Expressed by Present Continuous

This paper aims to identify the Present Continuous tense as engaged in realizing direct evidentiality or perception in English. For this, the paper is focused on three research issues. First, the peculiarities of functioning perception verbs in the Present Continuous are given. Second, complex sentences using the Present Continuous predicates to express perception category are analyzed. Third, the Present Continuous as implying perception or direct evidentiality category in certain contexts is considered. The authors of the research set forth the following research hypotheses: ۱) direct evidentially is the category implied by the Present Continuous; ۲) autonomous functioning of the Present Continuous predicate in simple sentences may be considered as realizing perception category; ۳) expressing perception by the Present Continuous depends on different contextual conditions. Theoretical and methodological basis of the research is based on fundamental assumptions of modern linguistic knowledge in evidentiality theory put forward by A. Aikhenvald and V.A. Plungyan. Similarly, the paper applies the methods of component and mental-logical analysis and the descriptive method. The research comprises examples of English websites and data from the British National Corpus. In general, this paper analyzes ۱۲ examples from our ۵۷۳ corpus. The research showed that although the simultaneity is systemic meaning of Present Continuous, it is not applied to represent the simultaneity of perception situation and perceived situation in complex sentences. It is scale of the objects under consideration, their multiplicity, territorial visibility, verbs semantically implying space localization that permit Present Continuous imply perception in simple sentences.

Keywords:

Linguistics , Corpus , Grammar , Semantics , Perception