Intensionality and the Progressive∗
Nathan Klinedinst
Abstract
The progressive form of an English verb can describe events that fail to reach the natural culmination
indicated by its non-progressive counterpart. The explanation often assumed for this fact is that
the progressive morpheme is a modal operator: while the non-progressive form requires actual
culmination, the progressive merely requires culmination in some relevant (possibly) non-actual
circumstances (e.g. Dowty, 1977). However, the modal theory faces problems which are suggestive
in favor of the alternative view, that the progressive simply or primitively describes the type of
activity which leads to culmination in the non-progressive case.
1 Semantic theories of the progressive
The progressive form of an English verb can describe events that fail to reach the natural culmination, or “telos”, indicated by its non-progressive counterpart. For example, while (1-a)
entails that John finished the bottle, (1-b) does not.
(1)
a.
b.
John drank the bottle of whiskey.
John was drinking the bottle of whiskey.
The explanation often assumed for this fact is that the progressive morpheme is a modal operator (Dowty, 1977 and following), the respective logical forms being something like:
(2)
a.
b.
PAST(John drink the whiskey)
PAST(P ROG(John drink the whiskey))
By assumption the (apparently) bare form drink the whiskey requires the bottle to be finished,
but addition of the progressive morpheme, qua modal operator P ROG, allows that this culmination be reached only in relevant (possibly) non-actual worlds.
The objective of this paper is to reconsider the tenability of the modal theory and of an
alternative which I will call the ACTIVITY theory. The activity theory takes the progressive form
to describe the kinds of events or processes that occur in the lead up, as it were, whether or not
a telos is ever reached. It takes such processes to be (linguistically) given, or made available by
the semantic representations of predicates like drink (the bottle). The modal theory, on the other
hand, attempts to explicate the role of the progressive without appealing to this assumption.
I argue in the following section that the activity account appears to give a better and more
intuitive explanation of certain facts than existing modal accounts.
Before turning to those facts, however, I want to quickly dispense with several pieces of
evidence that have been claimed to support a modal account. On closer examination these are
at best inconclusive.
1.1 Bare verbs forms?
Above we said that the activity theory crucially assumes activities or ‘incomplete events’ to be
linguistically given. This could mean at least two things.
∗
Thanks to Daniel Rothschild for discussion.
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One is a claim about the semantic contribution of a verb to the progressive construction,
which runs counter to what is assumed by the modal theory. It amounts to the idea that in a
sentence like (1-b), the progressive combines with a verb form that can itself describe (whiskey)
drinking events that do not culminate (in completion of the bottle).
The second is a claim about the semantics of the progressive, and is compatible with
the modal theory’s assumption about the contribution of the verb. It is simply the idea that,
given (the semantic representation of) a predicate that may require a natural culmination, the
type of activity or event necessary to reach that culmination can be recovered. The semantic
contribution of the progressive is to create a predicate true of the latter type of event. This may
make the progressive intensional, but it need not make make it a modal operator, or equivalent
to any existing modal account.
Parsons, 1990 gives what is to my knowledge the most detailed example of an activity
theory. It makes the first type of claim, taking the verb in a progressive construction to hold
of (either) incomplete (or culminating) events. Parsons in fact goes further, assuming the same
of verbs in non-progressive sentence like (1-a). He proposes that the culmination entailment in
(1-a) comes, then, not from the verb itself.
Zucchi, 1999 and Higginbotham, 1999 point out, against Parsons, that ostensibly bare
verb forms in English seem to obligatorily carry culmination entailments;
(3)
a.
b.
John saw Mary drink the whiskey
John wants Mary to drink the whiskey.
(3-a) indicates that John saw Mary finish the bottle, and (3-b) indicates a desire that she do so.
The empirical observation seems to me correct, and the point against Parsons may hold, since
he appears to tie the culmination entailment in (1-a) to the presence of the past tense.1
But it is not clear that Zucchi and Higginbotham’s examples tell more generally against
the idea that the verb in (1-b) contributes a predicate describing activities/incomplete events.
It is possible that the bare (=non-progressive) form is in competition with the progressive,
such that it can only be used to indicate culmination. For example, the progressive may be
in complementary distribution with an unpronounced morpheme that indicates culmination.
Finally, it should be clear that the examples have no implications for second version of the
activity theory, since it is compatible with the idea that ’drink (the whiskey)’ contributes its
own culmination entailment.
1.2 Does the progressive create an intensional context?
In discussions of the progressive it is often noted that sentences like (4-a), in contrast with
(4-b), do not entail the existence of a (completed) house.
(4)
a.
b.
John was building a house.
John built a house.
This is offered as evidence for the modal account. For one, the failure of the relevant entailment
for (4-a) can be explained in the same way as it is for explicitly modal sentences like John
should build a house. And existing versions of the activity theory, notable Parsons, 1990, make
1
Parsons does suggest that the culmination implication of the embedded verb in an example like (3-a) could
be “inherited” from the embedding verb/tense. As Zucchi, 1999 points out, however, it is not clear that this
idea could be made plausible for (3-b) since the embedding verb+tense is stative, i.e. does not imply a natural
culmination.
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the progressive extensional. (Although this may not be a necessary feature of the activity theory
– cf. Bach, 1986).
However, it seems that build, and “verbs of creation” more generally, are themselves
intensional in the following sense: they describe events which cause things to come into existence. While John built a house entails the existence of a (completed) house at the time of
culmination and thus at the time of utterance, it certainly does not entail the existence of a house
(even a partial one) throughout the entire course of the construction. This is contrast with ‘visit
a house’ or ‘destroy a house’. So the activity theory is not at risk of predicting that (4-a) entails
the existence of a house (only that a process is underway whose goal or natural culmination is
there being one). See Zucchi, 1999.
Higginbotham, 1999, citing Kratzer, points to “verbs of selection” as a clearer case for
the intensionality of the progressive. Here the issue is not existence exactly but specificity:
(5)
a.
b.
Mary is choosing a dress.
There is a dress that Mary is choosing.
The modal theory can treat the failure of inference from (5-a) to (5-b) on a par with that from
Mary must buy one of the three dresses to There is one of the three dresses that Mary must buy.
But does it need to? It seems possible that the intensional behavior is again due to the verb itself.
For Mary choses a dress seems to mean something like: Mary undergoes a deliberative process
whose goal, and culmination, is there being a preference for some one dress over others.2
According to the activity theory, then, (5-a) means that such a process is underway. But from
this is does not follow that there is (already) a deliberative process underway directed towards
a preference for x (over other dresses) for some particular dress x. The paraphrase suggested
above does entail that there will be such a process underway as we approach the time at which
the goal is reached, supposing it is. But that is as it should be: it will be true, just before Mary
has chosen, that there is a dress she is choosing.3
What about verbs that are clearly non-intensional? Do their progressive forms induce the
intensional characteristics under discussion? (I do not know whether this question has been
carefully considered.) Suppose that, to cross a creek without getting his only shoes wet, a hobo
decides to lay a stepping bridge of stone. Dragging a sack of stones behind him he starts laying
them one by one and carefully moving across the creek. Is the following true,
(6)
The hobo is (slowly) crossing a bridge.
at any point of the process at which we would not assent to there being a bridge – even if
incomplete – which he is crossing? It seems to me that the answer is no; pick a point in the
construction at which you think (6) is true, and I’ll show you a “bridge”.
Now consider specificity. Indiana Jones is aboard a runaway cart hurtling along some
tracks through an abandoned coal mine. As he approaches a “Y” in the tracks a switch will
determine at random which path it takes, but unfortunately both end abruptly and Indiana will
plunge into a pit of fire.
(7)
The cart is speeding to an abyss.
2
Or possibly over salient non-dress alternatives?
I don’t know of strong positive arguments that ‘choose’ and other verbs of selection are indeed intensional
in something like this way. But I know of no arguments to the contrary either. One potential positive consideration
is the fact that simple present tense of a verb of selection in Romance languages displays the “non-specificity”
observed in (5-a). But one might think that such “imperfective” forms are themselves modal.
3
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(7) appears to be true at times before Indiana comes to the “Y”. But is it false at such times that
there is an abyss such that the cart is speeding to it? The judgment is subtle but again I think
the answer is no – though of course we don’t know which abyss it will be. (We return to related
examples in the following section).
In summary, the progressive does not clearly induce certain behaviours we might expect
it to qua intensional operator. While this may be good news for the activity theory, it is not
clear that it constitutes an argument against the modal theory. We turn now to considerations
that do appear to favor the activity theory.
2 Problems for modal analyses
The central task for a modal analysis is to characterise the possible worlds relevant to the truth
of a progressive sentence. In what possible worlds or situations must John drink the bottle in
order for (1-b) to count as true? One criterion clearly needed is that John’s finishing the bottle
in those worlds is the result of a kind of activity – intuitively, drinking – which actually did
occur (whether or not John actually finished the bottle). (See Dowty, 1977, 1979 and Vlach,
1981’s criticisms thereof). In his the original modal account, Dowty (further) proposed the
relevant worlds to be “inertial”. By this he meant worlds that are like the actual world up
to the evaluation time, and which develop thereafter “in ways most compatible with the past
course of events” (Dowty1979, p.148). Subsequent modal analyses have appealed to notions
other than inertia, for example typicality (Portner, 1998, Bonomi, 1997), (reasonable) similarity
(Landman, 1992), and defaults (Asher, 1992).
My primary aim here is not to evaluate or compare the suitability of these particular
notions (see Szabó, 2004 for discussion). Rather, I will focus on issues related to the first
criterion, and related to an additional refinement assumed by successors to Dowty, which they
refer to as the incorporation of “perspective” into the modal semantics. This is necessary to
handle progressives of predicates that describe incompatible outcomes.
The following pair of sentences can apparently be true of the same past time – at which,
let us suppose, John was a few steps into the street, unaware of a bus that would run him down
in the middle of it:
(8)
a.
b.
John was crossing the street.
John was walking into the path of an oncoming bus. (from Portner, 2011)
In order for this to come out correctly on a modal theory, it obviously cannot require that ‘John
cross the street’ and ‘John walk into the path of an oncoming bus’ be true in (any of the) same
possible worlds.
But at the same time, the modal theory must be restrictive enough that it does not allow
the progressives of just any incompatible predicates to be true. Consider again the runaway cart
scenario from above, and let us suppose that “B” is the pit that the cart ultimately arrived at.
Then, it seems, (9-a) is false, while (9-b) is true, (even) when we understand the past tense to
make reference to a time before the cart reached the “Y”:
(9)
a.
b.
The cart was racing to pit A.
The cart was racing to pit B.
In the literature two broad approaches to this general issue are represented. In Portner,
1998, Bonomi, 1997, and Asher, 1992, the tack is to treat the quantificational force of the
progressive operator as strong enough – essentially universal, to rule out the progressives of
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incompatibles being true for a given domain of possible worlds. However, it is assumed that
the domain of worlds quantified over can vary with linguistic example and/or context. For
example the domain for (8-a) does not include, by assumption, worlds in which the bus is
imminent.
This first tack must first of all explain why (9-b) and only (9-b) is true; the latter requires
explaining why (linguistic) context cannot have an effect on (9-a) parallel to that posited for
(8-a). Supposing that an explanation can be given, there is still a potential worry: the type
of (linguistic) context sensitivity posited for the progressive appears to be ad hoc, as it is not
exhibited by modals more generally. For example, suppose that you averted your eyes and fled
the scene to avoid witnessing John’s fatal accident, being certain that he was unaware of the
approaching bus and not walking fast enough to make it. So you conclude that:
(10) John must have been hit by the bus.
Without retracting your conclusion, it does not seem possible to also maintain that
(11) John must have crossed the street.
But you would be certain that John crossed were you to “ignore the bus”, as it were, in the way
the modal theory proposes for (8-a).
(This is not to deny that modals exhibit context sensitivity. It is plausibly what explains
the moral dilemma one faces when one should/has to visit their sick grandmother, but also
should/has to stay home and study. Intuitively this involves a shift from one (sub)type of
modality to another, from talk of familial obligations to obligations as a student. For what it’s
worth, there is no similar intuition of (contextual) meaning shift in the case of (8-a) and (8-b).
But more importantly there seems to be an empirical difference between the two cases that the
first tack should explain. It is at least possible to fix a single sense for ‘should’: in view of my
professional obligations, I should finish my paper today (let us suppose), and I should not spend
the day reviewing journal articles instead. But one can hardly deny that John was crossing the
street, on the grounds that he walking into the path of an oncoming truck. This again points
up a worry that the modal theory needs to make ad hoc assumptions about the progressive qua
modal expression.)
The other tack is found in Landman, 1992. Landman’s interesting treatment makes the
progressive something like a counterfactual or subjunctive operator. According to his proposal
the truth of (8-a) depends on their being an actual event which is a “stage” (in his terms) of a a
completed street crossing in the closest possible world in which all of its stages are realised. The
intuitive idea is that there must be an event which would develop, given enough (reasonable)
counterfactual assumptions, into a street crossing. If John actually made it, then this condition
is automatically satisfied according to Landman’s definition. Thus (8-a) is true according to
Landman’s theory, roughly speaking, because John would have made it if not for the truck, and
(8-a) is true because of the truck’s actually hitting him. Thus Landman’s theory accounts for
the joint truth of (8-a) & (8-b) somewhat more directly and elegantly than the first tack.
One the other hand Landman’s theory might make it too easy for incompatible progressives to come out true. That the truck that actually hit John had not been approaching, seems
just as plausible a counterfactual assumption as that the switch should have sent the cart towards “A” rather than “B”. If so (9-a) will wrongly come out true. More generally, there is a
worry that the predicted truth conditions are too weak. It’s not clear that it is sufficient for the
truth of a progressive that the relevant telos is actually attained. Suppose that the population of
red wing moths had experienced a very slight decline as of 1977, and consider
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(12) The red wing moth was (already) disappearing (in 1977).
Is (12) later true, as Landman’s theory predicts, when the species has eventually gone extinct
(or its distinction becomes imminent)? It seems to me at least debatable at what point the
disappearance commenced.
3 Conclusion
There may be ways of responding to the objections in the previous section. However, it seems
to me that the activity theory gives a very straightforward account of all of the facts discussed.
The reason the (8-a) and (8-b) are both true, according to the activity theory, is simply that
there is nothing about the relevant activities that precludes them from both happening at the
same time (indeed, the crossing the street is, in some sense, the walking into the path of the
bus). But in the case of (9-a) and (9-b) things are different, it seems: intuitively, motion along
a path can only be directed to one goal (if the goals are on divergent branches). As for (12),
debates about its truth comes down, on the activity theory, to what it means for a disappearance
to be in progress.
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