--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <G.and.P@...> wrote:
>
> >'stative verbs', which
> >may be defined as verbs that (almost) lack progressive forms.
> >Examples are 'own' and 'be'. My personal preference is to say that
> >the progressive is largely lacking in these verbs because it adds
> >nothing to the meaning, ...
>
> Remember there is more than one form of English. Verbs which have
> no progressive in one "standard" do have in others -
> such as Indian English.
That may be due to interference.
As a student in Tamil Nadu in the 70's I don't recall progressive
used with stative verbs; doesn't really occur in Tamil. Apparently
things were different in North India even then and seem to have
spread out. [I attended a wedding when I was in college and had
to leave before the reception. Somebody asked me "Are you leaving
now only?" I started explaining that I had plenty of time to
make it to the bus station while my interlocutor grew greatly
puzzled. Much later I learned that that is Mod IA languages
had the same particle for both "now itself" and "now only",
with the difference indicated by verb form. Strangely enough,
my wife who doesn't really know Hindi or other Norht Indian
languages says things like that, in spite of the fact that
Tamil uses different particles for the distinction, along with
different verb forms. The difference seems to be that I spoke a
lot in English in India, while my wife did not really converse
in English till she came to US, where she was exposed much more
to those of North Indian origin.] On the other hand, I recall
"germans" speaking English in TV shows saying things like
"I am knowing this" (supposed to be funny).
Detailed investigations show that languages extend the progressive
to habitual before extending it to stative. At that point, the
progressive shades into imperfective. This has nothing to
do with culture, but rather the common pattern of syntactical
change.
Nath Rao