Progressive statives

No.

MrP

Yes.

Yes.

Progressive tenses with a stative verb suggest one of the followings to me:

Giving a notion of temporariness to the state,

or

giving a notion of development to the state.

InchoateknowledgeYes.

Progressive tenses with a stative verb suggest one of the followings to me:

Giving a notion of temporariness to the state,

or

giving a notion of development to the state.

How about politeness and tentativeness?

"Are you wanting tea, or coffee ...?"
Not the usual form, but I've heard it. Sometimes we introduce the continuous form as a way of being gentle and polite.

"Pragmatically, progressive statives convey politeness in the form of tentativeness, softening, and a desire for harmony."

digitalcommons.libraries.columbia.edu

J Lewis"Are you wanting tea, or coffee ...?"
Not the usual form, but I've heard it. Sometimes we introduce the continuous form as a way of being gentle and polite.

Indeed we do.

I think it's OK.

See this article:

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/english/2004/12/are_you_wanting.html

For more examples, search Yahoo with:
"are you wanting" bbc
(this will give you SOME BBC pages, commas are important)

<(this will give you SOME BBC pages, commas are important)>

Did you mean quotes ("...") are important?

Thanks for the link. Problem is, that English teacher only talks about the temporal use of the progressive, when the use in "are you wanting" seems to me to be more about social graces.

Milky<(this will give you SOME BBC pages, commas are important)>

Did you mean quotes ("...") are important?


Yes, of course, I keep doing this these days, not sure why