Progressive and habitual aspects in Central Mande

This paper examines the marking of progressive and habitual aspects in a cluster of closely related languages (Central Mande) and in a number of dialects in one of these languages (Manding) within the framework of grammaticalization theory. It is shown that the habitual forms go back to a generalization of the progressive aspect and that the progressive forms do derive from locative periphrastic constructions. Furthermore, evidence is provided for the fact that the evolution of progressives in Central Mande occurs in morphological cycles and that the various synchronic progressive constructions can be classified into different layers of grammaticalization. Finally, the consequences of the development of new progressives (as the starting point for imperfectives) for the semantic usage of the old imperfectives are discussed.