concretization of a construction: conditioning the progressive in 20 th -century spain

Concretization of a construction: Conditioning the

Progressive in 20th-century Spain

Grant M. BerryThe Pennsylvania State University

GURT 2014

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• “…thou mayest send for thy wife and children to thee to this village, where there are houses now stand empty, one of which thou mayest have at reasonable rates...”

• “Now I begin to reap the benefits of my hazards.”

• Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan, 1678).

Introduction Aspect Priming Current Study Coding Results Conclusion

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The English Progressive

• Composed of ‘to be’+Gerund• It used to compete with the simple present to convey present temporal

reference• Now however, it is used in contexts with well-defined temporal

constraints• Indicate continuity or an action circumscribed to speech time

• Due to changes in frequency and relative distribution in these temporally-bounded contexts, the Progressive became the norm in those contexts• This left the simple Present to convey other imperfective aspects, and it

became zero marked for habitual actions (Bybee, Pagliuca, and Perkins 1994)


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ESTAR+Gerund: The Spanish Progressive• Composed of an auxiliary verb (estar, ‘to be’) and a gerund• Originates from a locative construction• Through gradual changes in conditioning and frequency, the following

reanalysis has occurred over the last 700 years:(cf. Torres Cacoullos 2011; Torres Cacoullos 2012:78; Bybee 2010:148)

• However, it is still not as grammaticalized as the English Progressive. • The Spanish Progressive can be a useful tool to determine how

progressives arise cross-linguistically.


[ESTAR]LOC + [VERB(GERUND)]COMPLEMENT [ESTARAUX+VERB(GERUND)]PROG

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• Progressive:Es que estoy hablando por fuera, sí. be-PRS.3SG that be-PRS.1SG speak-GER by outside yes(CORLEC ACON023A:149)I’m just talking outside. Yeah.

• Simple Present:¿Y por qué hablas como cortado? (CORLEC ACON023A:148) and for what speak-PRS.2S like cut-PTCPWhy are you cutting out?

• Both in the same utterance:Está haciendo un doctorado be-PRES.3SG do-GER DET-INDF-MASC.SG doctorate y trabaja en el CIEMAT. and work-PRES.3SG in DET-DEF-MASC.SG CIEMAT

Current State of Variation:

• The Spanish Progressive currently exhibits variability with the simple Present when conveying present temporal reference• However, the simple Present is not

yet zero-marked for habitual like it is in English, because it can still convey progressive meaning• In fact, both can still be used within

the exact same utterance and temporal context


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• Locative (15th-century)Lucrecia e Melibea están cabe la puertaLucrecia and Melibea be-PRS-3PL beside DET-DEF-FEM-SG door aguardando a Calisto. (La Celestina: Act XII)watch-GER Calisto Lucrecia and Melibea are beside the door watching Calisto.

[ESTAR]LOC + [VERB(GERUND)]COMPLEMENT

Grammaticalization of progressives• Locatives often grammaticalize to

become progressive

• Locatives also have a strong connection to progressive constructions (Comrie 1976:98-103)

• Like many other constructions, they tend to follow a unidirectional grammaticalization path.• Eventually, many progressives

further grammaticalize to become continuous or imperfectives (Bybee et al.1994:138-144; Bybee 2010: 107)


• Progressive (20th-century)Ya te estás haciendo mayor. Ya teAlready REFL-be.PRS.2SG do-GER older already Pro-REFL.2SG estás haciendo mayor, ¿no, Bicho? (BCON048B:35)be.PRS.2SG do-GER older no sweetie/bug You’re getting older. You’re getting older, aren’t you sweetie?

[ESTARAUX+VERB(GERUND)]PROG

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• Limited Duration: Como si alguien eh - está metiendo maraña por aquí. as if someone be-PRS.3SG insert-GER tangle by here(ACON007A:3)Like someone is getting tangled up around here.

• Extended Duration:Lo cual la hace bastante odiosa. It which ACC-FEM.SG make-PRS.3S enough hated(CCON002A:104)Which makes her pretty hated.

• Indeterminate:Porque yo me acuerdo de cuando Because PRO-1S REFL-1S agree-PRS.1S of-PREP when yo era jovencito (ECON023A:85).PRO-1S be-IMP.1S Young-DIM-MASC.SGBecause I remember when I was young.

Progressives and grammatical aspect• Aspect can be defined broadly at

the level of the phrase or in terms of lexical types (Aktionsart properties)• Phrase level:• Limited Duration• Extended Duration

• Lexical level:• Dynamic verbs• Statives


• Dynamic Verb:Si me lo está contagiando a If DAT-1S ACC-MASC.SG be-PRS.3S infect-GER to-PREPmí, es horrible. (ACON112C:168)me-PREP.Obj be-PRES.es horribleIf it’s infecting me, it’s horrible.

• Stative Verb:Tenemos aquí a César Rojo – (ECON006B:62)have-PRS-1PL here César RojoHere we have César Rojo.

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Syntactic priming: A tool to autonomy• Recycling/Repetition of syntactic structures in discourse• Frequently studied in psycholinguistic literature as an automatic

process which facilitates syntactic access during production (Ferreira and Bock 2006; Bock 1986) • ESTAR+Gerund: Which component pieces are susceptible to priming?• Entire constructionautonomy• ESTAR or Gerundsome degree of analyzability• Simple Present or other high analyzability, weak construction


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Where does the Spanish Progressive stand?• Since the Spanish Progressive still varies with the simple Present, the

simple Present has not formed a zero marker for habitual in Spanish like it has in English (Bybee 1994).

• How has its aspectual distinction, as reflected through its presence in limited duration vs extended duration contexts, changed over the last century?• Has the construction maintained a strong affinity for dynamic verbs,

or has it generalized to statives as well? (Walker 2010:96)

• Does the construction demonstrate a degree of analyzability, or has it become autonomous?


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The current study• Corpus: Conversational portion of CORLEC (Corpus Oral

de Referencia de la Lengua Española Contémporanea) (Marcos-Marín 1992)

• Conversational Corpus compiled around Madrid between 1991-1992

• Tokens:• Progressive tokens of present temporal reference were

exhaustively extracted• 340 tokens, 134 unique lexical types

• Using these lexical types, simple Present tokens were extracted from surrounding files algorithmically, with a maximum extraction of 10 per type.• 677 simple Present tokens; 74 unique lexical types

• Total count: 1017 tokens


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Progressive predictors and variable context• Variable Context: Present temporal reference (see Walker 2010)

• Predictors: (see Torres Cacoullos 2012)

• Aspect (Phrase)• Syntactic priming• Polarity of the clause• Presence of a co-occurring locative• Presence of a co-occurring temporal adverbial• Lexical aspect


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Exclusions

• Truncations• Repetitions• Repairs• Multiple gerunds with a single

estar• Metalinguistic contexts• Quotative decir (‘to say’)• Prefabs ya ves’ (‘you see’), ‘digo yo’

(‘I mean’), and ‘lo que pasa’ (‘the issue is…’)

Está la vida para No, ‑ estoy eso, ‑ presenciando Be-3.PRS.3SG the life for no be-PRS.1SG that witness-GER en España cómo hemos pasado… (ACON033A:190)in Spain how have-PERF.1PL pass-PTCPLife is for—no, I’m—yes, witnessing in Spain how we’ve passed…


Ya te estás haciendo mayor. Ya teAlready REFL-be.PRS.2SG do-GER older Already Pro-REFL.2SG estás haciendo mayor, ¿no, Bicho? (BCON048B:35)be.PRS.2SG do-GER older no sweetie/bug You’re getting older. You’re getting older, aren’t you sweetie?

…ellos están actuado ‑ actuando dentro de Pro-NOM.MASC.3PL be.PRS.3PL act-PTCP act-GER inside of la burocracia…(ACON026A:62)DET-DEF-FEM.SG bureaucracy They are acted—acting within the bureaucracy

…la gente que está escuchando, viendo, DET-DEF-FEM.S people that be-PRS.3SG listen-GER see-GER leyendo medios de comunicación- (ACON009A:25)read-GER means of communicationPeople that are listening to, seeing, and reading means of communication-

Se dice el gerundio, estoy REFL say-PRES.3SG DET-DEF-MASC.SG gerund be-PRS-1SG pariendo. (CCON034A:309)

birth-GERYou say the gerund: I’m giving birth.

Y entonces me dice él: "Pues no‑and so Pro-ACC.1SG say-QUOT Pro-MASC.3SG well no sé…” (ACON011A:99)know-PRS.1SGAnd then he tells me: “Well, I don’t know…”

Ya ves. Ha subido la already see-PRS.2SG AUX-PRS.3SG raise-PTCP DET-DEF-FEM.SGvida. (ACON006A:33)life.Yeah. Life’s already gotten better.

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Coding for prime type• Priming was determined by looking back three clauses,

counting finite verbs. (see Gries 2005, Weiner & Labov 1983)

• The nearest prime was coded using the following type hierarchy: Progressive (Estar+Gerund) > Estar > Other. If a higher-order type was found within the first three clauses, it was recorded independent of the intervention of other lower-order tokens before it.


Progressive

Estar

Other

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Results• Strong effect for

aspect• Strong priming effect

for Progressives• Neg polarity is a

conservative environment• Stative verbs disfavor

the construction


Table 1: Linguistic Factors Conditioning Estar+Gerund in 20th-century Spain (CORLEC Conversational)

Weight %Prog NAspect

Limited Duration 0.79 59% 274/462Extended Duration 0.24 12% 61/531

Range: 55Priming

Progressive 0.77 54% 57/105Estar 0.59 41% 45/110Other 0.45 30% 236/800

Range: 32Polarity

Positive 0.52 35% 330/945Negative 0.30 14% 10/72

Range: 22Lexical Aspect

Dynamic 0.53 35% 306/868Stative 0.35 23% 34/149

Range: 18Co-occurrence of Temporal Adverbial

Present 0.62 35% 38/109Not Present 0.48 32% 281/877

Range: 14Factors not selected as significant: Co-occurrence of a locative expression

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Diachronic Trends• Monotonic increase in limited

duration contexts since Old Spanish• The construction is continuing

its gradual takeover of limited duration contexts

• Lower overall increase in the 20th century may be owed to conversational genre

• Slight increases in extended duration contexts since 17thc.• Why?


13-15c 17c 19c 20c0

2

4

6

8

2.5

6.8 7

5.2

Relative Ratio

Limited Duration

Extended Duration

Limited Duration

Extended Duration

Limited Duration

Extended Duration

Limited Duration

Extended Duration

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

37

15

41

6

56

8

59.3

11.5

Estar+Gerund Simple Present

Occ

urre

nce

(%)

(Adapted in part from Torres Cacoullos 2014:11)

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Table 2: Aspect by Co-occurring Temporal Adverbial None Ahora Other Total

Limited Duration

228 58% 16 80% 30 63% 274 59% Prog394 20 48 462 Total

Extended Duration

48 10% 5 45% 8 14% 61 11% 461 11 59 531

Total 276 32% 21 68% 38 36% 335 34% 855 31 107 993


Table 3: Aspect by Lexical Aspect Dynamic Stative Total

Limited Duration 247 62% 27 44% 274 59% Prog400 62 462 Total

Extended Duration

55 12% 6 7% 61 11% 448 83 531

Total 302 36% 33 23% 335 34% 848 145 993

X2 test p>.1

When occurring in extended duration contexts, it is licensed by a co-occurring temporal adverbial.

The construction has generalized to stative verbs, common with progressives (Walker 2010: 96)

¿Qué cuadro estás haciendo ahora, Irene? (BCON043A:1)What-INT painting be-PRS-2SG do-GER now IreneWhat painting are you working on now (these days), Irene?

Yo no sé, por ejemplo yo este año I no know-PRS-1SG for example I this yeares que estoy teniendo (CCON013F:14)‑it’s that be-PRS-1SG have-GERI don’t know, this year I’ve just been having…

Y ha/ ‑ hay gente mayor, gente de ‑ And the- there are people older people of pues eso, mucho ‑ nórdico, que está well that, many Nordic, that be-PRS3Sviviendo allí todo el año (ACON023A:18)live-GER there all yearAnd there are older people, people who—well, anyway—many Nordic people who are living (live) there all year.

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Conclusion

• The last 100 years have engendered changes in distribution and analyzability of ESTAR+Gerund• The construction has further grammaticalized, now showing strong

priming effects with itself. This indicates the construction now has a high degree of autonomy• It does maintain a slight priming effect for estar, which indicates that the

construction is—in contrast to English—still slightly analyzable.

• Though its gradual monopolization of limited duration contexts is still not at English-like levels, it has generalized to stative verbs and is usually licensed in extended duration contexts by a temporal adverbial


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THANK YOU to:

• Rena Torres Cacoullos

• Members of the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at Penn State

• The planning committee of GURT 2014

concretization of a construction: conditioning the progressive in 20 th -century spain

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