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A Comparison of the Present Progressive and Present Perfect in English and Spanish
Whoever has read in one book that English has three tenses, in another that it has two, and in yet a third that it has sixteen;...or has read in one text that the perfective tenses of Russian are just like the perfect tenses in English, but in another that they are totally different;...may be pardoned for some confusion and some skepticism as to the claim of linguistic scholars to know a great deal about tense. (Binnick, 1991 p. vii)
Although documented study of the verb, and grammar in general, dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks and beyond (Binnick, p. 3), the topics of grammar and tense are still subjects of little agreement among researchers. When the topic of tense is examined in greater detail, and a division is made between the ideas of tense and aspect (not to mention aktionsart) the diversity of available theories continues to expand. When the added complexity of cross-language comparison is added to this hodgepodge of ideas, the difficulty of finding scholarly works in agreement is made more difficult yet again. The original purpose of this paper was to construct a simple comparison of the present perfect and present progressive “tenses” in English and Spanish. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately), it soon became apparent that this was neither the simple, nor straightforward, task that it initially appeared to be. I soon found myself transforming into one of the ‘confused’ and ‘skeptical’ people mentioned by Binnick. After many hours of searching and reading, the purpose of this paper was shifted, and became broader in scope. This paper will first discuss the current research on the ideas of tense and aspect in general, including how the present perfect and present progressive fit into these categories, and then compare and contrast the usage of the present perfect and present progressive in English and Spanish. TENSE The works which discuss the topic of tense all agree on one point, the number of tenses in English (or whichever language they may be studying) that they propose in their article is the correct number, and any researcher who has theorized a different number is misguided. The range of possible tenses mentioned in the works that were examined for this paper ranged from a low of two, to a high of seventeen, in the case of a reference to Spanish tense. The apparent lack of agreement on this issue is, perhaps, understandable when one considers that the notion of tense is not a universal category to begin with (Bache, 1985; Anderson, 1973; others). During this discussion of tense, the general concept of tense will be reviewed and then a selected number of works will be examined. Finally, one theory of tense will be chosen as the basis for this paper. Tense, according to Stockwell (1977, p. 39), “specifies the temporal status of the event vis-a-vis the moment of speaking.” He sees tense as a modifier of discourse, because it specifies “the temporal relation between the speaker and the event he is relating.” Furthermore, this relation does not simply apply to the sentence which the speaker may be uttering, but to the whole discourse in which the speaker is involved. Stockwell also claims that the tense systems for all languages are based on the moment of speaking, as the fundamental reference point for determination of tense. Kilby (1984) agrees with this notion, as he believes that tense “primarily involves the time of the event or state specified by the verb relative to the moment of utterance” (p. 15). Comrie (1985) states the idea in even simpler terms. He sees tense as being the “grammaticalized expression of location in time” (p. 9). Many of these works refer to, or use as the basis of their argument, the time points (S,E,& R) which were originally proposed by the philosopher Hans Reichenbach in his book Elements of Symbolic Logic (1947). Reichenbach postulated three different time points which may be used to show nine possible orderings of sentences, as characterized by their temporal intervals (McGilvray, 1991, p. 16). By ordering Speech Time (the time of the utterance itself), Event Time (the time when the event which is described in the Utterance takes place), and Reference Time (a time with respect to which the event being discussed is located) with respect to each other, Reichenbach believed that a temporal map of possible sentences could be constructed. In addition to S, E, and R, “-” and “,” were important components of Reichenbach’s system. These two symbols read, respectively, as ‘before’ and ‘at the same time as.’ So, ‘E-R’ would be stated as ‘Event Time is before Reference Time,’ while ‘E,R’ would read ‘Event Time is at the same time as Reference Time.’ A sentence such as ‘John watches’ would be represented by ‘E,S.’ This indicates that the Event Time and Speech Time occur at simultaneously. The largest number of tenses proposed came, not surprisingly, from a book which examined the tense-aspect system of the Spanish verb. In his work, Rallides (1971) quotes the Real Academia Española of 1959 as his source for seventeen tenses in Spanish. The Royal Academy breaks down the Spanish tenses into the following four subgroups:
A. Indicative Mood C. Subjunctive Mood 1. present 1. present 2. preterit imperfect 2. preterit imperfect 3. preterit indefinite 3. future imperfect 4. future imperfect 4. preterit perfect 5. preterit perfect 5. preterit pluperfect 6. preterit pluperfect 6. future perfect 7. preterit anterior 8. future perfect D. Imperative Mood 1. present B. Potential Mood 1. simple tense 2. compound tense (qtd. in Raillides, p. 11-12) Raillides himself, however, states that tense is subdivided in just three ways: present, past, and future (Raillides, p 10). The past tense, according to Rallides, denotes the speaker’s recollection of events that have occurred, while the future denotes the speaker’s anticipation of events that will occur. In the case of the present, Raillides states that it “denotes the period of time between the past and the future, which includes the moment of utterance” (p. 11). This format is closely followed by Kendris (1982) in his listing and discussion of the Spanish verb tenses. He breaks down Spanish verb tenses as follows for the first person singular form of the verb hablar (p. 258):
1. presente de indicativo 8. perfecto de indicativo (present indicative) (present perfect indicative) yo hablo he hablado 2. imperfecto de indicativo 9. pluscuamperfecto de indicativo (imperfect indicative) (pluperfect) yo hablara había hablado 3. pretérito 10. préterito anterior (preterit) (past anterior) yo hablé hube hablado 4. futuro 11. futuro perfecto (future) (future perfect) yo hablaré habré hablado 5. potencial simple 12. potencial compuesto (conditional) (conditional perfect) hablaría habría hablado 6. presente de subjuntivo 13. perfecto de subjuntivo (present subjunctive) (present perfect) hable haya hablado 7. imperfecto de subjuntivo 14. pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo (imperfect subjunctive) (pluperfect) hablara hubiera hablado 15. imperativo (imperative)- considered to be a mood. 16. future subjunctive- now largely replaced by the present subjunctive or present indicative. 17. future perfect subjunctive- now largely replaced by the future perfect indicative or the future subjunctive. So, while Kendris proposes a system of 14 verb tenses, he does allow that two more do exist, although they are no longer really used, and also includes the imperative, which he identifies as a mood. The highest number of tenses mentioned concerning English, however, was eight. In his book, Davidsen-Nielsen (1990) compares the tense systems of English and Danish. He begins this comparison with the stated assumption that those languages both contain eight tenses, which he illustrates with a modified version of Reichenbach’s system (p. 55):
present V + -s/ø travel(s) E,S present perfect has/have+V+(e)d has/have traveled E-R,S past V + (e)d traveled E-S past perfect had+V+(e)d had traveled E-R-S future will + V will travel S-E future perfect will+have+(e)d will have traveled S-E-R future of the past would + V would travel B*-E future perfect of the past would+have+V+(e)d would have traveled B-E-R *In this case ‘B’ refers to Basis Time (for point of departure in the past) Although Davidsen-Nielsen disregards the present progressive in this table, and refers to it as an “aspect” in the index of his book, he later (p. 118) calls it the “Progressive present tense.” Carl Bache (1995) proposes three universal tense categories: present, past, and future. He believes these to be primary because “they all share a sense of temporality” (p. 255). Temporality, he says, is concerned with the assignment of a temporal location to a situation. This assignment is made relative to the time which is seen as present by the person who makes the utterance, at the exact moment in which the communication takes place. Temporality, according to Bache, is not an inherent quality, but, rather, is assigned. A past situation, then, would be one which is conceived of as being located in time before the present. Finally, several of the authors see English as having only two tenses. Binnick (1991) argues against this three tense idea by looking at the three “traditional tenses” of English:
Past Present Future loved love(s) will/shall love went go(es) will/shall go had has/have will/shall have was/were am/is/are will/shall be (Binnick, p. 8) As may be seen through an examination of the three given forms of these various verbs, the present and past forms are distinct from one another (e.g. loved/love (s)). The “future tense,” however, is constructed of the unmarked infinitive form of the verb, with a modal auxiliary (will or shall in this case). Note that this argument would say quite the opposite for a language such as Spanish, where the future tense is of a different form (amo v.s. amaré). Furthermore, Binnick argues that there are no strict semantic grounds for claiming three tenses in English. He points out that the “future tense” can be used for present events, and the “present tense” can be used to refer to future events (“that will be John coming up the stairs now.” “the expedition leaves next Wednesday” (Binnick, p. 8)). Kilby (1984) makes a similar argument by, once again, working with examples:
2. The vicar laughs. 4. a. The vicar is laughing. 3. The vicar laughed b. The vicar was laughing. 5. a. The vicar has arrived. b. The vicar had arrived. (Kilby, p. 16) Kilby argues that sentences two and three represent the totality of relevant forms in the tense discussion. Further examination of the examples given in (4) and (5) gives additional evidence for this distinction. Just as Binnick pointed out the lack of distinction between the past/non-past and the future, example (4) demonstrates that, in the case of the past and present progressive, the past/non-past distinction is maintained. Comrie (1985) makes his claim for only two tenses in English on a grammatical basis. He notes that the past/non-past distinction makes it impossible to construct an English sentence (which contains a finite verb) that is neutral as to past/non-past. For example, Mohammed swims is clearly a non-past sentence, while Mohammed swam is certainly past. Because it is not possible to construct a sentence in English that does not fall into one of these two categories, these, according to Comrie, are the two tenses in English. Sentences which have different structure, but are both in the same tense, such as Tiffany studies and Tiffany is studying, would be identified as being different in terms of aspect.
ASPECT As might be expected from the wide range of opinions regarding tense, the study of aspect is filled with many different viewpoints as well. Two of the authors (Kilby, 1984; Brinton, 1988) say early on in their works that there is little agreement on a single definition of aspect, and that defining aspect is notoriously difficult. Gonda (1962) sums up the difficulty that many scholars have faced regarding aspect, when he says that the confusion has:
...led scholars to class in the same category a variety of linguistic phenomena which partly concern the grammatical function of verbal forms, partly the semantic differences between related formations different in suffix, prefix, etc., partly differentiations of one and the same verb, partly lexical distinctions between different verbs. (Gonda, 21) As with the discussion of tense, there is disagreement on this issue with respect to the number of aspects that exist. While the range of aspects proposed in the research seems smaller than was found regarding tense, there is still considerable variation in the number and kinds of aspects proposed. Furthermore, there is little agreement regarding the proper identification of the present progressive and present perfect structures. As with the previous section, the discussion of aspect will begin with an examination of the general concept of aspect (on which there seems to be some agreement), and then several conceptions of the aspectual system will be reviewed, including the place of the present perfect and present progressive in those systems. Most of the researchers in the field of aspect seem to agree that aspect has something to do with the viewpoint of the speaker or writer. Several of the authors refer to the work of Porzig (1927) for an initial explanation of aspect. Porzig said aspect was concerned with the “’Gesichtspunkt, unter dem ein Vorgangt betrachtet wird’: (i.e. the locutionary agent’s view of the situation expressed” (qtd. in Bache, 1995, p. 268). Kilby (1984) sees aspect as expressing the various phases which may be associated with various actions or states. Brinton (1988) proposes that aspect pertains to a speaker’s “viewpoint” or “perspective” regarding a situation. This idea of perspective is continued in Anderson’s (1973) work. He suggests that aspect is “concerned with the relation of an event or state to a particular reference point (p. 29). In his explanation of aspect, Stockwell (1977) describes events as taking place over time. Because events take place over time, they must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. He believes that one of the purposes of “aspectual indicators” is to mark where (along this time continuum) the event being referred to is located. It is at this point that the various theories on aspect begin to differentiate. This seems to be largely due to the authors’ various interpretations on exactly what is included in the realm of aspect. Some of the authors (Stockwell, 1977; Comrie, 1985) propose that there are many aspects, while numerous others (Bache, 1985; Rallides, 1971; Langacker, 1982) see aspect as of consisting of only two components. This differentiation between these opposing camps seems to be largely explained by the acceptance, or non-acceptance, of the concept of aktionsart. While aspect is seen as being a matter of the speaker’s perspective or viewpoint on a situation, and is, hence, subjective, aktionsart is considered to be objective. Aktionsart, according to Brinton (1988, p. 3) is “expressed by the lexical meaning of verbs and verbal derivational morphology...since it concerns the given nature of the event and not the perspective of the speaker, (it) is objective.” Many, but not all, of the researchers who discussed the concept of aktionsart, saw the aspect system as consisting of two components: perfective and imperfective. Rallides (1971), for example, sees aspect as referring to the “perfective-imperfective opposition, while aktionsart has to do with the nature of the action, which is usually expressed through the lexical meanings of a verb’s root and the various derivations of that verb (p. 14). Whether or not the researchers agree on the aspect/aktionsart issue, the vast majority do seem to agree that the perfective/imperfective opposition is valid (Bache, 1985; Rallides, 1971; Brinton, 1988; Langacker, 1982; Fenn, 1987). The term perfective is used to denote completion, while imperfective denotes incompletion. In perfective sentences such as:
She read the newspaper. Él comió la fruta. (He ate the fruit.) We walked to the university bookstore. the actions being referred to are all seen as being completed. The woman finished reading the newspaper, the man finished eating the fruit, and we completed our walk to the bookstore. In English, the simple past, and sometimes the simple present, are the forms most often used to express the perfective aspect. However, in imperfective sentences like these:
She was reading the newspaper. Él estaba comiendo la fruta. (He was eating the fruit.) We were walking to the university bookstore. the action is not seen as necessarily being completed. Although the woman may have finished reading the newspaper, the imperfective sentence does not, in any manner, imply that this is the case. Comrie (1976, p. 4) explains this difference in this way:
...the perfective looks at the situation from outside, without necessarily distinguishing any of the internal structure of the situation, whereas the imperfective looks at the situation from the inside, and as such is crucially concerned with the internal structure of the situation. Other authors break down aspect into additional categories. Brinton (1988, p. 4), for example, mentions both perfective and imperfective, but continues her discussion of aspect with these additions and explanations:
Ingressive aspect: speaker portrays the event as beginning. The bus is beginning to move.* Continuative aspect: speaker portrays the event as continuing. The bus continues to move. Egressive aspect: speaker portrays the event as ending. The bus stopped moving. Iterative/habitual aspect: speaker portrays the event as repeating. I was accustomed to the vehicle’s movement. *The example sentences are mine. Although aspect may be subdivided in such a manner, into many separate components, most of those divisions are not necessary for the scope of this work. As may be surmised from the above discussion of tense, this paper will place the categories of the present perfect and present progressive in the realm of aspects. The case of the present progressive, in particular, seems to be a clear case of aspect. This, no doubt, is due to the fact that the present progressive quite clearly is imperfective (possible exceptions to this will be discussed later). Brinton (1988, p. 7) claims that “if aspect is admitted to be a category of English at all, then the progressive is generally considered to be the clearest, sometimes the only, exponent of that category.” The present perfect, on the other hand, is an issue of some debate. Some authors consider the perfect to be an aspect, some argue that it is a tense, and others prefer to create an entirely new category for it. For the purposes of this paper, a simple perfective/ nonperfective distinction in conjunction with a division between progressive and non-progressive, will serve to differentiate between the present perfect and present progressive. Fenn (1971, p. 28) provides a binary contrast with these features which illustrates this idea:
As this chart demonstrates, the difference between the present perfect and progressive can be seen as having an aspectual nature.
THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE The present progressive is a verb form that is commonly used in both Spanish and English. The way in which it is used in those two languages, while having many similarities, is also different in significant ways. A very general way in which to express the use of the present progressive would be to say that use of the progressive “indicates a continuing action or state” (Steinmetz: 1993, p. 528). This idea is expanded on by Marchand (1955, p. 47), who maintains that the progressive form is used to “denote one single action observed in the dynamic process of happening and as such is imperfective in character.” As will be demonstrated below, even these simple definitions have flaws which are revealed through a detailed examination of the actual use of the present progressive in English and Spanish. This section will begin by looking at the use of the present progressive in English, followed by how it is used in Spanish, and how these uses compare and contrast. English Progressive The use of
the present progressive in English is accomplished through the use of
I am drawing. We are drawing. You are drawing. He is drawing. You-all (guys) are drawing She is drawing. They are drawing.
Binnick (1991, p. 282) argues that no one has ever given one “basic” meaning for the progressive, yet neither has anyone ever proven that the progressive lacks such a meaning. An examination of the uses of the simple present, and the effect that the progressive has on such use, helps to illustrate the difference between those two forms. Although the fact that the English present progressive does differ from the simple present is obvious to native speakers, it is not quite so easy to explain exactly how these two forms differ in meaning. Examples like:
She eats dinner at the deli. She is eating dinner at the deli. have obvious differences in basic meaning. Other times, however, the difference in meaning between the present progressive and simple present may be difficult to determine:
It looks like rain out. It is looking like rain out. (Binnick, 1991, p. 281) Brinton (1988, p. 16) notes that the simple present is used to express habits, states, generics, general truths, and proverbs. Such uses are illustrated by these sentences:
a. Habits: Steve walks to school. b. States: Elaine loves her work. c. Generics: Students do homework. d. General Truths: The tides rise and fall. e. Proverbs: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Of these uses of the
present, only the stative form is incompatible with the imperfective,
and, hence, the progressive. Brinton explains that, because statives
are seen as non-dynamic they are incompatible with the imperfective,
which denotes situational progression. This rational is supported by
Langacker (1982, p. 285), who sees the addition of
Randy lives on pizza and soda. Randy is living on pizza and soda. The other uses mentioned by Brinton, however, can all be expressed imperfectively, although this use changes the sentences into single ongoing situations:
a. Steve is walking to school. b. *Elaine is loving her work. c. Students are doing homework. d. The tides are rising and falling. e. All work and no play is making Jack a dull boy. Binnick (1991) points out that the progressive readily occurs with accomplishment and activity verbs, as well as with achievement verbs that are in series:
Accomplishment: Jim is breaking the swimming record. Sue is fixing the television. Jim is repairing his bike Activity: Rob is swimming. Sue is watching the television. Jim is riding his bike. Achievement series: Jim is noticing a lot of broken bikes around town these days. Because achievement expressions that are not in series normally denote something that does not occur over a period of time (i.e. Just now I noticed that you have a leaf in your hair), they are usually not compatible with the progressive. While the verbs mentioned above allow (or do not allow) the use of the progressive, they do not indicate why the progressive is used. The theories regarding the selection of the present progressive are, of course, abundant and, at times, conflicting. Some of these theories will be presented and discussed below. One of the common explanations given for the use of the progressive in English is that of extended time span/duration. Some authors (Langacker; 1982; Comrie; 1985) point out that the progressive aspect requires that the situations being referred to not be of a instantaneous or near-instantaneous nature:
a. Randy is making pizza. b. Misumi is giving the dog a bath. Other scholars refer to the progressive as being of “limited duration” (Scheffer, 1971, p. 21). By adding this component to the “definition” of the progressive, Scheffer believes that sentences which express a permanent state are eliminated:
a. My car runs perfectly (permanent state) b. My car is running perfectly (temporary state) The problem with such a definition of the progressive is that there is sometimes no apparent difference between the present progressive and simple present in this regard:
a. Dawn intends to run around the block. b. Dawn is intending to run around the block. A problem with both the “non-instantaneous action” and “limited duration” theories, is that it is clear that there are a number of verbs in English which refer to “instantaneous” actions which are not incompatible with the progressive. (Kilby, 1984, p. 32).
a. The building is starting to shift on its foundation. b. *The building started to shift on its foundation for one hour. c. The mountain climber is reaching the top of the cliff. d. *The mountain climber reached the top of the cliff for 25 minutes. Another common explanation for the use of the progressive is in order to express incompletion. This idea may be more applicable to the examples given above. Because “the building” is starting to shift, it has not yet completed its shift off of the foundation. This idea of incompletion may be seen in many uses of the progressive:
a. Lee is walking. b. The dog is eating its dinner. c. I am working on my English 506 paper. d. The man is staring at the television. However, it is also possible to use the progressive in English without indicating incompletion. Sentences such as:
a. I’m warning you to get off of my property! b. I’m letting you know that I quit. complete the very action of which they speak. In both of these cases the use of the progressive itself completes the intended goal. This use of the progressive as an indicator of incompletion can also be modified in order to indicate repetition of the action/event (Kilby, 1984; Langacker, 1982):
a. I am working on my English 505 paper a lot these days. b. The man is staring at the television often these days. Others see the idea of action in progress as being central to the progressive. Binnick (1991, p. 284) agrees that the progressive is often used to express a “progressive” or “dynamic” state:
a. My feet are getting cold. b. The airplane is falling. The problem with this theory, says Binnick, is that is also quite often true that the progressive is used with sentences which are certainly not “progressive” or “dynamic”:
a. The trees are not growing this year. b. Lee is walking. The first sentence of this pair certainly does not reflect a dynamic state. While the second sentence does refer to an action in progress, it, as well, does not contain a dynamic situation. Rather than seeing the progressive as being related to duration, repetition, incompletion, or action in progress, Jespersen (1931) explains it as “progressive of the frame.” Jespersen sees the progressive in a sentence such as “She was dancing” as being the “frame” for another situation. He states that: “the essential thing is that the action or state denoted by the the expanded tense (the progressive) is thought of as a temporal frame encompassing something else which as often as not is to be understood from the whole situation” (p. 182f). The problem with this analysis, according to Binnick (1991, p. 288) is that progressive sentences are meaningful whether or not the “something else” is understood. It seems that the central problem with many of these theories, and the criticisms of them, is that they are often rather specific. It is apparent that all of these theories work some of the time, just as it is clear that none of them work all of the time. Clearly, no single one of these proposals adequately explains the complete usage of the present progressive, let alone the progressive in general. However, when taken together, along with the criticisms, they offer a much more complete guide to the topic. In order to examine the specific differences in the use of the present progressive between English and Spanish, its use in Spanish will be examined, and simultaneously compared and contrasted with English usage. Spanish compared to English progressive The most
common use of the present progressive in Spanish uses the verb
(Yo)* estoy dibujando. (Nosotros) estamos dibujando. (Tú) estás dibujando. (Nosotras)** estamos dibujando. Él está dibujando. Ellos están dibujando. Ella está dibujando. Ellas están dibujando. Usted está dibujando. Ustedes están dibujando.
*While Spanish is a pro-drop language, it is especially common to drop the pronoun in the cases which are in parenthesis due, perhaps, to the fact that these forms cannot normally be mistaken for different subjects. **Although the nosotras form is used in Spanish, it would only be used in cases where a group of women were referring to themselves (we). The nosotros form would be used in cases of all-male groups or groups which consist of males and females. Because of this, the nosotras form is rarely heard, and is quite often not taught in Spanish classes for non-native speakers. Note: The Vosotros form, used in Peninsular Spanish, will not be used in this paper. Regular verbs which
contain the -ER or -IR construction, such as Beber (to drink) and
sufrir (to suffer), take the -IENDO suffix rather than the -ANDO suffix,
which is attached to -AR verbs. Regardless of which suffix is used,
the -o ending is invariable, and does not change depending on the
surrounding nouns. The use of the verb estar with the progressive in
Spanish indicates duration, with the added implication that something
else is occurring during the carrying out of the action. (Spaulding,
1926, p. 235) There are, of course, a number of similarities between
the use of the progressive in Spanish and English. However, while the
use of the verb estar may seem, at first glance, to be quite similar to
the use of the As with English, Spanish does not use the progressive to state natural laws or general truths. Both languages instead require the use of the simple present:
The earth moves around the sun. La tierra gira alrededor del sol. Spanish is again similar to English in that this usage can be changed into the progressive if the speaker wishes to emphasize that such an occurrence is in progression at the moment of speaking:
Sí, mí hijo, la tierra está girando alrededor del sol en este momentito. Yes, my son, the earth is circling the sun at this very moment. In the previous section, it was mentioned that the English progressive construction does not occur with stative verbs. The same holds true for the Spanish progressive. However, just as in English, it is true that some Spanish stative verbs may also function as process verbs. The problem, of course, is that these dual-function verbs do not necessarily correspond in these two languages. The verbs tener and ser/estar only occur as stative verbs in Spanish. In English, however, these verbs may be either stative or action verbs.
Tiene una fiesta. He is having a party. You are being very jealous. Tienes muchos celos. They are being very cautious. Están procediendo con mucha cautela. (last example from Solé, p. 45) The use of the verb estar in the last example is, of course, in its function as the auxiliary, not as a progressive itself. The second example, you may notice, demonstrates how Spanish deals with this issue by having other lexical items take over the function of “be” in English. In both languages, verbs of motion which are used to express durative action commonly may take the progressive. Sentences that refer to such action, however, would usually occur in the past imperfect tense in Spanish, rather than in the present progressive:
Mis amigos y yo estábamos caminando en la escuela. My friends and I were walking in the school. In English, it is quite common to use the progressive with verbs which express instantaneous or near-instantaneous action as well: to go, to leave, the come, to enter, etc. The corresponding verbs in Spanish (ir, salir, venir, entrar, etc), however, do not use the progressive construction. Whether the sentence describes an ongoing event or a “subsequent event in relation to the past or present, Spanish uses a simple tense instead” (Solé, 1977, p. 45):
She is going to the store. Ella va a la tienda. He is entering the class Él entra la clase. Both Spanish and English tend to use the simple present to speak of verbs related to personal events (i.e. see, love, smell):
Te amo. I love you. Te veo. I see you. Spanish, however, can also use the simple present to speak of external or physical events (Bull, 1965, p. 164). While this is not a valid form in English, it is actually the preferred form for Spanish:
Cocino la cena = Estoy cocinando la cena. I cook dinner ≠ I am cooking dinner. If the present progressive were used by a Spanish speaker in such a case, it would, again, have the effect of emphasizing that the speaker is involved in the activity as this moment. Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the progressive in Spanish and English has to do with the difference between the simple present and present progressive in both languages. While in English, as was described above, there is usually a clear difference between those two forms, some authors see the effect of the progressive in Spanish as being negligible:
Estar es uno de los verbos auxiliares más frequentes en nuestro Castellano y junto con el romance de otro verbo no le añade significacion sino solo sirve para conjugarle: como estar leyendo, estar escribiendo vale lo mismo que leer y que escribir. (Diccionario de Autoridades, qtd. in Spaulding, 1926, p. 243) This statement, then, describes the verb estar as not adding meaning to the other verb in the progressive pair. Furthermore, the author believes that a verb such as leer (to read) has virtually the same meaning as the progressive form estar leyendo (to be reading). While this statement may not be entirely correct (as is discussed in following sections), it is certainly true that speakers of Spanish quite often use the simple present in situations where English speakers would definitely use the present progressive. Marchand (1955, p. 50) agrees with this idea, stating that the simple present and the present progressive are “grammatically non-contrastive...variants of the same taxeme.” He also claims that rather than being grammatical, the difference between them is stylistic. Keniston (1936, p. 165) agrees as well, saying that the simple tenses can express a variety of aspects, including the progressive. One major exception to this has to do with Spanish verbs which indicate motion or action (Blansitt, 1975, p. 5). With verbs such as ir and venir, the simple present form may not be interpreted as being progressive.
Voy al mercado cada martes. I go to the market every Tuesday. Estoy yendo al mercado. I am going to the market. In Spanish, the simple tenses are used to refer to a much wider range of times, compared to the corresponding verbs in English. These tenses in Spanish can refer not only to habitual events, but also to events which are in progress at the time which is in question or simultaneous with another event (Solé & Solé, 1977):
¿A quién llamas? Who are you calling? Los alumnos comen ya. The students are already eating. ¿Qué buscas? What are you looking for? The Spanish simple tenses can also be used with a definite time reference, whereas this is not possible in English, which, in the examples given, uses the progressive instead.
¿A quién llamas ahora? Who are you calling now? Los alumnos comen ahora. The student are eating now. ¿Qué buscas hoy? What are you looking for today (said the shopkeeper to the customer)? Note that attempting to use such time references with the English simple present, results in sentences which may sound familiar to ESL teachers who have had native-Spanish speakers as students:
Who are you call now? The students eat now. The Spanish progressive, on the other hand, would be used when emphasis is to be placed on some specific moment:
¿A quién estás llamando ahorita? Who are you calling now? Los alumnos están comiendo ahora. The students are eating right now. ¿Qué estás buscando (buscas) ahora? What are you looking for now? As can be seen through a comparison of the two previous sets of sentences, it is possible to use an identical time reference with the simple present and present progressive in Spanish. The difference between this use of the progressive, and the way in which it is traditionally used in English is, again, that English would not use the simple present in either of the the groups mentioned above. Spanish, on the other hand, would usually use the simple present, unless added emphasis was needed. Solé also mentions the use of the progressive in Spanish when there might be some ambiguity regarding the ongoing versus future or habitual nature of the event (p. 43).
NATURE OF EVENT Future Habitual Ongoing Te espero. Te espero. Te estoy esperando. I will wait for you. I wait for you. I am waiting for you.
Ya cede Cede poco a poco Está cediendo. He is about to give in. He gives in little by little. He is giving in. As is demonstrated by this chart, the Spanish simple present covers a much wider range than the corresponding verbs in English. This is an important fact for both learners of Spanish and English, as the use, or misuse, of these verb forms are a clear marker of a speaker’s fluency. English progressives that describe repeated or extended events that are currently ongoing are expressed in Spanish by the simple tense:
He is accepting the death of Acepta la muerte de su esposa his wife with dignity. con dignidad. She is buying them tomorrow. Mañana las compra. Another commonly noted difference between the use of the simple present and present progressive in Spanish and English is also a common mistake found in the writing of letters in those two languages. In English, it is quite common, and perfectly acceptable, for the writer to have an implied “right now”, which they use to refer to the moment in which they are writing something. This is most commonly seen in constructions like:
I am writing this letter to tell you that... I am enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope... In Spanish, however, these types of statements would not occur in the progressive form. Instead, they would take the simple form:
Escribo esta carta... Incluyo un sobre... While present progressives may occur in Spanish letters, they would not do so when referring to these types of activities, i.e. having to do with the actual process of writing the letter. Although native Spanish speakers who are writing letters in English can “get away with” using the simple present with their native-English speaking friends, native English speakers who use the progressive for such sentences when writing in Spanish sound very awkward. Although English frequently uses the present progressive as a way of expressing future time or a future intent to act, this is not achieved in Spanish through the use of the progressive. Instead, Spanish uses a simple tense- usually either the simple present or the simple future (Solé, 1977, p. 44):
Compra (comprará) la casa esta tarde. He is buying the house this afternoon. Corre (correrá) mañana. He is running tomorrow. Because this is such a common usage in both Spanish and English, it is one of the very common mistakes heard from people learning either language. Although both forms would be “understandable” in either language, use of the wrong form is quite noticeable, especially in Spanish. One of the most visible differences between the progressive in Spanish and English is the much more frequent usage of alternative verbs (instead of estar) in Spanish. In addition to estar, Spanish can use any of the following auxiliaries in order to form progressive constructions: ir, venir, andar, caminar, seguir, continuar, proseguir, and quedar. The use, or non-use, of these auxiliaries in the progressive is determined by the temporal reference of the sentence. In Spanish, for example, the estar progressive is not normally used to refer to actions or events which occur, or are repeated, over long periods of time. In such a situation, Spanish normally uses either one of the simple tenses, or a progressive with ir, venir, or seguir as the auxiliary element:
Él la vee cada semana. He sees her every week. Va perdiendo su familia. He is losing his family (literally: He goes losing his family). A good, but not perfect, indicator for the need to use such constructions is that when a Spanish sentence contains adverbials of repetition, cada semana (each week), todas las noches (every night), etc., alternative constructions may be called for. In general, the seven alternative auxiliaries may be divided into three groups: ir, venir, andar; seguir, continuar, proseguir; and quedar. The use of each of these groups is discussed below. Ir, venir, and andar auxiliaries are normally used when the speaker wishes to express an action as continuing or repeating. At the same time, they still imply the idea of progression. While all three have this same general connotation, each of them expresses a variation of this theme. According to Spaulding, the verb ir:
...may be durative or frequentative, inceptive, that it may express the gradual fulfillment of the action, and that at times it seems nearly equivalent to the simple form of the verb expressed in the participle. (Spaulding, 1926, p. 251) From his study of the use of this form in Spanish literature, Spaulding found that the most common usage of ir was when the speaker wishes to express the idea of gradual completion of the action. These uses, or the necessity for this construction, are often indicated by the presence of adverbials of intensity, manner, or comparison:
Ella va entendiendo la química She is grasping chemistry poco a poco. little by little. Se va clareando. It is getting light. Van acercando paso a paso. They are getting closer step by step. Va pintando mejor que antes. He is painting better than before. The examples which are given above illustrate that English necessarily does not have a direct equivalent to these construction. The same will be true for the venir and andar constructions. Because of this, these verbs warrant special attention for both Spanish and ESL teachers. While venir maintains the same general “continuance of an action” meaning, it adds the idea that this continuance is coming from the past towards the present. It also carries the same “realization by degree” component as ir (Solé, 1977, p. 47). It is common to find the progressive venir co-occurring with indicators of temporal continuity, such as: hace....que or desde hace...,.
Vengo diciéndotelo desde hace días. I have been telling you about it for days. Viene quieriéndolo desde la Navidad He has been wanting it since last pasada. Christmas. Hace muchos meses que venimos We have been working on the house trabajando en la casa. for many months. Viene preguntándonos la misma He has been asking us the same cosa desde hace años. question for years. As is evident from the examples given above, the venir present progressive form in Spanish is often equivalent to the present prefect progressive in English. Although this construction is not one of the most common in Spanish, it occurs with enough frequency to warrant special attention. The very different nature of these two constructions makes it a difficult one for native speakers of English to learn, and also is likely to cause problem for Spanish-speakers learning English. The verb andar follows the same general pattern as the two previous verbs, but adds a rough equivalence of the verb “to continue” in English. Andar, however, will also be used when motion of indefinite direction is implied. Adverbials of temporal extension will, at times, co-occur with this type of progressive.
Anda viajando por Los Estados He is traveling about the United States. Unidos. Andan dando dinero a los They go about giving money to the campesinos. peasants. Andamos robando los bancos. We go about robbing banks. According to Spaulding (1926, p. 259) the verb andar can, depending on the context, also have the implication that the action which is performed is done with a sense of anxiety or even loneliness.
Anda buscando su novia desde He has been looking for his girlfriend ayer. since yesterday. Anda visitando las sepulturas He goes about visiting the graves of de sus amigos desde el accidente. his friends since the accident. As these examples indicate, this special meaning of andar will be determined by the context of the situation. The complexity of this construction, which may be performed by either the simple present, the present progressive, or the present perfect progressive in English, again serves to emphasize the need for special attention to this aspect. Seguir, Continuar, and Proseguir all have the effect of emphasizing the duration or repetition of an action. These three verbs all refer to events which began at some time in the past, but which are also continuing at the time referenced in the sentence. These verbs are quite often used for repeated or habitual events, and also often imply motion through time. These forms will often be found with adverbials which indicate such repeated or habitual events: todos..., luego, cada tanto, de vez en cuando, etc.
A pesar de los consejos del médico Against the advice of his doctor he prosigue tomando la tequila todos keeps drinking tequila every day. los días. Sigue visitándo a su mamá de vez She continues to visit her mother en cuando. every once in a while. La catedral de México D.F. se Mexico City’s cathedral continues continua hundiendo. to sink. It should be immediately apparent that this construction is very nearly identical to the English Continue +ing form. The main difference between the use of this form in the two languages is that, while the English usage may occur with the -ing form or an infinitive:
My friend continues writing to the president every day. My friend continues to write to the president every day. the Spanish construction, as seen above, can only occur with the -ndo form. Note, however, that one of the possible translations of the first sentence uses the verb “keep” instead of “continue.”
Against the advice of his doctor he keeps drinking tequila every day. Against the advice of his doctor he continues drinking tequila every day. *Against the advice of his doctor he keeps to drink tequila every day. Against the advice of his doctor he continues to drink tequila every day. Obviously, while the two verbs seem to have the same meaning when used in this sentence, they cannot follow the same rule regarding the use of the infinitive or -ing. Additional differences between the present progressive in Spanish and English may be found in the possible word order of the sentences. While the auxiliary and the particle are strongly connected in both Spanish and English, both languages allow material to intervene. In English, for example, a sentences such as: He is speaking next week. can have a negative inserted. He is not speaking next week. The difference between the two languages on this matter is that Spanish also allows the subject of the sentence to intervene between the auxiliary and the particle, while English does not allow this.
Ahora usted está escribiendo. Now you are writing. Ahora está usted escribiendo. *Now are you writing. This usage, while not frequent, has the effect of emphasizing the connection between the subject of the sentence and the action. Spaulding (1926, p. 265) also mentions that the subject may be shifted due to the principle that the longest element of a clause should come last. Spanish and English are also different in terms of dealing with object pronouns with the progressive tense. In English, the object pronoun(s) are regularly found following the progressive participle:
They are giving it to me. We are driving it. Spanish, however, allows the object pronouns to be placed before the auxiliary verb, or attached after the particle:
Me lo están dando. They are giving it to me. *Están dándomelo. They are giving it to me. Lo estamos manejando. We are driving it. Estamos manejándolo. We are driving it. The starred structure, although it is seen and heard, is still considered to not be grammatical by many “purists.” It is still most common to have the object pronouns precede the auxiliary when there are two. The most common exception to this rule is if the verb in question is reflexive. The differences in use between the Spanish and English forms of the present progressive are a source of constant challenge to speakers of either of these languages who are attempting to master the other. As will soon become clear, a comparison of the present perfect throws down a similar, if somewhat softer, gauntlet.
THE PRESENT PERFECT The present perfect is also a commonly used verb form in Spanish and English. Once again, while this “aspect” of the present is used in a similar manner in these languages, the differences in usage are significant enough to warrant close scrutiny. In its most general usage, the present perfect is used in both Spanish and English to “express the pastness of the event embodied in the lexical verb, together with a certain applicability, pertinence, or relevance of said past event to the context of coding-- the ‘now’ of the speaker or writer” (McCoard, 1978, p. |