Perfect grammaticalization has been much researched across languages (Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca, 1994; Harris, 1982, among others), however, debate continues about the role of continuative and experiential perfects (e.g., Stage II of the proposed path) and how extension to perfective contexts occurs (Schwenter, 1994a, 1994b; Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos, 2008; Squartini & Bertinetto, 1995, 2000). This study examines data from three centuries of Peninsular Spanish dramatic texts in order to track the linguistic factors constraining Present Perfect (PP)-Preterit variation. In the 15th century, the PP was employed in very recent temporal reference contexts, where it had developed a “hot news” function. Use in nonspecified (irrelevant and indeterminate) temporal reference was concentrated in semantic classes associated with resultative use. With time, the PP extended to all semantic classes in irrelevant temporal reference while simultaneously strengthening in perfective, but temporally indeterminate contexts, and finally, hodiernal contexts. Nonspecified temporal reference is believed to play a special role in the PP's grammaticalization: the irrelevant temporal PP function helps to solidify the event focus introduced by the hot news perfect, whereas its use in indeterminate contexts strengthens associations with perfectivity.

This paper introduces a method for the analysis of regional linguistic variation. The method identifies individual and common patterns of spatial clustering in a set of linguistic variables measured over a set of locations based on a combination of three statistical techniques: spatial autocorrelation, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. To demonstrate how to apply this method, it is used to analyze regional variation in the values of 40 continuously measured, high-frequency lexical alternation variables in a 26-million-word corpus of letters to the editor representing 206 cities from across the United States.

Whereas previous studies of Spanish s-weakening have relied on impressionistic coding, the present study examines temporal and gradient acoustic details in the production of /s/ by eight females from Cali, Colombia, during sociolinguistic interviews. We propose a metric for quantifying s-realization by employing three scalar-dependent variables: s-duration, centroid, and voicelessness. The results of linear regressions indicate that the dependent variables are significantly conditioned by local speaking rate, word position, following and preceding phonological context, stress, and lexical frequency. This study sheds light on how each independent variable influences s-realization acoustically. For example, as local speaking rate increases, duration, centroid, and voicelessness decrease, which is indicative of lenition, and the same weakening tendency is observed when /s/ occurs in word-final position or is followed by a nonhigh vowel, whereas frequency contributes only to s-duration. We discuss the advantages of opting for instrumental measurements over symbolic representation.

This paper discusses a group of Brazilian Portuguese plurals that end with the nasal diphthong [–ão] in their singular form. When pluralized, these words can take three plural forms: [–ões], [–ãos], or [–ães]. Each of these words has an etymological source that defines which morpheme should be applied to the plural form. However, in some cases, a different plural form is used instead of the etymological one. A set of psycholinguistic experiments was carried out with Brazilian Portuguese speakers. The goal was to analyze whether token or type frequency affects the choice of plural form for these words. The results show an interaction between type and token frequency, in the sense that type frequency serves as the basis for analogy, and token frequency can determine which words will be affected by the variation.

Empirical work in linguistics often puts forward claims about the independence of two phenomena as substantive hypotheses. But, independence is always an assumption in the framework of empirical hypothesis testing, meaning independence claims are not empirically verifiable. Hence, they need to be regarded differently from truly empirical hypotheses within the substantive theories of which they are part. In this paper, a number of independence claims are illustrated, alongside their problematic consequences for empirically guided theorizing. Recommendations are made regarding the use of independence that should facilitate the empirical testing of substantive linguistic hypotheses.