This paper proffers a corpus-based study of the semantics of the French present progressive in comparison with its English equivalent. We describe the temporal and modal uses of ‘be + -ing’ and investigate to what extent they overlap with the uses of être + en train de. The observation that the use of the French present progressive is not obligatory and more restricted than that of the present progressive in English is taken as a sign of a less advanced stage of grammaticalization of the former. On the other hand, the two progressive constructions are alike in that they turn out to share the same basic, modal meaning, which we define as epistemic contingency in current reality. This meaning is, among other things, reflected in the (inter)subjective connotations that are often associated with the progressives.
2023. On the use of sentiment analysis for linguistics research. Observations on sentiment polarity and the use of the progressive in Italian. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 6
Dostie, Gaétane
2022. Une ou deux périphrases à valeur progressive en français québécois de tous les jours ? ‹ Être après INF› et ‹ être en train de INF›. Langages N° 226:2 ► pp. 83 ff.
DE WIT, ASTRID, PETER PETRÉ & FRANK BRISARD
2020. Standing out with the progressive. Journal of Linguistics 56:3 ► pp. 479 ff.
2014. When tense and aspect convey modality. Reflections on the modal uses of past tenses in Romance and Germanic languages. Journal of Pragmatics 71 ► pp. 69 ff.
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