In Bendix (1966: 61-79) a subset of verbs was isolated from the semantic system of English and analyzed. These were A gets B, A finds B, C gives AB, C gets AB, C lends AB, A borrows B from C, A takes B from C, A gets rid of B, A loses B, and A keeps B. Definitions using semantic components were attempted which were sufficient to distinguish the verbs from one another within the subset. Because of their tentative nature, the definitions will not be repeated here. Rather, components will be described, and some definitions will be given in illustrating, eliciting and testing techniques.

In formulating components, certain primitives are used. Thus at in at time T points to an undivided (but not necessarily indivisible) time, and time or T and before are also primitives, used in defining immediately before:

Immediately before is required in defining a component of change of state or activity:

Other types of components, each followed by a rough reading in the object language, are: A an-F ‘A does or is something ’; B is an-R_h A ‘ there is a “ have ’’-state relation between B and A’ or simply ‘A has B’; B is A's ‘ B belongs to A’. In such components, is vs. does represent state vs. activity.

Another primitive is P causes Q, as in the definition C gives B to A — ‘(C an-F) causes (B is an-R_h A)’. This label is used when tests indicate the presence of the component that ‘C’ (‘A’, etc.) does or is something and, further, that this action or state of ‘ C ’ leads to, results in, or may otherwise be said by a speaker to be connected with another action or state in a way that he calls causal.

Ultimately we would want to define such terms of the metalanguage as cause, referent, or the existential quantifier there is a. . . more exactly within a general linguistic theory as well as, perhaps, in any particular theory specific to a given language. This is not to be misconstrued as an attempt to define causation or existence nor as a commitment to the prescriptions of any particular philosophical school of thought about the nature or definition of what can or cannot be a referent or to the full implications of the quantifier as used in logic. Rather, the interest is in describing how speakers use language and in making clear, for example, what we claim a speaker is asserting when he uses a form whose meaning we define as containing the component ‘ cause ’.