collins 2008

The Progressive Aspect in WorldEnglishes: A Corpus-based Study*PETER COLLINS1

University of NSW

This paper reports the findings of a study comparing the distribution and frequency of

the forms, meanings and uses of the progressive aspect across a set of spoken and written

categories in nine parallel corpora, representing four inner circle and five outer circle

Englishes. Significant regional and stylistic variations were noted. Australian and New

Zealand English emerge as the most innovative regional varieties in their use of the

progressive, as determined by both sheer frequency and a wide range of other variables,

followed by the Southeast Asian varieties, then the influential American and British

varieties, with Kenyan and Indian English the least innovative. The progressive was

found to be twice as frequent in speech as in writing, an asymmetry no doubt relevant to

the attested rise of the progressive in Modern English. Meanwhile the role that the simple

present progressive form and the futurate use are claimed to have had in the growth of

the progressive is reflected in their particular affinity for spoken English.

Keywords: Progressive; Aspect; World English(es); Corpus

1. Introduction

The progressive aspect has steadily increased its frequency of use since Late Modern

English (e.g. Elsness 1994; Smitterberg 2005) and, according to the corpus-based

studies reviewed in Section 3 below (Mair & Hundt 1995; Smith 2002; Mair & Leech

2006), it is still on the rise. These studies are all based on British and/or American

data, more specifically written data, leaving open the question of how extensively the

progressive has come to be used in spoken English and in other regional varieties.

Smith (2002) concludes his paper with a plea for research to be conducted using

* I wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the first version of this paper.1 Peter Collins, Linguistics Department, University of NSW, Sydney 2052, Victoria, Australia. E-mail:

[email protected]

ISSN 0726-8602 print/ISSN 1469-2996 online/08/020225-25 # 2008 The Australian Linguistic SocietyDOI: 10.1080/07268600802308782

Australian Journal of Linguistics

Vol. 28, No. 2, October 2008, pp. 225249

a wider variety of corpus data ( . . .) notably spoken material of the same period, and

other regional varieties, both written and spoken (327).

This paper reports the findings of a study in which, responding to Smiths

exhortation, I compared the distribution and frequency of progressive forms,

meanings and uses across a set of spoken and written categories in nine parallel

corpora. The corpora represent Englishes of both the inner circle and the outer

circle (for which I shall henceforth use the abbreviations IC and OC respectively).2

IC varieties are those where English is the first language for the majority of the

population and virtually all public and private interaction takes place in English

(British English BrE, American English AmE, Australian English AusE, and New

Zealand English NZE), while OC varieties are those where English may not be the

first language for the majority of the population but has the status of an official

language (Philippine English PhilE, Singapore English SingE, Hong Kong English

HKE, Indian English IndE, and Kenyan English KenE).

The study sought to determine the validity of the common view that there are very

few grammatical differences between the regional varieties of standard English (cf.

Quirk et al. 1985: 1819). If it turns out that this view is wrong in the case of theprogressive aspect, and that there are in fact significant local differences, how

extensive are they and how are they manifested: in the frequency of particular forms,

meanings and/or uses? What types of innovation or conservatism are reflected in the

varying modes of usage: are the two long-established and influential varieties, BrE

and AmE, leading the way, with the two Antipodean cousins, AusE and NZE,

exhibiting colonial lag (cf. Trudgill 1986: 130)? Do the new OC Englishes display

patterns of usage which set them apart from their IC counterparts? Do the findings

bear out Biber et al.s (1999: 20) claim that grammatical differences across registers

are more extensive than across dialects?

2. The Progressive Aspect

The progressive aspect is here understood to be a syntactic category expressed by (a

form of) be in conjunction with a following (though not necessarily directly

following) ing-participle. This includes cases with infinitival be as in Id prefer to be

sailing, but excludes non-finites without be as in Id prefer to go sailing. The

progressive aspect characteristically expresses progressive aspectuality, a semantic

category associated with such meanings as progressivity, imperfectivity, and

dynamicity. However the progressive aspect also has a number of non-aspectual

uses (the futurate and matter-of-course uses discussed in Section 7), a fact which

presents a formidable obstacle to proponents of a basic or unitary meaning

approach (such as Williams 2002, who proposes susceptibility to change as the basic

meaning for the progressive). A typical progressive situation is one that is presented

2 The terms inner circle and outer circle are due to Kachru (1985).

226 P. Collins

as progressing through time, with an internal temporal structure. Consider (1), an

extract from a narrative about an earthquake experience:

(1) I was getting dizzy and then when I woke up my fan was shaking my whole bed was

shaking as in the whole fan was swaying left to right [ICE-PHI S1A-007 50-52]3

By choosing the past progressive rather than the simple past the speaker

metaphorically slows down the situation, zeroing the listeners attention inside the

various goings-on. Some have used a cinematic analogy (e.g. Kruisinga & Erades

1955: 255), likening the progressive to a film (the non-progressive being more like a

photograph) in which the prolonging of the action enables it more readily to become

the focus of our particular interest and observation.

One of the most influential theories of progressive aspectuality has been Jespersens

(1931: 18) notion that the progressive functions as a temporal frame encompassing a

reference point (expressed by the when-clause in (1), and by I see this girl in (2)

below). Explicit framing of this kind is quite rare in the present data, limited to a

mere 2.6% of tokens in speech and 3.5% in writing. Furthermore, it was noted that

there are cases (63, or 1.0%) where the progressive does not frame another, but rather

is simultaneous and coextensive with, a temporal reference point, as in (2) and (3):

(2) I had a great time. And uh were pulling up and I see this girl who Id never seen

before sort of dart out of our driveway [SBC 03 1337-44]

(3) Normally when people hug you youre hanging on the side somewhere you

know [ICE-GB S1A-003 142]

3. Previous Studies

The English progressive has been examined in a number of corpus-based studies,

both synchronic and diachronic. All are based on either BrE or a comparison of BrE

and AmE, and few include both written and spoken data. The most recent book-

length study of the progressives, by Romer (2005), is undoubtedly large-scale and

comprehensive in the number of variables studied, but it is limited to spoken BrE,

and also limited by Romers decision to restrict her corpus-interrogation to the 100

most frequent verbs in her data. Biber et al. (1999: 461462) supply some figuresindicating broad frequencies for the progressive in the same genres examined in the

present study (conversation, fiction, news and academic writing) in BrE and AmE.

Mindt (2000) and Scheffer (1975) are both empirical studies, but Mindts data

sources are not transparent and Scheffers data collection comprises merely six

(British) novels and two radio commentaries.

As noted in Section 1 above, three studies have documented the recent growth of the

progressive. Mair & Hundt (1995) use the press sections of the BrE corpora LOB

(dating from 1961) and FLOB (dating from 1991/2), with the parallel American

3 The source of each example is indicated as follows: the name of the corpus (see Section 4 for more details),

followed by the text category/number, followed by the line number.

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes 227

corpora Brown and Frown. The period of three decades between the earlier and later

corpora, though relatively short, turns out to be sufficient to enable Mair and Hundt to

identify a substantial increase in the frequency of the progressive. Similar findings are

reported by Smith (2002), who uses just the British written corpora LOB and FLOB,

and Mair & Leech (2006), whose observations are based on the same four written

corpora used by Mair & Hundt. All authors speculate about the reasons for the increase.

There is consensus that one important factor, related to the fact that the progressive is

and has been for a long period of time more common in speech than writing (as noted

by Quirk et al. 1985: 198, and Biber et al. 1999: 461463), is the phenomenon ofcolloquialization, the narrowing of the gap between the norms of written and spoken

English that is attested to have occurred over the past few decades. Further factors

include the development of new forms (e.g. combinations of the progressive with

modals and the passive voice), resulting in the progressive becoming established in the

few remaining niches of the verbal paradigm in which it was not current until the

twentieth century (Mair & Leech 2006: 323), and the emergence of new uses.

The present study extends the scope of previous studies well beyond BrE and AmE,

incorporating not only two further IC varieties but also a set of OC Englishes; it

includes both spoken and written data; and it seeks total accountability via an

examination of all tokens in the data across a range of syntactic, semantic and

pragmatic variables. The study is not diachronic, but the opportunity is taken to

explore the diachronic ramifications of quantitative findings wherever relevant.

4. The Data

Tokens of the string *ing* were extracted, and irrelevant examples manually discarded,

from the suite of currently-available corpora of the International Corpus of English

(ICE) collection: ICE-GB, ICE-AUS, ICE-NZ, ICE-PHI, ICE-SIN, ICE-HK, ICE-IND

and ICE-EA(Ken). Each ICE corpus comprises one million words of text, dating from

the early-1990s, and conforms to a common design. In the absence of an ICE-US,

whose compilation is yet to be completed, I drew data representing AmE from the

(spoken) Santa Barbara Corpus (SBC) and the (written) Frown Corpus (categories A,

J and K), whose data are also from the early-1990s and both of which contain

comparable text categories. Progressives were identified and analyzed in 120,000 words

of text from each corpus, half spoken (conversations from Category S1A) and half

written (comprising 20,000 words of academic writing in the humanities from W2A,

20,000 of news reports from W2C, and 20,000 of fiction from W2F). The frequencies

are presented in Tables 1a and 1b.

Of the individual varieties represented in Table 1a it is NZE (894) and KenE

(858) that are significantly ahead of the others in terms of frequency (x2 (8)88.4676, pB0.05).4 In the case of NZE this is due to an exceptionally large number

4 The statistical procedure employed in this study was the chi-square test. The R statistical program enabled a

post-hoc analysis for this test.

228 P. Collins

Table 1a Frequencies of progressives in the individual Englishes: speech versus writing

AUS NZ US GB KEN IND PHI SIN HK TOTAL

Speech 541 71.8% 516 57.7% 476 76.0% 459 69.5% 636 74.1% 428 67.1% 495 72.1% 448 65.6% 523 70.6% 4522 69.1%Writing 212 28.2% 378 42.3% 150 24.0% 201 30.5% 222 25.9% 210 32.9% 192 27.9% 235 34.4% 218 29.4% 2018 30.9%TOTAL 753 100% 894 100% 626 100% 660 100% 858 100% 638 100% 687 100% 683 100% 741 100% 6540 100%

Table 1b Frequencies of progressives in the individual Englishes: three written genres


Academic 32 15.1% 61 16.1% 29 19.3% 16 8.0% 25 11.3% 24 11.4% 20 10.4% 27 11.5% 22 10.1% 256 12.6%News 81 38.2% 73 19.3% 53 35.3% 65 32.3% 69 31.1% 51 24.3% 91 47.4% 90 38.3% 62 28.4% 635 31.4%Fiction 99 46.7% 244 64.6% 68 45.3% 120 59.7% 128 57.7% 135 64.3% 81 42.2% 118 50.2% 134 61.5% 1127 55.8%TOTAL 212 28.2% 378 42.3% 150 24.0% 201 30.5% 222 25.9% 210 32.9% 192 27.9% 235 34.4% 218 29.4% 2018 30.9%

Table 1c Mean frequencies of progressives in the regional groups

Southern Hemis Northern Hemis INNER CIRCLE AfricaIndia Southeast Asia OUTER CIRCLE TOTAL

Speech 528.5 64.2% 467.5 72.7% 480.5 67.9% 532.0 71.1% 488.7 69.4% 506.0 70.1% 502.4 69.1%Writing 295.0 35.8% 175.5 27.3% 235.3 32.1% 216.0 28.9% 215.0 30.6% 215.4 29.9% 224.2 30.9%TOTAL 823.5 100% 643.0 100% 733.3 100% 748.0 100% 703.7 100% 721.4 100% 726.7 100%

Th

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rogressiveA

spect

inW

orldE

nglish

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29

of tokens in fictional and academic writing, and in the case of KenE it is due to an

exceptionally large number of tokens in speech. The ordering of the IC Englishes

(NZE 894AusE 753BrE 660AmE 626) is the same as that noted by Hundt(1998: 75) based on written news reportage data.

In Table 1c, the nine corpora are grouped according to region and to their

membership of Kachrus (1985) inner and outer circles of World Englishes. The four

IC Englishes are subdivided into two pairs: the two long-established and influential

Northern Hemisphere varieties, BrE and AmE, and the two neo-colonial varieties

spoken in the Asia-Pacific region, AusE and NZE. The five new OC Englishes are

subdivided into two groups: Southeast Asia represented by PhilE, SingE and HKE,

and the remaining two Englishes representing Africa (KenE) and South Asia (IndE)

which, though regionally distinct, have in common that English is less widely used as

a medium of communication in public and private life than it is in the Southeast

Asian varieties.5

As Table 1c indicates, progressives are slightly more frequent (but not significantly

so: x2 (1)0.4107, p0.05) in the IC Englishes than in the OC Englishes. Withinthe IC the two Antipodean Englishes have a considerably higher frequency than their

longer established Northern Hemisphere counterparts (823.5:643.0). The two OC

groups fall in-between these, with Africa/India (748.0) ahead of Southeast Asia

(703.7).

A comparison of the distribution of the progressive across speech and writing

confirms the finding of previous studies (cf. Allen 1966: 136; Biber et al. 1999: 462;

Quirk et al. 1985: 198) that their frequency of occurrence is significantly higher in

speech (x2 (1)1472.125, pB0.05). As Table 1a and Table 1c show, there are morethan twice as many progressive tokens in speech as in writing, the only exceptions

being NZE and SingE, where progressives are slightly less than twice as popular. It may

be that this difference is merely a by-product of the greater popularity of tensed VPs in

general in speech. In theory we could test for this by calculating the proportion of

progressives in speech and writing as a percentage of all tensed VPs. Unfortunately the

corpora used in the present study have not, with the single exception of ICE-GB, been

part-of-speech-tagged, making such a calculation impossible. Nor is there any

published study that provides comparative percentages for speech and writing

(although figures in the range c.46% are supplied by Ota 1963; Joos 1964; Allen1966 and Quirk et al. 1985: 198 for their various databases). Nevertheless, it is possible

to extrapolate percentages from information provided by Biber et al. (1999) based on

their collection of British and American corpora (in Figure 6.1 on p. 456 and 6.4 on

p. 462) confirming the greater popularity of progressives in speech (c.5.4%) over

writing (c.3.9%).6

5 As observed by an anonymous reviewer, alternative subdivisions are conceivable (for instance putting BrE

together with the Southern Hemisphere varieties, which are derived from it, as against AmE, given that we can

distinguish an essentially British-derived from an American-derived branch of World Englishes).6 Biber et al. (1999) do not supply exact frequencies, but approximate numbers can be inferred from their bar

graphs.

230 P. Collins

Across the three written genres we find a consistent ordering in all varieties except

PhilE, with significantly more progressives in fiction than in news, and more in news

than academic prose (x2 (1)136.1535, pB0.05). If we include the fourth genreexamined, conversation, the ordering (with bracketed figures representing tokens per

20,000 words) will be as follows: conversation (1507)fiction (1127)news (635)academic (256), or 1.00.740.420.16. The ordering of the written genres, frommost to least informal or speech-like, is the same as that reported by Biber et al. (1999:

462) for AmE and BrE, although the degree of the difference between fiction and news is

smaller in Biber than in the present study (where it was 1127:635, or 1.8:1). Again, we

can compare these findings with the percentages extrapolated from Biber et al. (1999:

456462) representing progressives as a proportion of all tensed VPs: conversation(5.4%)news (4.9%)fiction (4.6%)academic (1.6%). These figures confirm therelative popularity of progressives in conversation, and their unpopularity in academic

writing found in Biber et al., but differ from that study in placing news ahead of fiction.

Consider finally the relative frequency across the Englishes of progressives in

speech*the genre strongly favoured by progressives, as noted above, and that whichhas seen the greatest increase in the spread of the progressive (see Section 5 below).

For the IC Englishes the ordering remains the same as that determined by the overall

frequency of tokens (KenE 636HKE 523PhilE 495SingE 448IndE 428).However, a different picture emerges for the IC Englishes: the Southern Hemisphere

varieties still lead their Northern hemisphere counterparts, but there is a reordering

within the two hemispheres as follows: AusE 541NZE 516AmE 476BrE 459.

5. Progressive Forms

Following Smith (2002) the variables examined here were tense (present/past),

perfect aspect (perfect/non-perfect), modality (modal/non-modal), to-infinitival

(infinitival/non-infinitival), and voice (active/passive). This set yields the following

16 possibilities (exemplified with give as the lexical verb):

Active Passive

Present is giving is being given

Past was giving was being given

Present perfect has been giving has been being given

Past perfect had been giving had been being given

Modal might be giving might be being given

Modal perfect might have been giving might have been being given

To-infinitive to be giving to be being given

Perfect to-infinitive to have been giving to have been being given

As Table 2a indicates, there are massive differences in the frequencies of the forms:

the simple present and simple past account for 86.6% of tokens (compared to 76% of

Smiths 2002 written British data), while the remaining forms are either very

infrequent or, in seven cases, not represented at all in the corpora (one active form:


Table 2a Progressive forms in the individual Englishes

AUS NZ US GB KEN IND PHI SIN HK TOT

Present 405 53.8% 378 42.3% 368 58.8% 373 56.5% 432 50.3% 393 61.6% 362 52.7% 384 56.2% 456 61.5% 3551 54.3%Past 251 33.3% 382 42.7% 188 30.0% 202 30.6% 317 36.9% 158 24.8% 219 31.9% 197 28.8% 197 26.6% 2111 32.3%Pres perfect 31 4.1% 32 3.6% 29 4.6% 15 2.3% 31 3.6% 16 2.5% 37 5.4% 10 1.5% 32 4.3% 233 3.6%Past perfect 7 0.9% 22 2.5% 4 0.6% 4 0.6% 3 0.3% 11 1.7% 7 1.0% 11 1.6% 3 0.4% 72 1.1%Modal 33 4.4% 45 5.0% 15 2.4% 17 2.6% 28 3.3% 40 6.3% 29 4.2% 47 6.9% 36 4.9% 290 4.4%Modal perfect 2 0.3% 5 0.6% 3 0.5% 1 0.2% 0 0.0% 3 0.5% 0 0.0% 5 0.7% 0 0.0% 19 0.3%To-infin 6 0.8% 16 1.8% 4 0.6% 26 3.9% 12 1.4% 7 1.1% 14 2.0% 5 0.7% 5 0.7% 95 1.5%Pres passive 12 1.6% 4 0.4% 10 1.6% 8 1.2% 21 2.4% 8 1.3% 15 2.2% 19 2.8% 10 1.3% 107 1.6%Past passive 6 0.8% 10 1.1% 5 0.8% 14 2.1% 14 1.6% 2 0.3% 4 0.6% 5 0.7% 2 0.3% 62 0.9%TOTAL 753 100% 894 100% 626 100% 660 100% 858 100% 638 100% 687 100% 683 100% 741 100% 6540 100%

Table 2b Simple vs. complex progressive forms in the individual Englishes


Simple 656 87.1% 760 85.0% 556 88.8% 575 87.1% 749 87.3% 551 86.4% 581 84.6% 581 85.1% 653 88.1% 5662 86.6%Complex 97 12.9% 134 15.0% 70 11.2% 85 12.9% 109 12.7% 87 13.6% 106 15.4% 102 14.9% 88 11.9% 878 13.4%TOTAL 753 100% 894 100% 626 100% 660 100% 858 100% 638 100% 687 100% 683 100% 741 100% 6540 100%

Table 2c Simple vs. complex progressive forms in the regional groups

Southern Hem Northern Hem INNER CIRCLE AfricaIndia SE Asia OUTER CIRCLE TOTAL

Simple 1416 86.0% 1131 87.9% 2547 86.8% 1300 86.9% 1815 86.0% 3115 86.4% 5662 86.6%Complex 231 14.0% 155 12.1% 386 13.2% 196 13.1% 296 14.0% 492 13.6% 878 13.4%TOTAL 1647 100% 1286 100% 2933 100% 1496 100% 2111 100% 3607 100% 6540 100%

23

2P.

Collin

s

the perfect to-infinitival; and six passive forms: the present perfect, past perfect, modal,

modal perfect, to-infinitival, and perfect to-infinitival).

While the figures in Table 2a suggest that the filling out of the verbal paradigm for

progressives over the past century or so may have had little more than a minor role to

play in the rise of the progressive, it is nevertheless of interest to compare the varieties

in terms of the frequency of the newer complex progressive forms across the

varieties. Tables 2b and 2c present the proportion of simple tense forms (i.e. present/

past) to complex forms (i.e. perfect/modal/infinitival/passive). The frequencies may

provide some evidence that the spread of the progressive is in part driven by the

development of new (complex) forms: the Southern Hemisphere group, which has

the highest number of progressives, also has the highest proportion of complex

forms, and the Northern hemisphere group the lowest on both dimensions. The

correlation did not extend to the OC groups, with the Southeast Asian group having a

higher proportion of complex forms than the Africa/India group.7

In the IC set the ordering of Englishes as determined by the overall frequency of

progressives (see above) correlates with that determined by the percentage of complex

forms (NZE 15.0%AusE 12.88%BrE 12.87%AmE 11.2%). Another findingwas that modal forms were more common in the OC than the IC varieties (by a ratio

of 1.2:1, especially in speech, and especially in IndE and SingE, where modality is

often found with distinctive uses of stative verbs. Passive forms were also more

common in the OC than the IC varieties (by a ratio of 1.4:1).

Smiths (2002) findings for progressive forms, based as they are on written BrE,

conform more closely to those for writing than for speech in the present study. For

example, 39.4% of Smiths tokens were simple present progressives, a proportion that

is closer to the 35.4% of tokens in writing in the present study (see Table 2d below)

than to the 54.3% of tokens in the spokenwritten data; likewise, Smiths finding of3.1% past perfect progressives more closely matches the 2.9% of tokens in writing in

this study than the 1.1% in the spokenwritten data. Smith notes (p. 318) that themost dramatic increases in the use of the progressive in recent decades have involved

the simple present forms. Given that his findings are based solely on the LOB and

FLOB corpora, these increases may be explainable in terms of the colloquialization of

written English, insofar as present progressives*like present tense forms in general(q.v. Biber et al. 1999: 456)*are significantly more common in speech than inwriting (x2 (8)540.4269, pB0.05). As Table 2d shows, present progressivesaccounted for almost two thirds (62.7%) of all forms in speech, as against only 35.4%

in writing. By contrast, the past progressive accounted for almost one half of all

tokens (45.7%) in writing, as against 26.3% in speech.

It is not possible with the corpora used to test whether the apparent popularity of

simple present progressives in speech over writing is merely a by-product of the

genre-distribution of present tense forms generally. That this may be the case is

7 The evidence is admittedly not strong: differences in the proportions of complex forms across the four

regional groups are not statistically significant (x2 (3)3.3756, p0.05).


suggested by percentages that can be extrapolated from Biber et al. (1999: 456462)indicating that in their spoken texts 5.1% of all present forms were progressives, while

in their written data the figure was a slightly higher 5.4%.

6. Semantic Classes of Verbs

Like Smith (2002), I adopted Biber et al.s (1999: 360ff) seven-class taxonomy of

semantic domains for verbs, in order to facilitate comparisons with at least these

two previous studies. Discussion follows:

(i) Activity verbs denote events controlled typically by a volitional agent (bring, buy,

carry, come, give, go, leave, move, open, run, take, work, etc.).

(4) Where where are we going? [ICE-SIN S1A-018 134]

Those which denote an activity that characteristically has duration such as chase,

shop, march, dance tend to occur more commonly with the progressive than those

which denote an instantaneous action such as throw, shut, smash, swallow.

(ii) Communication verbs express activities involving spoken and written commu-

nication (ask, announce, call, discuss, explain, say, shout, speak, state, suggest, talk, tell,

write, etc.).

(5) They will be talking during the night [ICE-HK S1A-002 228]

Again verbs expressing activities that are typically durative such as chat, joke, and talk

are more common with the progressive than those that do not, such as exclaim, reply

and thank.

(iii) Mental verbs express various types of perception, cognition and emotion. There

are sharp differences in the compatibility of members of this class with the progressive,

determined by the degree to which their meaning is dynamic or stative. Those that can

Table 2d Progressive forms in speech and writing

Speech Writing Total

Present 2836 62.7% 715 35.4% 3551 54.3%Past 1189 26.3% 922 45.7% 2111 32.3%Pres perfect 160 3.5% 73 3.6% 233 3.6%Past perfect 12 0.3% 60 3.0% 72 1.1%Modal 198 4.4% 92 4.6% 290 4.4%Modal perfect 9 0.2% 10 0.5% 19 0.3%To-infinitive 54 1.2% 41 2.0% 95 1.5%Pres passive 47 1.0% 60 3.0% 107 1.6%Past passive 17 0.4% 45 2.2% 62 0.9%TOTAL 4522 100% 2018 100% 6540 100%

234 P. Collins

refer to a deliberately performed perception or cognition (e.g. listen, taste, consider),

as in (6), are straightforwardly compatible with the progressive.

(6) I was just watching your map [ICE-HK S1A-001 740]

On the other hand those which normally have an inert, experiential, stative sense (e.g.

hear, feel, assume, wonder), are considerably restricted in their capacity to combine

with the progressive aspect, and when they do so specific semantic dimensions

associated with progressive aspectuality will be foregrounded. Thus the progressive in

(7) suggests a situation of limited duration; that in (8) indicates a changing situation;

that in (9) adds a component of duration to facilitate the process of interpreting the

situation (the interpretive use discussed in Section 7.2 below); while that in (10)

contributes an element of polite tentativeness in the expression of a wish (the

politeness use discussed in Section 7.3 below).

(7) But while youre on the front and the backs coming over it sweeps you nearly

straight down and youre youre thinking [ICE-AUS S1A-005 295]

(8) Are you feeling any older Peter [ICE-AUS S1A-005 10]

(9) Shes just assuming that youre couple just a couple of young kids [ICE-AUS

S1A-007 188]

(10) were about to go to Glebe markets and he hasnt called so I was just wondering

if you want to come [ICE-AUS S1A-007 64]

A notable grammatical feature that is found to varying degrees in the OC Englishes is

generally referred to as the common use, or overuse, of the progressive with stative

verbs (e.g. Platt, Weber & Ho 1984; Williams 1987; Rogers 2002; Buregeya 2006;

Gargesh 2006; Schmied 2006). In the OC corpora, however, relevant tokens involving

the use of the progressive with mental verbs of the inert stative type, as in (11) and

(12), were infrequent. A possible explanation for this is the educational level of ICE-

speakers (adults who have received formal education through the medium of English

to the completion of secondary level schooling). Nevertheless, that they were possible

at all, and were apparently not regarded as errors, suggests that the conditions on

their use in the OC Englishes are less restrictive than in the IC. The extended uses

were noted to be more common in IndE and KenE than in the Southeast Asian

varieties. It may be that this difference is associated with the extent to which the

varieties in question have progressed along Schneiders (2003) scale for the

development of New Englishes from exonormativity to endonormativity, and

perhaps to the extent of English use in the countries represented.

(11) I think that there is this urgency to to suddenly because you see there is

something in front of you as if a person is knowing that hes going to die [ICE-

HK S1A-013 61]

(12) Formally I was not liking it but uh I I developed to a liking over it [ICE-IND

S1A-022 266]


(iv) Occurrence verbs report events that occur independently of volitional activity

(become, change, happen, develop, grow, increase, occur, etc.), as in (13). With

their inherently durative senses, such verbs are readily compatible with the

progressive.

(13) Whats happening here? [ICE-SIN S1A-021 98]

(v) Existence verbs fall into two subclasses. The first is concerned with a state of

existence or stance (exist, live, stay, etc.), and these verbs occur readily with the

progressive, which suggests temporariness or limited duration, as in (14):

(14) Ive been living in Australia for last eleven years [ICE-HK S1A-003 15]

The second subclass is concerned with relationships, either those between entities

(contain, include, involve, represent, etc.), or those between entities and descriptions

(be, seem, appear, etc.), and these verbs are rare with the progressive.

As for stative mental verbs, so with existence verbs, examples were found in all of

the OC corpora which support claims of extended use of the progressive with stative

verbs in these varieties, including existential verbs expressing a state of existence as in

(15), a relationship between entities as in (16), and a relationship between an entity

and a description as in (17).

(15) how many days it was lasting this cyclone [ICE-IND S1A-002 184]

(16) Im just having a positive attitude [ICE-PHI S1A-006 35]

(17) He is now being a management trainee in a large firm [ICE-HK S1A-012 162]

(vi) Causative verbs indicate that a person or inanimate entity brings about a new

state of affairs (cause, enable, force, allow, help, let, require, permit, etc.), and are

rare with the progressive. An example is:

(18) I mean he couldnt they werent allowing him any access to books or the

radio or what [ICE-PHI S1A-010 90]

(vii) Aspectual verbs characterize the stage of progress of an activity (begin, continue,

finish, keep, start, stop, etc.), and are rare with the progressive. An example

follows:

(19) I was starting to try and learn trumpet out there [ICE-AUS S1A-011 75]

The main analytical problem involves the treatment of verbs that are polysemous. For

instance, have is not existential in (20), but rather a light verb denoting activity, while

in (21) go belongs to the communication rather than activity class:

236 P. Collins

(20) I know Firstname1s having a party [ICE-AUS S1A-010 35]

(21) Firstname4 was going Oooh yuckk ickk about you know about that Blue Jean

Day [ICE-AUS S1A-010 128]

The frequencies for the seven classes in the present study are compared below with

those of Smith for the seven verb classes in the present progressive (active) in FLOB,

and Biber et al.s (1999: 365) figures*progressive and non-progressive*for the Totalnumber of common lexical verbs from each semantic domain (verbs that occur at

least 50 times per million words).8

Smith Biber Collins

Activity 705 55.4% 138 49% 3110 47.5%

Communication 170 13.4% 36 13% 1110 16.9%

Mental 337 26.5% 53 19% 844 12.9%

Causative 35 2.7% 10 4% 731 11.1%

Occurrence 251 19.7% 14 5% 598 9.1%

Existence 59 4.6% 22 8% 77 1.1%

Aspectual 27 2.1% 8 3% 70 1.0%

The most striking difference here is that involving occurrence verbs (whose generally

imperfective meanings are compatible with the progressive).

As Tables 3ac show, the activity class is clearly the biggest (or perhaps we shouldsay still the biggest, insofar as the progressive was largely restricted to activity verbs

up to the eighteenth century), accounting for just under half of all progressive tokens,

with the causative and aspectual classes being very small. Smith (2002: 323) notes that

the mental and communication classes have been the most susceptible to increase in

recent decades, perhaps unsurprisingly given the association of verbs in these classes

with some of the relatively new special uses of the progressive (e.g. the association of

communication verbs with the interpretive use: see Section 7.2 below).

Given the more advanced nature, in terms of their frequency of usage of the

progressive, of the IC over the OC varieties, we might anticipate that the IC varieties

would have a higher proportion of mental and communication verbs than the OC

varieties. This hypothesis is not borne out. We can extrapolate from Table 3b that the

proportion of these verbs in the OC varieties (31.2% of all verbs) is in fact greater

than in the IC varieties (28.2%), though the difference is not significant at the 0.05

level. Even more striking are some of the findings relating to individual Englishes.

The IC variety with the smallest overall frequency of progressive tokens, AmE, has the

highest proportion of mental and communication verbs in the IC (33.1%), while the

IC variety with the largest overall frequency of progressive tokens, NZE, has the

smallest proportion of mental and communication verbs in the IC (24.7%).

Differences across the IC Englishes were not significant at the 0.05% level. Within

the Southeast Asian group it is HKE which has the largest overall frequency of

8 The reason why Smiths figures and percentages dont add up is that he double-counted ambivalent examples.


Table 3a Semantic verb categories of progressives in the individual Englishes

Activity Communication Mental Occurance Existence Causative Aspectual TOTAL

AUS 364 48.3% 130 17.3% 83 11.0% 75 10.0% 78 10.4% 12 1.6% 11 1.5% 753 100%NZ 416 46.5% 134 15.0% 87 9.7% 141 15.8 90 10.1 14 1.6 12 1.3 894 100%US 277 44.2% 110 17.6% 97 15.5% 73 11.7% 58 9.3% 9 1.4% 2 0.3% 626 100%GB 327 49.5% 91 13.8% 96 14.5% 69 10.5% 51 7.7% 16 2.4% 10 1.5% 660 100%KEN 365 42.5% 260 30.3% 79 9.2% 78 9.1% 59 6.9% 10 1.2% 7 0.8% 858 100%IND 294 46.1% 89 13.9% 87 13.6% 78 12.2% 79 12.4% 3 0.5% 8 1.3% 638 100%PHI 335 48.8% 122 17.8% 118 1.7% 50 7.3% 50 7.3% 7 1.0% 5 0.7% 687 100%SIN 364 53.3% 89 13.0% 91 13.3% 69 10.1% 57 8.3% 2 0.3% 11 1.6% 683 100%HK 368 49.7% 85 11.5% 106 14.3% 98 13.2% 76 10.3% 4 0.5% 4 0.5% 741 100%TOTAL 3110 100% 1110 100% 844 12.9% 731 11.1% 598 9.1% 77 1.1% 70 1.0% 6540 100%

Table 3b Semantic verb categories of progressives in the regional groups

Activity Communication Mental Occurance Existence Causative Aspectual TOTAL

Sth H Total 780 47.4% 264 16.0% 170 10.3% 216 13.1% 168 10.2% 26 1.6% 23 1.4% 1647 100%Nth H Total 604 47.0% 201 15.6% 195 15.2% 142 11.0% 109 8.5 25 1.9 12 0.9 1286 100INNER C Total 1384 47.2% 465 15.9% 363 12.4% 358 12.2% 277 9.4% 51 1.7% 35 1.2% 2933 100Afr/Ind Total 659 44.1% 349 23.3% 166 11.1% 156 10.4% 138 9.2% 13 0.9% 15 1.0% 1496 100%SE Asia Total 1067 50.5% 296 14.0% 315 14.9% 217 10.3% 183 8.7% 13 0.6% 20 0.9% 2111 100%OUTER C Total 1726 47.9% 645 17.9% 481 13.3% 373 10.3% 321 8.9% 26 0.7% 35 1.0% 3607 100%TOTAL 3110 100% 1110 100% 844 12.9% 731 11.1% 598 9.1% 77 1.1% 70 1.0% 6540 100%

23

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s

progressive tokens, but it has the smallest proportion of mental and communication

verbs (25.8%).

These findings raise an interesting question: what is meant when we speak of the

growth or spread of the progressive? It may simply mean an increase in overall

frequency of use. If it also means a spreading of this grammatical category within the

system (involving, with increasing grammaticalization, the appearance of new forms

and uses, movement into new semantic domains at the expense of others, and

expanded use in some registers at the expense of others) then this may not necessarily

go hand in hand with an increase in overall frequency. Is it not possible, for example,

that within the IC AmE is leading the way in the spread of the progressive (in the

second sense), even if it is not leading the way in the first sense?

7. Special Uses

Various writers have noted some specialized uses that have developed via expansion

of the aspectual meanings of the progressive aspect.

7.1. The Attitudinal Use

In this use the progressive expressing an habitual activity combines with a temporal

adjunct (usually always but possibly continually, constantly, forever or the like) to

suggest a temporal meaning described by Palmer (1987: 94) as sporadic repetition

and Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 167) as continual unpredictable recurrence that

is overlaid by an attitudinal overtone of disapproval. The subjectivity associated with

this use undoubtedly locates it on the fringes of the category of aspectuality, but given

its basis in the notion of durativity one would hesitate to accept Killies (2004)

suggestion that it is non-aspectual. The speakers tone throughout (22) is negative,

and this tone is reinforced by the selection of the progressive is talking over talks:

(22) Our English teacher she used to study in England when she was small and then,

she grew up there and studied in university and, and then now she came back to

Hong Kong to teach in our school. And then she is always talking about

England. She like it a lot and then always talking about the Royal Family and

Table 3c Semantic verb categories of progressives in speech and writing


Activity 2206 48.7% 904 44.7% 3110 47.5%Communication 845 18.6% 265 13.1% 1110 16.9%;Mental 557 12.3% 287 14.2% 844 12.9%Occurrence 404 8.9% 327 16.2% 731 11.1%Existence 430 9.5% 168 8.3% 598 9.1%Causative 44 0.9% 33 1.6% 77 1.1%Aspectual 36 0.7% 34 1.6% 70 1.0%TOTAL 4522 100% 2018 100% 6540 100%


then all the slangs and then were all sleepy and someone laughs so its useless.

She likes it very much and then, we we just think its very boring [ICE-HK S1A-

009 281]

7.2. The Interpretive Use

This use, discussed by*inter alia*Ljung (1980), Wright (1995), and Mindt (2000),foregrounds an interpretation or explanation of what somebody says, as in (23), or

what someone does, as in (24). An interesting gloss which is suggestive of how this

use has most likely evolved from the imperfective/durative meaning which is the basis

of progressive aspectuality, enabling a situation to be viewed from the inside, is

provided by Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 165): in emphasising duration, the

progressive metaphorically slows down or extends the situation in order to be able to

focus on clarifying its nature.

(23) Im talking about the dreams that you have given up chasing, she seethed.

[ICE-SIN W2F-002 102]

(24) What the Government is trying to do is to draw attention to the opportunities

overseas [ICE-SIN W2C-001 12]

7.3. The Politeness Use

Quirk et al. (1985: 210) note a politely tentative use of the progressive, whether

present or past, to express present wishes and attitudes, as in (25), observing that

such forms enable us to avoid the impoliteness which might well result from

expressing ones attitude too directly, eg in making a request. Relevant factors here are

most likely the oft-noted (e.g. Leech 1983) correlation between grammatical length

and politeness/diffidence, as well as the foregrounding of the implication*triggeredby the sense of temporary duration here*that the addressee has the option of non-compliance with the request.

(25) Im wondering uh whether this this thing will be will happen [ICE-SIN S1A-

029 228]

7.4. The Futurate Use

This use and that described in the next section are non-aspectual, and clear

reflections of the grammaticalization of the progressive aspect. According to

Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 171) the progressive futurate is restricted to cases

where human agency or intention is involved. Intentionality is generally clear with

first person subjects as in (26), but even here there are cases where future compliance

with an arranged schedule is more salient than intentionality, as in (27), where there

would arguably be no discernible shift of meaning were come to be substituted for m

coming:

240 P. Collins

(26) Im going for the ballet tonight [ICE-SIN S1A-012 308]

(27) Im coming back for a month [ICE-PHI S1A-012 105]

Some writers (e.g. Mindt 2000) distinguish futurity and intention as separate categories,

but in practice it is difficult to make this distinction with any confidence, as in (28):

(28) Which part of the USA are you going to? [ICE-SIN S1A-026 271]

7.5. The Matter of Course Use

As noted by Leech (1987), Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 172), and Mair & Leech (2006:

325), when will*or, less commonly shall or be going to*is used with the progressive,the meaning that is usually suggested is that the circumstances leading up to an action

have been set in train and that it will take place in the not-too-distant future.

(29) They will be talking during the night [ICE-HK S1A-002 228]

As Tables 4ac indicate, the futurate use is significantly more common than theother special uses (x2 (4)15.1315, pB0.05). Furthermore, insofar as Table 4cshows that the futurate is considerably more popular in speech than in writing, we

can probably accept as plausible Mair & Hundts (1995: 116) suggestion that it may

have played a role in the growth of the progressive. Given the fact that, as the

percentages suggest, all of the special uses except for the attitudinal use are more

popular in speech (where they account for 18.4% of all tokens) than they are in

writing (where they account for 9.1% of all tokens), it may be plausible to suggest

that as a set of non-central uses they are likely, in view of the colloquialization of

contemporary English, to have impacted on the growth of the progressive.

A comparison of the proportion of special uses in the IC and OC Englishes reveals

that the spread of the special uses*especially the interpretive and futurate*has beengreater in the former (representing 18.0% of all progressive tokens) than in the latter

(16.3%), but the differences were not statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

Table 4a Special uses of progressives in the individual Englishes

Interpretive Attitudinal Politeness Futurate Matter-of-course

TOTAL % ofall uses

AUS 41 26.6% 0 0.0% 3 1.9% 98 63.6% 12 7.8% 154 100% 20.5%NZ 24 17.5% 1 0.7% 0 0.0% 81 59.1% 31 22.6% 137 100% 15.3%US 63 53.4% 5 4.2% 9 7.6% 32 27.1% 9 7.6% 118 100% 18.8%GB 43 36.4% 0 0.0% 5 4.2% 63 53.4% 7 5.9% 118 100% 17.9%KEN 59 38.8% 4 3.5% 1 0.9% 37 32.5% 13 11.4% 114 100% 13.3%IND 27 32.5% 1 1.2% 1 1.2% 36 43.4% 18 21.7 83 100% 13.0%PHI 41 28.5% 3 2.1% 11 7.6% 70 48.6% 19 13.2% 144 100% 21.0%SIN 17 12.1% 1 0.7% 3 2.1% 87 61.7% 33 2.3% 141 100% 20.6%HK 13 12.4% 10 9.5% 3 2.9% 53 50.5% 26 24.8% 105 100% 14.2%TOTAL 328 29.4% 25 2.2% 36 3.2% 557 50.0% 168 15.1% 1114 100% 17.0%


A comparison of the OC Englishes reveals a clear division between PhilE and SingE on

the one hand (Englishes which are spoken by a high percentage of the population),

and HKE, KenE and IndE on the other: PhilE 21.0%SingE 20.6%HKE 14.2%KenE 13.3%IndE 13.0%. In fact, there appears to be a correlation at every pointalong the hierarchy with the extent to which English is regularly used in the country in

question. On the other hand, there is no correlation between the proportion of special

uses and the overall frequency of progressives in particular varieties as presented in

Table 1a, suggesting that the concept of spread or growth as applied to the

progressive may need to be interpreted as multidimensional.

8. Grammatical Environment

The data were analysed for a number of grammatical categories.

8.1. Clausal Negation

In the present study 4.7% of all progressives were negated, a slightly lower figure than

Romers (2005: 72ff) figure of 8% for spoken BrE, and Mindts (2000: 73) of 7%.

Negated progressives were more common in the IC varieties (5.2%) than the OC

(4.4%), and within the IC more common in the Southern Hemisphere varieties

(5.6%) than the Northern (4.6%), and within the OC more common in the Southeast

Asian Englishes (4.8%) than in African/Indian English (3.9%). The differences across

the regional groups were not, however, statistically significant (x2 (5)7.5083, p

Table 4b Special uses of progressives in the regional groups

Interp Attitud Polite Futurate M-of-C TOTAL % of alluses

Sth H 65 22.3% 1 0.3% 3 1.0% 179 61.5% 43 14.8% 291 100% 17.7%Nth H 106 44.9% 5 2.1% 14 5.9% 95 40.3% 16 6.8% 236 100% 18.4%Inner C 171 32.4% 6 1.1% 17 3.2% 274 60.0% 59 11.2% 527 100% 18.0%Afr/Ind 86 43.7% 5 2.5% 2 1.0% 73 37.1% 31 15.7% 197 100% 13.2%SE Asia 71 18.2% 14 3.6% 17 4.4% 210 53.8% 78 20.0% 390 100% 18.5%Outer C 157 26.7% 19 3.2% 19 3.2% 283 48.2% 109 18.6% 587 100% 16.3%TOTAL 328 29.4% 25 2.2% 36 3.2% 557 50.0% 168 15.1% 1114 100% 17.0%

Table 4c Special uses of progressives in speech and writing


Interpretive 284 6.2% 44 2.1% 328 5.0%Politeness 33 0.7% 3 0.1% 36 0.5%Futurate 469 10.3% 88 4.3% 557 8.5%Matter-of-course 128 2.8% 40 1.9% 168 2.5%

Note: %percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

242 P. Collins

0.05), nor across the individual Englishes (x2 (8)13.0007, p0.05). In Section 10below we calculate the progression of the progressive over the four regional groups

across a range of variables. Interestingly the ordering so determined (Southern

HemisphereSoutheast AsiaNorthern HemisphereAfrica/India) is the same asthat for negated progressives here, indicating perhaps that they represent a

developmentally more advanced construction than positives.

8.2. Clause Type

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a strong preference for

progressives to be located within subordinate clauses (Strang 1982; Smitterberg

2000). Smith (2002) notes an increase in main clause use in his study of BrE writing

between the 1960s and 1990s. It is therefore not surprising that, as Table 6c shows, the

proportion of progressives in the main clause is higher (marginally yet significantly)

in speech than in writing (x2 (1)31.1625, pB0.05).The IC varieties had a higher proportion of main clause uses than did the OC

(70.2%:67.0%), though the difference was not statistically significant at the 0.05 level,

while within the IC the Southern Hemisphere varieties lead the way and within the

OC the Southeast Asian varieties lead.

8.3. Temporal Specification via Adjuncts

As Table 7b indicates, temporal specification via adjuncts is more popular in the OC

varieties (17.0%) than the IC (15.4%), but not significantly so (x2 (1)2.0499, p

Table 5a Negated progressives in the individual Englishes


41 5.4% 52 5.8% 28 4.5% 31 4.7% 32 3.7% 26 4.1% 25 3.6% 45 6.6% 32 4.3% 312 4.7%

Table 5b Negated progressives in the regional groups

Sth Hem Nth Hem INNER C Afr/Ind SE Asia OUTER C TOTAL

93 5.6% 59 4.6% 152 5.2% 58 3.9% 102 4.8% 160 4.4% 312 4.7%

Table 5c Negated progressives in speech and writing


229 5.0% 83 4.1% 312 4.7%



Table 6a Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in the individual varieties


Subordclauses

157 20.8% 287 32.1% 188 30.0% 242 36.7% 378 44.1% 175 27.4% 223 32.5% 206 30.2% 243 32.8% 2099 32.1%

Mainclauses

596 79.2% 607 67.9% 438 70.0% 418 63.3% 480 55.9% 463 72.6% 464 67.5% 477 69.8% 498 67.2% 4441 67.9%

TOTAL 753 100% 894 100% 626 100% 660 100% 858 100% 638 100% 687 100% 683 100% 741 100% 6540 100%

Table 6b Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in the regional groups

Sth Hem Nth Hem INNER Afr/Ind SE Asia OUTER TOTAL

Subord clauses 444 27.0% 430 33.4% 874 29.8% 553 37.0% 672 31.8% 1225 33.0% 2099 32.1%Main clauses 1203 73.0% 856 66.6% 2059 70.2% 943 63.0% 1439 68.2% 2482 67.0% 4441 67.9%TOTAL 1647 100% 1286 100% 2933 100% 1496 100% 2111 100% 3707 100% 6540 100%

24

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s

0.05). Within these circles we find the same ordering as that noted for a number of

other variables: Southern Hemisphere (17.4%) ahead of Northern (12.9%), and

Southeast Asia (18.4%) ahead of India/Africa (15.0%).

Temporal specification via adjuncts is marginally (but not significantly: x2 (1)2.5037, p0.05) more common in writing than speech. The frequencies presented inTable 7c may be compared with those of 13.4% in mainly AmE speech reported by

Ota (1963: 14), 21% in BrE novels reported by Scheffer (1975: 55), and 23.6% in BrE

speech reported by Romer (2005: 75ff).

9. Contraction

One overt marker of colloquialization is contraction, in the case of the progressive be-

contraction and not-contraction. Romer (2005: 66ff) reports a rate of contraction of

slightly more than half in her spoken BrE progressives, while Smith (2002: 326) notes

a dramatic increase in the incidence of contracted progressive in his written BrE

corpus data between 1961 and 1991/2 (even excluding quoted speech).

Table 6c Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in speech and writing


Subord clauses 1327 29.3% 733 36.3% 2100 32.1%Main clauses 3195 70.7% 1285 63.7% 4440 67.9%TOTAL 4522 100% 2018 100% 6540 100%


Table 7a Progressives with temporal adjuncts in the individual Englishes


12917.1%

15717.6%

619.7%

10515.9%

13515.7%

8913.9%

11116.2%

11016.1%

16822.7%

106516.3%

Table 7b Progressives with temporal adjuncts in the regional groups


TOTAL 286 17.4% 166 12.9% 452 15.4% 224 15.0% 389 18.4% 613 17.0% 1065 16.3%

Table 7c Progressives with temporal adjuncts in speech and writing


710 15.7% 355 17.5% 1065 16.2%



In the present study, as Table 8a and 8b show, contracted progressives were

considerably more prevalent in the IC Englishes than in those of the OC. As expected,

the frequency of contracted progressives in speech significantly outstrips that in

writing (x2 (5)52.5685, pB0.05). The Southeast Asian Englishes were particularlyconservative in the written mode, with all three yielding a rate of contraction (PhilE

5.2%, HKE 5.0%, and SingE 2.6%) that was lower*to a degree approachingsignificance (x2 (1)3.5198, p0.06)*than that for KenE (6.8%) and IndE (7.6%),and significantly lower (x2 (1)33.2487, pB0.05) than that for the Inner Circlevarieties (AmE 14.7%, NZE 14.6%, AusE 14.6%, BrE 11.9%).

10. Conclusion

The variables examined do not enable us to provide a definitive answer to the

question: In which of the Englishes*and subgroups of Englishes*examined has theprogressive advanced the furthest? If we consider the sheer frequency of tokens in

both speech and writing, then it is the Southern Hemisphere pair that are in front, as

it is in the proportion of complex progressive forms, of negated forms, and of main

clause uses. On other measures it is the Northern Hemisphere pair that are in the

lead: relative popularity in speech, and proportion of contracted tokens. The three

Southeast Asian Englishes come out in front on two variables: proportion of special

uses and the proportion of progressives with temporal specification. The African/

Indian pair lead on one dimension only, the proportion of progressives with mental

and communication verbs. As a crude measure for assessing the ordering of the

Table 8a Contracted progressives in the individual Englishes


35046.5

31935.7%

27043.1%

25939.2%

15618.2%

8012.5%

25637.3%

21831.9%

20928.2%

211732.4%

Table 8b Contracted progressives in the regional groups


Speech 583 55.2% 483 51.7% 1066 53.5% 205 19.3% 656 44.7% 861 34.0% 1927 42.6%Writing 86 14.6% 46 13.1% 132 14.0% 31 7.2% 27 4.2% 58 5.4% 190 9.4%TOTAL 669 40.6% 529 41.1% 1198 40.8% 236 15.8% 683 32.4% 919 25.5% 2117 32.4%

Note: %percentage of all progressive tokens in speech, writing, and speechwriting.

Table 8c Contracted progressives in speech and writing


1927 42.6% 190 9.4% 2117 32.3%


246 P. Collins

groups in terms of the set of variables examined, I allotted scores for the groups on

each variable (four points for first place, three for second, two for third, and one for

fourth). The result was as follows: Southern Hemisphere 26Southeast Asia 23Northern Hemisphere 21Africa/India 18. This ordering raises interesting questionsabout the putatively dominant status of BrE and AmE on the world stage of English.

Rather, it would appear, the Englishes of the Asia-Pacific are more advanced, or

perhaps adventurous, in their use of the progressive than the two established and

influential Northern Hemisphere varieties, with the Englishes of Kenya and India

being the least advanced.9

To what extent does this ordering reflect the behaviour of individual Englishes? In

order to attempt an answer to this question I compared all nine of the individual

Englishes on the same variables, using a points system ranging from nine points for

first place to one point for ninth place. The result was as follows: AusE 63NZE50SingE 49PhilE 48AmE 46BrE 42HKE/KenE 38IndE 31. Theordering here is largely predictable from that for the four subgroups (and provides

some support for their postulation in this study). The two individual Southern

Hemisphere varieties (AusE and NZE) come out in front, followed by two of the

Southeast Asian Englishes (SingE and PhilE), followed by the two Northern

Hemisphere Englishes (AmE and BrE), while the two members of the Africa/India

group (KenE and IndE) bring up the rear. The only regional variety out of place is

HKE (patterning with KenE rather than with the other members of the Southeast

Asian group).

Of the two Southern Hemisphere varieties AusE outscores NZE (not surprisingly,

given the attested tendency for AusE to be generally less conservative than NZE in

matters of syntax and morphology: see Hundt 1998). Of the two Northern

Hemisphere varieties AmE outscores BrE (again not surprisingly in view of the

generally greater progressiveness of the former in grammatical change: see Mair &

Leech 2006). The ordering within the Southeast Asian group (SingEPhilEHKE),and that of KenE before IndE, are harder to explain. Possible factors here may be the

relative number of people regularly using English on the countries represented, and

the extent to which the Englishes in question have begun to develop their own norms

of English usage.

Finally, the findings are compatible with Biber et al.s (1999: 20) view that

grammatical categories are prone to more extensive variation across registers than

across dialects. In all of the nine Englishes examined the progressive is approximately

twice as common in speech as in writing (undoubtedly an important factor in its

9 It could be objected that three of the nine variables used for the scoring are unlikely to be directly relevant to

the progression of the progressive: namely, mental and communication verbs, negated progressives, and

temporal specification. Omitting them from the calculations does not alter the ordering of the four regional

groups: Sth Hem 18SE Asia 16Nth Hem 15Afr/Ind 11. There are however some repositionings in thecomparison of the nine individual Englishes (AusE 43PhilE 40NZE/AmE 32SingE 31BrE 25KenE24HKE 22IndE 21). Nevertheless the strong position of the Sth Hem group and the weak position of theAfr/Ind group are still in evidence, the Nth Hem varieties still occupy middle ground, and the SEA varieties are

spread along the spectrum.


rising popularity in the language), and furthermore in all varieties more common in

news than in academic prose, and (with the single exception of PhilE) more common

in fiction than in news. The two most popular progressive forms, the simple present

progressive and simple past progressive contrast strikingly in their stylistic

preferences: the relative popularity of the present form being almost twice as great

in speech as in writing, that of the past form almost twice as great in writing as in

speech (consistent with Smiths 2002 view that it is the present form that has been in

the vanguard of change in recent decades). The most frequently occurring of the

special uses, the futurate, displays a strong preference for speech over writing,

lending plausibility to Mair & Hundts (1995: 116) suggestion that this use may have

been a factor in the growth of the progressive.

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