The Actuality for Potentiality Metonymy in the English Progressive Aspect

Abstract

In this paper conceptual metonymy that operates in various interpretations of the progressive aspect in English will be argued for. While the linguistic meaning of the progressive aspect is singular and presents only a part of the situation it describes, more than its linguistic meaning can be communicated with the help of inference by the ACTUALITY FOR POTENTIALITY metonymy. Though such metonymic inferences are hard to recognize in everyday use of the progressive aspect, they are found generally throughout different uses of the progressive. I present the mechanism of the ACTUALITY FOR POTENTIALITY metonymy working in the interpretation of the progressive and explore three different usages of the progressive in the light of this metonymic inference.