Continuous and progressive aspects
The continuous and progressive aspects are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action or state in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
In the grammars of many languages the two terms are used interchangeably. This is also the case with English: a construction such as "He is washing" may be described either as present continuous or as present progressive. However, there are certain languages for which two different aspects are distinguished. In Chinese, for example, progressive aspect denotes a current action, as in "he is getting dressed", while continuous aspect denotes a current state, as in "he is wearing fine clothes".
As with other grammatical categories, the precise semantics of the aspects vary from language to language, and from grammarian to grammarian. For example, some grammars of Turkish count the -iyor form as a present tense; some as a progressive tense; and some as both a continuous and a progressive aspect.
Continuous versus progressive
The progressive aspect expresses the dynamic quality of actions that are in progress while the continuous aspect expresses the state of the subject that is continuing the action. For instance, "Tom is reading" can express dynamic activity: "Tom is reading a book" – i.e. right now, or Tom's current state: "Tom is reading for a degree" – i.e. Tom is a student. The aspect can often be ambiguous; "Tom is reading Ulysses" may describe his current activity, or the state of having started, but not yet finished, the book.Continuous and progressive in various languages
Unless otherwise indicated, the following languages treat continuous and progressive aspects the same, in which case the term continuous is used to refer to both.English
Use
The continuous aspect is constructed by using a form of the copula, "to be", together with the present participle. It is generally used for actions that are occurring at the time in question, and does not focus on the larger time-scale. For example, the sentence "Andrew was playing tennis when Jane called him." indicates what Andrew was doing when Jane called him, but does not indicate for how long Andrew played, nor how often he plays; for that, the simple past would suffice: "Andrew played tennis three hours every day for several years."Salikoko Mufwene contrasts the effect of the progressive form on the meanings of action verbs versus those of lexically stative verbs:
Origin
The progressive aspect in English likely arose from two constructions that were used fairly rarely in Old and Early Middle English. The first used a form of beon/wesan with a present participle. This construction has an analogous form in Dutch. The second used beon/wesan, a preposition, and a gerund, and has been variously proposed as being influenced by similar forms in Latin and French or British Celtic, though evidence one way or another is scant. Over the course of the Middle English period, sound shifts in the language meant that the participle ending and the gerund ending merged into a new ending,. This change, which was complete in southern England around the late fifteenth century and spread north from there, rendered participles and gerunds indistinguishable. It is at this point that a sudden increase in the use of progressive forms is visible, though they would not take their current form until the eighteenth century. Linguist Herbert Schendl has concluded that "with this feature, a polygenetic origin... seems attractive, and at least the further extension of the progressive is a language-internal development."Berber
In the Amazigh language, past continuous is formed by using the fixed participle ' ; is added before the verb that is in the present tense. So we have:Present continuous is usually the same as the present tense. But in the Riff variety of Berber, the participle ' is added before the verb to form present continuous.
Chinese
is one family of languages that makes a distinction between the continuous and progressive aspects.Cantonese
marks both aspects with verb suffixes. gan2 is typically used to express progressive aspect, while zyu6 is used to express continuous aspect. Take the following example:| Example | |
| Progressive | |
| Continuous |
In the example, the progressive aspect expresses the fact that the subject is actively putting on clothes rather than merely wearing them as in the continuous aspect. This example is useful for showing English speakers the difference between continuous and progressive because "wearing" in English never conveys the progressive aspect..
In Cantonese, the progressive marker gan2 緊 can express the continuous aspect as well, depending on the context, but in general, the progressive aspect is assumed. In order to emphasize the progressive aspect rather than the continuous, hai2 dou6 can be used in front of the verb:
hai2 dou6 喺度 can also be used without gan2 緊 to indicate the progressive aspect.
Mandarin
marks the progressive aspect with the pre-verbal auxiliary zài, and the continuous aspect with the verb suffix zhe. An alternative to zài 在 is zhèngzài, which emphasizes simultaneity and is similar to Cantonese's use of 喺度.| Example | |
| Progressive | |
| Continuous |
For more information see.
Danish
Danish has several ways of constructing continuous aspect.- The first is using the form er ved + infinitive. For instance han er ved at bygge nyt hus meaning "he is building a new house". This is similar to the German form using "beim".
- Some verbs are always or default continuous, for instance verbs indicating motion, location or position, such as sidder, står, ligger or går. This means their present tense forms are their continuous forms: Han står dér means "he is standing over there", and jeg sidder ned, means "I am sitting". Note this means Danish often has two different forms of simple verbs when they make sense both continuous and non-continuous – English has only one such fully functional pair remaining, and it happens to share this one with Danish at lægge and at ligge – "Lay down so you can lie down".
- Using these default continuous verbs together with a non-default continuous verb makes both continuous. This is a form also used in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian and Dutch. For instance: Han står og ryger means "he is smoking ".
- Another form is used for motions such as walking, driving or flying. When constructing perfect tense they can be constructed with either 'is' or 'has'. Where 'has' indicates a completed travel, and 'is' indicates a started journey. For instance han er gået meaning "he has left ", versus jeg har fløjet meaning "I have flown ".
Dutch
- One form is the same as in English: zijn with the present participle, e.g., Het schip is zinkende. This form puts stress on the continuous aspect and often gives some dramatic overtone, making it not commonly used.
- The second method is the most common in Dutch. It is formed with zijn, followed by the preposition and definite article aan het and the gerund, e.g., Ik ben aan het lezen, meaning I am reading.
- The third method is by using a verb expressing a physical position, like zitten, staan, liggen, followed by te and the infinitive. Examples: Ik zit te lezen, meaning I am reading , Ik stond te wachten, meaning I was waiting , Zij ligt te slapen, meaning She is sleeping , Wij lopen te zingen, meaning We are singing . When translating into English or another language, the physical position generally isn't mentioned, only the action itself. In English, similar constructions exist but are uncommon and marginally more frequent only in certain dialects, e.g. I sat reading, I stood waiting, etc.
- A fourth method, also available in English, is using zijn with the adverb and preposition bezig met and the gerund, e.g., Ik ben bezig met lezen, meaning I am reading. If there is an object, there are two forms: 1. the gerund is preceded by the neuter article het and followed by the preposition van and the object, e.g. Ik ben bezig met het lezen van deze brief, meaning I am reading this letter; 2. the object comes before the full infinitive, e.g. Ik ben bezig met deze brief te lezen, meaning I am reading this letter. This form of the continuous is mostly used for a real activity. Grammar-wise, it is possible to say zij is bezig te denken or hij is bezig te slapen, but it sounds strange in Dutch. In these cases, other forms of the continuous are generally used, specifically the second method: Zij is aan het denken and hij is aan het slapen.
- A fifth method also involves the use of zijn with the adverb bezig, this time followed by te and the infinitive, e.g. Ik ben bezig te koken, meaning I am cooking. If there is an object, it comes before the verb, e.g. Ik ben bezig aardappelen te koken, meaning I am cooking potatoes. This form is also mainly used for real activities. Zij is bezig te denken and Hij is bezig te slapen are uncommon.
- The sixth method is a special form of the continuous. It implicitly means that the subject is away to do an activity. It uses zijn, followed by the infinitive, e.g., Zij is winkelen, meaning She is shopping.
French
An exception is in relating events that took place in the past: the imperfect has a continuous aspect in relation to the simple past ; e.g. nous mangions quand il frappa à la porte. However, the compound past is more often used to denote past events with a neutral aspect in a non-narrative context.
It is also possible to use the present participle as a gerund in relation to the tense of the opposed verb, e.g. Nous mangeant, il frappait à la porte, opposed here to the imperfect but the simple past is also possible, e.g. nous mangeant, il frappa à la porte. In such construction, the required subject for the gerund verb takes the indirect form when it is a pronoun allowing such distinction, so the normal subjects je/tu/il/ils are changed to moi/toi/lui/eux, e.g. Moi mangeant... instead of
If the subject of the gerund is the same as the opposed verb conjugated at any other tense, it is omitted in the progressive gerund, but implied by the preposition en, e.g. en mangeant et nous discutant, il ne nous écoute pas. The preposition en may be omitted if the gerund has an implied subject and takes an object which is not a pronoun; in that case the object may be prefixed before the gerund verb, e.g. Chemin faisant, il ne pense à rien.
Quebec French and Louisiana French often express a continuous sense using the periphrastic construction être après followed by a simple infinitive; for example, English's "we were eating" might be expressed either as simply nous mangions with the imperfect like in France, or as nous étions après manger; but in France, this could be confusively understood as a discontinuous past, especially in colloquial oral speech, as if the past infinitive was changed into a simple infinitive with the omitted auxiliary. Haitian Creole offers a similar construction with the adverb ap, which is descended from après.
Jèrriais
Formed exactly as in Rhenish German, Jèrriais constructs the continuous with verb êt' + à + infinitive. For example, j'têmes à mangi translates as we were eating.German
There is no continuous aspect in standard German. The aspect can be expressed with gerade as in er liest gerade meaning he is reading. Certain regional dialects, such as those of the Rhineland, the Ruhr Area, and Westphalia, form a continuous aspect using the verb sein, the inflected preposition am or beim, and the neuter noun that is formed from an infinitive. This construction was likely borrowed from Low German or Dutch which use the exact construction to convey the same meaning. For example, ich bin am Lesen, ich bin beim Lesen means I am reading. Known as the rheinische Verlaufsform, it has become increasingly common in the casual speech of many speakers around Germany through popular media and music, although it is still frowned upon in formal and literary contexts. In Southern Austro-Bavarian, the aspect can be expressed using tun as an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb as in er tut lesen for he is reading.Hawaiian
In Hawaiian, the present tense progressive aspect form ke + verb + nei is very frequently used.Hindi-Urdu
-Urdu has distinct constructions to convey progressive and continuous actions. Progressive actions are marked through the progressive aspect participle rahā used along with the verb root, while the continuous action is conveyed through the perfective adjectival participle which is constructed by conjugating the verb into its perfective aspect participle and combining it with the perfective aspect participle of the verb honā, which is huā.Icelandic
possesses a present continuous aspect much like that found in English. This feature is unique among the Scandinavian languages. It is formed with the copula vera + að + infinite verb. Its usage differs slightly from English, as it generally cannot be used in static contexts, for example standing or sitting, but rather to describe specific activities. The following examples illustrate this phenomenon.In contrast with:
In the second example, the simple present tense is used as it describes a state, standing on the table. The construction *ég er að standa á borðinu is incorrect in Icelandic. In addition this method of constructing the continuous present there exists a second method akin to the one which exists in the other Scandinavian languages, where a present participle ending in -andi is used along with the copula vera. This is a way of using the present participle that is analysed as more adjectival or adverbial than verbal, as it cannot be used with transitive verbs. With certain verbs it also has a frequentative implication, as in the following example:
Technically the use of the present participle is often not an example of continuous aspect in Icelandic.
Italian
forms a progressive aspect in much the same way as in Spanish, using a conjugated form of the auxiliary verb stare followed by the gerund of the main verb. There are only two forms of gerunds, the choice depending upon the ending of the main verb in the infinitive: -ando for verbs whose infinitive ends in -are or -endo if the infinitive ends in -ere or -ire. Thus 'I am speaking/reading/sleeping' is expressed Sto parlando/leggendo/dormendo.Present tense
The present tense and the present progressive can have distinct meanings in Italian. Both can be used for present-time actions in progress: parlo con Mario and sto parlando con Mario can both mean 'I'm speaking with Mario ', but only the bare present can be used to express ongoing state, as in parlo inglese 'I speak English', i.e. to convey the information 'I am able to speak English'. Thus the present progressive clarifies immediacy: Sto uscendo 'I'm leaving '.The present progressive is formed by using the present tense of the verb stare + the gerund. As in English, the gerund conveys the main meaning of the utterance: sto pattinando, I am skating. For the regular verbs, the gerund is formed from the infinitive of the verb by taking the stem and attaching the appropriate gerund suffix: -are verbs take -ando and the -ere and -ire verbs both take -endo. The table shows the conjugations of stare in the present tense with a gerund to exemplify the present progressive:
The present progressive tense has a very predictable conjugation pattern even for verbs that are typically irregular, such as essere and avere. For verbs with reduced infinitives, the gerund uses the same stem as the imperfect.
Past tense
To form the past progressive, stare is conjugated in the imperfect and used with the gerund. For example, while sto andando means "I am going", stavo andando expresses I was going. In conventional Italian speaking, stavo andando and imperfect andavo are mostly interchangeable in the progressive meaning, whereas past habitual "I used to go", "I went " is expressible only with the imperfect andavo.Conjugations of the Past Progressive:
Like the present progressive, the Italian past progressive is extremely regular. Forms of stare are those common to -are verbs in the imperfect.
There is no readily available means in Italian for expressing the distinction between English "We were reading" and "We have been reading."
Japanese
Standard Japanese uses the same grammar form to form the progressive and the continuous aspect, specifically by using the -te iru form of a verb. Depending on the transitivity of the verb, they are interpreted as either progressive or continuous. For example:Intransitive:
Transitive:
Some dialects such as Chūgoku dialect and Shikoku dialect have different grammar forms for the progressive and the continuous aspect; the -yoru form for the progressive and the -toru form for the continuous. For example:
Continuous:
Progressive:
Pantesco
In the Pantesco dialect of Sicilian, a progressive aspect can be formed by the use of clitics, which are formed from unstressed versions of the dialect's personal pronouns. This structure is unique among Romance languages.Portuguese
In Portuguese the continuous aspect is marked by gerund, either by a proper -ndo ending or a and the infinitive ; for example to be doing would be either estar a fazer or, similar to other Romance languages, estar fazendo.Quechua
uses a specific suffix: -chka or -ykaa; which is directly attached before the conjugation suffixes. Although the continuous aspect in Quechua is similar to that of English, it is more used than the simple tenses and is commonly translated into them, because of the idea that actions are not instantaneous, but they have a specific duration.Slavic languages
In Slavic languages, there is a clear distinction between perfective and imperfective grammatical aspects in the verb stem, with the latter emphasizing that the action is, was or will be in progress. It was in relation to these languages that the modern concept of grammatical aspect in general originally developed. The majority of verbs in Slavic languages have at least one complementary verb for both aspects – e.g. Czech koupit and kupovat which translates as "to buy" and "be buying" respectively.Perfective verbs are commonly formed from imperfective ones by the addition of a prefix; conversely the imperfective verb can be formed from the perfective one by modification of the stem or ending. Suppletion also plays a small role. Perfective verbs generally cannot be used with the meaning of a present tense – their present-tense forms in fact have future reference. An example of such a pair of verbs, from Polish, is given below:
- Infinitive : pisać ; napisać
- Simple present/future tense: pisze ; napisze
- Compound future tense : będzie pisać
- Past tense: pisał ; napisał
Spanish
In Spanish, the continuous is constructed much as in English, using a conjugated form of estar plus the gerundio of the main verb; for example, estar haciendo means to be doing.Like English, Spanish also has a few related constructions with similar structures and related meanings; for example, seguir haciendo means to keep doing.
Conjugations of the Present Progressive in Spanish:
Swedish
Swedish has several ways of constructing continuous aspect.- The first is using the form hålla på att + infinitive. For instance jag håller på att skriva ett brev.
- Some verbs are always or default continuous, for instance verbs indicating motion, location or position, such as gå "walk", ligga "lie", sitta "sit" and stå "stay". This means their present tense forms are their continuous forms: Han ligger i min säng means "he is lying in my bed", and hon sitter i köket "she sits in the kitchen" means "she is sitting in the kitchen". Note this means Swedish often has two different forms to simple verbs when they make sense both continuous and non-continuous – English has only one such fully functional pair remaining, and it happens to share this one with Swedish att lägga and "att ligga" – "Lay down so you can lie down" = "Lägg dig ner så du kan ligga ner".
- Using these default continuous verbs together with a non-default continuous verb makes both continuous. This is a form also used in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian, Danish and Dutch. For instance: Han ligger och läser, han står och läser, han sitter och läser and han går och läser, all mean "he is reading ". Also note that these may be in the past tense: Han låg och läste, han stod och läste, han satt och läste and han gick och läste, all mean "he was reading ".