On Interaction Between English Progressive Construction And Verbs With ACP Model

Aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation (Comrie 1976, p. 3). They are linguistic phenomena that exist in almost all languages. The aspects of English are generally considered to be divided into perfective and imperfective. The English progressive belongs to the imperfective, and possesses the features of"imperfective, ongoing, dynamic". Scholars from different fields of linguistics have studied the English progressive from different angles, some of which are quite convincing and inspiring, but none of them has studied from the angle of Construction Grammar. Michaelis (2004) analyzes the English progressive from the angle of aspectual coercion, but she does not provide an adequate analysis on the interaction between the English progressive construction and different verb types. This paper attempts to give a detailed analysis of the English progressive when it combines with different types of verbs, i.e. statives, activities, accomplishments, achievements with the model of ACP (Aspectual Coercion and Prominence).The data of this paper is from BNC (British National Corpus), with sentences containing the expression"is V-ing"as representatives for analysis. Altogether, there are 2,051 different verbs which are found to be in the English present progressive in the data collected, with the total sentences reaching 47,102. All the verbs chosen are divided into four types, i.e. statives, activities, achievement, and accomplishments in light of Vendler's idea. From the analysis of the data collected, we find that the percentages of the four types of verbs in the English progressive are 5.1%, 56.3%, 30.8%, 7.8% respectively. We try to make the following tentative explanation on the above figures with the model of ACP.a. The activities can combine with the English progressive unproblematically, and no coercion is involved in their interaction. After their combination the dynamic characteristic expressed by the verb is further intensified. The whole expression shows the state of an activity going on in a certain period of time. As the speaker views the whole situation from internal, the ongoing stage of the process is profiled as figure while the beginning and ending points act as ground. When the simple present form of the verb indicates a habitual state, then its progressive form shows a state of temporariness.b. When statives and the English progressive are used together, the percentage is the lowest. The verbs must receive coercion of activity from the construction so as to dissolve the conflict between the verb and the construction. Generally speaking, the whole expression acquires the meaning of"temporariness, being active". The meaning of the changing process is profiled in this case, still with the beginning and the ending as ground.c. When the English progressive is combined with the achievements, the telic feature of the verbs will be eliminated as a result of the"imperfecting"coercion they receive from the English progressive construction. Here the ongoing stage of the process is profiled as figure while the beginning and ending points act as ground. The semantics and pragmatic meaning of the achievement is almost the same with the activities used in the English progressive.d. Accomplishments have to receive"durative"coercion from the English progressive construction when used with the English progressive. Generally speaking, the momentary feature of the verb is eliminated and the action expressed by the verb acquires a trait of continuing.