Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Jakub Čumíček

Stative Verbs in the Progressive Form

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.

2015

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 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Author’s signature

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I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc. for
her immeasurable patience and all the help and advice she gave me.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5
2. Theories on Verbs.............................................................................................................. 7
2.1 Classification of Verbs ........................................................................................ 11
3. Aspect .................................................................................................................................. 15
3.1 Progressive Aspect............................................................................................... 17
4. Stative Verbs ..................................................................................................................... 21
5. Stative Verbs with the Progressive .......................................................................... 28
6. Corpus Analysis ................................................................................................................ 38
6.1 Dislike ....................................................................................................................... 39
6.1.1 BNC .................................................................................................................... 40
6.1.2 COCA.................................................................................................................. 40
6.1.3 Summary.......................................................................................................... 41
6.2 Detest ....................................................................................................................... 43
6.2.1 BNC .................................................................................................................... 43
6.2.2 COCA.................................................................................................................. 44
6.2.3 Summary.......................................................................................................... 44
6.3 Loathe ....................................................................................................................... 45
6.3.1 BNC .................................................................................................................... 46
6.3.2 COCA.................................................................................................................. 46
6.3.3 Summary.......................................................................................................... 47
6.4 Hate ........................................................................................................................... 50
6.4.1 BNC .................................................................................................................... 50
6.4.2 COCA.................................................................................................................. 52
6.4.3 Summary.......................................................................................................... 67
7. Summary of Findings ..................................................................................................... 70
8. Discussion of Findings ................................................................................................... 74
9. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 76
10. Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 81
11. Resume......................................................................................................................... 84
12. Czech Resume/ České resumé ............................................................................ 85
13. Appendix ................................................................................................... CD

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1. Introduction

The thesis deals with a complicated issue of the English language, which

is stative progressiveness. For most tutors and users of English, such

constructions are highly ungrammatical and erroneous, yet at the same time

are definitely not unheard of and some such cases of stative verbs used with

the progressive became a part of Western culture. This is perhaps most

famously represented by the McDonald’s motto: “I’m loving it.”

This thesis attempts to answer some of the questions surrounding this

phenomenon. These questions are: What are the stative verbs in comparison to

the approaches to English verb in general? What are the typical characteristics

of stative verbs? What are the theories and reasons regarding the use of stative

verbs with the progressive? And lastly, what patterns are there in the real-life

usage of the stative progressives?

To provide the answers, the thesis consists of two main parts. The

theoretical part is focusing on the theoretical approaches towards verbs, verbal

aspect, stative verbs and finally, the stative progressive. For each of these

topics, the thesis provides the characteristics of each discussed phenomenon as

well as contrastive viewpoints of several grammarians and their respective

theories dealing with the topic at hand, possible explanations and theories

justifying the seemingly erroneous use of the stative progressive in English and

its systematic classification.

The analytical part aims to put the most widespread theories on stative

progressivity to the test. Four private verbs: dislike, detest, loathe and hate

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were chosen for a corpus analysis. The analysis was performed for both the

British English, represented by the results from the British National Corpus and

for the American English, represented by the Corpus of Contemporary American

English. This was done to include both the major varieties of English and also to

see if there has been noticeable increase in the use of stative progressivity in

the past years, as the British National Corpus includes sources dating up to

1993, while the Corpus of Contemporary American English includes more recent

sources, dating up to 2012, thus making it possible to measure very recent

developments in English.

The verbs are analysed in the scope of the major theories regarding

stative progressivity. The aim is to measure whether these theories apply or

not, to measure their prevalence among the analysed verbs to assess the

possible increase in the use of stative progressivity in the past years, to find

whether some types of source materials favour certain theories and lastly, to

allow comparison between the use of stative progressive in the British and the

American English.

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2. Theories on Verbs

The first issue that needs to be addressed in order to better understand

the topic and aim of this thesis is the theory behind verbs as presented in the

select works on English grammar. Alexander (1988) states a verb is a word or a

phrase expressing the existence of an action or a state. He further stresses the

temporal role of a verb, in conveying information about the present, future or

past through its tense, as its basic function, although he writes that when

dealing with the inflection in English, only the past or the present tense can be

distinguished, as these are the only cases when the basic form of a verb varies

(Alexander 1988:159). This claim is supported by Huddleston (1984:124), who

writes that when dealing with an inflection, the verb in question will possess

one of two possible inflectional properties: a past tense or a present tense.

A similar theory is supported by Frawley (1992), who introduces the

following definition: “A verb is traditionally defined as the grammatical category

that represents the action in a sentence” (1992:140), yet he further elaborates

that such definition is problematic because there are many verbs that defy this

definition by not serving to express an action, yet at the same time are still

verbs (Frawley 1992: 140-141). To escape this circular logic, working with the

notion that while not every verb describes an action, the vast majority of

actions can be classified as verbs, Frawley chose to use the term events akin to

the earlier term entities he used for similar reasons when he dealt with nouns.

As he puts it “Verbs encode events: a cover term for states or conditions of

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existence (e.g. be sad), processes or unfoldings (e.g. get sad), and actions or

executed processes (e.g. sadden)” (1992:141).

Cruse (2004) chose a different path. He processes additional theoretical

approaches to the English verb and compares how these handle some of the

more problematic verbs and anomalies where most general definitions tend to

fall short. He states that the traditional approach is to say that verbs are

“doing” words denoting actions, but that such a simple definition appears to be

inherently flawed. To demonstrate these flaws, Cruse offers examples of verbs

punch, denoting an action while according to the traditional theory being a

noun, and seem, which is a verb not referring to any action (Cruse 2004:267).

To address this issue in more detail, Cruse deals with two more

advanced theories. First theory assessed by Cruse is the prototype theory,

dealing with verbs as indefinable category with loosely defined boundaries. This

approach would allow to define a verb prototype while avoiding conflict with the

existence of atypical verbs, which for example don’t normally take the passive

or the progressive aspects, and thus lead to a greater plausibility, yet Cruse

(2004:267-268) concludes that while this approach has its merit, it is still not

entirely accurate.

The second theory mentioned by Cruse deals with the temporal stability

of a verb. According to this theory, the difference lies in the temporal stability

of examined word. According to this theory, nouns and adjectives exhibit far

more temporal stability than verbs, which mostly express short-term events

with high temporal-dynamics (2004:268). This temporal approach is further

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developed in the works of other grammarians such as Givón (1984), who

stresses the importance of a rather rapid change over time when dealing with

the concept of verbs as temporally unstable element (Givón 1984:52), and

Langacker (1987) who prefers the concept of temporary relations and the

symbolic expression of an underlying process as a measure of temporal stability

in verbs (Langacker 1987:244). On a similar note, Z. Vendler (1967) states:

“The fact that verbs have tenses indicates that considerations involving the

concept of time are relevant to their use” and that the use of verb by itself

involves the concept of time (Vendler 1967:97).

These two theories are revisited by Murphy (2010), who conjoins some

of their aspects into one approach. Murphy found out that the line of temporal

stability from the most stable to the least stable can be applied to the prototype

theory. According to Murphy, nouns are the most stable words, while verbs are

the least stable words. In this regard, the position of a word in this line of a

temporal stability simply denotes it to be more or less prototypical to its word

class (Murphy 2010:141). But even though Cruse (2004) labels the temporal

stability approach as more illuminating and unified, he concludes that in the

end this approach fails in the same regard as the traditional one and because of

this, it is plausible to return to the prototype theory, which is not as susceptible

in this regard (Cruse 2004:268).

In conclusion of this chapter, it should be noted that theories on the

basic definition a verb are not united. Some authors prefer to view verbs simply

as words describing some kind of action while others have already noticed the

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existence of numerous exceptions and anomalous verbs which cannot be

defined in such a way for the reason that under specific circumstances, some of

the words may behave like nouns or because the words are clearly performing

the function of verbs but do not describe any kind of action. In these cases, the

authors attempt to devise some kind of a workaround that would still allow for

a meaningful definition of verbs.

One of such attempts is presented by Frawley (1992), who does not

attempt to define verbs but rather introduces a category of his own, called

events. Another two approaches presented in the thesis are the prototype

theory, which aims to establish a definition of an ideal part of speech and then

scrutinise real-world words in terms of their similarities and differences to the

established prototype of their particular part of speech, and the temporal

theory, which aims to define parts of speech such as nouns, adjectives and

verbs in terms of their temporal qualities, especially their temporal stability.

Finally, there is also an attempt for a more unified approach to this

issue, as presented by Murphy (2010). Murphy attempts to unify some aspects

of the temporal theory and the prototype theory into one, using the temporal

qualities of words as the marker of their similarity to the prototype established

for the given part of speech. One difficulty encountered when attempting to

define verbs is that there is an array of words which are used as verbs without

them expressing any action. The treatment of such unusual classes of verbs in

contrast with the general systematic classification of verbs will be discussed in

more detail in the following subchapter.

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2.1 Classification of Verbs

As with the definition of a verb, the authors are not entirely united in

their approach to its classification. Numerous different theories and systems of

classification are presented, all with more or less pronounced distinctions and

variations in the preferred systems or the nomenclature chosen to label each

subdivision.

Alexander (1988) decided to divide verbs simply into two main

categories: stative verbs and dynamic verbs (Alexander 1988:160).

This is in agreement with the approach of Quirk et al. (1985) who divide

verbs into different situation types. The first distinction made is between the

dynamic and the stative verbs as well. These major categories are then divided

further into eleven situation types: quality (e.g. have two legs), state (e.g. be

angry) and stance (e.g. stand) for the stative group, and goings-on (e.g. snow),

activities (e.g. hunt), processes (e.g. grow up), accomplishments (e.g.

discover), momentary events (e.g. explode), momentary acts (e.g. nod)

transitional events (e.g. take off) and transitional acts (e.g. to sit down) for the

dynamic group (Quirk et al. 1985:200-209). They however stress out that such

categorization of dynamic and stative verbs is only artificial in nature and

cannot be always applied because verbs tend to change the nuances of their

meaning and in effect change the respective category they should belong to

(Quirk et al. 1985:200). On the matter of the stative and dynamic verbs they

add that: “There are some verbs (eg: stand, lie), whose meanings cannot be

adequately described in terms of this dichotomy” (1985:178).

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 Saeed (2009) briefly mentions some of the semantic distinctions

generally used when dealing with situation types such as stativity or dynamicity,

durativity or punctuality and finally telicity or atelicity of the examined situations

(Saeed 2009:124). He subsequently introduces the findings of two other

researchers, who attempted to systematically map the situation types: Vendler

(1967) and Smith (1991). The system introduced by (Vendler 1967:97-121) and

quoted by (Saeed 2009:124) separates situation types into four categories:

states (e.g. desire, want, love), activities (e.g. run, walk, swim),

accomplishments (e.g. run a mile, draw a circle, walk to school) and

achievements (e.g. recognize, find, stop).

Smith (1991), as mentioned by Saeed (2009:124-125), builds on the

basic framework introduced by Vendler (1967) but introduces semelfactive

situation type, which is differentiated from Vendler’s achievements as a fifth

situation type. These five situation types are then classified according to their

characteristics regarding the semantic categories of durativity, stativity and

telicity. The difference between semelfactives and achievements is explained as

follows: “Semelfactives are instantaneous atelic events (e.g. knock, cough).

Achievements are instantaneous changes of states, with an outcome of a new

state (e.g. reach the top, win a race)” (Smith 1991:28). In a similar fashion to

Quirk et al. (1985), Saeed (2009) follows up with the following advice: “It is

important to remember that these situation types are interpretations of real

situations. Some real situations may be conventionally associated with a

situation type... other situations are more open” (2009:125; omissions mine).

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 A similar approach to the one presented by Smith (1991) is adopted by

Comrie (1976), who is as well dealing with features such as durativity, telicity,

stativity and also introduces the terms semelfactive and iterative, which denote

whether the situation repeated itself or not, with the semelfactive type meaning

that the instantaneous atelic event (e.g. cough) as previously described by

Smith (1991) happened only once and the iterative type meaning that it

repeated itself (e.g. series of coughs) (Comrie 1976:42).

Frawley (1992) too includes this area into his approach to verbs as

events and introduces four distinct types of events. These are called acts,

states, causes and motion, yet he immediately follows up with a notice that

while these four classes of events are the major ones, they are not to be taken

as the only classes present in the language as there are many more finer

classes and divisions to be discovered should the events of the chosen

language be examined in a more detail. As an example of this, the variety of

verbs in English which express destruction (e.g. ruin, raze, eradicate, dismantle)

and which could be incorporated into such a subclass of its own is pointed out

(Frawley 1992:146). Frawley puts a great deal of attention to the distinction

between acts and states in the regard to the differences in their internal

structure, their scope and their degree of a temporal sensitivity.

A wide array of the discussed approaches to the classification of verbs in

English points towards the conclusion that the main issue here is the desired

level of detail or subtlety. As Frawley (1992:146) pointed out, the verbs can be

classified on a more general level as a whole but should a more detailed

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approach be considered, the individual English verbs can form additional

classes. Nevertheless, most of the presented theories and examples of a verb

classification tend to agree on rather strict division between the verb classes

denoting activity and dynamicity and the verb classes denoting stativity. The

authors dealing with the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs

repeatedly hinted at the importance of a verbal aspect in determining whether

the verb falls into the dynamic or the stative categories. As such, the aspect will

be further dealt with in the following chapter.

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3. Aspect

Saeed (2009) introduces the aspect as a set of systems which:

“allow speakers to relate situations and time, but instead of fixing

situations in time relative to the act of speaking, like tense does, aspect

allows speakers to view an event in various ways: as complete

or incomplete, as so short as to involve almost no time, as something

stretched over a perceptible period, or as something repeated over a

period” (2009:129).

This approach is shared by some of the other grammarians as well. For

example Comrie (1976:3) uses a more generalized definition, which states that

“aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a

situation.” Murphy (2010) revisits this approach and defines the aspect as being

connected with “how the situation relates to time rather than when” (Murphy

2010:202) in terms of the perceivable length of the described event, not unlike

in the aforementioned definition by Saeed (2009).

Further into the chapter about aspect, Murphy (2010) introduces the

concept of Aktionsart which is used to divide verbs into the finer categories

such as static/dynamic, punctual/durative, telic/atelic or inchoactive (Murphy

2010:203-209). Cruse (2004) seems to adopt a similar approach as he founds

the difference between a tense and an aspect on a statement that unlike tense,

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aspect does not serve to locate events in time but it rather encodes a way of

conceptualizing said event or provide information regarding the way the event

unrolls through time (Cruse 2004:275) which seems to correspond with the

“how” approach introduced by Murphy (2010). A comparable approach, focused

primarily on the relation between the aspect and time is also introduced by

Quirk et al. (1985:188).

Tobin (1993) condenses the theory of an aspect in English into two

traditional basic approaches. A temporal approach, which is based on the

placement of a process in time and which is supported by most grammarians

mentioned before, and a non-temporal approach, which focuses on the

speaker’s point of view on the situations in question and which deals with the

division between complete and incomplete situations to distinguish between

aspects (Tobin 1993:5-6). The non-temporal approach is supported by Biber et

al. (1999), who emphasise that “aspect relates to considerations such as the

completion or the lack of completion of events or states described by a verb”

(1999:460).

It is generally agreed upon that the English language distinguishes two

different verbal aspects, the perfect (or perfective) aspect and the progressive

(or imperfective) aspect, as stated by Biber et al. (1999:460), Comrie (1976:16,

24) and Quirk et al. (1985:188). Quirk et al. (1985) then proceeds to describe

the simplest possible distinction between the two as follows: “For some

purposes, the two aspect constructions of English, the perfective and the

progressive… can be seen as realizing a basic contrast of aspect between the

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action viewed as complete (perfective), and the action viewed as incomplete,

i.e. in progress (imperfective or progressive)” (188-189; omissions mine). They

however immediately warn that such a distinction is overly simplified as both

the aspects can appear in a combination within a single verb phrase in English

(Quirk et al. 1985:189).

As the English progressive aspect is highly relevant to the topic of the

thesis, which deals with the stative verbs in the progressive, it will be discussed

in a more detail in the following subchapter.

3.1 Progressive Aspect

As Quirk et al. (1985) describe, “Progressive aspect indicates a

happening in progress at a given time” (1985:197). To better demonstrate this,

they offer example sentences having the same tense, but different aspect.

1. Joan sings well.

2. Joan is singing well.

The prime difference is that the sentence “Joan sings well” describes a more

permanent quality of Joan. A general fact that is not as tied to the time of

utterance, whereas the sentence “Joan is singing well” refers to a singular

performance at that given time. Based on this observation, the meaning of

progressive is divided into three components not all of which are needed to be

present: 1) the happening has a duration 2) the happening has a limited

duration 3) the happening is not necessarily complete.

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 The first two of these components then add up to the concept of

temporariness. It is concluded that the first component is distinctive for single

events, the second component is distinctive for states and habits and the third

component is distinctive to a certain type of a dynamic verb meaning referred

to as a conclusive meaning (Quirk et al. 1985:198). They further introduce

three examples of how the verb senses of state, event and habit deal with the

progressive. For state it is said that in many cases, the progressive is

unacceptable with the stative verbs and thus the stative progressiveness is used

to imply the temporariness of the situation. With events, the progressive

expresses the duration of an event and finally, with habitual meaning, the

progressive implies that the repetition takes place over a limited period of time

(Quirk et al. 1985:198-199).

Comrie (1976) deals with the terms perfectivity and imperfectivity when

analysing this particular part of the verbal aspect. As he understands it, the

perfectivity views the situation as a single whole, while imperfectivity stresses

the internal structure of the situation (Comrie 1976:16). This approach,

focusing on the role of progressiveness in the internal structure of a situation,

corresponds with the findings of other authors, for example, with that of

Huddleston et al. (2002:117).

The imperfectivity, according to Comrie (1976), is characterized by its

“explicit reference to the internal temporal structure of a situation, viewing the

situation from within” (1976:24). The progressivity is then classified as one of

the branches of imperfectivity in the presented system. Comrie states that the

English progressive has an unusually wide range when compared to other

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languages and that the English belongs among those languages, where the

progressive and the non-progressive cannot be in general interchanged or

replaced by each other. Additionally the progressiveness is not caused by the

habituality yet it is not incompatible with it (Comrie 1976:32-34).

Another issues dealt with by Comrie is that there appears to be a class of

verbs that cannot appear in the progressive. It is stated:

“we find that verbs tend to divide into two disjoint classes, those that

can appear in the progressive forms and those that cannot ... this

distinction corresponds to that between stative and nonstative verbs”

(1976:34-35;ommisions mine).

It is then concluded that the general definition of the progressiveness is

the combination of a progressive and a nonstative meaning (Comrie 1976:35),

but Comrie later adds that in English, the meaning of progressive extended far

beyond its original meaning of progressivity. (Comrie 1976:38)

Saeed (2009) gives the following definition of progressive:

“The progressives describe action as ongoing and continuing...

progressives are used with dynamic situations rather than states and

provide a way of describing processes as being extended through time

without any implication or completion. In the past and future,

progressives can be used to provide a background activity against which

another event occurs” (2009:129).

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 An idea prevails throughout the examined theories that the progressive

aspect describes a situation, which includes a degree of temporal dynamicity.

For an action to qualify with the progressive, it needs to progress and change in

time, typically without the action itself coming to an end within the specified

timeframe, or as the other authors state, to stress the internal structure.

When dealing with the English progressive aspect, the authors came to

differentiate a class of verbs, which under normal circumstances show

incompatibility with the progressive aspect and its aforementioned

characteristics. It is noted that these verbs, showing incompatibility with the

progressive aspect, conform to the stative class discussed in the previous

chapter, although some authors, such as Comrie (1976) or Quirk et al. (1985)

argue that the incompatibility of stative verbs with the progressive aspect is not

as firmly set, stating that the role of the progressive in English has become

unusually extended and that stative progressivity is in fact possible under

certain semantic circumstances. The verbs pertaining to the stative class will be

discussed further in the following chapter.

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4. Stative Verbs

Alexander (1988) defines stative verbs as the verbs that are not

generally used with the progressive. He explains that they are called stative for

the reason that they refer to states (e.g. experiences, conditions) instead of

actions. He provides the following example:

3. She loves her baby more than anything in the world.

For this example the form of the verb to love describes a state (involuntary

feeling) beyond any control of the mother (Alexander 1988:160).

Quirk et al. (1985) divide the stative verbs into three categories:

qualities, states and stances (1985:200). The states are then further divided

into private states (intellectual states, states of emotion or attitude, states of

perception and states of bodily sensation), verbs of perception and other states

of being and having (1985:202-205). Quirk et al. then propose a rough

distinction between qualities and states. According to that distinction, the

qualities tend to refer to more permanent properties than the states do. They

further suggest the verbs be and have as prominent verbs introducing quality,

although in some cases these verbs can still introduce the less permanent

category called states. This is demonstrated on the provided examples:

4. Mary is Canadian.

5. Mary has blue eyes.

6. Mary is tired.

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 7. Mary has a bad cold.

The examples (4) and (5) indicate the permanent and unchangeable qualities,

while the examples (6) and (7) clearly illustrate the less permanent and more

change-prone states.

The stance category is defined as a small but important category of

verbs standing somewhere in between the stative and dynamic situations. The

group is described as follows: “They are characterized by their ability to be used

both with the nonprogressive to express a permanent state and with the

progressive to express a temporary state” (Quirk et al. 1985:205-206).

Frawley (1992) uses the following example sentences to explain the

differences between acts and states:

8. Harry stole $10.

9. The book cost $10.

“Stole expresses an event that is controlled, executed and carried out,

with a distinct effect on the participants... the event encoded by the verb

cost is more a condition of existence or an attribute than it is a

procedure that is enacted or controlled” (1992:146).

This approach to the stative verbs bears similarity to the one introduced

by Alexander (1988), mostly in the way of recognizing that states lack the

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voluntariness and conscious control over the action underway. This

characteristic is also adopted by Murphy (2010).

Furthermore, according to Frawley (1992), states tend to be internally

uniform while acts are more structured and heterogeneous. The difference in

scope is based on an observation that for states, the scope of the event is the

event as a totality, while for the acts; the scope of the event is its components.

(Frawley 1992: 146-147) On the differences in temporal sensitivity Frawley

writes the following:

“If actives are relatively more temporal, then it stands to reason that

they usually appear only in nonpresent tenses... the opposite facts hold

for statives. They are relatively less temporal than actives, so they

should have fewer restrictions on what times they may encode” (1992:

148).

Finally, Frawley introduces a series of diagnostic tests to sort out statives

from actives. The progressive test (V+ing), the pseudo-cleft test (What X do be

Y), the “what happened?” test (answer to the question while using the

examined verb), the imperative test and finally the carefully/deliberately test

(stative events cannot be encoded in verbs that take these two adverbs)

(Frawley 1992:149-152).

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 Comrie (1976) solves the question of states and dynamic situations by

giving the following explanation:

“As examples to work with, we may consider first of all the verb know,

referring to a state, and the verb run, referring to a dynamic situation.

One difference between the situations referred to by these two verbs is

in the relation between different phases of the situation : in the case of

know, all phases of the situation John knows where I live are identical ;

whichever point of time we choose to cut in on the situation of John's

knowledge, we shall find exactly the same situation. With run, however,

this is not so : if we say John is running, then different phases of the

situation will be very different : at one moment John will have one foot

on the ground, at another moment neither foot will be on the ground,

and so on. Thus know, on the one hand, involves no change, whereas

run involves necessarily change” (1976:48-49).

Yet he admits that while such a definition and an example works for a

number of states and dynamic situations, there are some exceptions for which

this rule cannot be satisfactorily applied. In order to address these irregularities,

he provides the following, modified characterization:

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 “With a state, unless something happens to change that state, then the

state will continue… With a dynamic situation, on the other hand, the

situation will only continue if it is continually subject to a new input of

energy… To remain in a state requires no effort, whereas to remain in a

dynamic situation does require effort, whether from inside (in which case

we have an agentive interpretation, e.g. John is running), or from

outside” (1976:49; omissions mine).

Murphy (2010) founds his findings about the stative verbs on their time-

related characteristics in a similar fashion to Comrie (1976). He defines the

difference between stative and non-stative verbs as follows: “states and events

can be distinguished by how they relate to time, with states being more

constant across time and events less so” (Murphy 2010:179). According to

Murphy (2010): “state holds equally at all moments within the relevant interval”

as opposed to event which does not hold equally at every moment of the

interval (2010:204).

Dušková differs slightly in her chosen terminology as she does not use

the term stative verbs but rather divides verbs into dynamic class, which

encodes actions, activities and processes, and non-dynamic class, which

describe states, relations and stances. The non-dynamic class is then further

divided into four major subclasses: the verbs of bodily states (e.g. feel, hurt,

ache or itch), the verbs of sensory perception (e.g. see, hear, smell, taste or

feel), the verbs describing intellectual, volitional and emotional states, attitudes

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and reactions (e.g. know, believe, adore, consider or mind) and finally, the

verbs describing relations and states outside the human subject or verbs

involving said subject externally (e.g. contain, possess, constitute, measure or

resemble).

Dušková adds that there are some problematic verbs (e.g. think,

consider, wonder, puzzle, weight or measure) which can be included into both

the dynamic and the non-dynamic classes in dependence on their exact

meaning at the moment. This is not unlike the findings of Quirk et al. (1985)

who found out that stative verbs are not by definition incompatible with the

progressive but that their progressiveness requires some change of their

interpretation to occur (1985:202).

Another exception found by Dušková is that while the vast majority of

the non-dynamic verbs are atelic, there are in fact some telic non-dynamic

verbs (e.g. recognize, grasp, understand, get, discern).

It is concluded that stative verbs are a class of verbs, which convey the

meaning of states, conditions, stances, relations, qualities or experiences, as

opposed to the class known as dynamic or non-stative verbs, which express

actions, processes, activities and such. One of the main characteristics of

stative verbs is their alleged incompatibility with the progressive. The authors

discussed in this chapter agree that the verbs classified as stative cannot be

readily used with the progressive without the resulting amalgamation resulting

in ungrammaticality.

26
 This particular characteristic of stative verbs is used as a part of the

diagnostic test aforementioned by Frawley (1992), who subjects the examined

verb to a five-stage test, using the said verb’s usually striking incompatibility

with the progressive as a first stage of the diagnostic test (1992: 149). Another

characteristic property of stative verbs, as noted by some of the authors, is

their temporal behaviour.

Comrie (1976:48-49) and Murphy (2010:204) both take note that the

meaning expressed by stative verbs displays a greater degree of stability and

permanence. No matter which point of time, within the duration of the stative

verb, is scrutinized, the basic meaning still holds at an ever consistent level.

This does not apply for non-stative verbs which change and do not remain

stable within their duration. Finally, some authors, such as Quirk et al.

(1985:202) or Dušková, claim that while the incompatibility of stative verbs with

the progressive is one of their prime properties, there are some exceptions to

this rule as both of them notice the existence of stative verbs which may

appear with the progressive when some reinterpretation of their meaning

occurs. Such anomalous stative verbs shall be further investigated in the

following chapter of the thesis.

27
5. Stative Verbs with the Progressive

Frawley (1992) takes notice that there are some exceptions to the

general rules considering the behaviour of some of the acts, states and the

borderline cases, which cannot be satisfactorily ruled out by the aforementioned

five-stage diagnostics (e.g. relax or sit). To address this issue, Frawley uses the

findings of Dowty (1979).

Dowty (1979) explains that the statives which are allowed with the

progressive are logically behaving like stages, that is to say, they range over

temporal instantiations of objects, which is characteristic for the actives. On the

other hand, the statives, which are not allowed with the progressive, do not

range over stages, but objects, and as such are not involved with the temporal

properties of the actives. Dowty then introduces two groups of statives. The

statives that allow the progressive and the statives that do not allow the

progressive. The former group and its stative-progressive exceptions are

explained to be derived by the conversion of a stage by the means of an

abstract logical operator.

Frawley (1992) then introduces another approach to stative progressives

based on degrees. According to Frawley, the five diagnostic tests of stativity are

testing three properties of verbs: extension, unitization and execution which are

characteristic for acts but are disallowed by states. Nevertheless, not all of

these properties have to be present or non-present to define progressivity or

stativity. He admits the possible existence of some verbs which are

incompatible with one or two of the properties, yet are compatible with the

28
third property, resulting in the emergence of another classes called semistative

and semiactive verbs, which however are not free of all the problems and

issues and point back to Frawley’s own general idea of a gradient meaning

(Frawley 1992:152-156).

Quirk et al. (1985) argue that rather than distinguishing between

dynamic and stative verbs, it is preferable to discern between dynamic (count)

and stative (noncount) meanings of said verbs, because many verbs can alter

between the stative and the dynamic meaning depending on the circumstances

of their use and shifts in their meaning (Quirk et el. 1985: 175). The authors

further claim that progressiveness is unacceptable with many stative verbs,

which is showcased on the following examples:

10. We own a house in the country.

11. *We are owning a house in the country.

12. *Sam’s wife was being well-dressed.

This is said to be caused by the statives being hostile to the idea of being in a

progress, as contrasted with the following example:

13. We are building a house in the country.

29
It is clear that the stative example (10) is displaying a typically constant

meaning, it does not involve any actual progress being made as opposed to the

example 13. This example implies the progress and the individual steps usually

associated with building a house. To contrast this, Quirk provides an example of

a stative progressive as well:

14. We are living in the country.

In this case, the usage of the stative verb in progressive tends to imply

temporariness of described situation, rather than any actual progress being

made (1985:198-199). Another possible meaning of stative verbs in

progressive, mentioned by Quirk, is the emphasis on tentativeness (1985:203).

Huddleston et al. (2002) are in agreement with these findings, supporting both

Quirk’s theory of a change in meaning of stative verbs used in the progressive

and the proposed functions of such an use for expressing temporariness and

tentativeness (2002: 119,170). Dušková seems to agree with this general

theory as well, as she states that some verbs (e.g. think) undergo a change of

meaning, depending on whether they were used in a dynamic or a non-dynamic

sense.

As was already mentioned, the issue of stative progressivity, as

described by Quirk, does not deal as much with stative and dynamic verbs as it

does with the stative and dynamic meanings of such verbs. These meanings

can shift in dependence on the circumstances, as Quirk et al. describe:

30
 “We should observe that the definition of stative verbs is not so much

that they are incompatible with the progressive, as that when they are

combined with the progressive, some change of interpretation other than

the addition of the 'temporary' meaning of the progressive aspect is

required. This change of interpretation can usually be explained as a

transfer, or reclassification of the verb as dynamic, e.g. as having a

meaning of process or agentivity” (1985:200-202).

In a similar fashion to Quirk et al., Vendler (1967) identifies a series of

verbs which do not correspond properly to the activity sense and the state

sense class division, to the point where it is difficult to even point out the class

these verbs originally belonged to (e.g. to think, to know, to understand, to see

or to hear). To showcase his understanding of this phenomenon, Vendler uses

the following examples (1967:109):

15. He is thinking about Jones.

16. He thinks that Jones is a rascal.

Here the first example represents some kind of an action, as Vendler points out,

it is possible for the thinking to represent a process going on through some

stretch of time. The second example is then a state, because such an opinion

on somebody can last for a long time even without any further activity or

change, same as with the verb to know. If a person knows something, he or

31
she can share the information without it involving any further “flashes of

understanding” to shift it towards the activity class. (Vendler 1967: 109-113)

This approach is however criticized by Śmiecińska (2002), who states

that the usage of statives with the progressive is far more common and

widespread, especially in the American English and is not just a peculiar rarity

as claimed by Vendler (1967). She further argues that the reliance on stative

and dynamic meanings instead of stative and dynamic verbs, as proposed by

Quirk et al. or Vendler, appears to be somewhat circular as under such

circumstances, any verb could be perceived as dynamic or stative, depending

on the circumstances of its use, and as a result, any division of verbs into the

dynamic and stative classes would be pointless (Śmiecińska 2002:189).

Smith (1983) commits fairly great deal of attention to another idea

different from the aforementioned theories of a change in meaning. Smith’s

theory deals with the issue of an aspectual choice in the context of peculiar

anomaly in language, represented by the stative progressiveness. Smith

conveys her findings in the following fashion:

“It turns out, then, that the non-standard choice of viewpoint

represented by progressive statives is a special case of a more general

phenomenon. Speakers talk about actual situations in standard and non-

standard ways… in non-standard choices, one associates an actual

situation with a situation type to which it does not correspond. In

progressive statives, viewpoint indicates an event situation; but in

32
 English, viewpoint generally does not identify situation type. The general

aspectual choice is of situation type” (1983:497; omissions mine).

Smith further states that statives in the progressive represent states with

the properties of events. These properties of events are said to be activity and

successive stages, which together create the notion of dynamicity typical for

events.

Smith suggests several types of a stative progressivity, out of which,

three types are presented and examined in more depth. First are the cases in

which, the use of statives with the progressive indicates a limited duration and

an eventual endpoint (e.g. The river is smelling particularly bad today).

Following are the cases in which the progressivity conveys some degree of

variability in the situation, position or attitude (e.g. I’m actually liking this play)

and finally the cases presenting mental states as events (e.g. He is thinking

that he wants to go home). To concise her findings, Smith concludes that the

speakers of English tend to focus on the specific properties of states that

resemble those of events (endpoints, changes of state, activity suggested by

the mental state), when using stative progressive constructions, as there are

numerous possible rhetorical reasons for such a usage (Smith 1983:497-498).

Another take on the theories regarding stative verbs with the progressive

is generally known as coercion or the aspectual coercion. Michaelis, one of the

proponents of this theory, states that the progressive triggers coercion when

combined with a stative complement verb phrase. She uses the following

examples to demonstrate her findings:

33
 17. I’m living on a Pearl street.

18. I’m liking your explanation.

19. He is remaining stable.

20. Right now she’s believing there’s going to be a reconciliation.

Michaelis (2006) explains that such apparently stative verbs with the

progressive are actually not stative but rather denote homogeneous activities

(Michaelis 2006:34-35). These homogeneous activities are explained as follows:

“Verification of a heterogeneous activity, e.g. running, requires several

frames. Since running consists of successive leaps involving alternating

legs, witnessing a single leap is insufficient to verify an event of running.

Verification of a homogeneous activity like holding a broom, standing in a

corner or sleeping, requires access to points of inception and

termination, as well as several contiguous frames between those

endpoints” (2006:11).

Another supporter of the coercion, de Swart (1998) explains that the

aspectual coercion is usually triggered by a conflict between the aspectual

character of the eventuality and the aspectual constraints of some other

element. A state can be coerced into an event by emphasizing the starting point

of the state, which results in an inchoactive reading of the sentence or by

giving the sentence a habitual reading (de Swart 1998:359-360).

34
 Lee (2006) uses the basis of de Swart’s theory of the aspectual coercion

as a change of an aspectual type into an appropriate type under the influence

of modifiers. According to Lee, these modifiers include tenses, temporal

adverbials and aspectual auxiliaries. Lee then provides the following examples

of the aspectual coercion:

21. John is liking his new job.

22. Suddenly, I knew the answer.

23. Mary was hiccupping.

24. For months, the train arrived late.

These examples underwent the aspectual coercion into events by the means of

stressing the starting or ending points (new, suddenly) as demonstrated on the

examples (21) and (22) or by inferring an iterative or habitual meaning as

presented on the examples (23) and (24) The temporariness seen in these

examples of stative verbs with the progressive originates from the use of the

aspectual coercion to convert states into events which are typically limited in

time and are undergoing changes of a state from their starting point through

their end-point (2006:712).

The authors, discussed in this chapter of the thesis, agree that there

does appear to be a particular subclass of stative verbs, which can, when

certain conditions are met, take on the progressive form which is usually strictly

incompatible with stative verbs. Most of the presented theories can be divided

into three most prominent approaches.

35
 First approach to the issue of the stative progressivity is centred on the

change of meaning encoded by the verbs in question. Proponents of this

approach, such as Quirk et al. (1985), Huddleston et al. (2002) or Dušková

claim that stative verbs can take on the progressive form, especially to stress

the temporariness or tentativeness of a given situation. They however stress

that the stative progressiveness involves more than just the addition of some

kind of a sense of temporariness, coupled with the progressive aspect, but that

this process requires some change of meaning to occur.

The second approach, supported by Smith (1983), makes the stative

progressiveness into a conscious choice made by the speaker at the moment of

utterance. Smith claims that the stative progressiveness is an example of a non-

standard way to describe a situation which depends on the speaker’s viewpoint

and his focus on the specific property of a said state, similar to the properties

linked to activities, such as the beginning and ending, a change of state or an

inner activity. Smith states that there are numerous rhetoric reasons justifying

such usage of a stative progressive.

The final approach to the stative progressiveness is based on the

concept of an aspectual coercion, supported by Michaelis (2006), de Swart

(1998) and Lee (2006). According to the aforementioned authors, the coercion

of a stative verb into an event occurs if the verb is combined with a

complement verb phrase or a modifier, which then proceeds to stress the

starting or ending point of an event, or by including habituality. The three

major approaches: the change of meaning theory, the aspectual choice theory

and the aspectual coercion theory will be used in the following chapter as a

36
basis for a corpus analysis of stative progressive occurrences in the British

National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English.

37
6. Corpus Analysis

The verbs dislike, detest, loathe and hate were chosen to be analysed in

the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English.

These verbs were chosen because together they form a homogeneous group

with the general shared meaning to feel a certain degree of dislike towards

something or somebody.

The British National Corpus was accessed through the Sketch Engine

interface, provided by the Masaryk University. The search queries were formed

as follows: the present participle form of the examined verb was put in the

Word form field with the Part of Speech parameter set to verb. The context

filter was then set to search for a lemma be located up to three tokens to the

left.

The Corpus of Contemporary American English was accessed through the

interface provided by the Brigham Young University. The search queries were

set up in a similar fashion to the ones previously used for the British National

Corpus. The present participle form of the verb under examination was placed

in the main query field along with the .[v*] parameter, limiting the allowed

parts of speech to verbs only. In the Collocates field, the lemma [be] was

placed so the results were limited only to those containing the lemma within

three tokens to the left.

Out of the resulting concordances, only the results corresponding to the

stative progressiveness were chosen. These were analysed in order to

determine the validity of the three main theories on stative progressivity. First,

the change of meaning theory, proposed by Quirk et al. (1985) or Huddleston

38
et al. (2002), which is based on the notion that apart from placing some stress

on temporariness, some notable shift in meaning of the otherwise stative verb

is needed. Next is the theory of aspectual coercion, proposed by Michaelis and

de Swart, which proposes the coercion of stative verb by the means of placing

stress on temporariness, points of beginning and end or habituality of the

situation by the means of various modifiers. Last theory is the theory of

aspectual choice by Smith (1983). The theory is based on conscious choice

being made by the speaker at the moment of utterance motivated by some

rhetoric or other reason. The validity of this theory is tricky to prove as there

are no typical markers of aspectual choice and as such, only the author of

examined utterance truly knew the reason behind the use of stative progressive

construction. Therefore, examples which showed no conclusive signs of either

change of meaning or aspectual coercion will be placed under no change of

meaning or aspectual coercion category.

The stative progressive occurrences of each examined verb, which were

found in the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American

English, will be discussed in the following subchapters.

6.1 Dislike

The lemma dislike appears 1182 times in the BNC and 4439 times in the

COCA. Out of this number, only one occurrence found in the BNC and two

occurrences found in the COCA qualify as stative progressive.

39
6.1.1 BNC

The verb dislike occurs one time with stative progressive in the British

National Corpus. The occurrence is discussed below. For a complete table of

full-length occurrences see Appendix part 1.

25. `She always imagines herself so. She had to be carried into

Afghanistan that fateful summer because she could not face the

rigours of the journey and took refuge in illness. I expect she is

simply disliking the winter.'

The occurrence shows no sign of a meaning change or typical markers

associated with the aspectual coercion. Therefore it most likely falls under the

No change of meaning or coercion category.

6.1.2 COCA

The stative progressive of dislike appears two times in the Corpus of

Contemporary American English. Each of its occurrences is discussed below. For

a complete table of full-length occurrences see Appendix part 1.

26. And just as I was disliking them all and even starting to pity them

for having no idea what they were missing, park-wise, Toby -- my

middle boy, my sandy-haired, blue-eyed, two-year-old flirt --

watched a younger kid make a move for the truck in his hand, and

then, unbelievably, grabbed that kid's forearm and bit it.

40
The temporal adverbial “just as,” coupled with the use of a past tense, both of

which limit the duration of formally stative disliking, indicate the aspectual

coercion is in effect.

27. I think it's appropriate for courts to handle behavior and things that

children are exposed to. But when you're talking about this

particular issue, you have to realize that in divorces, people are

disliking each other a great deal.

This example exhibits no signs of a meaning change or the aspectual coercion,

stressing no temporariness, repetition nor endpoints, thus falling under the no

change of meaning or coercion category.

6.1.3 Summary

The verb Dislike appeared three times with the stative progressive. It

was found once in the BNC, appearing with no change of meaning or aspectual

coercion. The occurrence was found in a work of fiction published within the

1985-1993 period. Two occurrences of stative progressive dislike were found in

the COCA. Once with the aspectual coercion marked by the use of a past tense

and once with no change of meaning or coercion. The first occurrence

appeared in a work of fiction published in 2009, while the latter was found in

spoken language register, dating 1992. All the results are displayed in the

tables below.

41
 BNC

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
1 0 0 1
Source type
Total number Fiction Non Academic Spoken
1 1 0 0

COCA

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
2 0 1 1
Source type
Total Academic Fiction Magazine News Spoken
number
2 0 1 0 0 1

Years of Publication

42
 BNC
1985-1993
1

COCA
2009 1992
1 1

6.2 Detest

The lemma detest appears 234 times in the BNC and 634 times in the

COCA, Out of this total, only one occurrence, found in the BNC, contains stative

progressiveness.

6.2.1 BNC

The verb Detest appears once with stative progressive in the BNC. This

single occurrence is discussed below. For a complete table of full-length

occurrences see Appendix part 2.

28. How could she feel so physically drawn to him, when intellectually

she was detesting him for this arrogant charade?

The use of a past tense directly influencing the stative progressive verb to

denominate limited, not constant duration, marks the verb as being under

effect of the aspectual coercion.

43
6.2.2 COCA

No stative progressive of detest appeared in the COCA.

6.2.3 Summary

The stative progressive of detest appeared once. The occurrence found

in the BNC fell under the coercion theory due to the use of a past tense limiting

the duration of otherwise constant stative verb. The occurrence was found in a

work of fiction published in the period from 1985 and 1993. No occurrence was

found in the COCA.

BNC

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
1 0 1 0
Source type
Total number Fiction Non Academic Spoken
1 1 0 0

44
 Years of Publication

BNC
1985-1993
1

6.3 Loathe

The lemma loathe appears 336 times in the BNC and 1114 times

in the COCA. Out of the results from the BNC, one occurrence contains

the stative progressiveness. The results found in the COCA contain the

stative progressiveness in four cases.

45
6.3.1 BNC

The stative progressive of loathe appears once in the British National

Corpus. The occurrence is discussed below. For a complete table of full-length

occurrences see Appendix part 3.

29. `Leaping nude into the water does tend to give me ideas, and

afterwards, well, I didn't have the impression you were loathing

every minute.' Her eyes are hot, she stares out at the water, at the

summerhouse.

The Example shows two distinct markers of the aspectual coercion,

namely the use of a past tense, which limits the duration of verb and the

temporal adverbial “every minute” which places stress on development of the

situation represented by loathing.

6.3.2 COCA

The stative progressive of loathe appears four times in the Corpus of

Contemporary American English. All the occurrences are discussed below in

more detail. For a complete table of full-length occurrences see Appendix part

3.

30. It wasn't about that. Isabella was loathing Los Angeles. She didn't

like the rest of America much, either.

46
 31. The flute was still shrilling and Saul muttering and I too was

loathing the thing we were seeing, because they were searching

the guts for signs from their gods.

32. For Merry, being an American was loathing America, but loving

America was something he could not let go of any more than he

could have let go of loving his father and his mother, any more than

he could have let go of his decency.

Examples (30) through (32) show signs of the aspectual coercion through the

use of a past tense, coercing the stative verb by limiting its normally constant

duration.

33. " This is what made me want to go into neurology, " she said. " I

have to say, I'm loathing it this time. All this bogus compassion.

And his bogus beard.”

This example shows signs of the aspectual coercion by the means of a temporal

adverbial “this time” which places stress on the endpoints of a situation

described by loathing.

6.3.3 Summary

The verb loathe appeared a total of six times in both the British National

Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English combined: once in

47
the British National Corpus and five times in the Corpus of Contemporary

American English.

The example found in the BNC falls under the theory of aspectual

coercion due to its usage of a past tense limiting the duration of verb. It

originated from a work of fiction published between 1985 and 1993.

Out of the results found in the COCA, all four fall under the theory of

aspectual coercion. In three cases, the aspectual coercion manifests itself by

limiting the verb through past tense, while the fourth occurrence employs a

temporal adverbial to stress the endpoints of the undergoing situation. Three of

the occurrences originated from a works of fiction published in 2008, 2005 and

2000. The final occurrence originated from a magazine published in 1997. All of

the results are displayed in the tables below.

BNC

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
1 0 1 0
Source type
Total number Fiction Non Academic Spoken
1 1 0 0

48
 COCA

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
4 0 4 0
Source type
Total Academic Fiction Magazine News Spoken
number
4 0 3 1 0 0

Years of Publication

BNC
1985-1993
1

COCA
2008 2005 2000 1997
1 1 1 1

49
6.4 Hate

The lemma hate appears 5091 times in the BNC and 33031 times in the

COCA. Out of these numbers, there are 8 stative progressive cases in the BNC

and 61 stative progressive cases in the COCA.

6.4.1 BNC

The stative progressive form of hate appears eight times in the British

National Corpus. All of the occurrences are discussed in more detail below. For

a complete table of full-length occurrences see Appendix part 4.

34. And all I could think of was the way that baby had felt in my arms,

and inside I was hating God for doing this to me.

The use of a past tense serves as an indication of the aspectual coercion by

limiting the duration of what would under normal circumstances be a constant

state.

35. `I'm hating every minute of it!' she said in a shaking voice, and

then the plane veered sharply to the right and Damian moved away

from her.

The use of “every minute” stresses the consecutive phases of development in

the situation represented by the stative verb, thus marking the presence of

aspectual coercion.

50
 36. But I, I'm hating , but I mean yeah I could see its cleverness. And

Yeah. real physical cleverness.

This example shows no apparent signs of a change of meaning or the aspectual

coercion.

37. Within hours of being in the office I was already hating the

drudgery of being plugged into a machine.

This example shows a number of marks indicating the aspectual coercion, such

as the use of a past tense to limit the duration, placing stress on the starting

point and stressing the development.

38. He was hating this. So, as a matter of fact, was I. I.took the

woman's way out.

The use of a past tense in this example indicates the aspectual coercion as it

limits the duration of a traditionally stative verb.

39. He finds the pleasure centre there. He stims it again and again. I

am hating him, but I writhe in a betraying ecstasy, an agony of

pleasure.

51
This example shows no apparent signs of a change of meaning or the aspectual

coercion.

40. > `What is it?' Betty said. `I was hating the analyst.' `When you

haven't met him?' `I was wondering what I landed Henry with.'

The use of a past tense indicates the aspectual coercion of a verb through

limiting its duration.

41. A few birds began to make with the auditions. It was five-thirty in

the morning, and when I finally got to sleep I was hating those

birds.

This example displays markers of the aspectual coercion, namely the use of a

past tense as a limitation to the stative’s duration and a stress on the starting

point of said situation, represented by the temporal adverbial “when”.

6.4.2 COCA

The stative progressive of hate occurs 61 times in the COCA. All the

occurrences are discussed below. For a complete table of full-length

occurrences see Appendix part 4.

52
 42. I just wanted him to keep on hating you just like I was hating you.

But he didn't.

43. Witter recalls of the 13 weeks he was restricted to the hospital. " I

was hating life and everyone. I didn't know what to do with

myself."

44. " I used to be prejudiced, " he said. " I had no idea who gays were,

and everybody else was hating them, so I did, too. "

45. I dropped into Big Dipper, a steep gladed run of unlikely drop-offs

and must-make turns on slick, hard snow. I was hating it, but

necessity rattled my limbs to life...

46. Even while she was hating it she couldn't take her eyes from the

walls and the ceilings and the television, and out of the corner of

her eye she could see her mother and father living in separate

rooms.

The examples (42) through (46) show signs of the aspectual coercion through

the use of a past tense to put a limit on the duration of the normally stative

verb hate.

53
 47. Charlie wakes me up to take over. " Alex hasn't woken up for six

nights in a row, so Liz is hating the rule right now.

The use of a temporal adverbial “right now,” to stress the temporariness of a

situation described by the usually stative verb hate, supports the theory of

aspectual coercion.

48. But Charlie was hating it a few months ago when Alex was up all

night teething, " she says.

The use of a past tense, to limit duration, coupled with the additional stress on

temporariness, caused by the use of “a few months ago,” indicates the

aspectual coercion.

49. HAMLISCH:Very early. And I'll tell you how that happened, actually.

And it was again, another prophetic moment with my father. I was

at Gulliard and I was hating -- actually hating -- worrying about

concerts, you know.

50. " Then she bites his leg, " Todd says. " I was like: Brad's hating

this. He thinks this sucks. "

51. " I was hating it, " says Brad. " I did think it sucked. "

54
 52. It was a terrible period. Everyone was hating each other so much;

there were so many disagreements. It was very petty; everyone was

so out of their brains, and Charlie was in seriously bad shape.

The use of a past tense, to limit the duration of a traditionally stative verb hate,

in the examples (49) through (52), implies the aspectual coercion.

53. Andy MacPhail is hating life right now. # It's 9 a.m., less than a

week into the spring training that counts, the first spring training of

the rest of his Cubs life, and this is what he has been doing for 90

minutes...

The use of a temporal adverbial to stress the temporariness in this example

indicates the aspectual coercion.

54. I loved her even as she was swimming away from me, even as I

was hating her. That's the way it is, when you've loved somebody

your whole life.

55. The more he pondered these consequences, the more he realized

he was hating himself. But he also felt a numbing and intense

dislike for Scott, whose face now seemed almost haunting...

55
The examples (54) and (55) use a past tense to limit the duration of normally

stative verb. This is a marker of aspectual coercion.

56. " It's O.K., Jimmy, " he'd said, his face puzzled, uncertain. And now

Flowers was hating himself because he'd hollered like that at

Johnny.

The use of a temporal adverbial along with the past tense, to limit the duration

of a stative and stress its temporariness, serves as a marker of the aspectual

coercion.

57. “MARTIN: Now, Taryn, you can imagine that a lot of people are

hating when they saw the headline of this research, suggesting

that it's mom's fault yet again.”

58. " Now the people are hating American companies like PADCO

because many times they brought millions of dollars, but didn't do

anything, "

The use of a temporal adverbial to emphasize the temporariness and endpoints

of the stative progressive used in the examples (57) and (58) implies the verbs

were coerced.

56
 59. “They've never met them, but they do kind of feel like, what's your

problem? Why are you all hating on us? What have we ever done?”

60. “If somebody gets a little hit hard, they come back and start a

fight. They are not really hating each other. But, don't let that get

out”

61. Even gym, # I failed. The coach hated me! # They think if you are

quiet, you are hating them. # You are thinking of ways to hurt

them.

62. An ump must be prepared to set a precedent, to make a ruling

based on the extrapolation of what's written in his Bible, and to do it

while thousands of people are hating him...

The examples (59) through (62) show no signs of a change of meaning or any

typical markers of the aspectual coercion, such as the stress on temporariness,

development, endpoints or habituality. As such, the examples will be classified

under the no change of meaning or aspectual coercion type.

63. LARRY KING: Because they're bureaucrats, and people are hating

bureaucrats all the time, right?

57
This example shows signs of the aspectual coercion due to stressing the

development.

64. But can you not switch the focus before all the world's children are

hating and killing each other with drugs, guns and jealousy? Bring

us that which will benefit world culture.

The emphasis placed on the point of inception indicates the aspectual coercion.

65. “MR-NENADOVIC: If they were to be six independent nations which

are hating each other time and trying to fight each other

economical and otherwise I think they would all be worse off. Much

worse off.”

No apparent sign of a change of meaning or the aspectual coercion is present

in this example.

66. MICHEL-MARTIN: “No. He's making fun of the fact that our studio is

fabulous, but he's basically hating already.”

67. “BILLY-BRETHERTON-# (Off-camera) Is he, he's hating us right

now? He is, he'll start to hiss if he gets really aggravated”

58
 68. One second, she's hating him more than she's hated anyone since,

well, her dad, and next she's ready to bear his firstborn.

The use of temporal adverbials in the examples (66) through (68), to stress

temporariness and emphasize the endpoints of a developing situation, marks

the aspectual coercion.

69. " He played sick before practice every day for weeks, " Terri says

one Saturday afternoon, as Garrett fidgets on his bed. He's hating

this discussion.

70. He's hating me with every inch of his body; I see it in his eyes, in

his tight smile, I hear it when he says, Let's teach these Millstone

kids about making love.'

71. “TERRELL-BROWN:Did I miss something? When did combining

bacon and ice cream become a big thing? You know, is that -- I'm

saying it looked good. I'm not hating on it.”

72. “LEMON:All right. I'm not hating it. Even if Eva Longoria by me in

the street, they wouldn't know as you. Go ahead.”

59
 73. Why is Kris Jenner there? The joke, why Kim Kardashian, why is she

famous? Why should ask? Ask this one. I don't know. I'm not

hating, just being honest.

74. LEMON: OK.The White House correspondents dinner. First of all,

people on Twitter know I'm not drunk, I'm not inebriated, I haven't

had a drink. I'm not hating. I'm just having fun.

The examples (69) through (74) show no change of meaning, nor contain any

typical signs of the aspectual coercion, such as placing stress on the

temporariness, habituality or endpoints of the stative progressive situation.

75. You've become a vessel. And holy shit, things start happening. And

I'm hating the way I'm sounding right now, because I sound like a

tosser, but that's my secret ambition.

The use of a temporal adverbial to stress the temporariness of hating through

limiting the duration of the indicated target of hate represented by sounding

indicates the theory of aspectual coercion is in effect.

76. " I'm hating this already, " she muttered to herself. " Dirk's going

to owe me, big time, for this one.

60
The use of a temporal adverbial to stress temporariness through an emphasis

on the development is an indication of the aspectual coercion.

77. MARTIN: “OK, let me just say, I'm not hating, because I want my

interview, OK?”

78. (Soundbite-of-laugh) MARTIN: OK? I want my interview. I'm not

hating. So, Governor, if you're listening.

79. " the starch in my pinafore scratching the shit outta me and I'm

really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college

degree " (88)

80. Sylvia reveals this pattern in clauses like " And school suppose to let

up in summer " and " I'm really hating this nappy-head bitch "

(88).

81. “Ms-ANNE-KELLY-1Ma:And he said, How are you liking being back in

DC?' And I said, Well, it's funny you should ask. I'm actually hating

it.' And he said, Well, do you want to move to Seattle?'”

82. " I have one 8:30 class this semester, " says Kansas forward Scot

Pollard, " and I'm hating it. "

61
The examples (77) through (82) show no signs of undergoing any change of

meaning nor are they containing any typical signs of the aspectual coercion,

such as stressing temporariness, endpoints or repetition of the verbs.

83. Knowing she was going to be hating herself come morning when

the kid didn't show up, she said, " I'll make you a deal. You can

work off what you stole. Be here at six tomorrow morning. "

The use of a tense to limit the duration of a verb and placing additional stress

on the point of inception are both markers of the aspectual coercion.

84. " Johns Hopkins. Man, I'm hanging out at the wrong bars. Those

looks and a paycheck. How long will she be gone? " " Four long

years. " " Got ta be hating that, man. You guys like engaged? "

85. Ms. LUTHER: It's people who copy other people. That really bothers

me, especially when they do it so blatantly. Mr. de la RENTA: You

must be hating a lot of people then.

The examples (84) and (85) show no signs of any change of meaning or signs

of the aspectual coercion, usually marked by the stress on temporariness,

repetition or endpoints.

62
 86. PRIVATE ROBERT WIGLEY: I tell her about how I got guard duty

and how I'm going to be hating that and totally tired.

The use of a tense indicates the aspectual coercion by limiting the duration of a

verb.

87. " That's chauvinistic, James. You're just hating on her because

she's a successful woman, " Monique snapped.

This example shows no signs of a change of meaning. Also no signs of the

aspectual coercion, such as stressing temporariness, endpoints or habituality of

the verb, are present.

88. They're not buying it, not 1 mile of it: the beauty, the isolation, the

grandeur. Of course, just when they're hating me most, the trip

turns.

The use of a temporal adverbial to place a stress on development indicates

aspectual coercion.

89. So when it's Monday morning and you're sleeping till noon, it's the

greatest job in the world, and when its Thursday and you're waking

up in the freezing pitch black to " Purple Rain " blasting on the radio

alarm, then you're hating the job with every molecule in your body.

63
The stress on temporariness, represented by the use of a temporal adverbial

which places emphasis on the endpoints, indicates aspectual coercion.

90. ROSELLE: Yes. I -- just -- it brings out the extremes in everybody.

You either -- you're loving it and you're hating it.

No change of meaning or any typical signs of aspectual coercion, such as

tenses, temporariness, endpoints or repetition are apparent in this example.

91. Then you hate yourself for thinking that, and while you're hating

yourself, Oliver turns around and goes up to Brett and yanks the

Game Boy out of his hands.

The stress on development of the stative progressive found in this example

serves as marker of the aspectual coercion.

92. Ms. AUSTIN: Ninety-nine percent of it was positive. The one

negative was the injuries, the injuries and not taking enough time to

get healed; and also, the press saying that I was burned out when,

to me,' burned out' means you're not enjoying it, you're hating it,

you're not happy out there.

64
No change of meaning or any signs of aspectual coercion, such as stress on

temporariness, endpoints or habituality, are apparent in this example.

93. He is trying to become an actor in Hollywood now, and the XFL still

holds a big place on his resume and in his heart. # " People weren't

hating the league, " he said.

The use of a past tense, which serves as a limitation to the otherwise constant

duration of a stative, indicates that the aspectual coercion is in effect.

94. Jews fully supported Israel, and then it seemed biblical. By Day 7

the Muslims were all hating the Jews.

The use of a past tense and a stress on point of inception, both limiting the

duration of hating, is an indication of aspectual coercion.

95. Well, to make a long story short, I'd never had a problem with

women falling all over me; it was guys I had a problem with, and as

usual, they were hating.

96. Ms-JULIE-ANDREWS: For me, the most inspiring and soaring was

going to the moon. When man first stepped onto the moon, it

seemed to me that for one hour the entire world joined together

65
 and focused outward. They weren't at war, they weren't hating

each other, they were all looking outwards to something

The verbs in examples (95) and (96) have been coerced through the use of a

past tense to limit the duration of hating.

97. Northerners had to like Negroes, I thought, watching them angrily.

How could they dare not like us when the southerners were hating

us.

The use of a temporal adverbial to place stress on the development, coupled

with a past tense, limiting the duration of otherwise stative verb, indicates the

aspectual coercion.

98. I wasn't worried. I couldn't hardly believe she would call them. Not

when they hated my daddy the way they hated him. They were

hating a dead man, and the fools didn't even know it.

99. Then Lenore started to cry. " And worst of all, Mama? Worst of all? I

been hating you?

100. Bianca, who has been hating Simone and urging her lover to kill

him, suddenly sees her husband in another light.

66
The use of a past tenses in the examples (98) through (100) to limit the

duration and emphasize temporariness of what is otherwise constant, stative

verb, mark the verb as under the influence of aspectual coercion.

101. The prospect she found almost unendurable. I am hating this,

she told herself. It is even worse than I imagined it would be.

102. I hate Templehall, and I hate the headmaster, and I could

strangle Hamish Blair. I have never had to do anything in my life

that I have hated so much. I am hating the rain, hating the entire

educational system, hating Scotland, hating Edmund.

No change of meaning is apparent in the examples (101) and (102) No typical

markers of the aspectual coercion, such as the emphasis on temporariness,

endpoints and habituality are present.

6.4.3 Summary

The verb hate appears total of 69 times with stative progressive, 8 times

in the BNC and 61 times in the COCA.

In the BNC, six occurrences showed signs of the aspectual coercion while

two exhibited no signs of either aspectual coercion or a change of meaning. Six

of the occurrences originated from works of fiction, while one originated from a

non-academic source and one from a spoken source. Two sources were

67
published during the 1960-1974 period and six were published during the 1985-

1993 period.

In the COCA, 37 occurrences fall under the theory of aspectual coercion

and 24 exhibited no signs of the aspectual coercion or a change of meaning.

Two of the occurrences originated from academic sources, 23 came from works

of fiction, 9 from magazines, 7 from news reports and 20 from spoken sources.

The source materials were published from 1990 to 2012. All the results are

displayed in the tables below.

BNC

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
8 0 6 2
Source type
Total number Fiction Non Academic Spoken
8 6 1 1

COCA

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
61 0 37 24
Source type
Total Academic Fiction Magazine News Spoken
number
61 2 23 9 7 20

68
 Years of Publication

BNC
1985-1993 1960-1974
6 2

COCA
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
5 4 4 3 4 2 2 2 2 1 3

COCA
2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1993 1992 1991 1990
1 2 3 1 3 5 3 1 4 6

69
7. Summary of Findings

Four stative verbs were analysed for signs of the stative progressiveness

in the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American

English. These verbs are dislike, detest, loathe and hate, which were chosen

because together they form a homogeneous group with a shared meaning to

feel a degree of dislike towards something or somebody. The stative

progressive forms of these verbs proved to be somewhat rare, with no obvious

links between the frequency of the base lemma and the frequency of its stative

progressive discovered. The frequency range varied wildly, ranging from the

total frequency of one case of the stative progressive for every 290 hits for the

fairly rare verb loathe, through the total frequency of one stative progressive

case for each 560 hits for the most frequent verb hate to the total frequency of

one case of the stative progressive for each 1873 hits for the second most

frequent verb dislike.

For dislike, three examples of a stative progressivity were found. One of

these displayed signs of the aspectual coercion while the other two showed no

signs of the aspectual coercion or a change of meaning.

One example was found for the verb detest. The single occurrence

appeared in the British National Corpus and exhibited signs of the aspectual

coercion.

For the verb loathe, a total of five examples were found, all five of which

fall under the theory of aspectual coercion.

A total number of 69 examples of the stative progressiveness were found

for the verb hate. 8 of them were found in the BNC and 61 in the COCA. Out of

70
the 69 examples, 43 examples fall under the theory of aspectual coercion and

26 results exhibit no signs of the aspectual coercion or a change of meaning.

All in all, 11 occurrences of the stative progressiveness were found in the

British National Corpus. Eight of these occurrences fall under the theory of

aspectual coercion, while three exhibit no signs of change of meaning or

aspectual coercion. 67 occurrences were found in the Corpus of Contemporary

American English, 42 out of which fall under the theory of aspectual coercion,

while the 25 remaining occurrences showed no signs of a change of meaning or

the aspectual coercion.

The grand total of all the stative progressives is 78, with 50 occurrences

falling under the theory of aspectual coercion and 28 occurrences showing no

signs of a change of meaning or the aspectual coercion. No example of a

change of meaning was found for any of the verbs under examination. All the

results are displayed in the tables below.

BNC

Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
11 0 8 3
Source type
Total number Fiction Non Academic Spoken
11 9 1 1

COCA
Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion

71
 67 0 42 25
Source type
Total Academic Fiction Magazine News Spoken
number
67 2 27 10 7 21

Combined
Theory
Total number Change of Aspectual No change of
meaning coercion meaning or
coercion
78 0 50 28
Source type
Total Acade Fiction Fiction Magaz Non News Spoke Spoke
numb mic -BNC -COCA ine Acade n-BNC n-
er mic COCA
78 2 9 27 10 1 7 1 21

Years of Publication

BNC
1985-1993 1960-1974
9 2

72
 COCA
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
5 4 4 4 5 2 3 2 2 1 3

COCA
2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1993 1992 1991 1990
2 2 3 2 3 5 3 2 4 6

73
8. Discussion of Findings

Four verbs, forming a coherent group with the shared meaning “to feel a

degree of dislike towards something or somebody” were chosen for a corpus

analysis.

It was found out that the stative progressives of the verbs dislike, detest,

loathe and hate are fairly infrequent. The frequency of their appearance with

the progressive showed no link to the frequency in which their base lemma

appears within the corpora, as even the far less frequent verb to loathe

appeared much more frequently with the progressive than the second most

frequent verb to dislike.

Out of the analysed cases of stative progressivity, a majority of the

results exhibited one or more signs of the aspectual coercion. Both the BNC and

the COCA results combined ended with 64% of the results falling under the

theory of aspectual coercion and the remaining 36% showing no signs of either

any change of meaning or the aspectual coercion, thus possibly falling under

the theory of aspectual choice. Surprisingly, no cases exhibiting a change of

meaning were found. This may possibly be caused by the negative emotional

charge innate to the analysed group. Such an inherent negativity can limit the

use of these verbs in a manner that could change their meaning in order to not

be misunderstood and appear impolite, motivating the speakers to chose

different words.

Out of the text types, the fiction and spoken registers proved to be the

most prominent sources, accounting for most of the results. The dialogues

originating in a works of fiction, along with the significant portion of the spoken

74
registers results made up most of the occurrences showing no signs of either

the change of meaning theory or the aspectual coercion, suggesting that the

theory of aspectual choice also checks out as valid for this group of verbs, due

to the great importance on the speaker’s choice placed on the results

originating from the spoken and a portion of the fiction registers.

The timeline of publication dates comes to a great interest, showing

small, but growing numbers in the BNC results and a fairly steady amount of

stative progressive occurrences in the COCA. This may be due to the sheer

scope and the general contemporariness of the COCA sources or it may suggest

that while the presence of the stative progressivity in the British English

gradually increased in the past decades, it is far more visible and common in

the American English.

75
9. Conclusion

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the use of a stative progressive in

both the British and the American English in the context of the three major

theories addressing the issue posed by the seemingly ungrammatical

phenomenon and presenting various explanations for its usage in English. The

thesis aims to measure the degree in which these theories can be applied to the

progressive use of a select group of stative verbs found within the both major

subtypes of English language: the British English, represented by the British

National Corpus and the American English, represented by the Corpus of

Contemporary American English, in order to find any patterns and trends in the

recent development of this phenomenon as the Corpus of Contemporary

American English offers significantly more recent data and as such, provides an

useful insight into the very recent developments in English.

To accomplish this, the theoretical part of this thesis focused on building

a basic framework from the different approaches and works dealing with the

wide array of related issues, namely the theories regarding the definition and

classification of a verb, the crucial issue of aspects in English and the different

viewpoints on stative verbs and the stative progressivity itself. The different

approaches presented by the cited authors were contrasted and compared to

each other in order to create a comprehensive view on all the important aspects

of the issue posed by the stative progressive in English. Out of the presented

approaches toward the stative progressivity, three are of significant importance

to the analysis performed in the second part of this thesis. First is the theory of

change of meaning, as proposed by Quirk et al. (1985), Huddleston et al.

76
(2002) and Dušková, which deals with the notion that a normally stative verb

can take on the progressive if its basic meaning shifts. Next is the theory of

aspectual choice, as proposed by Smith (1983), who argues that the stative

progressiveness is the result of a conscious choice made by the speaker at the

moment of utterance. The last major theory discussed in the thesis is the

theory of aspectual coercion by de Swart (1998) and Lee (2006) who propose

that the stative verbs are coerced into the progressive by the use of an external

modifier, such as the use of a tense or a temporal adverbial to stress

temporariness, endpoints or habituality of the stative.

The analytical part of this thesis focuses on the corpus analysis of a

chosen group of private verbs expressing negative attitude: dislike, detest,

loathe and hate. The verbs together form a homogenous group with the

common meaning “to feel a degree of dislike towards something or somebody.”

The verbs were analysed for their stative progressive usage in both the

British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English so

that some samples from both the major variants of English are present.

The analysis showed that the particular group of verbs under

examination virtually never appear with the change of meaning theory

proposed in theory by Quirk et al (1985). That might be caused by the innate

emotional charge present within this particular group of verbs as other groups,

especially the verbs expressing sensory perception, respond fairly well to the

change of meaning theory. Out of all the results of the stative progressiveness

found for this particular group of verbs, the theory of aspectual coercion, as

proposed by Lee and de Swart, accounts for 64% of all examples. Rest of the

77
results then shows no sign of either a change of meaning or the aspectual

coercion and can therefore be accounted as an aspectual choice, although the

fact that only the author of utterance knows the true reason behind the use of

a stative progressive form makes this theory difficult to prove.

The most prominent text types found within the corpora were the fiction

registers, which made up more than a half of all accounted aspectual coercion

cases and the spoken registers, unsurprisingly accounting for more than a half

of the no change of meaning or aspectual coercion cases, as many of the

spoken register occurrences originated from various interviews and TV shows,

where the prominence of the speaker’s choice is greater. The fiction registers

also made a significant impact on this category, mostly due to the dialogues

between characters, where the choices made by the speaker also matter

greatly.

All in all, the COCA has proven to be a more plentiful source. It would

appear so due to the fact that the COCA is a more recent corpus and as such

provides much wider range of available texts, which are in general more

contemporary than its BNC counterparts. The numbers of stative progressive

occurrences from the late 2000s and the 2010s show no notable increase from

the numbers of stative progressive occurrences originating in the early 1990s,

which are also the latest years covered by the BNC, which shows increase in

the frequency of the stative progressive use prior to the 1990s. Unfortunately,

there are very little occurrences from before this time period, which makes it

hard to determine whether the stative progressive use of this particular group

of verbs rose in the American English sometime during the 1980s, just as it

78
apparently did in the British English or if the use of stative verbs with the

progressive simply applies mostly to the American English and it only began to

spread into the British English.

It can be said that this group of stative verbs, although not at all scarce,

appears somewhat rarely with the progressive, especially in the BNC, with the

sole exception of the verb detest, which appeared only in the BNC and not in

the COCA. The verbs show remarkable resistance to the change of meaning

theory but are rather commonly found with multiple signs of the aspectual

coercion and the theory of aspectual choice also checks out, mostly due to the

frequent use of the stative progressive in results originating from the spoken

and news registers.

Out of the 78 occurrences of stative progressive, 50 occurrences

exhibited signs of the aspectual coercion. The remaining 28 occurrences

contained no apparent sings of a change of meaning or the aspectual coercion,

meaning that 64% of the result analysed in the thesis fall under the theory of

aspectual coercion, while the remaining 36% doesn’t conclusively fall neither

under the theory of a change of meaning or the aspectual coercion, speaking in

favour of the theory of aspectual choice, as over 50% of these results

originated from those source types, that emphasize the role of the speaker’s

choice. This noticeable resistance to the change of meaning theory and the fact

that according to the dates of publication the numbers of the stative

progressive occurrences seems to be fairly consistent throughout the years,

especially in the COCA, seems to support the claims of Śmiecińska, who

criticized some of the shortcomings of the change of meaning approaches and

79
rebuked the traditional approach to the stative progressivity as a rare oddity,

that has no place and no steady presence in English, claiming that the use of

stative progressives is rather common, especially in the American English.

Yet the results may not be completely conclusive for a wider context of

the private verbs group and a further research is still needed to compare the

results with a broader set of verbs and more data in order to eliminate the

possible influence by the negative emotional charge innate to the analysed

group of verbs and to make the results as objective as possible, as the resulting

data coming from the analysis of such a limited group of verbs may only reflect

on its specifics but be proven invalid for a broader set of similar private verbs

which may respond differently to the three main approaches to the issue of

stative progressivity.

80
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Alexander, L. (1988). Longman English Grammar. London: Longman.

Biber, B., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and Finegan, E. (1999) Longman

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Comrie, B. (1976) Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and

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Cruse, D. (2004). Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and

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Davies, Mark. (2008-) The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 450

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de Swart, H. (1998). Aspect Shift and Coercion. Natural Language & Linguistic

Theory, 16(2), 347-385. Retrieved from

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Dowty, D. (1979) Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht:

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Dušková, L. et al. (2009) Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny.

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from http://www.mluvniceanglictiny.cz

Frawley, W. (1992). Linguistic Semantics. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum

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Givón, T. (1984) Syntax: a Functional-Typological Introduction.

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Huddleston, R. (1984). Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge:

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Huddleston, R., and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the

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Langacker, R. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Stanford, Calif.:

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Lee, E. (2006). Stative Progressives in Korean and English. Journal of

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Michaelis, L. (2004). Type shifting in construction grammar: An integrated

approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics, 1-67. Retrieved

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Murphy, M. (2010). Lexical Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Quirk, R. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London:

Longman.

Saeed, J. (2009). Semantics. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell

Sketch Engine. Retrieved from https://ske.fi.muni.cz/auth/corpora/

Śmiecińska, J. (2002) Stative Verbs and the Progressive Aspect in English.

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 38. 187-95.

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Smith, C. S. (1983) A Theory of Aspectual Choice. Language 59. 479-501.

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83
11. Resume

This thesis deals with the phenomenon of a stative progressivity in

English. Although the use of stative verbs with the progressive aspect seems to

be contradictory to the meaning of the term stative and such usage is often

perceived as erroneous and ungrammatical, it is definitely not unknown and

appears with a wide variety of stative verbs.

The grammarians are not united in their approach towards this peculiar

phenomenon of English, which leads to a variety of different theories and

explanations justifying the use of stative verbs with the progressive if certain

conditions and circumstances are met. The thesis introduces a variety of such

theories on the stative progressivity and from these, three most prominent

approaches are chosen. These are the change of meaning theory, the theory of

aspectual choice and the theory of aspectual coercion. These are analysed in

the analytical part of the thesis.

The analytical part of this thesis tests out the three major approaches on

the stative progressive occurrences from the British National Corpus and the

Corpus of Contemporary American English. It was found out that while the

change of meaning theory appears to be widely supported, it does not apply for

the select group of stative verbs. On the other hand, the theory of aspectual

coercion accounted for 65% of the results. The source types and the context of

usage of the remaining stative progressive cases then corresponded with the

speaker-based theory of aspectual choice.

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12. Czech Resume/ České resumé

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá jevem stavové progresivity v anglickém

jazyce. I když se použití stavových sloves v progresivním aspektu zdá být v

protikladu k významu stavových sloves a toto jejich použití je často vnímáno

jako chybné, zdaleka se nejedná o neznámý jev a vyskytuje se u široké škály

stavových sloves.

Jazykovědci nejsou ve svém přístupu k tomuto jevu jednotní, což vede ke

vzniku množství nejrůznějších teorií a vysvětlení ospravedlňujících použití

stavových sloves v progresivu, jsou-li splněny určité podmínky a okolnosti.

Práce představuje několik takových teorií a z nich vybírá tři nejvýraznější

přístupy ke stavové progresivitě, teorii změny významu, teorii aspektuální

koerce a teorii aspektuální volby, které jsou dále zpracovány v analytické části

práce.

Analytická část práce testuje tyto tři přístupy na výsledcích získaných z

Britského národního korpusu a Korpusu současné americké angličtiny. Bylo

zjištěno, že i když patří teorie změny významu mezi široce uznávané, pro

zvolenou skupinu sloves se nepotvrdila. Teorie aspektuální koerce však na

druhou stranu obsáhla 65% všech výsledků. Typy zdrojového materiálu a

kontext použití zbylých příkladů stavové progresivity pak svým důrazem na

mluvčího odpovídaly teorii aspektuální volby.

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