Values

0 no 9
1 yes 24
? missing value 1

Is there a grammatical device for progressivity?

Uralic Areal Typology feature UT018

Is there a grammatical device for progressivity?

The progressive views the situation “as ongoing at a single point in time, but it does not exhaustively localize the event” (Bertinetto et al. 2000:527). Historically, progressives often have locative sources, and development into progressives has involved erosion of the locative meaning (e.g. Bybee et al. 1994). This question asks whether a language contains a dedicated means to express progressivity. Finnish and South Saami use a periphrastic construction that consists of an auxiliary 'be' + a non-finite verb form (in South Saami, the auxiliary verb may be dropped):

(1) Finnish
Ole-n luke-ma-ssa
be-1SG read-SUP-INE
‘I am reading’

(2) South Saami
Manne Staaresne årroeminie
1SG Staare.INE live.PROG
‘I am living in Östersund’

Coding. The value is '1' if there is a grammatical device that can be associated with the expression of progressivity. The value is '1' even if in some contexts the respective device may appear in a locative meaning.

References
Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Karen H. Ebert & Casper de Groot. 2000. The progressive in Europe. In Östen Dahl (ed.), 'Tense and Aspect in the langauges of Europe, 517–558. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Language Value Comment Example Id

Values for this feature plotted on the phylogenetic tree