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The Present Progressive Tense in English | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| SteveB Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5948 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 18 25 February 2010 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm teaching myself Portuguese. As part of this I've been listening again to my Michel Thomas Portuguese Foundation course - a sort of spaced repetition thing.
In one part, the teacher says that the present progressive tense in English is a relatively recent development. She says, if you think of a famous quote from the King James Bible of 400 years ago "They know not what they do", in modern English, we would say "they don't know what they are doing". As recently as 200 years ago, Jane Austin would write "I know not", whereas today we would say "I don't know". This got me thinking, how, and from where did English acquire this tense? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| genini1 Senior Member United States Joined 5472 days ago 114 posts - 161 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 18 25 February 2010 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Wikipedia no one truly knows where the tense comes from but it is thought that it is Celtic in origin.
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| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5589 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 3 of 18 25 February 2010 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would be thinking old norse/old English? Something Germanic. I know that it is still used in German.
"Ich weiss nicht." = I don't know. or literally "I know not" That is just my guess though however, I'm sure more educated members know the true answer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 18 25 February 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003270.h tml
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| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 5 of 18 25 February 2010 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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The idea of it coming from Celtic languages seems quite plausible. Many of the Scottish Highlanders I've talked tend to over-use the present progressive, even if they aren't Gaelic speakers. For example "I'm working there everyday" instead of "I work there everyday".
In Dutch "Ik weet het niet." (I know it not) In Scots "A dinnae ken." (I do not know) same as English 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5426 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 18 25 February 2010 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've never heard of the present progressive. Well, of the name, of course I use it all the time. I'm kind of interested in where it came from now...
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| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6820 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 7 of 18 25 February 2010 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
It seems like there are two different issues here:
These are not exactly the same thing. The following are correct English, for example:
But to negate "I write", the meaningless "do" is compulsory and not emphatic:
Essentially, there is no longer an "I write not" in colloquial speech, although to my ears it sounds less stilted, but still somewhat weird, when used with transitive verbs in order to generate contrast, "I write not about the war itself, but about the war's impact on innocent citizens". The meaningless "do" has also become compulsory in many questions, but simple inversion works for auxiliary verbs, "to be" as a copular and "to have" in some dialects. Because the present progressive is formed with an auxiliary verb, simple inversion works for the present progressive, and a meaningless "do" is not necessary, but not for the present. Examples:
It seems incorrect for the teacher of the Michel Thomas course to claim that the present progressive or the meaningless "do" are recent grammatical developments. They're both present in Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but they are not yet compulsory. It is more common in both the past tense and in negative commands. Some examples from KJV:
and some from Shakespeare:
Similar examples of the present progressive are available. There is a book by John McWhorter, "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue", which makes the case that both of these features came from the Celtic influence on English. The book claims that many linguists and historians of the development of English have disregarded the possible influence of a Celtic influence on the grammatical development of English without understanding how rare these grammatical features are in a global sense. Amazon.com Link Edited by reltuk on 25 February 2010 at 6:28pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SteveB Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5948 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 8 of 18 25 February 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Aha! That is what I thought might be the influence. In Wales, people sometimes make statements in English which have an odd construction, such as "I do go". I've been told that this is a word for word translation from its Welsh Language equivalent. Do you have the Wiki Link? I tried googling for this earlier but didn't have any luck. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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