The Progressive Aspect as a Polarity Item (Non-)Licenser: A Crosslinguistic Study

By drawing on the most recent literature, I discuss the phenomenon that the progressive aspect in Mandarin Chinese can license wh-indefinites.This observation stands in sharp contrast to the fact that the progressive aspect cannot license negative polarity items in such languages as English and Greek.A key difference between the progressive aspect in English/Greek and that in Mandarin Chinese is the former draws on the occurrence of the associated event, and the latter draws on the non-occurrence of the associated result.This difference determines whether the progressive in a language is veridical or non-veridical, and whether it can license negative polarity items in that language.