Б. С. Хаймович, Б. И. Роговская теоретическая грамматика английского языка

That will be your British hospital? (Randall).
^{_________________________________________
3} An analogous modal colouring is observed in Russian.


The Present-Continuous Non-Perfect

§ 267. The basic meaning of the present continuous non-perfect as a language unit, resulting from the synthesis of its elementary grammatical meanings is to denote an action as a concrete process viewed in its progress (the continuous aspect) associated with the present (the present tense) and unspecified as to its correlation with other situations (non-perfed order).

E. g. You ought not to talk that way when I am just s p e ak i n g for your own good. (Lewis).

§ 268. Since it functions to indicate an action in its devel­opment when used in speech it often serves as a sort of back­ground or framework to another action in the present, which is mostly of habitual, recurrent nature.

E. g. Whenever she is p l a n n i n g a party she always throws herself into it heart and soul. (Randall).

When employed with such adverbs as always, ever, con­stantly, continually, perpetually , etc. it expresses a contin­uous uninterrupted action. The lexical meanings of the ad­verbs neutralize the meaning of the continuous aspect (a con­crete process of limited duration), but the latter suggests a greater intensity, contributing to the emotional effect.

E. g. "It looks to me", continued Soames, "as if she were sweeter on him than he is on her. She i s always following him about". (Galsworthy).

The present continuous non-perfect here, obviously, sa­vours of irony blended with disapproval.

The present continuous non-perfect is, as it were "more emotional" than the present non-continuous non-perfect.
G. Curme ' says that the continuous aspect "is charged with feeling".
Hence it is a favourite in lively style.
E. g. How many decorations have you got, Ettore? asked the vice-consul. He's got everything. He's the boy they are running the war for. (Hemingway).
The present continuous non-perfect is sometimes employed to denote an action in the near future. Unlike the present non-continuous non-perfect with a future sense, this is not the continuation of the Old English usage.
I. P. Ivanova thinks that the meaning of futurity in the present continuous non-perfect has developed out of its basic meaning: it denotes a process in its continuity which will be completed in the future. This is likely to lead to the possibility of using the present continuous non-perfect to denote an action in the near future. The usage is quite ccmmon
E. g. The doctor is coming soon. (Hemingway). I won't be in. I am dining out. (Maugham).
The present non-continuous non-perfect presents a future act as part of a fixed program, an act whose certainty is secured by certain objective conditions. The present continuous non-perfect often denotes a future act as springing from the will of the person indicated by the subject of the sentence.
Hence the rarity if not the complete impossibility of sen­tences like The ship is sailing tonight.
Another point of difference between the present non-con­tinuous non-perfect and the present continuous non-perfect used with a future sense is the fact that the present contin­uous non-perfect may be so used without any accompanying adverbial modifiers of time, which is but seldom observed with the present non-continuous non-perfect.
Cf. We d i n e with the Robinsons on Monday. We a r e dining out.
It is natural that the present continuous non-perfect is employed in reference to the future in adverbial clauses of time and condition¹, when the action is viewed in its devel­opment ².
It differs from the present non-continuous non-perfect in a similar function (apart from its aspective meaning) in indic­ating a more immediate future and being sometimes slightly incidental.