Advanced Language Construction by Rosenfelder Mark

Author:Rosenfelder, Mark [Rosenfelder, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yonagu Books
Published: 2012-08-13T22:00:00+00:00

Progressive

The progressive specifically expresses ongoing action. The English progressive (I was studying, I’m cooking) is a good example.

In English, we are happy to use the ordinary present for stative verbs (I know you are confused), but for events we almost always use the progressive (I’m writing a book, my wife is sleeping), leaving the present for habitual uses (I write every day, she snores loudly). Spanish Escribo un libro can be used more generally.

We do use the progressive with stative verbs, either to emphasize the process (I’m understanding aspect better every day!) or to underline that a situation is temporary (I’m living in a van).

In Spanish, you can combine perfective and progressive:

Estuve leyendo en casa todo el día.

I was reading in the house all day long.

Estuve ‘I was’ is perfective; the whole day’s event is thus bounded, seen as a unit, and yet it consisted of an ongoing process (reading). The imperfective, by contrast, would set the scene for an event:

Estaba leyendo en casa cuando llegó.

I was reading in the house when he arrived.

In many languages the progressive derives from locatives. This is a neat application of the time is space metaphor (LCK p. 114). E.g. Icelandic Ég er að lesa ‘I’m reading’, literally ‘I am in reading’. Cf. Italian sto leggendo, where the verb originally meant ‘stand’.

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