ABSTRACT
This chapter examines changes in English verbs of perception. Apart from providing a table for all Old English sense perception verbs and commenting on some generalities. The chapter provides a description of the various sense perception verbs. It highlights the use of ing progressives and light verbs that are typical of activity-based perception verbs. The chapter discusses the renewal of the durative visual perception verbs and section 4 considers what happens when the verb saw is reanalyzed as auxiliary. The latter meaning is important for the development of the visual perception meaning of watch and the former for a causative meaning, which the author discusses here for completeness but which is not relevant to perception verbs. The chapter presents some evidence that saw in English is moving towards aspectual auxiliary-status and then the mechanism of that change.
