Progressive forms - marked/unmarked

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Tue May 18, 2004 2:09 pm

hi everyone!

i desperately need your help! i am going to be asked the following question on monday and i don´t know the answer.

Which progressive forms are marked and which unmarked?

i found only this information: in the opposition simple and progressive, the progressive is the marked member and the nonprogressive is the unmarked member.

But is there a situation when the progressive form is unmarked? i hope someone will be able to help me!

Thanx!

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Tue May 18, 2004 9:03 pm

Hello rebrik,

It's possible that someone will overrule me here, but in my way of thinking all progressive forms are marked by virtue of their being progressive. Simple Present forms are unmarked, because the fundamental meaning of Simple Present is that the user wants to express what he sees as "fact"...period, with no marking for any other nuance of interpretation. There is nothing there about time, or remoteness (which is the essence of Simple Past forms), or personal judgment (the point of modal auxiliaries), or anything else. Hence the form is said to be "unmarked". It is the absence of marking which is the central characteristic of Simple Present.

But any and all progressive forms are marked to show that the event described is extended-in-time rather than "simple" (or holistic). The -ing suffix is put there for the purpose of suggesting that the event under consideration has a time of beginning and another later time of ending, so that it must be envisioned as a temporary, but time-consuming, event, however long or short it may be. This is quite separate from Simple Present views of an event, so the form must be seen as a marked form. Remember too, that English grammar is a combinatorial system, so that all verb forms which have a progressive element add this extended in time component to the overall meaning of the complete verb phrase.

You probably already know all of this, but it may help to have it expressed by someone else as a reinforcement. (Unless, of course, a better informed person can show both of us where we are wrong).

Larry Latham

Who, by the way, will be asking you this question? Is it for oral exams?

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:50 am

hi larry!

thanx a lot for your explanation, it was very helpful! and as you said, it is important to get the information from someone else as a reinforcement. now i will be more confident in expressing this opinion. and if it is wrong, i will tell my professor that even larry thinks so (just kiddin´

it is quite possible that it is going to be something like a catch question. well, i was writing my thesis about english progressive forms and their slovak equivalents and i wrote there what u said, that progressive forms are marked and simple forms unmarked. and my professor who read it gave me his appraisal with some questions. and this one, about the marked and unmarked progressive forms confused me a bit. and i am supposed to answer his questions on monday so that i can take the final exams. so thanx once again! i will write u then what he said. bye!
rebrik

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Wed May 19, 2004 6:22 pm

Just a warning, rebrik, to be a little careful about exactly what you say. If you say that progressive forms are marked and simple forms are not, then you will be in error. It is only Simple Present forms which are unmarked, as far as I understand. Simple Past forms are marked for remoteness.

Good luck.

Larry Latham

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Wed May 19, 2004 6:33 pm

Dear Rebrik,
the problem is that there is no agreement about what most linguistic terms mean. Unless you know what yorr professor means by 'marked' you're stumped. Its a bit like being asked the meaning of a word without specifiying the language.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu May 20, 2004 12:38 am

Stephen makes an excellent point here, rebrik. Linguistics is too young a science to have reached the point where there is general agreement about much of anything, let alone the meaning of terms. But if you know your professor's point-of-view, you'll probably be on fairly firm ground.

Larry Latham

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Thu May 20, 2004 10:59 am

hi larry, hi stephen!
thanx for your replies. well, i am not sure about his point of view

, but, if i understand it right, what you are saying is, that all progressive forms are marked, but only present simple forms are unmarked? does it mean, that present progressive, past progressive, present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, future progressive, future perfect progressive are all marked? and only the opposition present progressive - present simple can be viewed as the opposition marked - unmarked? i read that u can understand progressive forms as marked, because they are marked by the element -ing. but also, that they are marked because they emphasize either that the action has duration, limited duration or is not necessarily complete. chomsky speaks about white sheeps as unmarked (as this is their normal color) and black sheeps as marked. what we learned on my slovak lessons was, that some words are unmarked when we use them in their natural contexts (styles), lets say a poetic expression in a poem is unmarked, but in a scientific paper it is marked. well, i will do my best. thanx guys
rebrik

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Fri May 21, 2004 10:32 pm

As I warned before, someone with more knowledge may overrule me, but the way I understand this issue of "marking", the single unmarked verb form is Simple Present. All other verb forms are marked.

When you think about it, that's the only way it would make sense. Verb forms have a reason to exist. We do not inflect verbs just for the heck of it. It makes the most elementary sense to have one single form which is not marked (and a particular explanation of meaning for the lack of marking), and the others all are marked--each for some special, describable, particular meaning.

Of course, marking is not necessarily restricted to verb forms. There are other kinds of marking in language, but that is another subject.

Larry Latham

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:38 am

hi larry!
well, according to my professor, verbs that typically take the progressive (i.e. activity verbs/ are considered unmarked in the progressive form, as this is their usual form and when used in nonprogressive, they are marked. he is quoting professor Holiday he says. well, might be true from this point of view, but I agree with your explanation!

bye
rebrik

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue May 25, 2004 11:50 am

I'm not satisfied by your professor's explanation at all. Is he really saying there is something unusual about using an "activity verb" with an aspect other than Progressive?

I doubt it.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Tue May 25, 2004 5:26 pm

Rebrik, I suspect that this conversation may be going places you didn't want to go, but I agree with lolwhites, here, that your professor's explanation is unsatisfactory if you have articulated it the way he or she expressed it.

Verb marking is not just some way of identifying which forms are "usual and unusual", or "normal and unnormal". The value of such a scheme would be too limited, I think, to make it helpful. The value of marking, as I understand it, is that each particular "mark" has a meaning component which we can predict and overlay onto the event described by the verb. No mark (which is what we see in Present Simple forms) means that the user of that verb has no interpretive values to place on that particular verb for listeners to translate. If the verb is "marked", for example with progressive aspect, by affixing an -ing suffix and a preceeding (be) auxilliary, the user is asking that the listener interpret the event described by the verb as having limited duration in time. That is the meaning component imbedded in progressive aspect. That is the value of that particular "mark". Well, you can see where all this is going.

Perhaps lolwhites and I have misunderstood your comments or your professor's ideas, but what you said earlier doesn't seem to hold much water, I'm afraid.

Larry Latham

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Tue May 25, 2004 7:00 pm

hi larry hi lolwhites
ok, i will go to him and ask him for the exact explanation, i will write it down and put it here afterwards, btw larry, what about present simple used as a historic present? do you consider it unmarked as well?
rebrik

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Tue May 25, 2004 7:51 pm

I'm not familiar with the terminology "historic present", rebrik. Probably I know it as something else. Can you be a bit more descriptive about what you mean? But my answer to your question probably will not change: Present Simple is always unmarked, so far as I understand. The intention of the user always is to present factual statements without the interpretive clues flagged by inflecting the verb. That is why, I think, the form of Present Simple is identical to the infinitive (or basic) form except for the historical anomaly of the 3SG -s. However, users do sometimes use Present Simple contrastively against the backdrop of an obviously past-time event for the reason of enhancing the drama of the event. Is that what you mean by "historic present"?

Larry Latham

rebrik · Post by **rebrik** » Thu May 27, 2004 3:00 pm

hi larry!
yes, that is exactly what i mean. i ve read that in this case, the simple present is marked.
rebrik

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu May 27, 2004 3:26 pm

I suppose you could think of it that way. However, it doesn't really make sense, does it? The Present Simple verb form is unmarked because its form is identical to basic form, wherever it is used. Just to keep things easy for me to remember, I see this use as an unmarked verb in a situation which seemingly would be appropriate for one marked for past time (or, more precisely, for remoteness). It is the contrast which is important in heightening the drama.

Larry Latham