grammaticalisation

[William Baxter]

Mandarin Chinese uses zai4 'to be at (a place or time)' preverbally to
achieve an effect very similar to the English progressive:

Ta1 shuo1 Zhong1guo2hua4
He speaks Chinese.

Ta1 zai4 shuo1 Zhong1guo2hua4.
He is speaking Chinese.

Vladimir Morozov wrote:

>  Dear Colleagues,
>
> Could somebody please give me an example of grammticalisation whereby
> progressive (or maybe some other) aspect in a language is historically
> derived from a verb with locative semantics, i.e. ‘to be in a
> place’ or the like?
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Vladimir