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In:The Progressive Revisited: Historical and Quantitative Studies in Germanic and Romance Languages
Edited by Alessandro Carlucci and Jerzy Nykiel
[Studies in Language Companion Series 236] 2025
► pp. 230–254

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The Spanish progressives

Linguistic exploitation of a maverick category?

 | Queen Mary University of London
Published online: 12 September 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.236.08pou
Abstract
I present the development of the Spanish progressives as an instance of capitalization as defined in Pountain (2000). Spanish is rich in periphrastic verb forms, which are often highlighted as a particular expressive richness of the language. A number of verbs denoting location and directional movement combine with the gerund; four such periphrases in particular (ir ‘go’, estar ‘be’, venir ‘come’ and andar ‘go’) overall increase in frequency in the course of time, and have developed distinctive meanings within the broad category of “progressive”. Two relatively recent developments appear to be enhancing this range: the increase in frequency of estar siendo ‘be being’ and of llevar ‘carry’ + gerund, which are testimony to the ongoing productivity of periphrases involving the gerund.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Spanish progressives
    • 2.1A maverick category
    • 2.2The distinctiveness of Spanish
  • 3.Capitalization
    • 3.1The gerund
    • 3.2Auxiliary verbs
  • 4.More recent capitalizations
    • 4.1estar + siendo (and estando?)
    • 4.2llevar + gerund
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
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