting the subject “he” to the predicate “reliable”). We can see here that a stative verb can be transitive, intransitive, or linking.
So what is it that normally distinguishes a stative verb from a dynamic verb? It is that a stative verb doesn’t work in a grammatically proper way in the continuous tenses. For instance, this is what happens when we use the stative verb “know” in the present-continuous sentence “She
is knowing the truth” and the stative verb “believe” in the present-continuous sentence “They
are believing in miracles.” Indeed, bad English results when we attempt to make a stative verb work dynamically, in much the same way that the McDonald’s colloquial slogan “I’m loving it,” for the sake of strong advertising recall, deliberately violates good grammar by using the stative verb “love” dynamically in the present continuous. (The grammatically correct construction for that slogan is, of course, “I love it.”)
Confusion over stative verbs and dynamic verbsNow we are ready to clarify your confusion over stative verbs and dynamic verbs. The confusion arises because depending on their usage, some verbs can be both stative and dynamic. As pointed out by the very website you cited,
PerfectEnglishGrammar.com, several of the verbs it listed as usually stative can also be dynamic. For instance, the verb “be” is stative in “She
is nice” (being nice is part of her personality) but dynamic in “She
is being nice” (she is making an effort to be nice). In the case of the verb “think,” it is stative in “I
think she’s lovely” (an opinion that she is lovely) but dynamic in “I
am thinking of her chances of winning the beauty contest” (the act of considering that particular idea).
Offhand, then, we can say that a reliable test of finding out if a verb is stative through and through is when it can’t be used in a sentence dynamically. One such verb is “belong,” which is stative in “That laptop
belongs to me.” We can’t use it dynamically in a sentence like, say, “That laptop
is belonging to me,” where “is belonging” is in the present continuous tense. This means that “belong” can’t be used in the continuous tense at all—clear proof that it can only be a stative verb and never a dynamic one.
So my answer to your question on whether or not the PerfectEnglishGrammar.com is wrong, my answer is definitely a “No.” In fact, it categorically states that some verbs can be both stative and dynamic, and it shows several examples that this is indeed the case. And to this specific question of yours, on whether it is right to say “I’m
having a car,” the answer is “Yes”—with the verb “having” in that sentence used dynamically in the sense of “getting” or “acquiring” a car.
Verbs like “hate” and “love” are not always stative I must correct your impression that the verbs “hate” and “love” are always stative. For showing a state or condition, they are, of course, stative verbs in the following sentences: “She
hates hypocrites.” “He
loves crime novels.” But in the sentence “This morning, we
hated the way she maltreated her subordinates,” the intransitive verb “hated” is definitely dynamic. And in this imperative sentence, “
Love your neighbor!” the transitive verb “love” is definitely dynamic as well.
Also, you shouldn’t confuse stative verbs with linking verbs. Some stative verbs can be linking verbs, as the verb “feel” in “She
feels sad,” in which case we can substitute “is” for it: “She
is sad.” But the great majority of stative verbs are not linking verbs, as the verb “love” in “We
love the color pink” and “have” in “They
have a grudge against her.” (Obviously, we can’t replace “love” with “are” and say “We
are the color pink,” and neither can we replace “have” with “are” and say “They
are a grudge against her.”)
All linking verbs are intransitive verbsBy definition, linking verbs don’t act on an object but simply make English sentences flow correctly and smoothly. That makes all linking verbs intransitive verbs, which by definition are verbs that can’t pass on their action to anything in the sentence—meaning that they can’t act on an object at all.
Not all stative verbs are intransitive verbsAs I explained earlier in this posting, a verb is stative if it shows a state or condition rather than an action, as the verb “believe” in “He
believes in miracles.” Here, apart from being stative, “believe” is intransitive because it doesn’t pass on its action to an object in the sentence. The verb “prefer” is likewise stative in the sentence “Gentlemen
prefer blondes,” but the verb “prefer” acts on the noun “blondes” as direct object, so here “prefer” is obviously a transitive verb. (The verb "prefer" is an example of the Vc two-place transitive type of verb as described earlier, in which the action actually takes place within the subject or doer of the action, then is transmitted to the direct object, which in this case is the noun "blondes.")
Clearly then, in answer to your last question, not all stative verbs are intransitive verbs. A stative verb will be intransitive if it doesn’t have a direct object, and will be transitive if it acts on one.