摘要：Recent corpus-based studies (e.g. Mair and Hundt 1995; Smith 2002; Hundt
2004) suggest that use of the progressive has undergone a significant increase in
recent British English (BrE) and American English (AmE). However, the expansion
appears to be limited to particular combinations – e.g. with present tense
and passive voice – rather than to be evenly spread across the verb paradigm.
Moreover the areas of growth are not identical in the two regional varieties.
