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

4 Svenja Kranich
as stative). A much greater risk, however, lies in the fact that one seems to miss out
on a great number of progressives which intuitively seem to require a subjective
interpretation and which do not allow an aspectual, progressive reading, e.g.:
(5) if you will needs be tutoring, go teach your Daughter how to behave herself
(archerii\ 650–99.bre\ 67 cary.d 54)
An analysis was made on a subsection of the corpus, namely the subperiod
650– 699, where I have checked all the progressives I had analysed as subjective
with regard to the presence of the supposed formal markers. 2 The following
results were obtained:
. Tense: 0 out of 9 progressives are in the present tense.
2. Clause: 0 out of 9 progressives occur in a main clause. 3
3. Person: 4 out of 9 progressives occur with a first- or second-
person subject.
4. Situation type: 2 out of 9 progressives occur in a stative situation type.
None of the progressives in this subperiod of the corpus actually fulfils all of
the formal criteria. Nevertheless, they are best interpreted as giving expression to
speaker attitude. Further examples of type 2 from this subperiod include:
(6) if you have a handsome wife, every smooth-faced coxcomb will be combing and
cocking at her (archerii\ 650–99.bre\ 680otwa.d 27)
(7) I’m glad she’s to be lock’d up, – for had any Gentlemen come to see me, she’s
so pert, her Tongue would have been running.
(archerii\ 650–99.bre\ 697pix.d 44)
(8) these Letters from my Wife, must serve to draw the Woodcocks Bonavent and
Squeezewit in, and since they must be leaping, they shall find it is unsafe to venture
in my Pasture. (archerii\ 650–99.bre\ 693powe.d 67)
In regard to (5)–(8) one can note that a combination of modal + progressive
frequently produces a subjective reading, quite contrary to criterion ). However,
one can clearly not go as far as using the combination with a modal as a criterion,
11. The subjective progressives found in this subperiod can be seen as representative for the
entire period under consideration.
1 . One non-finite example was excluded, since not all of the formal criteria could be applied.
Otherwise, all subjective progressives of the subperiod were taken into account, not just those
classified as belonging to type 2, because the formal criteria proposed by Wright ( 994) were
meant to characterise subjective progressives in general.
13. Note that these 0 progressives are not the same ones as those fulfilling criterion (Tense).