The Present Perfect in Castilian Spanish: current state and restrictions

Presenter Information

MAIALEN CASQUETE DE LA PUENTEFollow

Document Type

Paper Presentation

Presenter Language

English

Research Area

Language variation and change, synchronic and diachronic approaches

Location

MBSC Council Room 306

Start Date

18-10-2024 2:30 PM

End Date

18-10-2024 3:00 PM

Abstract

The Present Perfect (he hecho) is gaining use at the expense of the preterite (hice) in Peninsular Spanish. The analytic tense could be undergoing grammaticalization towards expressing perfective aspect, following trends in Romance [1, 2]. Ongoing debates revolve around the extent of its current use, and factors favoring it.

A well-accepted restriction is pre-hodiernal (pre-today) specific reference (ayer he ido being dispreferred), while the PP expresses hodiernal past [3]. Irrelevant time reference (cannot ask when?) also favors the PP, as in He jugado frecuentemente, as opposed to indeterminate He jugado una vez [4, 5]. Other factors argued to drive for the PP have been 1st person subject [6], plural object [7], negative polarity [4], and non-achievement lexical aspect (from the four Vendlerian Aktionsart categories) [4, 8]. Lexical aspect has frequently been deemed irrelevant in more advanced grammaticalization stages [4].

In this study, I counted the past tense occurrence of the ten most common verbs (Figure 1) in the PRESEEA [9] Spain corpus (interviews, speakers with different education attainments and age). The city with the highest PP rate, Santander, was selected for a detailed analysis. A chi-squared test showed overlap between polarity, object and Aktionsart (p.cambiar su forma de ser is an accomplishment, cambiar la bebida would be an achievement.

While time reference and Aktionsart restrictions held across age groups, they were more marked among older speakers. Young speakers used the PP more frequently with indefinite and achievement contexts, while the rates of canonical PP uses were more evenly distributed. Results suggest that, although Peninsular Spanish varieties are still subject to time reference and aspectual restrictions, these could progressively be bleaching.

Keywords: Present perfect, preterite, perfective aspect, grammaticalization, language change

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Oct 18th, 2:30 PM Oct 18th, 3:00 PM

The Present Perfect in Castilian Spanish: current state and restrictions

MBSC Council Room 306

The Present Perfect (he hecho) is gaining use at the expense of the preterite (hice) in Peninsular Spanish. The analytic tense could be undergoing grammaticalization towards expressing perfective aspect, following trends in Romance [1, 2]. Ongoing debates revolve around the extent of its current use, and factors favoring it.

A well-accepted restriction is pre-hodiernal (pre-today) specific reference (ayer he ido being dispreferred), while the PP expresses hodiernal past [3]. Irrelevant time reference (cannot ask when?) also favors the PP, as in He jugado frecuentemente, as opposed to indeterminate He jugado una vez [4, 5]. Other factors argued to drive for the PP have been 1st person subject [6], plural object [7], negative polarity [4], and non-achievement lexical aspect (from the four Vendlerian Aktionsart categories) [4, 8]. Lexical aspect has frequently been deemed irrelevant in more advanced grammaticalization stages [4].

In this study, I counted the past tense occurrence of the ten most common verbs (Figure 1) in the PRESEEA [9] Spain corpus (interviews, speakers with different education attainments and age). The city with the highest PP rate, Santander, was selected for a detailed analysis. A chi-squared test showed overlap between polarity, object and Aktionsart (p.cambiar su forma de ser is an accomplishment, cambiar la bebida would be an achievement.

While time reference and Aktionsart restrictions held across age groups, they were more marked among older speakers. Young speakers used the PP more frequently with indefinite and achievement contexts, while the rates of canonical PP uses were more evenly distributed. Results suggest that, although Peninsular Spanish varieties are still subject to time reference and aspectual restrictions, these could progressively be bleaching.

Keywords: Present perfect, preterite, perfective aspect, grammaticalization, language change