From locative to durative to focalized? The English progressive and 'PROG imperfective drift'

Abstract

In the present paper I test the claim of Bertinetto et al. (2000) that the English progressive has undergone ‘PROG imperfective drift’, originating as a locative construction, to develop into a durative progressive and subsequently also into a focalized progressive. I argue that it is doubtful whether the English progressive has evolved along these lines. While the construction has clearly become much more focalized, and less durative, there is no evidence of a predominantly durative stage. Instead, the English progressive shows a variety of functions all through the period under study, and the durative type is not among the most frequent types in any one period. As for origins, the many meanings or functions of the progressive in the earliest records may seem to suggest multiple origins rather than a single, locative source.

Grammaticalization by changing co-text frequencies, or why [BE Ving] became the ‘progressive’

“…It is impossible to even briefly outline all the various views that have been proposed. Good overviews that focus on the diachronic picture may be found in Denison (1993), Núñez-Pertejo (2004), Killie (2008) and especially Kranich (2010). The number of extensive studies dealing in detail with the Middle English period, however, is not very big.…”

“…The 'progressive' situation itself is typically an activity (1), but may just as well be an accomplishment or -occasionally -achievement (2). In line with Killie (2008) I refer to this function, where the topic time defines the phase of the event (expressed in [BE Ving]) that is focused on, as the FOCALIZED use or function of [BE Ving].…”

Prog Imperfective Drift in Ancient Greek? ReconsideringEimi‘Be’ with Present Participle1

“…8 While Bertinetto's model sheds new light on the diachronic development of Ancient Greek eimi 'I am' with present participle, at the same time it will be apparent that the evidence from Ancient Greek can contribute to further refine the proposal (the need for which has also been argued for by other recent assessments, see e.g. Killie 2008). I return to this point at the end of my article, in §5.…”

A contrastive analysis of the present progressive in French and English

“…It was used for the expression of imperfectivity and duration (Scheffer 1975;cf. also Bertinetto, Ebert & de Groot 2000 on the durative meaning of the progressive in Old English), to frame another situation, but often also merely to foreground an event in narrative contexts (Núñez-Pertejo 2004: 90-91;Killie 2008;Kranich 2010: 87-88). Various studies (e.g., Scheffer 1975: 162;Núñez-Pertejo 2004: 65-66) indicate that it was most commonly associated with intransitive, durative action verbs and sometimes even with stative predicates, which seems to suggest that it functioned as a concord (or a type-selecting) construction, in the terms of Michaelis (2004;.…”