Please bear with me. It's been a long time since I looked up grammatical concepts.
The sentence is:
I can quite clearly see the bewildered looks you will be having on your faces on reading this. An entirely natural reaction.
(Implying I can imagine the reader's look of bewilderment on reading what I have written previously.)
A commentator has mentioned that the reason this sentence is odd because 'have' is stative and can't take a 'progressive' (ing) form.
I found the following information on where 'progressives' can be used: http://goo.gl/arxla)
Progressive forms include a form of “To be” plus a present participle
(an -ing ending). Frodesen and Eyring** categorize progressive verbs
according to the following functions:
- to describe actions already in progress at the moment "in focus" within the sentence, as in
“I was doing my homework when my brother broke into my room, crying.”
or “I will be graduating from college about the same time that you
enter high school.”
- to describe actions at the moment of focus in contrast to habitual actions, as in
“We usually buy the most inexpensive car we can find, but this time
we're buying a luxury sedan.”
- to express repeated actions, as in
“My grandfather is forever retelling the same story about his
adventures in Rangoon.”
- to describe temporary situations in contrast to permanent states, as in
“Jeffrey goes to the University of Connecticut, but this summer he is
taking courses at the community college.”
- to express uncompleted actions, as in
“Harvey and Mark are working on their deck.”
*Kolln suggests that we think of the difference between stative and dynamic in terms of "willed" and "nonwilled" qualities. Consider the
difference between a so-called dynamic adjective (or subject
complement) and a stative adjective (or subject complement): "I am
silly" OR "I am being silly" versus "I am tall." I have chosen to be
silly; I have no choice about being tall. Thus "tall" is said to be a
stative (or an "inert") quality, and we cannot say "I am being tall";
"silly," on the other hand, is dynamic so we can use progressive verb
forms in conjunction with that quality.
The same applies to verbs. Two plus two equals four. Equals is inert,
stative, and cannot take the progressive; there is no choice, no
volition in the matter. (We would not say, "Two plus two is equalling
four.") In the same way, nouns and pronouns can be said to exhibit
willed and unwilled characteristics. Thus, "She is being a good
worker" (because she chooses to be so), but we would say "She is (not
is being) an Olympic athlete" (because once she becomes an athlete she
no longer "wills it").
First, cannot 'the look you will have' be interpreted as a 'choice' or a 'willed' quality, similar to what is mentioned in the last part of the text I've quoted? [Also, 'owning a bike' and 'loving it' @ http://goo.gl/XBzpU ]
Secondly, does not 'have' in the example I have given above, fit at least one of the three situations marked in bold?
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