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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
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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

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