The Development of the English Progressive

Abstract

Invoking findings from studies on the grammaticization of tense/aspect meanings, I argue that semantic reconstruction of the Present Day English progressive from an often cited Old English construction (beon + PAP) is semantically very unlikely. Instead I argue for a reconstruction of the progressive from a locative construction source of the type, be on hunting. However, as I also show, there is a kind of formal relationship between the present-day English progressive and the OE construction that was encouraged by the prescriptions and proscriptions of the Early Modern English grammarians. Thus, by paying attention to both semantic and formal aspects of the development of the progressive, I provide a clearer picture of its historical reconstruction.

The development of the Englishbe+ V-ende/V-ingperiphrasis: from emphatic to progressive marker?

“…Neither Smith (2007) nor Kranich (2008) distinguishes between durative and focalized progressives, so those studies cannot be used to trace possible shifts in the relative proportion of the two types of progressive, but both studies inform us about the grammaticalization of progressivity in English. Smith (2007) Kranich (2008) provides data mapping the development of the periphrasis as a progressive marker.…”

“…Smith (2007) Kranich (2008) provides data mapping the development of the periphrasis as a progressive marker. Her data, which are taken from the ARCHER corpus, are given in 1982: 429 andArnaud 1998: 141).…”

“…Norwegian does not have mandatory marking of progressive aspect, but the language has a number of optional progressive constructions. Thus, the Norwegian sentences in (18) below all mean 'Are you 17 According to Smith (2007), prescriptive grammarians played an important role in this process, being "responsible for establishing progressive meaning' in the periphrasis (2007: 225-6). This transfer of meaning came about because the relevant grammarians encouraged the dropping of the locative element in the be on hunting construction, which was what caused the two constructions to merge.…”

Reconstructing constructional semantics

“…Within grammaticalization studies the focus has mostly been on internal semantic reconstruction (cf. Traugott 1986, Smith 2007. In contrast, little or no effort has been put into historical-comparative reconstruction of the semantics of larger and more complex constructions, like abstract argument structure constructions.…”

I was just reading this article– on the expression of recentness and the English past progressive

“…Other authors reject this poly-genetic account in favor of either a direct development from the OE construction (see e.g Mitchell 1985, Scheffer 1975. or the ME locative construction (see e.g Bybee et al 1994 andSmith 2007)…”