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

Subjective progressives in seventeenth
and eighteenth century English
Secondary grammaticalization as a process
of objectification
Svenja Kranich
Freie Universität Berlin
The aim of the study is to analyse the subjective uses of the progressive in 7th
and 8th century English, i.e., uses of the progressives as expressions of speaker
attitude. After an overview of the Old and Middle English meanings of the
progressive, I discuss the three different types of subjective progressives found
in the 7th and 8th century data from ARCHER-2 (A Representative Corpus
of Historical English Registers 2). In this context, I discuss some methodological
issues, as formal criteria have proved insufficiently reliable for the distinction of
subjective uses (cf. Killie 2004). I then look at the relation between subjective and
other meanings of the progressive. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the aspectual
function of the progressive grammaticalizes, which leads to changing relative
frequencies between subjective and objective uses. The paper ends with some
suggestions about general tendencies in the relation between grammaticalization
and subjectification and objectification.
1. Introduction
The use of progressives in other than purely aspectual functions has often been
noted, both in studies on present-day use and in diachronic surveys. Although
a recognition of the capacity of the progressive to convey emotional involvement
is by no means new, 2 in recent years there has been noticeable particular
interest in the evolution and characteristics of such uses (cf. e.g., Wright 994;
1. I would like to thank the anonymous referees of the proceedings as well as the participants
of the 4 ICEHL in Bergamo, in particular Elke Gehweiler, Stefan Thim and Ilse Wischer, for
their valuable suggestions. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Nafög commitee for the grant
received for a research project on the development of the English progressive.
. For an overview of early references to subjective uses of the English progressive, see Storms
( 964), who provides a summary of various accounts from Onions ( 904) to his days.