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

The English progressive 73
Bertinetto et al. refer to the development from locative to durative to focalized
(and finally also possibly to imperfective) as ‘PROG imperfective drift’. 4 The
process involves the following stages:
i. pure locativity = stative, durative
ii. progressivity I = residually locative, durative
iii. progressivity II = durative
iv. progressivity III = focalized, strictly imperfective
v. pure imperfectivity = loss of the progressive character
Figure 1. ‘PROG imperfective drift’ (Bertinetto et al. 2000: 540)
As can be seen in Fig. 1, it is assumed that progressives typically originate as
locative constructions. 5 These are said to express stative or durative meaning. In
the original construction, the locative verb does not function as an auxiliary, but
as a full lexical verb, which is followed by an independent non-verbal element
(predicative or adjunct). What happens in PROG imperfective drift is that the
verb and the predicative or adjunctive element in the source construction are
reanalysed as constituting a complex VP; thus, the main verb is reanalysed (and
bleached) into an auxiliary, while the predicative/adjunctive element acquires the
status of main verb. Stage (ii) represents the initial stage of grammaticalization.
Here the locative or postural verb begins to develop into an auxiliary. The construction
now expresses durative meaning, but this meaning co-exists with the
older locative meaning. (Such overlapping of meanings and functions is, of
course, common in grammaticalization processes.) At stage (iii), the locative
verb is fully grammaticalized into an auxiliary, and the construction sheds its
4. I do not think the term ‘drift’ here is meant to imply that the development in question is an
example of language changing by itself. The term is probably meant simply to refer to the fact
that the development of certain constructions tends to follow specific stages and paths, and that
the change tends to be in a certain direction.
5. The view that progressive devices typically go back to locative constructions has become
almost standard by now (cf. e.g., Comrie 1976: 98–103; Bybee et al. 1994: 136; Torres Cacoullos
2000: 121 and Heine 2003: 594), and it is based on ample evidence. Thus, Heine & Hünneyer.
(1991) found more than a hundred African languages which had progressives based on locative
sources, and Bybee et al. (1994: 128–129) also provide numerous examples from languages of
diverse types.