Australian Journal of Linguistics Vol. 28, No. 2, October 2008, pp.

225249

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes: A Corpus-based Study*

PETER COLLINS1
University of NSW

This paper reports the findings of a study comparing the distribution and frequency of the forms, meanings and uses of the progressive aspect across a set of spoken and written categories in nine parallel corpora, representing four inner circle and five outer circle Englishes. Significant regional and stylistic variations were noted. Australian and New Zealand English emerge as the most innovative regional varieties in their use of the progressive, as determined by both sheer frequency and a wide range of other variables, followed by the Southeast Asian varieties, then the influential American and British varieties, with Kenyan and Indian English the least innovative. The progressive was found to be twice as frequent in speech as in writing, an asymmetry no doubt relevant to the attested rise of the progressive in Modern English. Meanwhile the role that the simple present progressive form and the futurate use are claimed to have had in the growth of the progressive is reflected in their particular affinity for spoken English. Keywords: Progressive; Aspect; World English(es); Corpus 1. Introduction The progressive aspect has steadily increased its frequency of use since Late Modern English (e.g. Elsness 1994; Smitterberg 2005) and, according to the corpus-based studies reviewed in Section 3 below (Mair & Hundt 1995; Smith 2002; Mair & Leech 2006), it is still on the rise. These studies are all based on British and/or American data, more specifically written data, leaving open the question of how extensively the progressive has come to be used in spoken English and in other regional varieties. Smith (2002) concludes his paper with a plea for research to be conducted using

I wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the first version of this paper. Peter Collins, Linguistics Department, University of NSW, Sydney 2052, Victoria, Australia. E-mail: p.collins@unsw.edu.au
1

ISSN 0726-8602 print/ISSN 1469-2996 online/08/020225-25 # 2008 The Australian Linguistic Society DOI: 10.1080/07268600802308782

226 P. Collins

a wider variety of corpus data ( . . .) notably spoken material of the same period, and other regional varieties, both written and spoken (327). This paper reports the findings of a study in which, responding to Smiths exhortation, I compared the distribution and frequency of progressive forms, meanings and uses across a set of spoken and written categories in nine parallel corpora. The corpora represent Englishes of both the inner circle and the outer circle (for which I shall henceforth use the abbreviations IC and OC respectively).2 IC varieties are those where English is the first language for the majority of the population and virtually all public and private interaction takes place in English (British English BrE, American English AmE, Australian English AusE, and New Zealand English NZE), while OC varieties are those where English may not be the first language for the majority of the population but has the status of an official language (Philippine English PhilE, Singapore English SingE, Hong Kong English HKE, Indian English IndE, and Kenyan English KenE). The study sought to determine the validity of the common view that there are very few grammatical differences between the regional varieties of standard English (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1819). If it turns out that this view is wrong in the case of the progressive aspect, and that there are in fact significant local differences, how extensive are they and how are they manifested: in the frequency of particular forms, meanings and/or uses? What types of innovation or conservatism are reflected in the varying modes of usage: are the two long-established and influential varieties, BrE and AmE, leading the way, with the two Antipodean cousins, AusE and NZE, exhibiting colonial lag (cf. Trudgill 1986: 130)? Do the new OC Englishes display patterns of usage which set them apart from their IC counterparts? Do the findings bear out Biber et al.s (1999: 20) claim that grammatical differences across registers are more extensive than across dialects? 2. The Progressive Aspect The progressive aspect is here understood to be a syntactic category expressed by (a form of) be in conjunction with a following (though not necessarily directly following) ing-participle. This includes cases with infinitival be as in Id prefer to be sailing, but excludes non-finites without be as in Id prefer to go sailing. The progressive aspect characteristically expresses progressive aspectuality, a semantic category associated with such meanings as progressivity, imperfectivity, and dynamicity. However the progressive aspect also has a number of non-aspectual uses (the futurate and matter-of-course uses discussed in Section 7), a fact which presents a formidable obstacle to proponents of a basic or unitary meaning approach (such as Williams 2002, who proposes susceptibility to change as the basic meaning for the progressive). A typical progressive situation is one that is presented
2

The terms inner circle and outer circle are due to Kachru (1985).

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as progressing through time, with an internal temporal structure. Consider (1), an extract from a narrative about an earthquake experience: (1) I was getting dizzy and then when I woke up my fan was shaking my whole bed was shaking as in the whole fan was swaying left to right [ICE-PHI S1A-007 50-52]3

By choosing the past progressive rather than the simple past the speaker metaphorically slows down the situation, zeroing the listeners attention inside the various goings-on. Some have used a cinematic analogy (e.g. Kruisinga & Erades 1955: 255), likening the progressive to a film (the non-progressive being more like a photograph) in which the prolonging of the action enables it more readily to become the focus of our particular interest and observation. One of the most influential theories of progressive aspectuality has been Jespersens (1931: 18) notion that the progressive functions as a temporal frame encompassing a reference point (expressed by the when-clause in (1), and by I see this girl in (2) below). Explicit framing of this kind is quite rare in the present data, limited to a mere 2.6% of tokens in speech and 3.5% in writing. Furthermore, it was noted that there are cases (63, or 1.0%) where the progressive does not frame another, but rather is simultaneous and coextensive with, a temporal reference point, as in (2) and (3): (2) (3) I had a great time. And uh were pulling up and I see this girl who Id never seen before sort of dart out of our driveway [SBC 03 1337-44] Normally when people hug you youre hanging on the side somewhere you know [ICE-GB S1A-003 142]

3. Previous Studies The English progressive has been examined in a number of corpus-based studies, both synchronic and diachronic. All are based on either BrE or a comparison of BrE and AmE, and few include both written and spoken data. The most recent booklength study of the progressives, by Ro mer (2005), is undoubtedly large-scale and comprehensive in the number of variables studied, but it is limited to spoken BrE, and also limited by Ro mers decision to restrict her corpus-interrogation to the 100 most frequent verbs in her data. Biber et al. (1999: 461462) supply some figures indicating broad frequencies for the progressive in the same genres examined in the present study (conversation, fiction, news and academic writing) in BrE and AmE. Mindt (2000) and Scheffer (1975) are both empirical studies, but Mindts data sources are not transparent and Scheffers data collection comprises merely six (British) novels and two radio commentaries. As noted in Section 1 above, three studies have documented the recent growth of the progressive. Mair & Hundt (1995) use the press sections of the BrE corpora LOB (dating from 1961) and FLOB (dating from 1991/2), with the parallel American
3 The source of each example is indicated as follows: the name of the corpus (see Section 4 for more details), followed by the text category/number, followed by the line number.

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corpora Brown and Frown. The period of three decades between the earlier and later corpora, though relatively short, turns out to be sufficient to enable Mair and Hundt to identify a substantial increase in the frequency of the progressive. Similar findings are reported by Smith (2002), who uses just the British written corpora LOB and FLOB, and Mair & Leech (2006), whose observations are based on the same four written corpora used by Mair & Hundt. All authors speculate about the reasons for the increase. There is consensus that one important factor, related to the fact that the progressive is and has been for a long period of time more common in speech than writing (as noted by Quirk et al. 1985: 198, and Biber et al. 1999: 461463), is the phenomenon of colloquialization, the narrowing of the gap between the norms of written and spoken English that is attested to have occurred over the past few decades. Further factors include the development of new forms (e.g. combinations of the progressive with modals and the passive voice), resulting in the progressive becoming established in the few remaining niches of the verbal paradigm in which it was not current until the twentieth century (Mair & Leech 2006: 323), and the emergence of new uses. The present study extends the scope of previous studies well beyond BrE and AmE, incorporating not only two further IC varieties but also a set of OC Englishes; it includes both spoken and written data; and it seeks total accountability via an examination of all tokens in the data across a range of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic variables. The study is not diachronic, but the opportunity is taken to explore the diachronic ramifications of quantitative findings wherever relevant. 4. The Data Tokens of the string *ing* were extracted, and irrelevant examples manually discarded, from the suite of currently-available corpora of the International Corpus of English (ICE) collection: ICE-GB, ICE-AUS, ICE-NZ, ICE-PHI, ICE-SIN, ICE-HK, ICE-IND and ICE-EA(Ken). Each ICE corpus comprises one million words of text, dating from the early-1990s, and conforms to a common design. In the absence of an ICE-US, whose compilation is yet to be completed, I drew data representing AmE from the (spoken) Santa Barbara Corpus (SBC) and the (written) Frown Corpus (categories A, J and K), whose data are also from the early-1990s and both of which contain comparable text categories. Progressives were identified and analyzed in 120,000 words of text from each corpus, half spoken (conversations from Category S1A) and half written (comprising 20,000 words of academic writing in the humanities from W2A, 20,000 of news reports from W2C, and 20,000 of fiction from W2F). The frequencies are presented in Tables 1a and 1b. Of the individual varieties represented in Table 1a it is NZE (894) and KenE (858) that are significantly ahead of the others in terms of frequency (x2 (8)  88.4676, p B0.05).4 In the case of NZE this is due to an exceptionally large number
4 The statistical procedure employed in this study was the chi-square test. The R statistical program enabled a post-hoc analysis for this test.

Table 1a Frequencies of progressives in the individual Englishes: speech versus writing

AUS Speech Writing TOTAL 541 71.8% 212 28.2% 753 100% NZ 516 57.7% 378 42.3% 894 100% US 476 76.0% 150 24.0% 626 100% GB 459 69.5% 201 30.5% 660 100% KEN 636 74.1% 222 25.9% 858 100% IND 428 67.1% 210 32.9% 638 100% PHI 495 72.1% 192 27.9% 687 100% SIN 448 65.6% 235 34.4% 683 100% HK TOTAL

523 70.6% 4522 69.1% 218 29.4% 2018 30.9% 741 100% 6540 100%

Table 1b Frequencies of progressives in the individual Englishes: three written genres

AUS Academic News Fiction TOTAL 32 81 99 212 15.1% 38.2% 46.7% 28.2% 61 73 244 378 NZ 16.1% 19.3% 64.6% 42.3% 29 53 68 150 US 19.3% 35.3% 45.3% 24.0% 16 65 120 201 GB 8.0% 32.3% 59.7% 30.5% KEN 25 69 128 222 11.3% 31.1% 57.7% 25.9% IND 24 51 135 210 11.4% 24.3% 64.3% 32.9% PHI 20 91 81 192 10.4% 47.4% 42.2% 27.9% SIN 27 90 118 235 11.5% 38.3% 50.2% 34.4% HK 22 62 134 218 10.1% 28.4% 61.5% 29.4% TOTAL

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes

256 635 1127 2018

12.6% 31.4% 55.8% 30.9%

Table 1c Mean frequencies of progressives in the regional groups

Southern Hemis Speech Writing TOTAL 528.5 64.2% 295.0 35.8% 823.5 100% Northern Hemis 467.5 72.7% 175.5 27.3% 643.0 100% INNER CIRCLE 480.5 67.9% 235.3 32.1% 733.3 100% AfricaIndia 532.0 71.1% 216.0 28.9% 748.0 100% Southeast Asia 488.7 69.4% 215.0 30.6% 703.7 100% OUTER CIRCLE 506.0 70.1% 215.4 29.9% 721.4 100% TOTAL 502.4 69.1% 224.2 30.9% 726.7 100%

229

230 P. Collins

of tokens in fictional and academic writing, and in the case of KenE it is due to an exceptionally large number of tokens in speech. The ordering of the IC Englishes (NZE 894 AusE 753 BrE 660 AmE 626) is the same as that noted by Hundt (1998: 75) based on written news reportage data. In Table 1c, the nine corpora are grouped according to region and to their membership of Kachrus (1985) inner and outer circles of World Englishes. The four IC Englishes are subdivided into two pairs: the two long-established and influential Northern Hemisphere varieties, BrE and AmE, and the two neo-colonial varieties spoken in the Asia-Pacific region, AusE and NZE. The five new OC Englishes are subdivided into two groups: Southeast Asia represented by PhilE, SingE and HKE, and the remaining two Englishes representing Africa (KenE) and South Asia (IndE) which, though regionally distinct, have in common that English is less widely used as a medium of communication in public and private life than it is in the Southeast Asian varieties.5 As Table 1c indicates, progressives are slightly more frequent (but not significantly so: x2 (1) 0.4107, p 0.05) in the IC Englishes than in the OC Englishes. Within the IC the two Antipodean Englishes have a considerably higher frequency than their longer established Northern Hemisphere counterparts (823.5:643.0). The two OC groups fall in-between these, with Africa/India (748.0) ahead of Southeast Asia (703.7). A comparison of the distribution of the progressive across speech and writing confirms the finding of previous studies (cf. Allen 1966: 136; Biber et al. 1999: 462; Quirk et al. 1985: 198) that their frequency of occurrence is significantly higher in speech (x2 (1) 1472.125, p B0.05). As Table 1a and Table 1c show, there are more than twice as many progressive tokens in speech as in writing, the only exceptions being NZE and SingE, where progressives are slightly less than twice as popular. It may be that this difference is merely a by-product of the greater popularity of tensed VPs in general in speech. In theory we could test for this by calculating the proportion of progressives in speech and writing as a percentage of all tensed VPs. Unfortunately the corpora used in the present study have not, with the single exception of ICE-GB, been part-of-speech-tagged, making such a calculation impossible. Nor is there any published study that provides comparative percentages for speech and writing (although figures in the range c.46% are supplied by Ota 1963; Joos 1964; Allen 1966 and Quirk et al. 1985: 198 for their various databases). Nevertheless, it is possible to extrapolate percentages from information provided by Biber et al. (1999) based on their collection of British and American corpora (in Figure 6.1 on p. 456 and 6.4 on p. 462) confirming the greater popularity of progressives in speech (c.5.4%) over writing (c.3.9%).6
5 As observed by an anonymous reviewer, alternative subdivisions are conceivable (for instance putting BrE together with the Southern Hemisphere varieties, which are derived from it, as against AmE, given that we can distinguish an essentially British-derived from an American-derived branch of World Englishes). 6 Biber et al. (1999) do not supply exact frequencies, but approximate numbers can be inferred from their bar graphs.

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Across the three written genres we find a consistent ordering in all varieties except PhilE, with significantly more progressives in fiction than in news, and more in news than academic prose (x2 (1) 136.1535, p B0.05). If we include the fourth genre examined, conversation, the ordering (with bracketed figures representing tokens per 20,000 words) will be as follows: conversation (1507) fiction (1127) news (635)  academic (256), or 1.0 0.74 0.42 0.16. The ordering of the written genres, from most to least informal or speech-like, is the same as that reported by Biber et al. (1999: 462) for AmE and BrE, although the degree of the difference between fiction and news is smaller in Biber than in the present study (where it was 1127:635, or 1.8:1). Again, we can compare these findings with the percentages extrapolated from Biber et al. (1999: 456462) representing progressives as a proportion of all tensed VPs: conversation (5.4%) news (4.9%) fiction (4.6%) academic (1.6%). These figures confirm the relative popularity of progressives in conversation, and their unpopularity in academic writing found in Biber et al., but differ from that study in placing news ahead of fiction. Consider finally the relative frequency across the Englishes of progressives in speech*the genre strongly favoured by progressives, as noted above, and that which has seen the greatest increase in the spread of the progressive (see Section 5 below). For the IC Englishes the ordering remains the same as that determined by the overall frequency of tokens (KenE 636 HKE 523 PhilE 495 SingE 448 IndE 428). However, a different picture emerges for the IC Englishes: the Southern Hemisphere varieties still lead their Northern hemisphere counterparts, but there is a reordering within the two hemispheres as follows: AusE 541 NZE 516 AmE 476 BrE 459. 5. Progressive Forms Following Smith (2002) the variables examined here were tense (present/past), perfect aspect (perfect/non-perfect), modality (modal/non-modal), to-infinitival (infinitival/non-infinitival), and voice (active/passive). This set yields the following 16 possibilities (exemplified with give as the lexical verb):
Active is giving was giving has been giving had been giving might be giving might have been giving to be giving to have been giving Passive is being given was being given has been being given had been being given might be being given might have been being given to be being given to have been being given

Present Past Present perfect Past perfect Modal Modal perfect To-infinitive Perfect to-infinitive

As Table 2a indicates, there are massive differences in the frequencies of the forms: the simple present and simple past account for 86.6% of tokens (compared to 76% of Smiths 2002 written British data), while the remaining forms are either very infrequent or, in seven cases, not represented at all in the corpora (one active form:

232 P. Collins

Table 2a Progressive forms in the individual Englishes

AUS Present Past Pres perfect Past perfect Modal Modal perfect To-infin Pres passive Past passive TOTAL 405 251 31 7 33 2 6 12 6 753 53.8% 33.3% 4.1% 0.9% 4.4% 0.3% 0.8% 1.6% 0.8% 100% 378 382 32 22 45 5 16 4 10 894 NZ 42.3% 42.7% 3.6% 2.5% 5.0% 0.6% 1.8% 0.4% 1.1% 100% 368 188 29 4 15 3 4 10 5 626 US 58.8% 30.0% 4.6% 0.6% 2.4% 0.5% 0.6% 1.6% 0.8% 100% 373 202 15 4 17 1 26 8 14 660 GB 56.5% 30.6% 2.3% 0.6% 2.6% 0.2% 3.9% 1.2% 2.1% 100% KEN 432 317 31 3 28 0 12 21 14 858 50.3% 36.9% 3.6% 0.3% 3.3% 0.0% 1.4% 2.4% 1.6% 100% IND 393 158 16 11 40 3 7 8 2 638 61.6% 24.8% 2.5% 1.7% 6.3% 0.5% 1.1% 1.3% 0.3% 100% PHI 362 219 37 7 29 0 14 15 4 687 52.7% 31.9% 5.4% 1.0% 4.2% 0.0% 2.0% 2.2% 0.6% 100% SIN 384 197 10 11 47 5 5 19 5 683 56.2% 28.8% 1.5% 1.6% 6.9% 0.7% 0.7% 2.8% 0.7% 100% HK 456 197 32 3 36 0 5 10 2 741 61.5% 26.6% 4.3% 0.4% 4.9% 0.0% 0.7% 1.3% 0.3% 100% TOT 3551 2111 233 72 290 19 95 107 62 6540 54.3% 32.3% 3.6% 1.1% 4.4% 0.3% 1.5% 1.6% 0.9% 100%

Table 2b Simple vs. complex progressive forms in the individual Englishes

AUS Simple Complex TOTAL 656 87.1% 97 12.9% 753 100% NZ 760 85.0% 134 15.0% 894 100% US 556 88.8% 70 11.2% 626 100% GB 575 87.1% 85 12.9% 660 100% KEN 749 87.3% 109 12.7% 858 100% IND 551 86.4% 87 13.6% 638 100% PHI 581 84.6% 106 15.4% 687 100% SIN 581 85.1% 102 14.9% 683 100% HK 653 88.1% 88 11.9% 741 100% TOTAL 5662 86.6% 878 13.4% 6540 100%

Table 2c Simple vs. complex progressive forms in the regional groups

Southern Hem Simple Complex TOTAL 1416 86.0% 231 14.0% 1647 100% Northern Hem 1131 87.9% 155 12.1% 1286 100% INNER CIRCLE 2547 86.8% 386 13.2% 2933 100% AfricaIndia 1300 86.9% 196 13.1% 1496 100% SE Asia 1815 86.0% 296 14.0% 2111 100% OUTER CIRCLE 3115 86.4% 492 13.6% 3607 100% TOTAL 5662 86.6% 878 13.4% 6540 100%

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the perfect to-infinitival; and six passive forms: the present perfect, past perfect, modal, modal perfect, to-infinitival, and perfect to-infinitival). While the figures in Table 2a suggest that the filling out of the verbal paradigm for progressives over the past century or so may have had little more than a minor role to play in the rise of the progressive, it is nevertheless of interest to compare the varieties in terms of the frequency of the newer complex progressive forms across the varieties. Tables 2b and 2c present the proportion of simple tense forms (i.e. present/ past) to complex forms (i.e. perfect/modal/infinitival/passive). The frequencies may provide some evidence that the spread of the progressive is in part driven by the development of new (complex) forms: the Southern Hemisphere group, which has the highest number of progressives, also has the highest proportion of complex forms, and the Northern hemisphere group the lowest on both dimensions. The correlation did not extend to the OC groups, with the Southeast Asian group having a higher proportion of complex forms than the Africa/India group.7 In the IC set the ordering of Englishes as determined by the overall frequency of progressives (see above) correlates with that determined by the percentage of complex forms (NZE 15.0% AusE 12.88% BrE 12.87% AmE 11.2%). Another finding was that modal forms were more common in the OC than the IC varieties (by a ratio of 1.2:1, especially in speech, and especially in IndE and SingE, where modality is often found with distinctive uses of stative verbs. Passive forms were also more common in the OC than the IC varieties (by a ratio of 1.4:1). Smiths (2002) findings for progressive forms, based as they are on written BrE, conform more closely to those for writing than for speech in the present study. For example, 39.4% of Smiths tokens were simple present progressives, a proportion that is closer to the 35.4% of tokens in writing in the present study (see Table 2d below) than to the 54.3% of tokens in the spokenwritten data; likewise, Smiths finding of 3.1% past perfect progressives more closely matches the 2.9% of tokens in writing in this study than the 1.1% in the spokenwritten data. Smith notes (p. 318) that the most dramatic increases in the use of the progressive in recent decades have involved the simple present forms. Given that his findings are based solely on the LOB and FLOB corpora, these increases may be explainable in terms of the colloquialization of written English, insofar as present progressives*like present tense forms in general (q.v. Biber et al. 1999: 456)*are significantly more common in speech than in writing (x2 (8) 540.4269, p B0.05). As Table 2d shows, present progressives accounted for almost two thirds (62.7%) of all forms in speech, as against only 35.4% in writing. By contrast, the past progressive accounted for almost one half of all tokens (45.7%) in writing, as against 26.3% in speech. It is not possible with the corpora used to test whether the apparent popularity of simple present progressives in speech over writing is merely a by-product of the genre-distribution of present tense forms generally. That this may be the case is
7 The evidence is admittedly not strong: differences in the proportions of complex forms across the four regional groups are not statistically significant (x2 (3) 3.3756, p 0.05).

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Table 2d Progressive forms in speech and writing

Speech Present Past Pres perfect Past perfect Modal Modal perfect To-infinitive Pres passive Past passive TOTAL 2836 1189 160 12 198 9 54 47 17 4522 62.7% 26.3% 3.5% 0.3% 4.4% 0.2% 1.2% 1.0% 0.4% 100% Writing 715 922 73 60 92 10 41 60 45 2018 35.4% 45.7% 3.6% 3.0% 4.6% 0.5% 2.0% 3.0% 2.2% 100% Total 3551 2111 233 72 290 19 95 107 62 6540 54.3% 32.3% 3.6% 1.1% 4.4% 0.3% 1.5% 1.6% 0.9% 100%

suggested by percentages that can be extrapolated from Biber et al. (1999: 456462) indicating that in their spoken texts 5.1% of all present forms were progressives, while in their written data the figure was a slightly higher 5.4%. 6. Semantic Classes of Verbs Like Smith (2002), I adopted Biber et al.s (1999: 360ff) seven-class taxonomy of semantic domains for verbs, in order to facilitate comparisons with at least these two previous studies. Discussion follows: (i) Activity verbs denote events controlled typically by a volitional agent (bring, buy, carry, come, give, go, leave, move, open, run, take, work, etc.). (4) Where where are we going? [ICE-SIN S1A-018 134]

Those which denote an activity that characteristically has duration such as chase, shop, march, dance tend to occur more commonly with the progressive than those which denote an instantaneous action such as throw, shut, smash, swallow. (ii) Communication verbs express activities involving spoken and written communication (ask, announce, call, discuss, explain, say, shout, speak, state, suggest, talk, tell, write, etc.). (5) They will be talking during the night [ICE-HK S1A-002 228]

Again verbs expressing activities that are typically durative such as chat, joke, and talk are more common with the progressive than those that do not, such as exclaim, reply and thank. (iii) Mental verbs express various types of perception, cognition and emotion. There are sharp differences in the compatibility of members of this class with the progressive, determined by the degree to which their meaning is dynamic or stative. Those that can

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refer to a deliberately performed perception or cognition (e.g. listen, taste, consider), as in (6), are straightforwardly compatible with the progressive. (6) I was just watching your map [ICE-HK S1A-001 740]

On the other hand those which normally have an inert, experiential, stative sense (e.g. hear, feel, assume, wonder), are considerably restricted in their capacity to combine with the progressive aspect, and when they do so specific semantic dimensions associated with progressive aspectuality will be foregrounded. Thus the progressive in (7) suggests a situation of limited duration; that in (8) indicates a changing situation; that in (9) adds a component of duration to facilitate the process of interpreting the situation (the interpretive use discussed in Section 7.2 below); while that in (10) contributes an element of polite tentativeness in the expression of a wish (the politeness use discussed in Section 7.3 below). (7) But while youre on the front and the backs coming over it sweeps you nearly straight down and youre youre thinking [ICE-AUS S1A-005 295] (8) Are you feeling any older Peter [ICE-AUS S1A-005 10] (9) Shes just assuming that youre couple just a couple of young kids [ICE-AUS S1A-007 188] (10) were about to go to Glebe markets and he hasnt called so I was just wondering if you want to come [ICE-AUS S1A-007 64] A notable grammatical feature that is found to varying degrees in the OC Englishes is generally referred to as the common use, or overuse, of the progressive with stative verbs (e.g. Platt, Weber & Ho 1984; Williams 1987; Rogers 2002; Buregeya 2006; Gargesh 2006; Schmied 2006). In the OC corpora, however, relevant tokens involving the use of the progressive with mental verbs of the inert stative type, as in (11) and (12), were infrequent. A possible explanation for this is the educational level of ICEspeakers (adults who have received formal education through the medium of English to the completion of secondary level schooling). Nevertheless, that they were possible at all, and were apparently not regarded as errors, suggests that the conditions on their use in the OC Englishes are less restrictive than in the IC. The extended uses were noted to be more common in IndE and KenE than in the Southeast Asian varieties. It may be that this difference is associated with the extent to which the varieties in question have progressed along Schneiders (2003) scale for the development of New Englishes from exonormativity to endonormativity, and perhaps to the extent of English use in the countries represented. (11) I think that there is this urgency to to suddenly because you see there is something in front of you as if a person is knowing that hes going to die [ICEHK S1A-013 61] (12) Formally I was not liking it but uh I I developed to a liking over it [ICE-IND S1A-022 266]

236 P. Collins

(iv) Occurrence verbs report events that occur independently of volitional activity (become, change, happen, develop, grow, increase, occur, etc.), as in (13). With their inherently durative senses, such verbs are readily compatible with the progressive. (13) Whats happening here? [ICE-SIN S1A-021 98] (v) Existence verbs fall into two subclasses. The first is concerned with a state of existence or stance (exist, live, stay, etc.), and these verbs occur readily with the progressive, which suggests temporariness or limited duration, as in (14):

(14) Ive been living in Australia for last eleven years [ICE-HK S1A-003 15] The second subclass is concerned with relationships, either those between entities (contain, include, involve, represent, etc.), or those between entities and descriptions (be, seem, appear, etc.), and these verbs are rare with the progressive. As for stative mental verbs, so with existence verbs, examples were found in all of the OC corpora which support claims of extended use of the progressive with stative verbs in these varieties, including existential verbs expressing a state of existence as in (15), a relationship between entities as in (16), and a relationship between an entity and a description as in (17). (15) how many days it was lasting this cyclone [ICE-IND S1A-002 184] (16) Im just having a positive attitude [ICE-PHI S1A-006 35] (17) He is now being a management trainee in a large firm [ICE-HK S1A-012 162] (vi) Causative verbs indicate that a person or inanimate entity brings about a new state of affairs (cause, enable, force, allow, help, let, require, permit, etc.), and are rare with the progressive. An example is: (18) I mean he couldnt they werent allowing him any access to books or the radio or what [ICE-PHI S1A-010 90] (vii) Aspectual verbs characterize the stage of progress of an activity (begin, continue, finish, keep, start, stop, etc.), and are rare with the progressive. An example follows: (19) I was starting to try and learn trumpet out there [ICE-AUS S1A-011 75] The main analytical problem involves the treatment of verbs that are polysemous. For instance, have is not existential in (20), but rather a light verb denoting activity, while in (21) go belongs to the communication rather than activity class:

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(20) I know Firstname1s having a party [ICE-AUS S1A-010 35] (21) Firstname4 was going Oooh yuckk ickk about you know about that Blue Jean Day [ICE-AUS S1A-010 128] The frequencies for the seven classes in the present study are compared below with those of Smith for the seven verb classes in the present progressive (active) in FLOB, and Biber et al.s (1999: 365) figures*progressive and non-progressive*for the Total number of common lexical verbs from each semantic domain (verbs that occur at least 50 times per million words).8
Smith 705 55.4% 170 13.4% 337 26.5% 35 2.7% 251 19.7% 59 4.6% 27 2.1% Biber 138 49% 36 13% 53 19% 10 4% 14 5% 22 8% 8 3% Collins 3110 47.5% 1110 16.9% 844 12.9% 731 11.1% 598 9.1% 77 1.1% 70 1.0%

Activity Communication Mental Causative Occurrence Existence Aspectual

The most striking difference here is that involving occurrence verbs (whose generally imperfective meanings are compatible with the progressive). As Tables 3ac show, the activity class is clearly the biggest (or perhaps we should say still the biggest, insofar as the progressive was largely restricted to activity verbs up to the eighteenth century), accounting for just under half of all progressive tokens, with the causative and aspectual classes being very small. Smith (2002: 323) notes that the mental and communication classes have been the most susceptible to increase in recent decades, perhaps unsurprisingly given the association of verbs in these classes with some of the relatively new special uses of the progressive (e.g. the association of communication verbs with the interpretive use: see Section 7.2 below). Given the more advanced nature, in terms of their frequency of usage of the progressive, of the IC over the OC varieties, we might anticipate that the IC varieties would have a higher proportion of mental and communication verbs than the OC varieties. This hypothesis is not borne out. We can extrapolate from Table 3b that the proportion of these verbs in the OC varieties (31.2% of all verbs) is in fact greater than in the IC varieties (28.2%), though the difference is not significant at the 0.05 level. Even more striking are some of the findings relating to individual Englishes. The IC variety with the smallest overall frequency of progressive tokens, AmE, has the highest proportion of mental and communication verbs in the IC (33.1%), while the IC variety with the largest overall frequency of progressive tokens, NZE, has the smallest proportion of mental and communication verbs in the IC (24.7%). Differences across the IC Englishes were not significant at the 0.05% level. Within the Southeast Asian group it is HKE which has the largest overall frequency of
8

The reason why Smiths figures and percentages dont add up is that he double-counted ambivalent examples.

238 P. Collins

Table 3a Semantic verb categories of progressives in the individual Englishes

Activity AUS NZ US GB KEN IND PHI SIN HK TOTAL 364 416 277 327 365 294 335 364 368 3110 48.3% 46.5% 44.2% 49.5% 42.5% 46.1% 48.8% 53.3% 49.7% 100% Communication 130 134 110 91 260 89 122 89 85 1110 17.3% 15.0% 17.6% 13.8% 30.3% 13.9% 17.8% 13.0% 11.5% 100% Mental 83 87 97 96 79 87 118 91 106 844 11.0% 9.7% 15.5% 14.5% 9.2% 13.6% 1.7% 13.3% 14.3% 12.9% Occurance 75 141 73 69 78 78 50 69 98 731 10.0% 15.8 11.7% 10.5% 9.1% 12.2% 7.3% 10.1% 13.2% 11.1% Existence 78 90 58 51 59 79 50 57 76 598 10.4% 10.1 9.3% 7.7% 6.9% 12.4% 7.3% 8.3% 10.3% 9.1% Causative 12 14 9 16 10 3 7 2 4 77 1.6% 1.6 1.4% 2.4% 1.2% 0.5% 1.0% 0.3% 0.5% 1.1% Aspectual 11 12 2 10 7 8 5 11 4 70 1.5% 1.3 0.3% 1.5% 0.8% 1.3% 0.7% 1.6% 0.5% 1.0% TOTAL 753 894 626 660 858 638 687 683 741 6540 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 3b Semantic verb categories of progressives in the regional groups

Activity Sth H Total Nth H Total INNER C Total Afr/Ind Total SE Asia Total OUTER C Total TOTAL 780 604 1384 659 1067 1726 3110 47.4% 47.0% 47.2% 44.1% 50.5% 47.9% 100% Communication 264 201 465 349 296 645 1110 16.0% 15.6% 15.9% 23.3% 14.0% 17.9% 100% Mental 170 195 363 166 315 481 844 10.3% 15.2% 12.4% 11.1% 14.9% 13.3% 12.9% Occurance 216 142 358 156 217 373 731 13.1% 11.0% 12.2% 10.4% 10.3% 10.3% 11.1% Existence 168 109 277 138 183 321 598 10.2% 8.5 9.4% 9.2% 8.7% 8.9% 9.1% Causative 26 25 51 13 13 26 77 1.6% 1.9 1.7% 0.9% 0.6% 0.7% 1.1% Aspectual 23 12 35 15 20 35 70 1.4% 0.9 1.2% 1.0% 0.9% 1.0% 1.0% TOTAL 1647 1286 2933 1496 2111 3607 6540 100% 100 100 100% 100% 100% 100%

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes Table 3c Semantic verb categories of progressives in speech and writing
Speech Activity Communication Mental Occurrence Existence Causative Aspectual TOTAL 2206 845 557 404 430 44 36 4522 48.7% 18.6% 12.3% 8.9% 9.5% 0.9% 0.7% 100% Writing 904 265 287 327 168 33 34 2018 44.7% 13.1% 14.2% 16.2% 8.3% 1.6% 1.6% 100% Total 3110 1110 844 731 598 77 70 6540 47.5% 16.9%; 12.9% 11.1% 9.1% 1.1% 1.0% 100%

239

progressive tokens, but it has the smallest proportion of mental and communication verbs (25.8%). These findings raise an interesting question: what is meant when we speak of the growth or spread of the progressive? It may simply mean an increase in overall frequency of use. If it also means a spreading of this grammatical category within the system (involving, with increasing grammaticalization, the appearance of new forms and uses, movement into new semantic domains at the expense of others, and expanded use in some registers at the expense of others) then this may not necessarily go hand in hand with an increase in overall frequency. Is it not possible, for example, that within the IC AmE is leading the way in the spread of the progressive (in the second sense), even if it is not leading the way in the first sense? 7. Special Uses Various writers have noted some specialized uses that have developed via expansion of the aspectual meanings of the progressive aspect. 7.1. The Attitudinal Use In this use the progressive expressing an habitual activity combines with a temporal adjunct (usually always but possibly continually, constantly, forever or the like) to suggest a temporal meaning described by Palmer (1987: 94) as sporadic repetition and Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 167) as continual unpredictable recurrence that is overlaid by an attitudinal overtone of disapproval. The subjectivity associated with this use undoubtedly locates it on the fringes of the category of aspectuality, but given its basis in the notion of durativity one would hesitate to accept Killies (2004) suggestion that it is non-aspectual. The speakers tone throughout (22) is negative, and this tone is reinforced by the selection of the progressive is talking over talks: (22) Our English teacher she used to study in England when she was small and then, she grew up there and studied in university and, and then now she came back to Hong Kong to teach in our school. And then she is always talking about England. She like it a lot and then always talking about the Royal Family and

240 P. Collins

then all the slangs and then were all sleepy and someone laughs so its useless. She likes it very much and then, we we just think its very boring [ICE-HK S1A009 281] 7.2. The Interpretive Use This use, discussed by*inter alia*Ljung (1980), Wright (1995), and Mindt (2000), foregrounds an interpretation or explanation of what somebody says, as in (23), or what someone does, as in (24). An interesting gloss which is suggestive of how this use has most likely evolved from the imperfective/durative meaning which is the basis of progressive aspectuality, enabling a situation to be viewed from the inside, is provided by Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 165): in emphasising duration, the progressive metaphorically slows down or extends the situation in order to be able to focus on clarifying its nature. (23) Im talking about the dreams that you have given up chasing, she seethed. [ICE-SIN W2F-002 102] (24) What the Government is trying to do is to draw attention to the opportunities overseas [ICE-SIN W2C-001 12] 7.3. The Politeness Use Quirk et al. (1985: 210) note a politely tentative use of the progressive, whether present or past, to express present wishes and attitudes, as in (25), observing that such forms enable us to avoid the impoliteness which might well result from expressing ones attitude too directly, eg in making a request. Relevant factors here are most likely the oft-noted (e.g. Leech 1983) correlation between grammatical length and politeness/diffidence, as well as the foregrounding of the implication*triggered by the sense of temporary duration here*that the addressee has the option of noncompliance with the request. (25) Im wondering uh whether this this thing will be will happen [ICE-SIN S1A029 228] 7.4. The Futurate Use This use and that described in the next section are non-aspectual, and clear reflections of the grammaticalization of the progressive aspect. According to Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 171) the progressive futurate is restricted to cases where human agency or intention is involved. Intentionality is generally clear with first person subjects as in (26), but even here there are cases where future compliance with an arranged schedule is more salient than intentionality, as in (27), where there would arguably be no discernible shift of meaning were come to be substituted for m coming:

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes

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(26) Im going for the ballet tonight [ICE-SIN S1A-012 308] (27) Im coming back for a month [ICE-PHI S1A-012 105] Some writers (e.g. Mindt 2000) distinguish futurity and intention as separate categories, but in practice it is difficult to make this distinction with any confidence, as in (28): (28) Which part of the USA are you going to? [ICE-SIN S1A-026 271] 7.5. The Matter of Course Use As noted by Leech (1987), Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 172), and Mair & Leech (2006: 325), when will*or, less commonly shall or be going to*is used with the progressive, the meaning that is usually suggested is that the circumstances leading up to an action have been set in train and that it will take place in the not-too-distant future. (29) They will be talking during the night [ICE-HK S1A-002 228] As Tables 4ac indicate, the futurate use is significantly more common than the other special uses (x2 (4) 15.1315, p B0.05). Furthermore, insofar as Table 4c shows that the futurate is considerably more popular in speech than in writing, we can probably accept as plausible Mair & Hundts (1995: 116) suggestion that it may have played a role in the growth of the progressive. Given the fact that, as the percentages suggest, all of the special uses except for the attitudinal use are more popular in speech (where they account for 18.4% of all tokens) than they are in writing (where they account for 9.1% of all tokens), it may be plausible to suggest that as a set of non-central uses they are likely, in view of the colloquialization of contemporary English, to have impacted on the growth of the progressive. A comparison of the proportion of special uses in the IC and OC Englishes reveals that the spread of the special uses*especially the interpretive and futurate*has been greater in the former (representing 18.0% of all progressive tokens) than in the latter (16.3%), but the differences were not statistically significant at the 0.05 level.
Table 4a Special uses of progressives in the individual Englishes
Interpretive AUS NZ US GB KEN IND PHI SIN HK TOTAL 41 24 63 43 59 27 41 17 13 328 26.6% 17.5% 53.4% 36.4% 38.8% 32.5% 28.5% 12.1% 12.4% 29.4% Attitudinal 0 1 5 0 4 1 3 1 10 25 0.0% 0.7% 4.2% 0.0% 3.5% 1.2% 2.1% 0.7% 9.5% 2.2% Politeness 3 0 9 5 1 1 11 3 3 36 1.9% 0.0% 7.6% 4.2% 0.9% 1.2% 7.6% 2.1% 2.9% 3.2% Futurate 98 81 32 63 37 36 70 87 53 557 Matter-ofcourse TOTAL % of all uses 20.5% 15.3% 18.8% 17.9% 13.3% 13.0% 21.0% 20.6% 14.2% 17.0%

63.6% 12 59.1% 31 27.1% 9 53.4% 7 32.5% 13 43.4% 18 48.6% 19 61.7% 33 50.5% 26 50.0% 168

7.8% 154 100% 22.6% 137 100% 7.6% 118 100% 5.9% 118 100% 11.4% 114 100% 21.7 83 100% 13.2% 144 100% 2.3% 141 100% 24.8% 105 100% 15.1% 1114 100%

242 P. Collins

Table 4b Special uses of progressives in the regional groups

Interp Sth H Nth H Inner C Afr/Ind SE Asia Outer C TOTAL 65 106 171 86 71 157 328 22.3% 44.9% 32.4% 43.7% 18.2% 26.7% 29.4% Attitud 1 5 6 5 14 19 25 0.3% 2.1% 1.1% 2.5% 3.6% 3.2% 2.2% Polite 3 14 17 2 17 19 36 1.0% 5.9% 3.2% 1.0% 4.4% 3.2% 3.2% Futurate 179 95 274 73 210 283 557 M-of-C TOTAL % of all uses 17.7% 18.4% 18.0% 13.2% 18.5% 16.3% 17.0%

61.5% 43 14.8% 291 100% 40.3% 16 6.8% 236 100% 60.0% 59 11.2% 527 100% 37.1% 31 15.7% 197 100% 53.8% 78 20.0% 390 100% 48.2% 109 18.6% 587 100% 50.0% 168 15.1% 1114 100%

Table 4c Special uses of progressives in speech and writing

Speech Interpretive Politeness Futurate Matter-of-course 284 33 469 128 6.2% 0.7% 10.3% 2.8% Writing 44 3 88 40 2.1% 0.1% 4.3% 1.9% Total 328 36 557 168 5.0% 0.5% 8.5% 2.5%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

A comparison of the OC Englishes reveals a clear division between PhilE and SingE on the one hand (Englishes which are spoken by a high percentage of the population), and HKE, KenE and IndE on the other: PhilE 21.0% SingE 20.6% HKE 14.2%  KenE 13.3% IndE 13.0%. In fact, there appears to be a correlation at every point along the hierarchy with the extent to which English is regularly used in the country in question. On the other hand, there is no correlation between the proportion of special uses and the overall frequency of progressives in particular varieties as presented in Table 1a, suggesting that the concept of spread or growth as applied to the progressive may need to be interpreted as multidimensional. 8. Grammatical Environment The data were analysed for a number of grammatical categories. 8.1. Clausal Negation In the present study 4.7% of all progressives were negated, a slightly lower figure than Ro mers (2005: 72ff) figure of 8% for spoken BrE, and Mindts (2000: 73) of 7%. Negated progressives were more common in the IC varieties (5.2%) than the OC (4.4%), and within the IC more common in the Southern Hemisphere varieties (5.6%) than the Northern (4.6%), and within the OC more common in the Southeast Asian Englishes (4.8%) than in African/Indian English (3.9%). The differences across the regional groups were not, however, statistically significant (x2 (5) 7.5083, p 

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes Table 5a Negated progressives in the individual Englishes
AUS 41 5.4% NZ US GB KEN IND PHI SIN HK

243

TOTAL

52 5.8% 28 4.5% 31 4.7% 32 3.7% 26 4.1% 25 3.6% 45 6.6% 32 4.3% 312 4.7%

Table 5b Negated progressives in the regional groups

Sth Hem 93 5.6% Nth Hem 59 4.6% INNER C 152 5.2% Afr/Ind 58 3.9% SE Asia 102 4.8% OUTER C 160 4.4% TOTAL 312 4.7%

Table 5c Negated progressives in speech and writing

Speech 229 5.0% Writing 83 4.1% Total 312 4.7%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

0.05), nor across the individual Englishes (x2 (8) 13.0007, p 0.05). In Section 10 below we calculate the progression of the progressive over the four regional groups across a range of variables. Interestingly the ordering so determined (Southern Hemisphere Southeast Asia Northern Hemisphere Africa/India) is the same as that for negated progressives here, indicating perhaps that they represent a developmentally more advanced construction than positives. 8.2. Clause Type In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a strong preference for progressives to be located within subordinate clauses (Strang 1982; Smitterberg 2000). Smith (2002) notes an increase in main clause use in his study of BrE writing between the 1960s and 1990s. It is therefore not surprising that, as Table 6c shows, the proportion of progressives in the main clause is higher (marginally yet significantly) in speech than in writing (x2 (1) 31.1625, p B0.05). The IC varieties had a higher proportion of main clause uses than did the OC (70.2%:67.0%), though the difference was not statistically significant at the 0.05 level, while within the IC the Southern Hemisphere varieties lead the way and within the OC the Southeast Asian varieties lead. 8.3. Temporal Specification via Adjuncts As Table 7b indicates, temporal specification via adjuncts is more popular in the OC varieties (17.0%) than the IC (15.4%), but not significantly so (x2 (1) 2.0499, p 

244 P. Collins

Table 6a Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in the individual varieties

AUS Subord clauses Main clauses TOTAL 157 20.8% 596 79.2% 753 100% NZ 287 32.1% 607 67.9% 894 100% US 188 30.0% 438 70.0% 626 100% GB 242 36.7% 418 63.3% 660 100% KEN 378 44.1% 480 55.9% 858 100% IND 175 27.4% 463 72.6% 638 100% PHI 223 32.5% 464 67.5% 687 100% SIN 206 30.2% 477 69.8% 683 100% HK 243 32.8% 498 67.2% 741 100% TOTAL 2099 32.1% 4441 67.9% 6540 100%

Table 6b Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in the regional groups

Sth Hem Subord clauses Main clauses TOTAL 444 27.0% 1203 73.0% 1647 100% Nth Hem 430 33.4% 856 66.6% 1286 100% INNER 874 29.8% 2059 70.2% 2933 100% Afr/Ind 553 37.0% 943 63.0% 1496 100% SE Asia 672 31.8% 1439 68.2% 2111 100% OUTER 1225 33.0% 2482 67.0% 3707 100% TOTAL 2099 32.1% 4441 67.9% 6540 100%

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes Table 6c Subordinate vs. main clause progressives in speech and writing
Speech Subord clauses Main clauses TOTAL 1327 29.3% 3195 70.7% 4522 100% Writing 733 36.3% 1285 63.7% 2018 100% Total

245

2100 32.1% 4440 67.9% 6540 100%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

0.05). Within these circles we find the same ordering as that noted for a number of other variables: Southern Hemisphere (17.4%) ahead of Northern (12.9%), and Southeast Asia (18.4%) ahead of India/Africa (15.0%). Temporal specification via adjuncts is marginally (but not significantly: x2 (1)  2.5037, p 0.05) more common in writing than speech. The frequencies presented in Table 7c may be compared with those of 13.4% in mainly AmE speech reported by Ota (1963: 14), 21% in BrE novels reported by Scheffer (1975: 55), and 23.6% in BrE speech reported by Ro mer (2005: 75ff). 9. Contraction One overt marker of colloquialization is contraction, in the case of the progressive becontraction and not-contraction. Ro mer (2005: 66ff) reports a rate of contraction of slightly more than half in her spoken BrE progressives, while Smith (2002: 326) notes a dramatic increase in the incidence of contracted progressive in his written BrE corpus data between 1961 and 1991/2 (even excluding quoted speech).

Table 7a Progressives with temporal adjuncts in the individual Englishes

AUS 129 17.1% NZ 157 17.6% US 61 9.7% GB 105 15.9% KEN 135 15.7% IND 89 13.9% PHI 111 16.2% SIN 110 16.1% HK 168 22.7% TOTAL 1065 16.3%

Table 7b Progressives with temporal adjuncts in the regional groups

Sth Hem TOTAL Nth Hem INNER Afr/Ind SE Asia OUTER TOTAL

286 17.4% 166 12.9% 452 15.4% 224 15.0% 389 18.4% 613 17.0% 1065 16.3%

Table 7c Progressives with temporal adjuncts in speech and writing

Speech 710 15.7% Writing 355 17.5% Total 1065 16.2%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

246 P. Collins

In the present study, as Table 8a and 8b show, contracted progressives were considerably more prevalent in the IC Englishes than in those of the OC. As expected, the frequency of contracted progressives in speech significantly outstrips that in writing (x2 (5) 52.5685, p B0.05). The Southeast Asian Englishes were particularly conservative in the written mode, with all three yielding a rate of contraction (PhilE 5.2%, HKE 5.0%, and SingE 2.6%) that was lower*to a degree approaching significance (x2 (1) 3.5198, p 0.06)*than that for KenE (6.8%) and IndE (7.6%), and significantly lower (x2 (1) 33.2487, p B0.05) than that for the Inner Circle varieties (AmE 14.7%, NZE 14.6%, AusE 14.6%, BrE 11.9%). 10. Conclusion The variables examined do not enable us to provide a definitive answer to the question: In which of the Englishes*and subgroups of Englishes*examined has the progressive advanced the furthest? If we consider the sheer frequency of tokens in both speech and writing, then it is the Southern Hemisphere pair that are in front, as it is in the proportion of complex progressive forms, of negated forms, and of main clause uses. On other measures it is the Northern Hemisphere pair that are in the lead: relative popularity in speech, and proportion of contracted tokens. The three Southeast Asian Englishes come out in front on two variables: proportion of special uses and the proportion of progressives with temporal specification. The African/ Indian pair lead on one dimension only, the proportion of progressives with mental and communication verbs. As a crude measure for assessing the ordering of the
Table 8a Contracted progressives in the individual Englishes
AUS 350 46.5 NZ 319 35.7% US 270 43.1% GB 259 39.2% KEN 156 18.2% IND 80 12.5% PHI 256 37.3% SIN 218 31.9% HK 209 28.2% TOTAL 2117 32.4%

Table 8b Contracted progressives in the regional groups

Sth Hem Speech Writing TOTAL Nth Hem INNER Afr/Ind SE Asia OUTER TOTAL

583 55.2% 483 51.7% 1066 53.5% 205 19.3% 656 44.7% 861 34.0% 1927 42.6% 86 14.6% 46 13.1% 132 14.0% 31 7.2% 27 4.2% 58 5.4% 190 9.4% 669 40.6% 529 41.1% 1198 40.8% 236 15.8% 683 32.4% 919 25.5% 2117 32.4%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech, writing, and speechwriting.

Table 8c Contracted progressives in speech and writing

Speech 1927 42.6% Writing 190 9.4% Total 2117 32.3%

Note: % percentage of all progressive tokens in speech (4522), writing (2018), and speechwriting (6540).

The Progressive Aspect in World Englishes

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groups in terms of the set of variables examined, I allotted scores for the groups on each variable (four points for first place, three for second, two for third, and one for fourth). The result was as follows: Southern Hemisphere 26 Southeast Asia 23  Northern Hemisphere 21 Africa/India 18. This ordering raises interesting questions about the putatively dominant status of BrE and AmE on the world stage of English. Rather, it would appear, the Englishes of the Asia-Pacific are more advanced, or perhaps adventurous, in their use of the progressive than the two established and influential Northern Hemisphere varieties, with the Englishes of Kenya and India being the least advanced.9 To what extent does this ordering reflect the behaviour of individual Englishes? In order to attempt an answer to this question I compared all nine of the individual Englishes on the same variables, using a points system ranging from nine points for first place to one point for ninth place. The result was as follows: AusE 63 NZE 50 SingE 49 PhilE 48 AmE 46 BrE 42 HKE/KenE 38 IndE 31. The ordering here is largely predictable from that for the four subgroups (and provides some support for their postulation in this study). The two individual Southern Hemisphere varieties (AusE and NZE) come out in front, followed by two of the Southeast Asian Englishes (SingE and PhilE), followed by the two Northern Hemisphere Englishes (AmE and BrE), while the two members of the Africa/India group (KenE and IndE) bring up the rear. The only regional variety out of place is HKE (patterning with KenE rather than with the other members of the Southeast Asian group). Of the two Southern Hemisphere varieties AusE outscores NZE (not surprisingly, given the attested tendency for AusE to be generally less conservative than NZE in matters of syntax and morphology: see Hundt 1998). Of the two Northern Hemisphere varieties AmE outscores BrE (again not surprisingly in view of the generally greater progressiveness of the former in grammatical change: see Mair & Leech 2006). The ordering within the Southeast Asian group (SingE PhilE HKE), and that of KenE before IndE, are harder to explain. Possible factors here may be the relative number of people regularly using English on the countries represented, and the extent to which the Englishes in question have begun to develop their own norms of English usage. Finally, the findings are compatible with Biber et al.s (1999: 20) view that grammatical categories are prone to more extensive variation across registers than across dialects. In all of the nine Englishes examined the progressive is approximately twice as common in speech as in writing (undoubtedly an important factor in its
9 It could be objected that three of the nine variables used for the scoring are unlikely to be directly relevant to the progression of the progressive: namely, mental and communication verbs, negated progressives, and temporal specification. Omitting them from the calculations does not alter the ordering of the four regional groups: Sth Hem 18 SE Asia 16 Nth Hem 15 Afr/Ind 11. There are however some repositionings in the comparison of the nine individual Englishes (AusE 43 PhilE 40 NZE/AmE 32 SingE 31 BrE 25 KenE 24 HKE 22 IndE 21). Nevertheless the strong position of the Sth Hem group and the weak position of the Afr/Ind group are still in evidence, the Nth Hem varieties still occupy middle ground, and the SEA varieties are spread along the spectrum.

248 P. Collins

rising popularity in the language), and furthermore in all varieties more common in news than in academic prose, and (with the single exception of PhilE) more common in fiction than in news. The two most popular progressive forms, the simple present progressive and simple past progressive contrast strikingly in their stylistic preferences: the relative popularity of the present form being almost twice as great in speech as in writing, that of the past form almost twice as great in writing as in speech (consistent with Smiths 2002 view that it is the present form that has been in the vanguard of change in recent decades). The most frequently occurring of the special uses, the futurate, displays a strong preference for speech over writing, lending plausibility to Mair & Hundts (1995: 116) suggestion that this use may have been a factor in the growth of the progressive.

References
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