Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T03:46:00.232Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization: The ‘perfect’ road to perfective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2008

Scott A. Schwenter  and
Rena Torres Cacoullos
Scott A. Schwenter
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Rena Torres Cacoullos
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adopting a grammaticalization path perspective on the envelope of variation, that is, the range of grammatical functions along the cross-linguistic perfect-to-perfective path, and employing the variationist comparative method, we compare use of the Present Perfect and Preterit in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish to identify the default past perfective form in each dialect. The linguistic conditioning of the variability provides evidence that the Present Perfect is becoming the default exponent of past perfective in Peninsular Spanish; in empirical terms, the default expression is the one appearing more frequently (combined effect of corrected mean and factor weight) in the most frequent and, crucially, the least specified contexts. The quantitative analysis of natural speech production—rather than elicited—data also suggests a different trajectory for perfect-to-perfective grammaticalization than the commonly assumed route via remoteness distinctions: the Present Perfect's shift from hodiernal to general perfective advances in temporally indeterminate past contexts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 1 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aaron, Jessi Elana. (2006). Variation and change in Spanish future temporal expression. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Alarcos Llorach, Emilio. (1947). Perfecto simple y compuesto en español. Revista de filología española 31:108–139.Google Scholar
Andersen, Henning. (forthcoming). Grammaticalization in a speaker-oriented theory of change. In Thorhallur Eythorsson (ed.), Historical linguistics and the theory of grammar: The Rosendal papers. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Available at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/faculty/andersen_h.html.Google Scholar
Berschin, Helmut. (1976). Präteritum und Perfektgebrauch im heutigen Spanisch. Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Bertinetto, Pier Marco, & Delfitto, Denis. (2000). Aspect vs. Actionality: Why they should be kept apart. In Östen, Dahl (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 189–225.Google Scholar
Blas Arroyo, José Luis. (2008). The variable expression of future tense in Peninsular Spanish: The present (and future) of inflectional forms in the Spanish spoken in a bilingual region. Language Variation and Change 20 (1):85–126.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. (1977). Meaning and form. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bonami, Olivier, Godard, Danièle, & Kampers-Manhe, Brigitte. (2004). Adverb classification. In Francis, Corblin & Henriette de, Swart (eds.), Handbook of French semantics. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. 143–184.Google Scholar
Butt, John, & Benjamin, Carmen. (2004). A new reference grammar of modern Spanish. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.. (1985). Morphology. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.. (2002). Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change 14:261–290.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.. (2006a). Language change and universals. In Ricardo, Mairal & Juana, Gil (eds.), Linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 179–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.. (2006b). From usage to grammar: The mind's response to repetition. Language 82:711–733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Pagliuca, William. (1987). The evolution of future meaning. In Ramat, A.G., Carruba, O, & Bernini, G. (eds.), Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical LinguisticsAmsterdam: Benjamins. 109–122.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. Perkins, Revere, & Pagliuca, William. (1994). The evolution of grammar: The grammaticalization of tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carey, Kathleen. (1995). Subjectification and the development of the English perfect. In Dieter, Stein & Susan, Wright (eds.), Subjectivity and subjectivisation: Linguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. (2005). Syntactic variation and spoken language. In Cornips, L. & Corrigan, K. (eds.), Syntax and variation: Reconciling the biological and the social. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 81–106.Google Scholar
Company. (2002). Gramaticalización y dialectología comparada. Una isoglosa sintático-semántica del español. DICENDA: Cuadernos de filología hispánica 20:39–71.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. (1976). Aspect: An introduction to verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Copple, Mary. (2008). A diachronic study of the Spanish perfect(ive): Frequency of use and language change. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Croft, William. (2003). Typology and universals. 2nd ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William. (forthcoming). The origins of grammaticalization in the verbalization of experience. Linguistics.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. (1984). Temporal distance: Remoteness distinctions in tense-aspect systems. In Brian, Butterworth, Bernard, Comrie, & Östen, Dahl (eds), Explanations of language universals. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. 105–122.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. (ed.). (2000). Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. & Hedin, Eva. (2000). Current relevance and event reference. In Östen, Dahl (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 386–401.Google Scholar
Detges, Ulrich. (2000). The grammaticalization of resultatives and perfects within a theory of subjectification. Studies in Language 24:345–377.Google Scholar
Emirkanian, Louisette, & Sankoff, David. (1985). Le futur simple et le futur périphrastique dans le français parlé. In Monique, Lemieux & Henrietta, Cedergren (eds.), Les tendances dynamiques du français parlé à Montreal. Québec: Gouvernement du Québec. 189–204.Google Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne. (1983). From pragmatics to grammar: Diachronic reflections on pasts and futures in Romance. Lingua 60:183–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne. (1989). Temporal distance: A basic linguistic metaphor. Studies in Language 13:1–50.Google Scholar
Fox, Barabara A., & Thompson, Sandra A.. (1990). A discourse explanation of the grammar of relative clauses in English conversation. Language 66:297–316.Google Scholar
García, Erica. (1985). Shifting variation. Lingua 67:189–224.Google Scholar
García Fernández, Luis. (1999). Los complementos adverbiales temporales: La subordinación temporal. In Ignacio, Bosque & Violeta, Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Vol 2. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. 3130–3208.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. (1982). Tense-aspect-modality: The creole prototype and beyond. In Paul, Hopper (ed.), Tense-aspect: Between semantics and pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 115–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E.. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H.. (1966). Language universals. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H.. (1991). The semitic ‘intensive’ as verbal plurality. In Alan, S. Kaye (ed.), Semitic studies in honor of Wolf Leslau. Vol. 1. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz. 577–587.Google Scholar
Haiman, John. (1994). Ritualization and the development of language. In William, Pagliuca (ed.), Perspectives on grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Martin. (1982). The ‘past simple’ and ‘present perfect’ in Romance. In Martin, Harris & Nigel, Vincent (eds.), Studies in the Romance verb. London: Croom Helm. 42–70.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. (2006). Against markedness (and what to replace it with). Journal of Linguistics 42:25–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heap, David, & Pato, Enrique. (2006). La organización dialectal del castellano: La distribución de he cantado vs. canté en el español de la Península Ibérica. Paper presented at the Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española (CIHLE VII)Mérida, MéxicoSeptember 2006.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd, & Kuteva, Tania (2002). World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, José Esteban. (2004). Present perfect variation and grammaticization in Salvadoran Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. (1979). Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. In Talmy, Givón (ed.), Syntax and semantics 12: Discourse and syntax. New York: Academic Press. 213–241.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. (1991). On some principles of grammaticalization. In Traugott, E. C. & Heine, B. (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, Vol. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 17–35.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Thompson, Sandra A.. (1980). Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56:251–299.Google Scholar
Howe, Chad. (2006). Cross-dialectal features of the Spanish present perfect: A typological analysis of form and function. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Inoue, Kyoko. (1979). An analysis of the English Present Perfect. Linguistics 18:561–589.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. (1984 [1932]). The structure of the Russian verb. In Waugh, L. & Halle, M. (eds.), Russian and Slavic grammar. Berlin: Mouton. 1–15.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. (1971 [1957]). Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb. In Selected writings. Vol. 2. The Hague: Mouton. 130–147.Google Scholar
Jara Yupanqui, Ileana Margarita. (2006). The use of the preterite and the present perfect in the Spanish of Lima. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Kempas, Ilpo. (2006). Estudio sobre el uso del pretérito perfecto prehodiernal en el español peninsular y en comparación con la variedad del español argentino hablada en Santiago del Estero. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Koike, Dale A.. (1996). Functions of the adverbial ya in Spanish narrative discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 25:267–279.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1982). Building on empirical foundations. In Winfred, P. Lehmann & Yakov, Malkiel (eds.), Perspectives on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 11–92.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. (1996). A constraint on progressive generics. In Adele, Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual structure, discourse and language. Stanford, CA: CSLI. 290–302.Google Scholar
Lavandera, Beatriz. (1978). Where does the sociolinguistic variable stop? Language in Society 7:171–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N., Thompson, R. McMillan, & Thompson, Sandra A.. (1982). The discourse basis of the perfect aspect: The Mandarin particle le. In Paul, Hopper (ed.), Tense and aspect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 19–44.Google Scholar
Lindstedt, Jouko. (2000). The perfect—aspectual, temporal and evidential. In Östen, Dahl (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 365–383.Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, Juan M.. (1972 [1961]). Sobre el uso del pretérito en el español de México. In Estudios sobre el español de México. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, Juan M.. (ed.). (1971). El habla de la ciudad de México: Materiales para su estudio. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, Juan M.. (1976). El habla popular de México: Materiales para su estudio. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).Google Scholar
Marcos Marín, Francisco (dir.). (1992). COREC: Corpus de Referencia de la Lengua Española Contemporánea: Corpus Oral Peninsular. Available at www.lllf.uam.es/~fmarcos/informes/corpus/corpusix.html.Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley, & Gordon, Matthew. (2003). Sociolinguistics. Method and interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moreno de Alba, José. (1978). Valores de las formas verbales en el español de México. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).Google Scholar
Moreno de Alba, Jos. (2006). Valores de los tiempos pasados del indicativo y su evolución. In Concepción Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica del español, Tomo I: La frase verbal. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). 5–92.Google Scholar
Paolillo, John. (2002). Analyzing linguistic variation: Statistical models and methods. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Penny, Ralph. (2002). A history of the Spanish language. 2nd ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pérez Saldanya, Manuel. (2004). Los tiempos verbales: Dificultades teóricas y terminológicas. In Luis, García Fernández & Bruno, Camus Begareche (eds.), El pretérito imperfecto. Madrid: Gredos. 194–228.Google Scholar
Piñero Piñero, Gracia. (2000). Perfecto simple y perfecto compuesto en la norma culta de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Lingüística Iberoamericana. Vol. 10. Frankfurt/Madrid: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Malvar, Elisabete. (2007). Elucidating the transition period in linguistic change: The expression of the future in Brazilian Portuguese. Probus 19:11–32.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1996). Nothing in context: Variation, grammaticization and past time marking in Nigerian Pidgin English. In Philip, Baker & Anand, Syea (eds.), Changing meanings, changing functions: Papers relating to grammaticalization in contact languages. London: University of Westminster Press. 71–94.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1999). The grammaticization of going to in (African American) English. Language Variation and Change 11:315–342.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (2001). African American English in the diaspora. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Turpin, Danielle. (1999). Does the FUTUR have a future in (Canadian) French? Probus 11:133–164.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. (1984). On the problem of syntactic variation and pragmatic meaning in sociolinguistic theory. Folia Linguistica 18:409–437.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David. (1988a). Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation. In Newmeyer, F.J. (ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge survey. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 140–161.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David. (1988b). Variable rules. In Ammon, U., Dittmar, N., & Mattheier, K. (eds.), Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 984–997.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David. Tagliamonte, Sali A., & Smith, Eric. (2005). GoldVarb X: A multivariate analysis application for Macintosh and Windows. Department of Linguistics—University of Toronto and Department of Mathematics—University of Ottawa. Available athttp://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_index.htm.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian. (1973). Above and beyond phonology in variable rules. In Bailey, C.-J. N. & Roger, W. Shuy (eds.), New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 44–61. (Reprinted in G. Sankoff, 1980:81–93.)Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian. (1980). The social life of language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 81–93.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian. & Brown, Penelope. (1976). The origins of syntax in discourse: A case study of Tok Pisin relatives. Language 52:631–666. (Reprinted in G. Sankoff, 1980:211–255.)Google Scholar
Schwenter, Scott A.. (1994a). The grammaticalization of an anterior in progress: Evidence from a Peninsular Spanish dialect. Studies in Language 18:71–111.Google Scholar
Schwenter, Scott A.. (1994b). ‘Hot news’ and the grammaticalization of perfects. Linguistics 32:995–1028.Google Scholar
Schwenter, Scott A. & Waltereit, Richard. (2006). From presupposition accommodation to speech situation evocation: Diachronic pathways of additive particles. Paper presented at 80th Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Symposium ‘Speaker-based motivations for semantic change,’ AlbuquerqueNew MexicoJanuary 2006.Google Scholar
Sebastián, Eugenia, & Slobin, Dan I.. (1994). Development of linguistic forms: Spanish. In Ruth A., Berman & Dan, I. Slobin (eds.), Relating events in narrative: A cross-linguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 239–283.Google Scholar
Serrano, María José. (1994). Del pretérito indefinido al pretérito perfecto: Un caso de cambio y gramaticalización en el español de Canarias y Madrid. Linguística española actual 16:37–57.Google Scholar
Serrano, Mar. (1995–96). Sobre el uso del pretérito perfecto y pretérito indefinido en el español de Canarias: Pragmática y variación. Boletín de Filología 35:533–566.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. (2001). Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Carlota S. (1991). The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario, & Bertinetto, Pier Marco. (2000). The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In Östen, Dahl (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 403–439.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. (2006) Morphosyntactic persistence in spoken English. A corpus study at the intersection of variationist sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and discourse analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali. (2002). Comparative sociolinguistics. In Peter, Trudgill, Jack, Chambers, & Natalie, Schilling-Estes (eds.), The handbook of language variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell. 729–763.Google Scholar
Thieroff, Rolf. (1999). Preterites and imperfects in the languages of Europe. In Werner, Abraham & Leonid, Kulikov (eds.), Tense-aspect, transitivity and causativity: Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 141–161.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., & Hopper, Paul J. (2001). Transitivity, clause structure, and argument structure: Evidence from conversation. In Joan, Bybee & Paul, Hopper (eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 27–60.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. (1999). Variation and grammaticization in progressives: Spanish -ndo constructions. Studies in Language 23:25–59.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. (2001). From lexical to grammatical to social meaning. Language in Society 30:443–478.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. (2005). La perspectiva diacrónica en variación sincrónica: El dativo de intensificación. In Gabriele, Knauer & von Colbe Valeriano, Bellosta (eds.), Variación sintáctica en español: un reto para las teorías de sintaxis. Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer. 191–210.Google Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. & Walker, James. (forthcoming). On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas: a variationist study of that. Linguistics 46.Google Scholar
Van Herk, Gerard. (2002). ‘A message from the past’: Past temporal reference in early African American letters. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Van Herk, Gerard. (2003). In perfect shape: Verb semantics in the history of the English present perfect. Paper presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation conference (NWAV 32), University of Pennsylvania, October 2003.Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. (1967). Verbs and times. In Vendler, Z., Linguistics and philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 97–121.Google Scholar
Walker, James A.. (2001). Using the past to explain the present: Tense and temporal reference in early African American English. Language Variation and Change 13:1–35.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel, Labov, William, & Herzog, Marvin. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In Winfred, P. Lehmann & Yakov, Malkiel (eds.), Directions for historical linguistics. Austin: University of Texas Press. 95–188.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (1993). Variability in the use of perfect have in Trinidadian English: A problem of categorical mismatch. Language Variation and Change 5:141–187.Google Scholar