Patrick Quinn White

This paper is about the logic of progressive aspect. We defend a new principle, which we call ‘Progressive Specificity’. Progressive Specificity says that if you are Ving, and to V is to X or Y, then you are Xing or you are Ying. We offer seven arguments for Progressive Specificity, which explore connections with credences, counterfactuals, indicatives, ‘wish’ reports, implicatures, and more. These arguments extend to the futurative progressive, showing that prevailing accounts of the futurative, which treat it as conveying plans, must be rejected. We consider two types of apparent counterexamples to Progressive Specificity: verbs of selection, such as ‘decide’, and verbs of creation, such as ‘build’. We then respond to an objection that Progressive Specificity gives rise to objectionable arbitrariness about what things are doing. Our response appeals to the close connection between Progressive Specificity and the principle of Conditional Excluded Middle. This connection, previously unexplored, provides additional support for Progressive Specificity, and paves the way toward a conditional account of the progressive.