[etni] Fwd: re: progressive or simple?
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- Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 06:28:40 +0200
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From: Marlene <marlenegay@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: progressive or simple?
Well, how're you doing - has become the American lingo for How are you
(at least according to TV's Joey in Friends). Also, where're you
living now? What're you doing with yourself these days? Where're you
working? Where're you going/rushing to?
But I think that Hebrew speakers use: "am, is, are" when not called
for, attaching it to the subject pronoun by force of habit, e.g., "It
is depends" or "I am went" or "They are must go." I think that it's
dafka the copula use in the present that is nonexistent in Hebrew
which becomes an automatic response to add the copula and then
over-applied when they hear the subject pronoun, I.e., I - am, You -
are, She - is, etc.
Marlene
Eliyahu wrote:
> Although I believe it's preferable to start teaching present simple
> before present progressive, I feel obliged to draw your attention to
> the fascinating research of prof. Geoffrey Leech (one of the 'gang of
> four', together with S.Greenbaum of blessed memory, R.Quirk and the
> late J.Svartvik). Leech analyses the frequency of usage of various
> grammatical forms both in AmE and BrE. One of the conclusions is that
> present progressive usage is on the rise, both in written and spoken
> English. This happens, among others, due to typical stative,
> 'non-progressive' verbs being used in progressive form. Please look at
> 'Recent changes in written English 1961-1992: some preliminary
> findings of a comparison of American with British English' (published
> in 'The Changing Face of Corpus Linguistics', written together with
> Nicholas Smith, Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006) and 'Recent grammatical
> change in English: data, description,
> theory' (Geoffrey Leech, Lancaster University, 2004).
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