Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgments -- Table of Contents -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 General description of the study -- 1.2 Brief overview of the state-of-the-art and aims of the present study -- 1.3 Organization of the study -- 2. Theoretical background and methodology -- 2.1 Grammaticalization as a theoretical framework -- 2.2 The relation between grammaticalization and subjectification -- 2.3 Choice of corpus -- 2.4 Retrieval of progressive instances from the corpus -- 2.5 How to see grammaticalization in a corpus -- 2.6 The relation between evidence from corpora and actual language use -- 2.7 Statistical methods -- 2.8 Terminology and conventions -- 3. The functions of the progressive in present-day English -- 3.1 The progressive as a marker of aspect -- 3.1.1 Definitions of aspect -- 3.1.1.1 The subjective nature of aspect -- 3.1.1.2 Grammatical aspect and situation type -- 3.1.1.3 More formalized approaches to aspect -- 3.1.2 General imperfective and progressive markers -- 3.1.2.1 The differences between general imperfective and progressive markers -- 3.1.2.2 Clines of grammaticalization of imperfectives and progressives -- 3.1.2.3 The English progressive today - general imperfective or progressive? -- 3.1.2.4 Specific aspectual meanings: time-frame and 'Aktuelles Präsens' -- 3.1.3 The 'imperfective paradox' -- 3.2 The progressive and the nature of the situation -- 3.2.1 Duration -- 3.2.1.1 The progressive and reference to duration -- 3.2.1.2 The progressive and reference to limited duration -- 3.2.2 Stativity and dynamism -- 3.2.2.1 The progressive turns statives into dynamic situations -- 3.2.2.2 The progressive turns dynamic situations into statives -- 3.2.3 Agentivity -- 3.2.4 Overt and covert situations -- 3.2.4.1 The progressive as marker of overt activity -- 3.2.4.2 The progressive and covert situations.

3.3 The progressive as expression of speaker attitude and emotion -- 3.3.1 Subjective progressive with ALWAYS -- 3.3.2 Subjective progressive without ALWAYS -- 3.3.3 Interpretative progressive -- 3.4 A 'basic meaning' or 'core value' for the progressive? -- 4. A brief overview of the development of the progressive before the Modern English period -- 4.1 The source of the English progressive -- 4.1.1 Which construction is the ancestor of the PDE progressive? He wæs huntiende vs. he wæs on huntung -- 4.1.2 Language-internal explanations -- 4.1.3 Language contact-based explanations -- 4.2 The progressive in Old English and Middle English -- 4.2.1 Frequency and distribution -- 4.2.2 The functions of the progressive in OE and ME -- 4.2.2.1 The progressive as marker of aspect -- 4.2.2.2 The progressive and the nature of the situation -- 4.2.2.3 The progressive as expression of speaker attitude and emotion -- 4.2.2.4 A 'basic meaning' or 'core value' for the progressive in Old and Middle English? -- 5. Changes in frequency and the impact of external factors on the progressive in Modern English -- 5.1 General overview of the changes in frequency from c1500 to c2000 -- 5.2 Distribution across genres -- 5.3 Impact of sociolinguistic variables -- 5.4 Possible reasons for the increase in frequency -- 5.5 Frequency of the type to be a-hunting -- 6. Linguistic contexts of the Modern English progressive -- 6.1 The loss of double -ing -- 6.2 The emergence of the passive progressive -- 6.3 Variation across the verbal paradigm -- 6.4 Clause types -- 6.5 Adverbial modification -- 6.6 Subject types -- 6.7 Situation types -- 6.8 The progressive of full verbs be and have -- 6.9 Linguistic contexts of the type to be a-hunting -- 7. The functions of the progressive in Modern English -- 7.1 The progressive as marker of aspect.

7.1.1 General overview of the development of the aspectual function -- 7.1.2 General imperfective, progressive and derived aspectual meaning -- 7.1.3 Specific meanings of general imperfective and progressive markers -- 7.1.4 Derived aspectual meanings -- 7.1.5 A short reconsideration of the 'imperfective paradox' -- 7.2 The progressive and the nature of the situation -- 7.2.1 Duration -- 7.2.2 Stativity and dynamism -- 7.2.3 Agentivity -- 7.2.4 Overt and covert situations -- 7.3 The progressive as expression of speaker attitude and emotion -- 7.3.1 The classification of subjective progressives -- 7.3.2 Subjective progressive with ALWAYS -- 7.3.3 Subjective progressive without ALWAYS -- 7.3.4 Interpretative progressive -- 7.4 The functions of the type to be a-hunting -- 7.5 Diachronic change in the functions of the progressive -- 7.6 Distribution of functions across genres -- 8. Evidence for grammaticalization and subjectification -- 8.1 Evidence for grammaticalization of the progressive -- 8.2 Evidence for subjectification of the progressive -- 9. Conclusion -- 9.1 Results on the development of the English progressive -- 9.2 Results concerning methodology and general theoretical assumptions -- 9.3 Suggestions for further research -- References.