A history of the English Language

209.
Development of Progressive Verb Forms.
Before concluding this survey of the factors affecting the language in the eighteenth 
century we must notice in particular one characteristic development in English grammar. 
In a work such as this it is impossible to follow in detail the history of each part of 
speech. All that can be done is to indicate the more important grammatical changes that 
have taken place since Old English times and to note such new developments as are of 
most significance in the language of today. Of these, one of great importance concerns 
the verb. Where French says 
je chante
or German 
ich singe,
English may say 
I sing, I do 
sing,
or 
I am singing
. The 
do
-forms are often called emphatic forms, and this they 
sometimes are; but their most important uses are in negative and interrogative sentences 
(I don’t
sing, do you sing)
. The forms with 
to be
and the present participle are generally 
called progressive forms because their most common use is to indicate an action as being 
in progress at the time implied by the auxiliary. The wide extension of the use of 
progressive forms is one of the most important developments of the English verb in the 
modern period. 
In Old English such expressions as 
he wœs lærende
(he was teaching) are occasionally 
found, but usually in translations from Latin.
51
In early Middle English, progressive 
forms are distinctly rare, and although their number increases in the course of the Middle 
English period,
52
we must credit their development mainly to the period since the 
sixteenth century. The chief factor in their growth is the use of the participle as a noun 
governed by the preposition 
on (he burst out on laughing)
.
53
This weakened to 
he burst 
out a-laughing
and finally to 
he burst out laughing
. In the same way 
he was on laughing
became 
he was a-laughing
and 
he was laughing
. Today such forms are freely used in all 
tenses (
is laughing, was laughing, will be laughing,
etc.). 
51 
A thorough study of the contexts in which this pattern occurs in Old English, including contexts 
not influenced by Latin, is by Gerhard Nickel, 
Die Expanded Form im Altenglischen
(Neumünster, 
Germany, 1966). 
52 
A valuable list of early occurrences is given in W.Van der Gaff, “Some Notes on the History of 
the Progressive Form,” 
Neophilologus,
15 (1930), 201–15. 
53 
In Middle English, forms without the preposition are usually accompanied by an adverb like 
always, all day, etc. (cf. Chaucer’s syngynge he was, or 
floytynge, al the day). 
The appeal to authority, 1650-1800 275

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