V. VERB QUALITIES - UW-Parkside: Help for Personal Homepages

Remember that time and tense are not always the same thing. Either the simple present or
present progressive can be used to refer to a future action by adding an appropriate
adverbial:
(8) I've had it with parking here. Next semester I walk to school.
(9) I am walking to school tomorrow, unless you'd like to give me a ride.
One might even be able to use the past progressive in a sentence like (9). Certainly, a past
progressive sentence like (10) below is almost always a present-time equivalent to to the
alternatives which follow:
(10) I was wondering if you could bring me a beer.
(11) I am wondering if you will bring me a beer.
(12) I want you to bring me a beer.
(13) Bring me a beer!
There are some verbs and adjectives which seldom or never take the progressive. Such
verbs and adjectives are called stative because they characteristically represent states of
being. The opposite of stative is dynamic, a category in which most verbs and adjectives
are found but a name one need not learn. Adjectives can also be classified as dynamic or
stative, another way in which they resemble verbs. Explicit attention to the progressive is
mainly important for non-native speakers and speakers of non-standard dialects which delete
the progressive be along with the linking verb be. The former may produce sentences like
sentence (14), misusing the progressive with a stative verb, and the latter may produce
sentences like sentence (15), neither of which is acceptable Standard English:
(13) ?? I am believing you now.
(14) * The boss going out of his mind.
In the sentence diagramed below, "getting" is a linking verb equivalent to "becoming," and
"interesting" is used as an adjective. We have two verbs in this sentence, and the VP headed
by "getting" is shown as a complement within the VP headed by "is." The way trees with
auxiliary verbs are drawn has changed some through the years, but this is one widely
accepted way. Sentences with more auxiliaries can have verbs which take verb phrases as
their complement inside of verb phrases which are themselves complements of a verb, and
so on.
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