Summary

The progressive aspect is one of the values of the imperfective aspect, alongside the habitual and the continuous aspect. Specifically, it expresses a situation where a unique interval of time within an event is emphasized. There appear to be various ways of expressing the progressive meaning across languages, such as through affixes, particles, and verbal phrases. In Spanish, the most grammaticalized way of expressing the progressive is the periphrasis estar ‘be’ + gerund. However, the progressive meaning can also be conveyed through present morphology or imperfect past morphology. These forms, however, also encode other values of the imperfective, meaning they are not exclusive to the progressive aspect. Among the progressive constructions discussed in the literature, there are certain structures, formed by a motion verb and the gerund form (venir ‘come’ + gerund, ir ‘go’ + gerund and andar ‘walk’ + gerund), that are more controversial. These structures do not denote a focalized situation (as estar ‘be’ + gerund does) but rather a durative, ongoing situation. These periphrases have been analyzed as expressing durative progressive meaning or as conveying a near-imperfect value, the continuous aspect, which describes an event that continues over a period of time. The motion verbs in these periphrases are semi-grammaticalized, and thus, some of their lexical meaning remains, giving rise to different nuances of durative progressive: the incremental one (ir ‘go’ + gerund) and the frequentative one (andar ‘walk’ + gerund and venir ‘come’ + gerund).