Would anyone like to help me explain to an ESL student why it is possible ,and common, to say "I've been wanting to..."?
The problem is that 'want' is clearly a stative verb. It doesn't explicitly have two meanings, as 'think' does. (I'm thinking about it = I'm working on a problem/I'm conjuring up images in my mind [not stative], I think that's true = I believe/I hold the opinion [stative])
"I'm wanting..." in the present progressive is often incorrect, and used only in special contexts.
I need help not with what is going on with the language here, but with finding an explanation better than 'just because'...
I'ts a very good example, I think, of the kind of thing native speakers of a given language can have very firm intuitions about, without being able to explain them. The intuitive ability of native speakers always outstrips the ability of the grammarian by a wide margin. That's one of the things that makes the study of language so interesting.
I doubt very much if you'll ever be able to explain this in simple enough terms to non-native speakers. There are, of course, some principles involved, but it is unlikely ESL learners will profit much by trotting these out, explicitly. Probably, they'll profit more from learning sets of well-chosen examples (which, after all, is the way children normally acquire their own native-speaker proficiency).
I think the active/stative distinction by itself is insufficient for this case, and we may need, after all, to talk about some of the different senses the verb want can have.
It is correct to say, for example: I've been wanting a new Mercedes for Christmas for as long as I can remember, but no child on Santa's lap ever says: I'm wanting a new sled for Christmas.
The primary sense of want in English seems to be "lack," and in this sense it is entirely compatible with the progressive, and always has been. Thus the KJ verse, "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting," or "As usual, the American polity is wanting truly responsive representation in Congress."
I hasten over the derived sense of want meaning to desire carnally, which can also be durative and thus occurs often with the progressive.
The sense of want you seem to have in mind is the one meaning to have a desire to possess. This, as your opening example shows, can also occur with the progressive (actually, you used the present perfect progressive, and this is more common by far than the simple present progressive). In this kind of case, use of the progressive is acceptable, it seems, when we want to stress the idea that we have been entertaining (as an on-going psychological process) the desire for some time.
I hope some of the above may be of some help. I wish you luck.
Posts: 2612 | Location: Upper U.S. | Registered: 06-11-02
The core problem here, as happens so frequently in foreign language pedagogy, is the lack of a clear analogy between the English construction and that of other languages. English commonly uses the present perfect progressive to express actions begun in the past and still on-going. Note the formulas for other languages:
Teaching the use of the English progressive to native speakers of languages that don't have any such thing is of course a major problem. But I don't think, JR, that that was the crux of the problem nnn is getting at. Nnn's post suggests that the problem is getting the ESL learners to know when not to use the progressive. And this, in spite of what you say, JR, involves a rather narrow analysis of particular verbs, for every verb in the language comes with its own often highly idiosyncratic set of co-occurrence restrictions.
The verb want, in its ordinary sense, is, as nnn says, a stative verb. In general, stative verbs resist use with the progressive. Sentences such as this one:
I've been wanting to tell you for a long time, Fred, that your halitosis is a real problem.
are exceptional in that they force us to consider want, against its true nature almost, as a kind of process verb. It is this kind of thing that ESL learners will typically have such trouble catching onto. And no wonder, since the shift in properties of the verb is so subtle in cases like that.
A purer stative verb is know. This one offers just about maximum resistance to the progressive, so that it is very unidiomatic English to say something like
I've been knowing my alphabet ever since I was ten, or so.
And yet, even this verb can be forced into co-existence with the progressive in extreme cases, e.g.,
I thought I knew English grammar, but when I first looked into Chomsky's grammar, I felt I was knowing it for the first time.
What is clear about both of these examples is that an otherwise stative verb has been made into a pseudo-activity verb. And only a well-developed Sprachgefühl will ever get any non–native speaker to understand clearly where and when the shift is appropriate and where it isn't.
[This message was edited by maiku on 12-31-02 at 09:28 AM.]
Posts: 2612 | Location: Upper U.S. | Registered: 06-11-02
Actually, this question came from an advanced, adult learner who seems to understand clearly what the common usage is, and what sounds strange to a native speaker.
Like many adult ESL learners, he has little patience for 'communicative' styles of learning, and wants mostly to to be taught rules of grammar (I suspect), and to discuss them academically. He doesn't really accept explanations along the lines of "but that's what people say" - and I sympathise. There must be some reason for 'want' to work usefully in the progressive, in the past.
Possibly, "I've been wanting to..." does imply a different meaning for 'want'. As kdp suggests, maybe what's really being said here is 'desiring', 'planning', 'longing'... which verbs are active because (it seems) they suggest some work being done by the brain (imagine cogs turning, and smoke pouring from the ears.)
I'm still not sure about why that explanation would apply in the present perfect, and not in the present, however.
quote:Originally posted by newnickname: I'm still not sure about why that explanation would apply in the present perfect, and not in the present, however.
In Pygmalion, G.B. Shaw has Mr. Dolittle say something like "But I'm wantin' to tell you, Professor 'iggins!" Of course, Alfred Dolittle's grammar may be a little suspect, even if Shaw's isn't. But the present progressive can occur with the verb "want" in much like its usual sense, as this example shows clearly enough.
Above, I said that the present perfect progressive modification was easier to find, and that's still true. Why? Well, if we are thinking of "wanting" as a kind of process (with smoke coming from our ears, maybe), then it necessarily occupies time, and this process began, always, some time ago and yet is still currently relevant, or else we wouldn't bring it up. So this is the perfect context for the use of the present perfect, or the "current relevance" aspect.
Put it another way: knowing that you are wanting something requires introspection, which always leads backwards into your psychological time. The simple present progressive is less likely, because we are that much less likely to arrive, by introspection, at the conclusion that we are punctually enduring a process of desiring something. Makes perfect sense to me.
Posts: 2612 | Location: Upper U.S. | Registered: 06-11-02
