--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande" <aquila_grande@...>
wrote:
>
>
> > > I have a question about Swedish.
> > > Danish has a progressive tense construction 'Jeg er ved at
> skrive'
> > >
>
> I think the matter of aspect expressions in scandinavian languages
> deserves a thorogh discussion, because they play a fairly great
role
> in dayly practical language.
>
> Norwegian does not have that locativ progressive expressiion, but
> lot of others, like:
>
> Jeg er i ferd med å skrive brev - I am in the way of writing a
letter
> jeg driver og skriver brev - I act and write a letter
> Jeg sitter og skriver brev - I sit and write a letter
>
All true so far except I would loke to reserve the term 'locativic
progressive' to a construction where the action is expressed by the
verbal noun or gerund in the locative. It deserves a special term
since logically it's a bit odd: the agent is supposedly 'at' his
action, ie physically present at an abstract.
The other widespread West European progressive tense construction is
also 'locativic' in the sense that the physical position of the agent
is mentioned, but his presence is plain and direct, not abstract at
an 'action', namely:
Italian: sta parlando
Spanish: está hablando
Portuguese: esta falando
Dutch: staat te praten
Danish: står og taler
Swedish: står och talar
It's possible that these originate in the same odd idea idea of
physical presence at at an action: note that the Romance forms in
-ndo are not from the Latin present participle (which would make it
mean "he stands talking", or given the tendency of 'stare' "stand" to
assume the meaning "be", "he is talking", with the English gerund
here interpreted as a present participle), but from the Latin gerund,
which is the inflected form of the infinitive, in this case it might
be in the ablative in the locative sense; thus the construction might
interpreted again as "physical presence at an abstract action".
The Dutch have replaced the gerund (if that's what it is) with an
infinitive, which makes sense. The Scandinavian forms might come from
the homonomy of Danish 'at' /å/ "to" (with infinitives),
and 'og' /å/ "and" (Norwegian 'å' "to;and") which meant a
construction with an infinitive, like the Dutch one, was
reinterpreted as a parallel construction with 'and'.
Therefore those two progressive constructions may have the same
origin. But I'd still like to reserve the term for the
'I am on-talking' construction (Basque, Dutch, English, Northwest
German, Danish, possibly Potuguese, Spanish, Italian), and use some
other term for the 'I sit and speak' construction (Dutch, Danish,
Norwegian, Swedish).
Torsten