The English Language english language

Basic Clause Patterns

situation occurs:

(70) The burglar was leaving by the rear window when/as the police

arrived.

It is also interpreted as indicating repeated action when its main verb rep-
resents events as taking only a point of time. Compare the following:

(71) John is hitting his carpet.

(72) John is vacuuming his carpet.

Hit is understood as taking only a point of time; vacuum as requiring a period.
So a natural interpretation of the first is that John repeatedly hits his carpet;
the second most naturally represents continuous activity, not repeated vacu-
umings.
The final issue we raise in regard to the progressive has to do with the
classes of verbs that can occur in this aspect. We noted in our chapter on Ma-
jor Parts of Speech that all verbs except those that refer to states can appear as
progressives. Thus verbs representing events, whether momentary (hit, wink),
transitional (arrive, leave), action (drink, type), or process (grow, widen) occur
with the progressive. State verbs, which include verbs of perception (hear, see),
cognition (know, understand), or having and being (be, contain, own) are not
compatible with the progressive.
There are however, certain state verbs that appear to be exceptions to this
generalization. One can say, for example, John is being silly. When we view
sentences such as this from the perspective we have developed we can see
that it really is not particularly exceptional. Compare it to John is silly. The
latter sentence suggests that silliness is a more or less permanent or typical
characteristic of John, while the former suggests merely that while John is
currently silly, he is not necessarily typically or permanently so. If we were
to paraphrase the former sentence, we would probably use a verb such as act:
John is acting silly. So it appears that be in this kind of sentence is interpreted
as an activity rather than a state verb. We saw this kind of recategorization
of words earlier in our discussion of mass and count nouns.

Exercise

1. For each of the following sentences, indicate the meaning of the
   progressive by selecting the appropriate choice in parentheses. (One of
   these sentences raises questions about the generalizations above. Can