The BE + -ING form: Progressive aspect and metonymy

The English -ing Form

The English -ing form, also called (verbal) gerund, is often believed to display a mixture of verbal and nominal properties, thus posing problems for any theory of grammar. I will argue that this is actually not the case for every construction involving the -ing form, but only for two distinct subclasses, -ing forms after genitive subjects and after determiners like no or any. In the other case...

Textuality: The ‘form’ to Be Focused on in SLA

Due to the special (procedural) nature of the language (verbal communication) ‘knowledge’, the dominant trends in applied linguistics research in the last few decades have been advocating ‘acquisition’ rather than ‘learning’ activities where the main focus in SL & FL education should be on ‘meaning’ while some ‘focus-on-form’ being justified. But the ‘form’ to be ‘focused-on’ is mostly misconce...

The Progressive Form and the Non-progressive Form in English: the Theory of Susceptibility to Change'

In this article the writer examines the difference between the progressive form and the simple (non-progressive) form in English by applying the theory of 'susceptibility to change'. It is argued that the use of the progressive form implies a situation that is in some way susceptible to change, while the use of the non-progressive form implies that there is no idea of susceptibility to change. ...

Form-ing institutional order: The scaffolding of lists and identifiers

This paper examines the central place of the list and the associated concept of an identifier within the scaffolding of contemporary institutional order. These terms are deliberately chosen to make strange and help unpack the constitutive capacity of information systems and information technology within and between contemporary organizations. We draw upon the substantial body of work by John Se...

Spanish progressive aspect in stochastic OT