Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:07:51.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Development of the English Progressive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2007

K. Aaron Smith
K. Aaron Smith
Affiliation:
Illinois State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 205 - 241
Copyright
© 2007 Society for Germanic Linguistics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Åkerlund Alfred. 1911. On the history of the definite tenses in English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Lund.
Alexander Michael. 2001. Beowulf: A verse translation. Revised edn. London: Penguin Books.
Austen Jane. 1980. Sense and sensiblility (Signet Classics Series). New York: Penguin Books.
Bartsch Renate. 1987. Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Baugh Albert C. & Thomas Cable. 2002. A history of the English language. 5th edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Benveniste Emile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard.
Braaten Bjørn. 1967. Notes on continuous tenses in English. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 21.167–180.Google Scholar
Brook George L. & Roy F. Leslie (eds.). 1963, 1978. Layamon, edited from British Museum Ms. Cotton Caligula AIX. and British Museum Ms. Cotton Otho C.XIII. (Early English Text Society 250, 277). London & New York: Oxford University Press.
Buchanan James. 1968[1762]. The British grammar. Menston, UK: The Scholar Press.
Bybee Joan L. 1985. Morphology: A study of the relationship between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bybee Joan L. 2001. Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bybee Joan L. & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems. Studies in Language 13.51–103.Google Scholar
Bybee Joan L., Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Campbell Lyle (ed.). 2001. Grammaticalization: A critical assessment. Language Sciences 23–24.
Carey Kathleen. 1994. The grammaticalization of the perfect in Old English: An account based on pragmatics and metaphor. Perspectives on grammaticalization, ed. by William Pagliuca, 105–117. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Comrie Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comrie Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cooper Christopher. 1968[1685]. Grammatica. Menston, UK: The Scholar Press.
Curme George. 1913. Development of the progressiv form in Germanic. Publications of the Modern Language Association 28.159–187.Google Scholar
Dal Ingrid. 1952. Zur Entstehung des Englishen Participium Praesentis auf -ing. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 16.5–116.Google Scholar
Dahl Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
Denison David. 1993. English historical syntax: Verbal constructions. London & New York: Routledge.
Donaldson E. Talbot. 2002. Beowulf: A prose translation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Drosdowski Günther (ed.). 1984. Der Duden in 10 Bänden, Band 4: Die Grammatik. Mannheim: Dudenverlag.
Ebert Karen. 2000. Progressive markers in Germanic languages. Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe, ed. by Östen Dahl, 605–653. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Elsness Johan. 1994. On the progression of the progressive in early Modern English. ICAME Journal 18.5–25.Google Scholar
Fell John. 1968[1784]. An essay towards an English grammar. Menston, UK: The Scholar Press.
Fischer Olga. 1992. Syntax. The Cambridge history of the English language, volume 2, 1066–1476, ed. by Norman Blake, 207–408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goedsche C. Rudolf. 1932. The terminate aspect of the expanded form: Its development and its relation to the gerund. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 31.469–477.Google Scholar
Greenfield Stanley B. & Daniel G. Calder. 1986. A new critical history of Old English literature. New York: New York University Press.
Greenwood James. 1968[1711]. Towards a practical English grammar. Menston, UK: The Scholar Press.
Grimm Jakob. 1898. Deutsche Grammatik. Göttingen: Gütersloh.
Hatcher Anna Granville. 1951. The use of the progressive form in English. Language 27.254–280.Google Scholar
Harmer Florence E. (ed.). 1914. Select English historical documents of the ninth and tenth centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hieatt Constance B. 1967. Beowulf and other Old English poems. New York: Bantam.
Jespersen Otto. 1949. A Modern English grammar, vol. 4, Syntax. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Joseph John Earl. 1987. Eloquence and power. New York: Basil Blackwell.
Klaeber Friedrich. 1950. Beowulf and the fight at Finnsburg. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath & Company.
Kuryłowicz Jerzy. 1965. The evolution of grammatical categories. Esquisses Linguistiques II, ed. by Eugenio Coseriu, 38–54. Munich: Fink.
Lass Roger. 1992. Phonology and morphology. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 2, 1066–1476, ed. by Norman Blake, 23–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liuzza Roy M. 2000. Beowulf: A new verse translation. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Literary Texts.
Mitchell Bruce. 1976. Some problems involving Old English paraphrases with beon/wesan and the present participle. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77.478–491.Google Scholar
Mitchell Bruce. 1985. Old English syntax, vol. 1. Clarendon: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell Bruce & Fred C. Robinson. 1992. A guide to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell.
Morris Richard (ed.). 1873. The Old English homilies of the twelfth century (Early English Text Society 53). London & New York: Oxford University Press.
Mossé Ferdinand. 1938. Histoire de la forme périphrastique être + participe présent en germanique. Paris: C. Klincksieck.
Mustanoja Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.
Nehls D. 1974. Synchron-diachron Untersuchungen zur expanded Form im Englischen. Munich: Hueber.
Nickel Gerhard. 1966. Die expanded Form im Altenglischen: Vorkommen, Funktion und Herkunft der Umschreibung ‘beon/wesan’ + Particip Präsens. Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag.
Newmeyer Frederick. 2003. Grammar is grammar and usage is usage. Language 79.682–707.Google Scholar
Plater William E. & Henry J. White. 1926. A grammar of the Vulgate being an introduction to the study of the Latinity of the Vulgate Bible. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rissanen Matti. 1999. Syntax. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 3, 1476–1776, ed. by Roger Lass, 189–331. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rigg Arthur G. 1996. Morphology and syntax. Medieval Latin: An introduction and bibliographical guide, ed. by Mantello & A. G. Rigg, 83–92. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Robinson Fred C. 1973. Syntactical glosses in Latin manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon provenance. Speculum 48.443–475.Google Scholar
Scheffer Johannes. 1975. The progressive in English. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Smith K. Aaron. 1999. Parataxis in Old English: Evidence from translation. Paper presented at the second Annual High Desert Linguistics Society Conference, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Smith K. Aaron. 2000. Modern Dutch as a diagnostic for Middle English: The dilemma of the English progressive. Papers from the Regional Meetings, Chicago Linguistic Society 36.475–483.Google Scholar
Smith K. Aaron. 2001. The role of frequency in the specialization of the English Anterior. Frequency and emergent grammar, ed. by Joan Bybee & Paul Hopper, 361–382. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Smith K. Aaron. 2003. The dilemma of the English progressive: Evaluating its historical sources in a universal context. Doctoral dissertation, University of New Mexico.
Strang Barbara. 1982. Some aspects of the history of the be + ing construction. Language form and linguistic variation: Papers dedicated to Angus McIntosh, ed. by J. Anderson, 427–474. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stein Dieter. 1994. Sorting out the variants: Standardization and social factors in the English language 1600–1800. Towards a Standard English 1600–1800, ed. by Dieter Stein & Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, 1–18. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Stein Dieter. 2005. On the role of language ideologies in linguistic theory and practice: Purism and beyond. Linguistic purism in the Germanic languages, ed. by Nils Langer & Winifred Davies, 188–203. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Sullivan Alan & Timothy Murphy. 2004. Beowulf. New York: Pearson Education.
Sweet Henry (ed.). 1966. The oldest English texts. (Early English Text Society 83). London: Oxford University Press.
Thomason Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Traugott Elizabeth C. 1972. A history of English syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Traugott Elizabeth C. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language 65.31–55.Google Scholar
Traugott Elizabeth. 1992. Syntax. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 1, The beginning to 1066, ed. by Richard Hogg, 186–189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Traugott Elizabeth Closs. 1995. The role of the development of discourse markers in a theory of grammaticization. Paper presented at the International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) 12, Manchester. Revised November 1997. http://www.stanford.edu/~traugott/ect-papersonline.html (2 June 2007).
Traugott Elizabeth Closs. 2001. Legitimate counterexamples to unidirectionality. Paper presented at Freiburg University, October 17th 2001. http://www.stanford.edu/~traugott/ect-papersonline.html (2 June 2007).
Traugott Elizabeth & Richard Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ussher George Neville. 1968 (first publication 1785). The elements of English grammar. Menston, UK: The Scholar Press.
Visser Fredericus Th. 1963–1973. An historical syntax of the English language, 3 parts; 4 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Wolfram Walt & Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2005. American English. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wülfing Johann Ernst. 1901. Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Grossen. Bonn: P. Hanstein.