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The Progressive Be

This book is getting very interesting
Was Samson talking with Delilah?

We have encountered auxiliary verbs in our discussion of yes/no questions, and we have encountered participles as adjectivals within noun phrases, but we really haven't talked about what happens when we put them together. We will start with predicates formed by combining the auxiliary be with the present participle (the -ing participle. Together they make kind of verb called the progressive.

Technically, linguists think of the progressive as an aspect of a verb, reserving the term tense for past and present, the forms shown by inflecting a verb. For everyday purposes, people speak of the present progressive tense and the past progressive tense. Whether it is present or past depends on the tense of the first auxiliary verb--"was drinking" in sentence (2) is past progressive even though it has a "present" participle.

(1) The ship is heading into a storm. [PRESENT PROGRESSIVE]
(2) The captain was drinking heavily last night. [PAST PROGRESSIVE]

The progressive gets its name because it suggests that a given action is or was in progress at the time we are talking about. We use the progressive more than we may realize. Standard English users rarely use the simple present tense for things which are happening as they speak. In theory, both of these sentences refer to something which is happening right now:

(3) I walk to school.
(4) I am walking to school.
In practice, sentence (3) almost always refers to a habitual action--something which is true these days--which we may or may not be engaged in at the moment. Sentence (4) can refer to a habitual action, too, but is more apt to be used if we are, in fact, walking to school at the moment we say it, perhaps while chatting on our cell phone. To make matters a bit more confusing, either the simple present or the present progressive could be used to refer to a past action in the narrative present if we were telling an anecdotes about something that happened to us on the way to school yesterday.
(5) So I walk to school, and this guy starts following me.
(6) So I am walking to school, and this guy starts following me.
Moreover, either could be used to refer to a future action by adding an appropriate adverbial:
(7) I've had it with parking here. Next semester I walk to school.
(8) I am walking to school tomorrow, unless you'd like to give me a ride.
The main point here is that the English tense/aspect system does not have an exact correspondence to the time being referred to. One last example: a past progressive sentence like (9) below is almost always a present-time equivalent to to the alternatives which follow:
(9) I was wondering if you could bring me a beer.
(10) I am wondering if you will bring me a beer.
(11) I want you to bring me a beer.
(12) Bring me a beer!

The use of progressive is confined to dynamic verbs, though those are the in the majority. For stative verbs, which express a state of being, the progressive is not allowed, and expressions like "I am knowing this" are found only in speakers influenced by a language with different rules for the progressive. 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 (13), misusing the progressive with a stative verb, and the latter may produce sentences like sentence (14), neither of which is acceptable Standard English.

(13) ?I am believing you now.
(14) *The boss going out of his mind.

Getting the Trees Right. In the sentence diagrammed 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.

Progressive Questions Although the be of the progressive doesn't begin as part of the INFL element, if the sentence is a yes-no question and there is no other auxiliary, the be moves to the INFL element and undergoes INVERSION with it. In effect, it moves twice, leaving two traces behind it in our diagram, which also brings back our old friend CP to house the question-marker:

(14)(a) Samson was talking with Delilah.
(b) Was Samson talking with Delilah?
(15)(a) He is bringing down the house.
(b) Is he bringing down the house?

Exercise 1

Can you say which of the following sentences are progressive? Watch out for cases where be is not followed by a present participle and for -ing words which are being used as adjectives rather than present participles.

1.01 Was Buffy being rotten?
1.02 Every nurse could be ridiculous.
1.03 George was always complaining about his mother-in-law.
1.04 Martha was irritated by George's complaints.
1.05 It's been a long time coming.
1.06 Omar had been predicting this would happen.
1.07 This was depressing news.
1.08 The facade of the palace is imposinG.
1.09 Edith is being stalked over the internet.
1.10 The historian had been being very witty.

Just for the Record: The Keep-Progressive. Informal English often employs a form of the verb keep followed by a present participle to refer to continuing action. This looks very much like a progressive, and we can think of keep as a kind of quasi-auxiliary in such cases, because it seems to be functioning very much like the be auxiliary. Unlike be, however, keep cannot move into the INFL slot, so that DO-INSERTION is still required for questions:

(16)(a) He kept walking.
(b) Did he keep walking?
(17)(a) He keeps being silly.
(b) Does he keep being silly?

How Much of This Will be on the Test?
You should be able to recognize the progressive when you see it, distinguishing it from other uses of be as a verb. You should be able to tell present progressive from past progressive. You should know that the progressive is called a tense but is really an aspect. You should remember having heard something about stative vs. dynamic verbs and adjectives and about the keep-progresive as a quasi-auxiliary.