milky  +  287039 Sun, 29 Oct 06 05:02 PM Progressive statives. Is this incorrect in your variant? "Are you wanting tea, or coffee ...?" milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	MrPedantic  +  287660 Tue, 31 Oct 06 12:07 AM No. MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris...

	CalifJim  +  287687 Tue, 31 Oct 06 01:59 AM Yes. CalifJim Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004 California Veteran Member 22,415 "There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

	Inchoateknowledge  +  287789 Tue, 31 Oct 06 09:33 AM Yes. Progressive tenses with a stative verb suggest one of the followings to me: Giving a notion of temporariness to the state, or giving a notion of development to the state. Inchoateknowledge Joined on Wed, May 3 2006 Senior Member 2,549 Beep! Beep! :) Verbs, Tenses, Stative Verbs

	milky  +  287810 Tue, 31 Oct 06 11:41 AM  Inchoateknowledge wrote: Yes. Progressive tenses with a stative verb suggest one of the followings to me: Giving a notion of temporariness to the state, or giving a notion of development to the state. How about politeness and tentativeness? milky Verbs, Tenses, Stative Verbs

	J Lewis  +  287813 Tue, 31 Oct 06 11:54 AM "Are you wanting tea, or coffee ...?" Not the usual form, but I've heard it. Sometimes we introduce the continuous form as a way of being gentle and polite. J Lewis Joined on Tue, Sep 5 2006 Italy Regular Member 518

	milky  +  287814 Tue, 31 Oct 06 11:54 AM "Pragmatically, progressive statives convey politeness in the form of tentativeness, softening, and a desire for harmony." digitalcommons.libraries.columbia.edu milky

	milky  +  287831 Tue, 31 Oct 06 12:48 PM  J Lewis wrote: "Are you wanting tea, or coffee ...?" Not the usual form, but I've heard it. Sometimes we introduce the continuous form as a way of being gentle and polite. Indeed we do. milky

	Marius Hancu  +  287849 Tue, 31 Oct 06 01:44 PM I think it's OK. See this article: http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/english/2004/12/are_you_wanting.html For more examples, search Yahoo with: "are you wanting" bbc (this will give you SOME BBC pages, commas are important) Marius Hancu Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006 Veteran Member 11,673 Articles, Commas