TOWARDS A THEORY

OF THE EXPANDED FORM

m ENGLISH
by D. L. GOYVAERTS

0.0. In a recently published English grammar my atten­

tion was drawn to the chapter which dealt with the simple
present/progressive tense dichotomy. I was somewhat surprised
to learn that a quite extensive list of verbs cannot be used in
the so-called continuous form. In the meantime I have come
across another seven grammars which are used — or serve as
a basis — in secondary schools and which are equally dogmatic
about this. It is not my intention to attack these grammarians.
Besides, it would not be fair to do so in view of the fact that,
apart from the progressive form discussion, the other chapters of
their books certainly meet the needs of a good school grammar.

1.0. The first part of this article is meant to be a simple

warning to teachers of English as a foreign language. The
second part contains a suggestion as to how the problem should
be looked upon. The lists given in the above-mentioned
grammars usually include the following verbs : have, fee, hold (!),
hope, hear, depend, appear, jfeeZ, forget, Khe, Zove, imagine, know,
mean, own, see, want, think, mind, ... The authors in question
are very categorical about the subject and use phrases like
“ never used” , “ not to be found” or “ must not be used in the
continuous tense” , etc. I wonder, however, what a clever pupil
must think about his grammar book (and teacher) if he listens
to pop-music and hears sentences like :
1) We're having a party.
2) You're just having fun.
3) I'm feeling kind o f seasick.
112 D . L. GOYVAERTS

4) Are you liking it too ?

5) I f you no longer care for the love that’s being there.
6) Fll be loving you until I die.
7) Pm wanting you to know that wherever I go...
8) Was he holding her hand ?
9) Pm thinking about the things we used to do.

The same would apply to more advanced students, because

they are likely to read English newspapers (N) and novels (No),
and might thus come across the following examples :
10) We’re having jolly weather (No).
11) You9re being so boring (No).
12) The Foreign Office are being very sticky about passports (No).
13) Papers aren9t being entered (No).
14) I think he’s being difficult again (No).
15) They are singing... dancing... and loving in the streets (poster).
16) I ’ve been meaning to break it off (No).
17) I ’ve been meaning to suggest it for some time (No).
18) He was forgetting that each time one of his colleages had been
killed the police had classified the death as... (No).
19) “ Of course. I was forgetting that” (No).
20) She’s always finding fault with me (No).
21) New taxis are appearing but some are still very ancient (N).
22) Surely she was dreaming or imagining things (N).
23) Will you be wanting this handkerchief? (No).
24) Yet she was wanting a baby... (No).
25) I ’ve been hearing things about you — terrible things you
ain’t told me nothing about (No).
26) She’s minding the children (No).
27) At the time when young men and women should be becoming
self-reliant they are depending upon a chemical drug (N).
28) C.M., link man of the BBC’s 24 hours T V programme was
seeing a specialist today (N).
29) Beneath his face, his child’s soul was sobbing with gratitude
to the woman, and burning to come to her again; just as his
outcast soul was knowing he would keep clear o f her (No).
30) He was hoping airline girl F. would visit him here (N).

On the face of it, the progressive form appears to be

comparatively simple, but it can in reality be very complex.
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 113

Indeed, from the time that a learner of English is taking his

very first steps in the language, the English verb is a continual
source of difficulty. The teacher has to be constantly aware of
the difficulties his pupils are facing and has to devise ways of
helping them to use the verb forms of English as naturally
as a native speaker would use them.

1.1. It is quite wrong therefore to stick to a prescriptive

method in order to tackle a segment of the grammar. This
might work all right for some other language, but it is high
time for most secondary school teachers to realise that a pres­
criptive grammar is impossible where English is concerned1.
The student looking for “ rules” will soon get confused since
he cannot apply rules whose statement so often contains phrases
like “ in general” or “ in many cases” , etc. He might on the
other hand find in his experience with real English situations
that the rule — which he learnt so carefully and which was so
dogmatic — is not obeyed. The latter applies particularly to
the problem of the continuous form, the essence of which is
that it is descriptive and dynamic as opposed to the simple
form which is static. There is, however, a constantly recurring
difficulty. In interpreting a given specimen of writing (language
based, graphic substance) or speech (language, phonic sub­
stance), we are bound to rely in the first instance on the
general or standardized meanings of the forms used2. The
standardized meaning of a form is, however, very flexible.
There is a tendency to confuse the meaning that a form nor-

1. B y prescriptive grammar is meant one in which rules are made for gram-
m aticality on the basis o f what the author thinks is right, logical, or agreed upon
b y educated people. That such books are still widely used reflects the reluctance
o f teachers to abandon the enjoyable pedantic occupation of talking about the
language and start training their students to use it.
2. B y form I mean the shape or the arrangement of parts, b y which we recognize
any particular m anifestation as belonging to a conventional pattern. So as to fit
into the theory outlined on the next pages, the term form m ay also be defined in
terms of the abstract notion of structure. Let us agree to call the verbal group
“ shall be seeing” a structure. This structure is com posed of a certain stuff (a set of
words) and a certain shape (the system of relations produced b y putting the words
in the right order at the right times). A m odification of this point of view leads to :
structure = material + grammatical form. It should however be stressed that despite
the widespread use of structural concepts the form al analysis of structure has been
relatively underdeveloped.
I prefer to include the term form (cf. progressive, continuous, expanded form )
in the term inology since the use of the -ing form is not a feature of tense bu t clearly
belongs to aspect.

L a L in g u is t iq u e , II 8
114 D. L. GOYVAERTS

mally has with the particular meaning it may have in a given

use. This touches a crucial point in the discussion of the
continuous form, since the problem lies in the relation between
the form as such and its many possible shades of meaning.
The different meanings are closely linked to features such as
emphasis (11), emotion (7), annoyance/indignation/irrita­
tion (12), frequent repetition (20), rhythm/intonation/context/
situation (15), colloquial language (4), suggestion of deliberate
action (14), passive meaning (13), notion of futurity or inquiries
(suggestions) in the future tense (21).

1.2. Apart from these features we still have to deal with

the very important factor of the purely secondary meanings,
which could be treated as a chapter on its own and which
should be clearly stated in any grammar book. Indeed, some
authors think it sufficient to mention that some verbs are
difficult to use in the continuous form, but they forget to
draw the attention upon the fact that in those cases only a
particular meaning of those verbs is referred to ; cf. hold
( contain), appear (seem), mean (signify), mind (object), forget
(have no remembrance of), etc. Most teachers of English still
look upon grammar as a method for showing logical form and
clearly forget that the meanings of this form are much more
important. Just think of the semantic conditions of verbs which
may have several different meanings such as see (I’m seeing
him this afternoon, he’ s seeing a lot of her these days, he’s
seeing him off, I’m seeing her home, he’s seeing to it, they are
seeing the sights, I’m seeing it now...), hear (the judge is
hearing the case, I’m hearing his lessons...), have (I’m having
15 handkerchiefs, they were having a discussion, I’m having
a good cry, it’s having no effect upon me, they are having a
great success, we’re having a jolly game, he was having Mr Clark
presented to her, we’re all having to come), etc. It certainly
takes no genius to see that the same verb is semantically
different in the following : to love vs. to be loving, to feel vs. to be
feeling, to think vs. to be thinking, etc. All this simply means
that the grammatical and the lexical categories have not the
same boundaries in all languages. Therefore the teacher should
beware of absolute statements, obliging pupils to learn that
“ these words have no continuous forms at all...” . From what
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 115

has been written so far, this paper may be considered to be a

plea for the use of a taxonomic model in teaching and studying
the continuous form.

1.3. I feel that it would be quite convenient to start with

some general aspects and then to switch from this basis to an
active observation of linguistic data in terms of a descriptive
view of the foreign language. The study of the grammar of a
language is an account of the structures for the putting of
words together to create meaningful sentences. Most teachers
fail to understand that these structures are created by the
users of the language and as such may be bad or good structures.
If, however, they are the structures used by members of a
speech community, they are part of the grammar of the lan­
guage (between language and speech is social structure ?). It is
pointless to call speech or writing “ incorrect” if everyone under­
stands it perfectly. It is useless to think that a grammar of a
language has to do with the “ rules” for correct writing and
speech since anyone who wants to say that one thing is correct
and another incorrect must have a standard by which to
measure3. Instead of saying dogmatically right or wrong, the
teacher should talk in terms of degrees of grammaticality.
What is needed then is a system or a scheme which would
account for all the characteristics of the constructions under
consideration. As has already been mentioned, the construc­
tion be + V-ing often shows itself to be very complex and
remarkable due to its varied shades of meaning. According to
the way in which it has been viewed by different scholars it
has received a variety of names : definite and indefinite tenses
(Sweet), continuous forms (Onions), progressive forms (Bain),
simultaneous and successive forms (Brusendorff), habitual and
non-habitual forms, complete and incomplete forms (Hill),
expanded forms (Jespersen), etc. In fact, all these theories

3. Linguistic scientists believe that there is no absolute standard b y which one

m ay judge the correctness of speech. W hat determines linguistic acceptability ?
Chomsky is definitive : “ A cceptability is a concept th at belongs to the study of
perform ance whereas grammaticalness belongs to the study of competence.*' N o
hard and fast line can be drawn, however, between lexical and gramm atical accepta­
bility. A sentence can be gramm atically highly deviant w ithout being regarded as
lexically deviant, bu t a lexically deviant sentence cannot be perceived as gramma­
tically non-deviant (cf. R . Q u i r k and J. S v a r t v i k , Investigating Linguistic
Acceptability, The H ague-M outon, 1966).
116 D . L. GOYVAERTS

bear a certain truth but it seems likely that there are gaps in
each approach because they rely upon loose ideas and have
not been formulated in terms of a system.

2.0. Before I give an outline of a system which might prove

of some value in studying the use of the expanded form in
English we must try to answer the following question : “ How
does this study (system) fit into the total picture of linguistic
description ?” Language exists in its phonic and graphic
substance which have form and meaning. Central to language

ENGLISH 1l i n g u is t i c s ]

I
SU BST AN CE
PHONOLOGY
G RAPHOLOGY

I
FORM
SY N TA X
MORPHOLOGY

PHRASIS* F lG . 1
MEANING
LEXICOGRAPHY

-I C O N T E X T 1

is its context, the situation in which people speak and write.

All this is accounted for by the science of linguistics, which is
therefore divided into three levels : the phonological level, the
grammatical level and the lexical level.
Although at first sight it seems quite evident that one
should classify the study of the continuous form under the
heading “ grammatical level” we still have to be aware of the
vital influence of the context in which the constructions occur.
Since our problem is not a purely grammatical one but is all
the same connected with this level we must state in what
degree the study of the expanded form belongs to grammar.
The word grammar is used in a number of different senses.
In one way grammar is merely a description of languages in
that the grammarian describes the structures as he finds them
existing without asking himself whether they ought to exist

4. In English we have relational sentences which, considered from a semantic

point o f view, recount, narrate, report or say that som ebody or something does
something, and predicative sentences which assert or affirm existence or alleged
truth.
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 117

or not. As we have seen before, grammar may also be pres­

criptive (cf. footnote 1). From these views we may deduce that
grammar can mean either the actual linguistic material which
is under observation or the body of statements made about
the linguistic material. A transformational grammar is not
necessarily either descriptive or prescriprive since a structure
is not really a structure in such a grammar until the process
of its generation is worked out. Adopted here is the view
formulated most clearly by Chomsky5 that a grammar is a
theory which ideally generates all and only the grammatical
sequences of a particular language. In other words, a grammar
is a device that tells the reader how to construct an infinite
number of correct sentences of a language and no incorrect
ones. Transformational grammar is very useful for teaching
machines to perform operations with linguistic materials. It is,
however, not a more complete or powerful technique for lin­
guistic description than previous types of analysis. The ins­
tructions given in such a grammar presume that the problem
to be covered is already known (ideal for native speakers).
A transformational grammar offers a guide for inventing the
construction of abstract formulae, which have no relation to
language as a functioning aspect of the behaviour of human
beings living in society. The views discussed so far clearly
indicate that grammar is looked upon in its narrower sense6.
Grammar in the narrower sense has been concerned with the
distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences
and usually deals with the possible versus the impossible. Our
investigation, on the contrary, being a study of the co-occur­
rences of individual items with each verb form, clearly deals
with the probable versus the improbable and should therefore
be treated differently from the other disciplines. In the terms
of this study, grammar should be a justification which accounts
for the putting of certain predications (statements) into their
specific place in the system. There must be a link between
language in its abstract aspect and language in its physical

5. See also N oam C h o m s k y , Three Models for the Description of Language

(I R E Transactions on Inform ation Theory, IT-2, N o. 3, 1956).
6. It is im portant to make a clearcut distinction between grammar and usage.
Most handbooks used in secondary education make frequent use of the caption
grammar although the term usage w ould be far better.
118 D. L. GOYVAERTS

aspect. In terms of the system which will be developed on the

next pages I will therefore not ask the question “ Does this
utterance conform to the rules ?" but rather “ What factors
are operating to cause this speaker to say this at this time ?’\

2.1. We start from the corpus of English verbs which is

divided into verb bases (which express lexical meanings) and
auxiliaries + basis (the auxiliaries express grammatical mea­
ning). These verbs (or verbal groups) occur in either interro-

F ig . 2

Preliminary
choices

CORPUS OF
VERBS

gative sentences or simple statements. We prefer to stick to

statements which in turn can be divided into negative and
positive. The choices that have been made up to now are verb
basis — statement — positive.
We could as well have taken another option but this choice
would then result in a new system which would account for
the fact that a speaker of English is inclined not to use an
expanded form with negation linked to aux. -f- basis (cf. He
hasn't been speaking since 3 o'clock vs. He hasn't spoken since
3 o'clock).

2.2. Before we proceed it should be clear that language is

regarded as a form of cultural behaviour and that therefore
the underlying concept is that of choice. Every statement made
in English refers to a past time-field, future time-field or present
time-field. We have chosen the present time-field. The notion
of present time offers any speaker the choice to make use of
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 119

either the expanded or non-expanded (simple) form. The -ing

form under discussion belongs to aspect (see above); if aspect
is defined as a category indicating whether the action or state
denoted by the verb is viewed by the speaker as completed
or in progress, as instantaneous or enduring, as momentary or
habitual, etc., English has two aspects : perfective or inclusive
aspect ( = something is looked upon from the outside, as a
whole) and imperfective or intrusive aspect ( = something is
viewed from within)7. At this point it is important to realise
that every verb may be used in the expanded form ; it only
depends on how a situation is looked upon ( = the meaning
which the speaker wants to convey). As a result of this a
speaker of English can say either “ Do you feel any better ?”
or “ Are you feeling any better ?” . Both sentences are equally
correct (cf. I feel dizzy vs. Pm feeling dizzy). There are at least
three different kinds of inclusive predications : momentary
predications ( They arrived early in the afternoon), extended
predications (They played bridge all afternoon), and repeated
predications ( They played bridge every afternoon). All these
predications may also occur intrusively on condition that they
are viewed as overlapping the immediate time-axis, or, in the
case of repeated predications, when the repeated occurrences
are not conceived as forming one continuous chain. There are,
however, two predications which are strictly perfective viz.
non-extended predications (She broke off in confusion) and
“ asseverative” predications in which by definition the “ acti­
vity” predicated has no existence apart from the predication,
but is identical with it (I declare this meeting closed, we find
that..., I think that..., etc.). All these features have a certain
influence on the statements made, and should therefore be
considered to be the environment in which predications occur.
In the system they will be enclosed within braces. A first
division as to whether or not to use the expanded form is
made in terms of habitual and non-habitual action. The former

7. This difference w ill account for a conjuror’ s not using the -ing form in
addressing the audience (cf. “ I take this card from the pack, and place it under the hat.
Then I simply wave my wand and...**. A lthough the activity is going on at the time
o f speaking the speaker is in no w ay interested in this fact since he often tries to
distract us from his trick b y talking to us all the tim e about what he’ s doing. That
means that the action is m erely related or viewied from the outside ; its duration
is therefore irrelevant.
120 D. L. GOYVAERTS

is required in a sentence like “ They come everyday” . Other

frequency indicators are always, generally, regularly, over and
over again, etc. They may, however, be used with an expanded
form when the repeated occurrences are looked upon indivi­
dually i.e. not as forming a continuous chain ( = not as a
whole, cf. definition of perfective aspect). Indicators of low
frequency such as rarely, seldom, scarcely, etc., will be relati­
vely rare with expanded forms even though they might be
possible. Non-habitual action on the other hand occurs in sen­
tences like “ He’s eating right now” . Since we don’t normally
use the -ing form in sequences such as “ I believe it now, I see
it now, etc.” , we have to make a second division.

2.3. The large group of verbs which do not require the

-ing form in non-habitual action has been labelled “ private
verbs” . With private verbs no one but the speaker himself is
a competent witness to such actions as seeing, believing, under­
standing, liking, etc., whereas with “ public verbs” the hearer
can verify what is occurring. As soon as an emotional or
colloquial ring (context !) is given to a certain construction the
verb is not private any m ore; the speaker’s feelings are
revealed through the -ing form. Many private verbs are fre­
quently found in the expanded form mostly because they mean
something more than a mere attitude. By this I mean that
those verbs sometimes represent the person concerned as
showing visible or audible (intonation) signs of the attitude
in question. Such verbs which have become public are incor­
porated in the system through the inner (internal) semantic
modification which in respect to this study I consider to be
paralinguistic. The term “ internal” refers to the absence of
written or spoken words which may also — as will be seen
below — have influence on constructions normally found in
the simple form. Here are some interesting variations showing
the distinction between private and public verbs : I see him,
I like him, I love him, it smells sweet, it tastes wonderful (private)
and I ’m seeing him tomorrow, I ’m doing fine, he’s loving pussy,
I ’m smelling the flowers, he’s tasting the soup (public).

2.4. Unlike verbs to be found in the second classification

(know, see, remember, etc.) and which mostly indicate a certain
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 121

state, there are other verbs which may indicate a process. For
this kind of predication, R. L. Allen (The Verb System o f
Present-Day American English, Mouton & Co., 1966) has coined
the apt name “ profusive” . We are more or less obliged to put
up a third and final classification, sorting out profusive and
suffusive predications. One sort of profusive predications are
called overlapping predications in the system because they
assume that the events referred to have boundaries or terminal
points i.e. such events are bounded (e.g. John is lying on the
grass. John does not always lie on the grass and will probably
not stay there indefinitely). Suffusive predications on the
contrary are “ unending” in the sense that they seem to spread
out through any time-period that may have been mentioned
or implied ; the termination or the beginning of a certain fact
is of no importance (e.g. London lies on the river Thames).
Another difference between an overlapping predication and a
suffusive predication lies in the fact that the former is oriented
with reference to the immediate moment of time (e.g. Shh! He’s
saying s.th., We’ re having a party), whereas the latter does not
imply any such reference or interrelationship (e.g. He says
she’s going to Spain, We have a Chevrolet). There is a second
kind of predication which is strictly profusive and will be
called “ process” in the system because such a predication
suggests an unfolding of the activity (a flowing towards the
future) whereas a suffusive predication doesn’t suggest that
there will be any difference in the state of affairs ten minutes
from now (e.g. He’s writing an essay vs. He writes essays.
I ’m forgetting my French vs. I forget such difficult words. I ’m
liking my work vs. I like my work). A predication can be made
profusive through an external semantic modification by which
I mean that a suffusive predication turns out to be profusive
after the addition of an adverb or adverbial phrase to the
previous (suffusive) statement (e.g. I remember the whole story
vs. I ’m gradually remembering the whole story. He resembles his
father vs. He’s resembling his father more and more all the time).

2.5. The suggestions and explanations made on the previous

pages lead to the following final table8.

8. In the writing of this paper I have very m uch profited from Basil B e r n s t e i n ’ s ,
A Socio-Linguistic Approach to Social Learning (in Penguin Survey of the Social
 122

- PAST TIME FIELD

r-NON-HABITUAL (1)
M O M EN T ARY
pIMPERFECTIVE - EXTENDED PUBLIC (2)
REPEATED [-OVERLAPPING (3)
-P R O F U S IV E ----
•-PROCESS (4)
i
i
t-PROFUSIVE (5)

r p EMOTION, ANNOYANCE, etc. (6)

A ^DYNAMIC FEAT URES
( 'o ^ ‘-P U B L IC — (EM PHASIS, RHYTHM) (7)
^ L su g g est k d n of
O '< DELIBERATE ACTION (8)
z! 2 ii
25! Q ,uj
pINTERROGATIVE zj 5 |£
rVERB BASES — pNEGATIVE 2 I q;
corpus — ^ s ta te m e n t — z 1 ^ !*“
OF VERBS | kMtN J l ! < fe EXPANDED FORM
L AUX. + BASIS ‘-POSITIVE PRESENT 2 JO ___________________________________________________________________
D. L. GOYVAERTS

TIME \0 / NON-EXPANDED FORM

j (SIMPLE)

j MOMENTARY .-HABITUAL (9)

L PERFECTIVE p EXTENDED

REPEATED — PRIVATE (10)

NON-EXTENDED
L J l SUFFUSIVE (11)
A S S E V E R A T IV E
p IG 3 -----------------------
Expanded form system (sim plified) ^-FUTURE TIME
 TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE EXPANDED FORM IN ENGLISH 123

2.6. The following sentences illustrate the expanded form

system; attention has been concentrated largely but by no
means exclusively on the so-called “ verbs which occur rarely
in the expanded form” .

(1) Pm looking at him now.

Pm working now.
(2) The dog is smelling the lamp-post.
Dear me, Pm forgetting my umbrella.
It’s raining outside.
(3) He’s constantly reminding me o f ..
My hat is lying on the table in the hall.
They’re saying that you’ve changed.
(4) Pm forgetting my French
Pm liking my work. (The process of becoming adjusted
is still going on.)
Pm finding that this problem is more complicated than I had
expected.
(5) She’s disliking the other woman more every minute.
They are really hating each other by now.
Pm gradually remembering the whole story.
(6) Pm wanting you to know.
He’s always being held up to us as a shining example.
(7) You’re being an angel.
They are dancing, singing, loving in the streets.
(8) I think he’s being difficult again.
He looks the other way; he’s not knowing me again.
(9) I go home every day.
I always look at his picture before I go to bed.

Sciences, 1965) and A Sociology of Language b y J. O. H e r t z l e r (N .Y ., R andom

House, 1965).
As for the term inology I m ust adm it to having taken some terms from
R . L. A l l e n ’ s , Verb-System of...
In order to get an idea o f the m ethod used in this article I ’d refer to
S. L a m b ’ s , Outline of Stratificational Grammar (Georgetown Univ. Press, 1966),
in which the author gives a fu ll treatm ent of stratiflcational theory. This theory
regards a language as a system of relationships which is not directly observable.
The linguist can only observe! the manifestations o f linguistic structure, i.e. samples
of speech and/or writing, and the situations in which they occur. F rom [analyzing
such data he m ust try to construct a representation o f the system of relationships
which underlies it.
124 D. L. GOYVAERTS

(10) I know ( understand) French.

I like my father.
That reminds me of a story.,. ( = momentary).
(11) Two and two equal four.
Roses smell sweet.
I work (for a living).