Action verbs and conditional ～ば


I understand もし寝過ごせば、起こしてください is wrong. I believe instead it should be
寝過ごしたら、起こしてください。

In "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" it says the second part of the
sentence "...can be a command, a request or a suggestion... in this case,
however, [the first part] can not be an action".

As the second part of the above sentence is a request then I take it
寝過ごす「ねすごす」is an action? If I'm right can anyone give more examples of action
verbs as I would not have thought of oversleeping as an action like coming and
going. Is their any connection between transitivity and intransitivity of
verbs and whether they are classed as an action?

Thanks




I think what the dictionary meant by "not an action" means that the action is
not realised yet. For example anything in `~ば` means "in the case that ~"
which is hypothetical.

S1 ば S2 makes a condition that S2 will hold true under S1.

This makes for a generic conditional statement that cannot bear a unverifiable
volition. How I derived this conclusion is because sentences such as
`安ければ買います。`((I) will buy if it's cheap) is possible. It is also possible if
the person is someone you can empathise with(i.e. share the viewpoint
accurately enough). But once it becomes a request it cannot become a true
condition of "If A is true, B is true".

And for `~た(な)ら(ば)`, observe that it is actually the "past tense" for `~ば`
which conveys a subjunctive past. It presupposes that the action(S1) is
realised, then S2. This makes for a statement that once S1 completes, do S2.

This can be used for making requests. "If A has happened, please do B".

