I think you two are having a semantic argument that can only occur because English doesn’t distinguish between imperfective and perfective verbs (roughly speaking verbs of process and verbs of completion/result).
I speak Russian, so I have no problem thinking in these terms. What distinction of perfective/imperfective do you think we were arguing about? (And our argument’s been resolved since.)
I don’t think that was the source of the difference / misunderstanding.
A law can sometimes have the effect of (imperfective) marginalizing something, and so it can sometimes achieve an end result of (perfective) having marginalized something.
But it’s very hard to deliberately, successfully frame a new law to marginalize something, because the law can’t come outright and say “this is now marginalized, by law” the way it can say “this is now forbidden, by law”.
I think you two are having a semantic argument that can only occur because English doesn’t distinguish between imperfective and perfective verbs (roughly speaking verbs of process and verbs of completion/result).
I speak Russian, so I have no problem thinking in these terms. What distinction of perfective/imperfective do you think we were arguing about? (And our argument’s been resolved since.)
Whether “to marginalize” means to attempt to push something to the margins or to succeed in doing so.
I don’t think that was the source of the difference / misunderstanding.
A law can sometimes have the effect of (imperfective) marginalizing something, and so it can sometimes achieve an end result of (perfective) having marginalized something.
But it’s very hard to deliberately, successfully frame a new law to marginalize something, because the law can’t come outright and say “this is now marginalized, by law” the way it can say “this is now forbidden, by law”.
Yes, it does. Compare: “He opened the door” vs. “He was opening the door”.