Progressive Aspect in Nigerian English Ulrike Gut University of Münster Robert Fuchs University of Münster Pre-print version of: Gut, Ulrike, Fuchs, Robert. (2013). Progressive aspect in Nigerian English. Journal of English Linguistics, 41(3), 243-267 (final version contains changes). Abstract This study explores the system of progressive aspect marking in educated adult speakers of Nigerian English (NigE), which has been claimed to differ distinctly from that of other varieties of English. A total of 4813 progressive constructions drawn from the International Corpus of English (ICE)-Nigeria were analyzed and compared with data from the ICE-Great Britain and previous studies. In addition, the acceptability of progressive constructions was tested in a questionnaire study. The results show both distinct stylistic variation in the use of progressives in NigE and some systematic differences from their use in British English. The corpus-based study further reveals some extended use of the progressive in NigE such as in connection with verbs referring to habitual non-bounded durative activities or stative verbs. Many of these patterns of extended use might be explained by referring to the interplay between aspects of first and second language usage (such as that of Igbo and English) . Results from the questionnaire survey suggest that only a subgroup of these extended progressives is considered acceptable by NigE speakers. Keywords progressive aspect, Nigerian English, stative verbs, acceptability