Some developments in the semantics of the English progressive from old English to early modern English

Abstract

The Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses is published yearly by the Department of English at the University of Alicante in volumes of approximately 250 pages. The journal aims to provide a forum for debate and an outlet for research involving all aspects of English Studies. NATURE AND FORMAT OF THE ARTICLES:The Revista would welcome ar ticles of the following kinds: (1) Articles on linguistics and ELT, literature, literary theory and criticism, history and other aspects of the culture of the English-speaking nations. Articles should not exceed nine thous and words in length.(2) Bibliogra phies of studies on very specifi c topics, providing a brief in troduction and a list of basic publications. A concise index of contents may optionally be included. (3) Reviews and review ar ticles on recently published books in the fi eld of English Stu dies. (4) Poetry translations (English-Spanish and Spanish-Eng lish). All articles submitted should follow the guidelines which can be obtained from the following Internet address:http://www.ua.es/dfi ng/publicaciones/raei/general/instrucciones.htm Manuscripts should include an abstract in English of about one hundred words in length. In normal circumstances, the editors will only consider for publication those contributions written in English and recorded on disk. Two print-outs of the contribution should also be included. Articles will only be returned at the authors' express wish, if so requested at the time of submission. All correspondence should be addressed to: AbstractThe aim of this paper is to provide a descriptive account of the development of the semantics of English be + -ing from Old English (henceforth OE) to early Modern English (henceforth eModE). Questions such as whether it is possible to ascribe one single meaning to the cluster or whether the modern English (henceforth ModE) function(s) can be traced back to OE will be dealt with in this study. In this respect, examples from OE, Middle English (ME) and eModE will be analyzed and discussed to illustrate the use of the progressive in such periods. Moreover, the combination of be + -ing and time adverbials will also be described in this paper, since the study of the interrelation between IntroductionT he semantics of the progressive has been -and still is-the object of much controversy. Recent and not so recent research has tried to answer a number of questions on this topic, such as whether it is possible to ascribe one single function to be + -ing or whether the cluster expresses more than one unitary meaning. As a general rule, there is little or no agreement on the specifi c functions or meanings conveyed by the progressive in ModE, nor for that matter, in earlier periods of the history of English. However, in Visser's opinion, be + -ing combinations show one function applicable to OE, ME and ModE examples (1963-1973: §1806), which partly coincides with Hirtle & Bégin's idea that every use of the progressive can be explained in terms of one, single, unitary meaning (1990: 9). As we shall see in the fo...

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.…”

A Cognitive Grammar account of the semantics of the English present progressive

“…[2]The overview presented in this section is restricted to synchronic studies of the progressive in the ‘inner circle Englishes’ (primarily, American and British English). For a recent study of the progressive in ‘outer circle Englishes’, see Collins (2008); for diachronic studies of the English progressive, see Núñez-Pertejo (2004) and Kranich (2010). …”

I’m loving it! A Corpus-Based Study of the Progress of love

“…Beside the difficulty of finding a central meaning for the progressive, another challenge is posed by its changing nature. Different corpus-based studies have revealed an increase in the use of the progressive from late Middle English onward (e.g., Mair & Hundt 1995; Hundt 2004; Nuñez-Pertejo 2004; Smitterberg 2005; Mair & Leech 2006; Leech et al 2009; Kranich 2010; Aarts, Close & Wallis 2010). More recently, the puzzling extension of the progressive to stative verbs has added complexity to the construction (Bland 1988; Smith 1983, 1991; de Swart 1998; Williams 2001; Smiecinska 2003; Michaelis 2004; Smitterberg 2005; Lee 2006; Mair & Leech 2006; Mair 2006; Kranich 2010; Aarts et al 2010; Levin 2013; De Wit & Brisard 2014).…”