Grammar with Lubna: To –ing or not to –ing, that is the question

Recently, I’ve had a couple of experiences which have made me start wondering about the –ing verb, and aspect, in general. So, I’ll be writing three blogs this week about the –ing more generally, something called ‘aspect’. I’ll start off telling you what the ‘problem’ is, and then follow this up with what the grammar is behind these interesting examples.



Most of us would have learnt or at least heard about the continuous (or as most linguists refer to it, progressive) tense of the verb, for example, ‘She is reading this blog’. Actually, more accurately, we refer to the –ing continuous construction not as tense, but as aspect. The verb string ‘is reading’ is in the present tense, as you can tell from ‘is’ – this tells you the event occurs at the time of speaking; in addition, the verb also tells you that the action is still going on at the time of speaking (or writing): this is the continuous aspect. So, in brief, tense refers to when something happened; aspect tells you how the action takes place. So, we can contrast the continuous with the perfective, for example, which is used to indicate that an action has been completed, e.g. ‘I have written a blog’.



Well, my interest in the –ing form actually began over four years ago. In 2007 - 2009, I worked with three wonderful colleagues on a small project, resulting in three published papers. The project was based on Christina Higgins’ (2007) paper in TESOL Quarterly that examined the ownership of English by speakers outside of the so-called ‘native’ English speaking countries. Participants were paired and asked to judge a set of sentences for their acceptability; recordings were also made of the discussions they had with each other. There were many interesting findings about the judgements in terms of how they reflected the participants’ sense of confidence over grammaticality judgements. Christina’s original study, held in a university setting, which included Singaporeans, showed that these students displayed a strong sense of ownership over English, and had clear opinions about what was acceptable and what was not.



For our study, we used more or less the same set of sentences that Christina did, with her permission of course, and out of these, one in particular struck me as interesting:

I am having a cold.

While the other sentences in our experiment received mixed judgements, all of our informants, including those who belonged to the most well-educated and socioeconomically privileged group, unequivocally judged this sentence as grammatically correct. In fact, one of our informants went so far as to say that “I have a cold” is not correct. You’ll hear this sentence and others like it very commonly, spoken by a good number of Singaporeans – well-educated ones, at that, as I did in this past month, what with the flu season:

I’m having a cough, but I haven’t really seen the doctor.

I’m having the flu this past week.



My interest further piqued when I then overheard a very well-spoken elderly Singaporean woman say very formally, in a crisp and proper manner, to the cashier at a rather posh supermarket who handed her some stamps for an in-store promotion. And in case you think it was a slip of the tongue, she repeated this very same sentence when the cashier failed to hear her the first time:

I wouldn’t be needing the stamps, thank you.



What do you think of these sentences? Let’s compare these –ing sentences with ones without the –ing:

1A. I am having a cold.

1B. I have a cold.

2A. I wouldn’t be needing the stamps, thank you.

2B. I won’t need the stamps, thank you.

(‘Don’t’ is probably better in 2B, but I want to keep as close to the original as possible.)

Would you use the –ing constructions, or the ones without? And, which of these would you accept as ‘correct’ or acceptable – the sentences marked (A) or those marked (B), or both?



Finally, let me tell you about the second thing I heard that inspired me to write this set of blogs. William Xavier, a very well-known DJ, who, I think, speaks English very well, announced one morning:

Expect heavy traffic along Bukit Timah Road. A car broke down just before Hua Guan Avenue

(or some other road ... it doesn’t matter).



How does this sound to you? Do you think he should have said it like this? Could he have said it in a different way, or a better way? How would you have phrased the morning traffic announcement? (Hint: it's the second sentence that's interesting).



I’ll share my thoughts on these sentences in my next two blogs ...

Comments
Comment by Dennis Chew on Monday

have is a stative verb, isn't it? That would make 1A wrong?


. Comment by Dennis Chew on Monday
Expect heavy traffic along Bukit Timah Road. A car broke down just before Hua Guan Avenue. I would prefer to use a car has broken down... sounds more "current" / active to me.
. Comment by Lubna Alsagoff 17 hours ago
Great, Dennis! Absolutely spot on!
. Comment by Dennis Chew 12 hours ago

oh...there's a link to a song that I used to help my students spot grammar rules as a short game or quiz. They really enjoy it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky4CdN0x58A&ob=av2e



I printed out the lyrics and we deconstructed together and found at least 13 rules.
. Comment by Pierre Fong 2 hours ago

I prefer the has broken down (present perfect) because it happend in the past and I do not know when it happened exactly.



The sentence I have a cold seems to be a definite statement - meaning that the cold is going to be permanent. I have it now and I am going to have it in the future. The sentence I am having a cold seem to suggest that it is for a period of time.
. Comment by Yeo Sze Min 3 minutes ago

Hey Pierre! Yes, that's the exact notion I get with the -ing form of a verb, a continuation of the action for a period of time.

the -ing form has a sense of a continuation of the time period in its form. be needing. (at some point in time you might need the stamps after all?) won't need has a more definitive feel, succinct and to the point, stating that one won't need the stamps.



I have a question though. It appeared in one of the practice papers and if i don't remember wrong,

-Last week, John bought some clothes before the store closed down.

-Last week, John had bought some clothes before the store closed down.

Is there a way I am able to explain the choice of the correct answer to students at the p4 level?

Thanks :)