Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

86 Kristin Killie
It is possible that Bertinetto et al.’s alternative hypothesis about the origins of progressive
constructions is closer to the truth than is their primary hypothesis. It may
well be true that many progressives originate as locative constructions, but judging
from the history of the English progressive, this need not be the case. Thus, if we
reformulate stage (i) so as to allow of several types of source constructions, assuming
that stage (i) “constitutes an entirely independent evolutionary path”, it is possible
that the English progressive has indeed undergone PROG imperfective drift,
provided that the predominantly durative stage goes back to a time before written
records. 13 Alternatively, the generalization in Fig. 1 may be generally correct, while
the English progressive represents an aberrant development.
5. Conclusion
The clearest result of this corpus study is the finding that the English progressive
has become increasingly focalized: while only twenty-eight percent of the Old
English progressives are focalized, sixty-one percent of the Early Modern English
progressives are. However, the data presented can neither confirm nor refute the
claim of Bertinetto et al. (2000) that the English progressive has undergone PROG
imperfective drift. We have seen that the answer to this question to some extent
depends on our definition of the process, i.e., on whether we presuppose that all
progressives have a locative source, or whether we allow for multiple origins. It is
doubtful whether the source of the progressive is to be found exclusively in a locative
construction; most probably there are several sources.
But it is not only stage (i) in Fig. 1 which is problematic; stages (ii) and (iii)
cannot be traced in the data either. Durative progressives do not seem to have been
frequent at any point in the written history of English. Thus, if the English progressive
was ever predominantly durative, this stage must antedate the written records.
This is not impossible, of course, and at least the figures suggest a decrease in the
use of durative progressives over time, as we would expect if the focalized progressive
is indeed gradually replacing the durative progressive, becoming grammaticalized
as the prototypical use of the English progressive. However, what role the
durative progressive has played in the history of English remains unclear. What
seems clear is that narrative progressives are essentially an Old English phenomenon,
while stative progressives are common in both Old and Middle English. The
increased grammaticalization of the focalized progressive involves the loss of narrative
progressives and decreased use of durative and stative progressives. It also
involves increased use of the frame construction.
13. This hypothesis naturally does not work if one adopts the view that the beon/wesan + Vende
construction was a literary phenomenon (cf. Dal 1952).