Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Nino Kirvalidze
51
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the duration of the action described by the verb. 
The agent actively controls the action or state expressed by the verb. In contrast, many of 
verbs that rarely occur in the progressive have a human experiencer as the subject of the clause, 
who does not control the action or state, but experiences its effect. This first characteristic helps 
to explain why some verbs that describe states and perceptions occur as progressives while 
others do not. For example, the perception verbs like 
look
, 
watch
, 
stare
, and 
listen 
can be freely 
used in progressive aspect and their subject is usually a human agent: 
He’s staring at me now. 
I felt he wasn’t listening. 
In contrast, verbs like 
see
, 
hear
, 
appreciate
, 
desire
, 
want
, 
know
, 
like
rarely occur in the 
progressive, because they describe perceptions which are experienced, and a state of mind 
which are not controlled by the subject. The subject may refer to a human, but the human this 
time is an experiencer rather than an agent: 
I saw him the other day. 
Well, I really appreciate your having done so much already. 
He did not know what to do.
The second major characteristic that influences whether the progressive is used with a 
verb concerns the question ‘How long does the state or action described by the verb last?’ 
Those, that extend over a substantial period of time are usually described by the verbs in the 
progressive aspect, while actions that happen very quickly, or temporary states of short 
duration are rarely represented in the progressive. For example, stative verbs (like 
stay
, 
wait
, 
sit
, 
stand
, 
live
) can refer to situations that extend over time, so they frequently occur in the 
progressive: 
Sandy’s staying with her for a few days. 
We were waiting for the train. 
I was standing there the other night. 
When I first came to this city as a young man, I was living in Furukawa.
5
Experiencer denotes a person who undergoes the sensory or cognitive experience expressed by a verb:
He smelled her perfume.

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
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