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The present perfect in Spanish: a study on semantic variation

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The present perfect in Spanish: a study on semantic variation

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THE PRESENT PERFECT IN SPANISH: A STUDY ON SEMANTIC VARIATION

by

Alicia Martini Ocampo

_________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SPANISH)

December 2008

Copyright 2008 Alicia Martini Ocampo

ii

DEDICATION

Para Ana María y José

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is with profound appreciation that I wish to thank my Dissertation
Committee, Professors Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Mario Saltarelli, and Moshe Lazar.
I am deeply grateful to my Advisor, Dr. Silva-Corvalán, for her constant
guidance, intellectual advice, support, encouragement and, above all, for her
trust in me. She has been a sincere and inspiring mentor.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of Tables vii
List of Figures viii
Abstract ix
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1. What is known about the Present Perfect 1
1.1.1. The alternation PP / P 3
1.1.2. The PP: a case of inherent instability 4
1.1.3. Cyclic processes of change: the perfect 5
in Latin and Romance
1.1.3.1. Evolution of FECI and HABEO FACTUM 5
1.1.3.2. The P / PP status in contemporary Romance 6
1.1.4. Evolution of the PP in Spanish 9
1.1.5. P / PP and Spanish dialectal variation 10
1.1.5.1. Dialectal variation: the RAE 11
1.1.5.2. Dialectal variation: Lapesa, Gili Gaya, Rojo 12
1.1.6. Synchronic studies on the PP category 13
1.1.6.1. The 'extended now' theory 13
1.1.6.2. Typological studies 14
1.1.6.3. Classifications of the PP 15
1.1.6.3.1. Comrie's classification of the PP 16
1.1.6.3.2. Uses of the PP in English 17
1.1.6.3.3. PP: closeness vs. continuity 18
1.1.6.4. The Spanish PP according to traditional 21
approaches
1.1.6.4.1. Definitions of the Spanish PP and P 22
1.1.6.4.2. Uses of the PP 22
1.1.6.4.3. Interaction between lexical and inflectional 25
aspectual meaning
1.1.6.4.4. A study by Alarcos Llorach: PP vs. P 27
1.2. Semantic complexity of the Spanish PP form 30

v
1.2.1. The Spanish PP category 32
1.2.2. Semantic change and meaning shift 33
1.3. The present study of the PP 35
1.3.1. The study 38
1.3.2. Goals of the study 39
1.3.3. Organization of the study 39
Chapter 2: Situations and Time 41
2.1. Introduction 41
2.2. Definitions of aspect(s) 41
2.3. The conceptualization of time 44
2.4. Tense, aspect, and time 45
2.4.1. Some examples 52
2.5. Spatial representations 56
2.5.1. Linear time 57
2.5.1.1. Static situations as linear entities 58
2.5.1.2. Situation-location on linear time 59
2.5.2. Cyclic time 60
2.5.2.1. Relation between cyclic time and 61
linear time
2.5.2.2. Dynamic situations as cyclic entities 63
2.6. The domain of aspectual phenomena 65
2.6.1. The relationship between the structure 65
of situations and the structure of time:
inherent (lexical) aspect, composed
aspect, and viewpoint
2.6.2. Spatial representations 69
2.6.2.1. Cycle-internal temporal structure 70
2.6.2.2. Cycle-external temporal organization 73
2.6.3. Cyclicity 74
2.6.3.1. Bull's cyclic and noncyclic events 74
2.7. Conclusions 76
Chapter 3: The Changing Category of the Present Perfect in Spanish 77
3.1. Introduction 77
3.2. Origin of the periphrasis in Classical Latin 81
3.3. Origin of the periphrasis in Spain: 1st. stage 82
3.4. The PP: 2nd. Stage 87
3.5. The PP: 3rd. stage 93
3.6. The PP: 4th stage 96
3.7. Conclusions 98

vi
Chapter 4: The PP in Rioplatense and Castilian Spanish: 100
Same form, Different Meaning
4.1. Introduction 100
4.2. The data 102
4.3. The study 103
4.4. Rioplatense 104
4.4.1. The Preterite 104
4.4.2. The periphrasis tener + past partiple 110
4.4.3. The Present Perfect 111
4.4.3.1. The Universal/Experiential PP 115
4.4.3.2. An explanation of example (3) 116
4.4.3.3. Modal use of the PP 117
4.4.3.4. Exclamative use of the PP 119
4.4.3.5. The 'Other' PP 120
4.4.4. The contrast P - PP in Rioplatense 121
4.4.5. Rioplatense PP: frequences of use 122
4.5. Madrileño 124
4.5.1. The P 124
4.5.2. The PP 124
Chapter 5: Rioplatense vs. Castilian: The case 134
of the Spanish Present Perfect
5.1. Inferential processes and pragmatic 134
ambiguity (a hypothesis)
5.2. Conclusions 145
Bibliography 148

vii
LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Comparison of three PP classifications 20
Table 2: Temporal / aspectual information in the PP Spanish periphrasis 32
Table 3: Distribution of PP according to aspect of situation 122
Table 4: Distribution of PP combined with Pfv / spec contexts 123
Table 5: Distribution of PP combined with Imp / non-spec contexts 123
Table 6: Distribution of Existential PP 123
Table 7: Distribution of Madrileño PP according to historical stages 125

viii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Linear time 58

Figure 2: Temporal location by means of coordinates 60
and a referent point on linear time

Figure 3: Temporal cycle 61

Figure 4: Relation between cyclic time and linear time 62

Figure 5: Micro-conceptualization of the relation between 71
linearity and cyclicity

Figure 6: Macro-conceptualization of the relation between 73
time and situations

Figure 7: PP, first stage: a resultative marker. Representation 86
of type of relation between Past Participle (+ other
components) and haber / tener

Figure 8: PP, second stage: a retrospective marker. 92
Representation of type of relation between
Past Participle (+ other components) and haber

Figure 9: PP, third stage: a tense marker. Representation 96
of type of relation between Past Participle
(+ other components) and haber

ix
ABSTRACT
The present study deals with the meaning and use of the Present Perfect
(PP) in Spanish. This verbal form is analyzed in relation to the Preterite from two
different perspectives, diachronic and synchronic.
The process of change undergone by the PP has been reviewed in order
to better understand its nature. Along the history of the language, the Spanish
PP went through three different stages experiencing meaning changes. I propose
three schemas which represent how the meaning units are related in each stage.
The use of the form in different aspectual and temporal contexts, along with
inferential work, made possible the reshaping of the category. When the PP is
used in combination with non-specific situations, it indicates ‘existence of type of
situation’; instead, with specific situations it marks temporal reference.
On the other hand, the synchronic analysis involved the comparison of the
use and meaning of the PP category across two varieties of Spanish: Rioplatense
(RP) and Castilian spoken in Madrid (CM). While RP has a PP in its second stage
of development (an aspectual marker of retrospection), CM has gone one-step
further. The third-stage PP (a temporal marker of recent past)--which is the
norm in Modern CM in contexts of recentness--does not exist in RP. The
retrospective PP was the norm in CM during the XV Century.
RP and Castilian—since the XV Century--share the use of the PP in the
pragmatic function of ‘contrary to expectation’. I hypothesize that a reanalysis of

x
the form is highly possible when this function occurs in contexts of pragmatic
ambiguity. Consequently, the retrospective PP may have turned into the
temporal PP through this path. A detailed description of what can be considered
a pragmatic ambiguous context for the PP is given in Chapter 5.
In addition to the study of the PP category, there is a Chapter which deals
with the relationship between situations and time. I argue that aspect is a
category not fully understood, and that aspectual phenomena should include the
notions of linear and cyclic time.

1
Chapter 1
Introduction

1.1. What is known about the Present Perfect

In this dissertation, I study the Present Perfect (PP)
1
in two Spanish
varieties through contextual use. The Spanish PP is also analyzed from two
different perspectives, synchronic and diachronic. This approach has been taken

1
According to Real Academia Española (1989: 262-64), the Spanish verbal system includes the
following forms:

Non-finite forms:
a. Simple:
Infinitive: cantar 'to sing'
Past Participle: cantado
Present Participle: cantando
b. Compound:
Perfect Infinit.: haber cantado
Perfect Pres. Part.: habiendo cantado

Finite forms:
i. Indicative mood
a. Present: canta b. Pres. Perf.: he cantado
Preterite: cantó Past Perf.: hubo cantado
Imperfect: cantaba Pluperfect: había cantado
Future: cantará Future Perf.: habrá cantado
Conditional: cantaría Condit. Perf.: habría cantado
ii. Subjunctive mood
a. Present: cante b. Pres. Perf.: haya cantado
Imperfect: cantara/ cantase Pluperfect: hubiera/hubiese
cantado
Future: cantare Future Perf.: hubiere cantado
iii. Imperative mood
Present: canta (you-sg.)
cantad (you-pl.)

2
as a means of better understanding this verbal form, which has undergone a
process of semantic change throughout the history of Spanish, as well as other
Romance languages. Although a similar semantic evolution seems to have
occurred across the Romance languages, the pace at which it developed has
been different. Thus, a comparison of the synchronic semantic status of the PP in
different Romance languages indicates that, at present, the PP has reached
different stages of a similar process (Harris 1982). In order to understand the
motivation of this process, it is necessary to refer to the PP in opposition to the
Preterite (P).
Undoubtedly, the study of semantic change is of interest in the case of
any grammatical category, but, when it is a verbal form the one that undergoes
this kind of change, the case deserves special attention. This is so, because
changes in meaning in a single verbal form may lead to further grammatical
changes. I.e., this is a situation which may eventually trigger a rearrangement of
one of the verbal subsystems of the language. According to Harris 1982, this is
precisely what happened in the spoken registers of standard French, Northern
Italian, and standard Rumanian, regarding the past tense subsystem of the
verbal paradigm, where the semantic distinction between P and PP has been
neutralized.

3
1.1.1. The alternation PP / P

Harris (1982:43) makes a distinction between a PP category, 'used to
refer to an action or state situated within a period of time which includes the
present moment or seen as being still relevant at the present moment', and a P
category, 'in which the event or series of events designated by the verb took
place within a period of time which is wholly past, is seen as complete rather
than in progress at the past moment in question, and is not represented by the
speaker as having present relevance'. According to Harris, each of these
categories is made up of several semantic components, which can be treated
differently in various languages at various times: 'the question as to whether any
or all of these features can be combined into "bundles" which then function as a
category given overt marking within the verbal system of any particular language
is of course very much language-specific' (p.44).
For Harris, the basic opposition P / PP is in terms of a temporal feature:
present relevance. The PP category 'serves primarily to mark the present
relevance of an event etc. which took place, began to take place or failed to take
place in the past' (p.44). The time of the event itself is in principle irrelevant:
appropriate contexts for a PP may be those in which the period of time where
the event occurred is still in progress, either explicitly ('I have done it today') or
implicitly ('I have done it once, i.e. in my life, which is still in progress'). Although

4
certain adverbs which refer to periods of time still in progress may favor the use
of the PP, speakers may use this category independently of criteria such as the
presence or absence of those adverbs.

1.1.2. The PP: a case of inherent instability

Harris (1982:45) reports that, in some varieties of English, the domain of
the PP category, 'what is and what is not seen as presently relevant, is greater
than in others.' This, in turn, triggers changes in the domain of the P category.
In Romance, also 'it is the inherent instability of the present perfect category
which everywhere underlies the evolution of this small part of the past tense
system'.
Because the instability is caused by a subjective factor, i.e., present
relevance, the PP category 'is not in any sense an absolute or objective category,
... the relationship between any paradigm having such a value and a paradigm
with "preterite" value is both variable and potentially unstable' (pp.45-6).
Although Harris allows the possibility that other elements of meaning of
an aspectual nature--such as duration and habitualness in the case of the PP--
may serve to keep the two paradigms apart, he bases the opposition mainly on a
(subjective) temporal distinction: the P expresses distant, absolute past, while
the PP conveys a meaning of recent past, or past still relevant at present.

5
The instability of the PP category attested across the Romance languages,
occurred also in a previous time, in Latin. Again, Harris 1982 provides the
information to illustrate this.

1.1.3. Cyclic processes of change: the perfect in Latin and Romance

In this section, I present a review of Harris' account of the 'perfect'
throughout the history of Latin and Romance. It is interesting to note the
similarity of the processes, which could be better characterized as different
cycles of a single phenomenon. First FECI and then HABEO FACTUM have
undergone successive and parallel processes of semantic change, from being
mainly marks of perfective aspect to typically conveying a temporal meaning.

1.1.3.1. Evolution of FECI and HABEO FACTUM

Harris (1982) explains that in Classical Latin the perfect tense FECI
represented a single paradigm with two values: an aspectual value of 'completed
at the present', and a temporal one of 'begun or effected at an earlier moment
but still in progress at / relevant to the present moment'. While the former
corresponds to Harris' P category, the latter coincides with his definition of the
PP category--as presented in Section 1.1.1. 'Latin grammarians tended ... to see

6
the former as predominant; subsequent developments in VL [Vulgar Latin]
suggest however that the latter had become the more dominant value at least by
the early centuries of the Christian era' (p.47). Harris affirms that this last
assertion becomes the reason of the creation of HABEO FACTUM in Vulgar Latin:
the predominance of a temporal value in FECI would have left the way open for
a new paradigm to mark perfective aspect.
Thus, the FECI cycle of change ended, giving rise to the HABEO FACTUM
cycle. Later, HABERE changed its status from full verb to auxiliary verb and the
past participle became an integral part of the verb phrase, abandoning the
concord with the object; subsequently, the structure was used also in the case of
intransitive verbs.
Finally, the periphrasis was reinterpreted as having primarily a temporal
value. The reanalysis of this subjective and unstable area of meaning occurred in
the development of the Romance languages, after the time at which it is possible
to speak of Vulgar Latin.

1.1.3.2. The P / PP status in contemporary Romance

Harris (1982:49-50) presents a classification of the P / PP status in
contemporary Romance, where four synchronically distinct patterns can be

7
distinguished. In turn, this classification corresponds to four successive phases in
the history of these verbal forms:
(i) represents, diachronically, the common starting point--a pattern still
found in Calabrian and Sicilian: FECI retains all the functions it had in Vulgar
Latin; and HABEO FACTUM is not used for past actions themselves, but for
present states resulting from past actions.
(ii) corresponds to the next stage of development, which is attested today
in many varieties of South American Spanish, as well as Galician and Portuguese:
FECI retains most of its Vulgar Latin functions; these include reference to
situations
2
occurred in a recent past, or a period of time still in progress. HABEO
FACTUM becomes a PP category, but only in specific circumstances: 'in addition
to meeting the primary criterion of taking place or at least starting in the past
but having present relevance, an appropriate use of the compound form will also
be aspectually marked as durative or repetitive.'
(iii) is the next stage in the process. This is the present status of the
opposition in Castilian Spanish: FECI is constrained to the P category functions,
while HABEO FACTUM assumes the typical PP value of 'past action with present
relevance'--in addition to the functions already present in (ii).
(iv) corresponds the last phase, which, according to Harris, is 'by no
means inevitable.' Standard French, Northern Italian, and standard Rumanian

2
The word ‘situations’ is the cover term used by Comrie (1976) for events, actions, processes,
states, etc.

8
have already reached this phase: FECI is confined to formal registers--and,
eventually, might be lost completely; HABEO FACTUM extends its functions to
those of the P category. Thus, 'the (semantic) distinction between the "present
perfect" and the "preterite" is neutralized, the compound paradigm coming to
carry both meanings, exactly as FECI had done in CL [Classical Latin]'.
Summarizing the FECI / HABEO FACTUM semantic evolution, there have
been two parallel cycles of change: one corresponding to FECI, and the other to
HABEO FACTUM. Both processes follow a similar pattern: they start marking
perfective aspect, i.e., being predominantly a P category, and end up as
temporal marks of present relevance, i.e., a PP category. The FECI cycle took
place across Classical and Vulgar Latin; the HABEO FACTUM cycle began in
Vulgar Latin and developed in Romance, up to the stage found today in Castilian
Spanish.
Altogether, both cycles have occurred as processes of semantic shift
between the FECI and the HABEO FACTUM paradigms. These processes started
in early Classical Latin with FECI carrying the meaning of the P and PP
categories, and evolved during the history of Vulgar Latin and Romance, up to its
last stage--attested in standard French, Northern Italian, and standard
Rumanian--with HABEO FACTUM carrying both meanings. Throughout these
processes, the semantic values of one member of the opposition have been
gradually transferred to the other.

9
1.1.4. Evolution of the PP in Spanish

The PP semantic change has been also studied in Peninsular Spanish. The
way this form has been used through the centuries was traced and compared in
documents and literary works by Alarcos Llorach (1991).
Alarcos Llorach (1991:46) refers to the origin of the PP in Spanish, and its
evolution up to the present time. He summarizes the changes as four successive
stages, in which the PP expresses:
1) A present state which occurs because of a previous situation:
'Expresión de la duración presente del resultado de una acción anterior (pagado
vos he).'
2) A continuous situation (durative / iterative), whose output is a certain
present state: 'Expresión de la acción continuada (durativa o iterativa) que ha
producido un estado presente (tanto avemos fecho).'
3) A momentary situation occurred immediately before the moment of
speaking: 'Expresión de una acción momentánea inmediatamente anterior al
presente gramatical (tan gran palabra havéis oído).
4) A (past) momentary situation which has occurred not immediately
before the moment of speaking, but is perceived as being related to it; i.e., it is
thought to occur within an extended present: 'Expresión de una acción
momentánea no inmediatamente anterior, pero sentida en relación con el

10
presente, es decir, producida en el "presente ampliado" (según después me ha
dicho).'
Alarcos Llorach states that today all uses but the first one are usual in
Spanish. (1) is being replaced by a new periphrasis with tener, 'la cual ya
expresa (aunque sólo con algunos verbos) la acción pasada durativa o iterativa
que designa el perfecto compuesto portugués (se lo tengo dicho).'
I will come back to this issue in Chapter 3.

1.1.5. P / PP and Spanish dialectal variation

The differences that exist across some of the Romance languages
regarding the PP status are comparable with those developed across varieties of
Spanish. Although traditional studies generally refer to uses of the PP and the P
for Spanish in general, cross-dialectal differences have been observed in several
geographical areas of the Spanish-speaking world. It is necessary to
acknowledge that those differentiations in the use of the PP and the P do exist in
Spanish and should be delimited according to regions, because this fact implies
that some verbal forms are not organized in the same way in the verbal system
of the language across varieties.
It is unfortunate that reliable sociolinguistic studies of the PP / P usage in
Spanish varieties are not abundant. However, it is possible to refer to a recent

11
study done in this area. Piñero Piñero (2000) presents a quantitative / qualitative
analysis of the uses of these forms in the variety spoken in Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria. Piñero Piñero claims that the P has widen its range of usage, since it
appears in contexts of close or immediate past--the same contexts in which
Castilian uses the PP. Third-generation speakers, i.e., the youngest, are the ones
who use the P of recent past most frequently. Conversely, in the same contexts
the use of the PP is very high among the oldest speakers.
Also, there can be found in the literature some impressionistic views in
terms of 'preference' of one form over the other. Below I will refer to some of
these views.

1.1.5.1. Dialectal variation: the RAE

Regarding geographical differentiation in the use of the P and the PP, the
Real Academia Española (RAE) (1989:466) states that both the PP--'pretérito
perfecto compuesto (he amado)'--and the P--'pretérito perfecto simple (amé)'--
denote completed actions--'acabadas o perfectas'; and that this coincidence of
meaning explains the confusion existent in the spoken use of these two forms.
According to the RAE, in Galicia and Asturias there is a strong preference for
canté, at the expense of he cantado: 'Frases como Esta mañana encontré a Juan
... son características de aquellas regiones, contra el uso general español, que en

12
este caso diría ... he encontrado ...' Also in most Spanish speaking areas of Latin
America canté prevails over he cantado in the spoken language. And there is a
brief note added: 'El habla vulgar madrileña muestra cierta inclinación en favor
de he cantado. La misma inclinación se encuentra también en las provincias
andinas de la República Argentina, contra el uso dominante de canté en el Río de
la Plata'.

1.1.5.2. Dialectal variation: Lapesa, Gili Gaya, Rojo

Other accounts about dialectal variation of the PP express observations
similar to the one referred above. According to Lapesa (1980:587-8), in contexts
such as 'Buenos días. ¿Cómo pasó la noche?', the P is dominantly used over the
PP in America--with the exception of Bolivia and the Northwest of Argentina--as
in Old Spanish, along with Galicia, Asturias, León, and Canarias.
Gili Gaya (1961:160) follows the RAE, and adds: 'existen numerosos
puntos de contacto entre los dos pretéritos ... Sus diferencias son a veces
matices estilísticos que no todos los que hablan el mismo idioma pueden captar
en su fina expresividad.' According to him, this has been the cause of a
competition between the P and the PP produced in the Romance languages,
whose result is the predominance of one form or the other.

13
This is in agreement with Rojo (1974:106), who affirms: 'la delimitación
entre las dos formas [P / PP] es lo suficientemente borrosa como para permitir
que la distinción tienda a desaparecer en algunas zonas.' He also predicts: 'No
sería extraño que una de las dos [formas] lograra imponerse finalmente a la otra
en un futuro más o menos próximo. Es lo que ha sucedido en francés hablado,
donde el "passé simple" ha desaparecido por completo.'

1.1.6. Synchronic studies on the PP category

It is important to refer to synchronic studies carried out in relation to the
PP category. This will be the topic of the following sections.

1.1.6.1. The 'extended now' theory

Dowty (1982:27)--following Bennett and Partee (1973), and McCoard
(1978)--assumes that 'the appropriate way to treat the present perfect is as
asserting that its sentence is true at (or perhaps within) what is called an
"extended now", that is, an interval beginning in the past and extending up to
and including the time of speech.'

14
The concept of the 'extended now' is one of the most useful
characterizations attempted for the PP, but it is a complex concept in which the
categories of tense and aspect are difficult to differentiate.

1.1.6.2. Typological studies

Comrie (1976) makes a distinction between 'perfective aspect' and 'perfect
aspect'. For the first one he says: 'perfectivity indicates the view of a situation as
a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases that make up
that situation' (p.16) ; a 'helpful metaphor would perhaps be to say that the
perfective reduces a situation to a blob' (p.18). Speaking about the tendency to
confuse these two aspects, he explains: 'The perfect links a present state to a
past situation, whether this past situation was an individual event, or a state, or
a process not yet completed' (p.62). According to Comrie, the fact that the
perfect aspect relates some state to a preceding situation makes it different from
other aspects because it does not represent the internal temporal constitution of
a situation.
A similar position is taken by Bybee (1985:142), when discussing the
differences between perfective and imperfective across languages. She points
out that 'Most often, the meaning behind this distinction was described as
"completed" versus "non completed" activity or event. Other terms used for

15
"perfective" are "punctual", "momentaneous", "unique" and "limited" '. About the
sentence: "Llovió ayer", she says that it 'presents the event as one complete
entity'. When dealing with the perfect aspect, Bybee prefers to use the word
'anterior' 'to avoid confusion with the perfective aspect' (p.163, note 3). 'The
"anterior" or "perfect" is an inflection used to signal a situation or event that is
relevant to another situation or event. Very often, it is the present situation to
which the anterior event is relevant. Thus the term "current relevance" is
sometimes applied to markers with this meaning' (p.159).
Dahl (1985) and Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) have analyzed the PP
in languages from different, unrelated families. In those cross-linguistic studies,
they have arrived to the idea that the PP usually turns into a perfective. The
grammaticalization process starts with lexical items (be, have, come, etc.). The
PP is first a resultative (i.e., a present state exists as a result of a previous
situation); later, it becomes a perfect category; and finally, it ends up as a
perfective category.

1.1.6.3. Classifications of the PP

I will present three classifications attempted for the PP. The first one,
Comrie (1976), has been done within the framework of a typological study; the
second one, Mc Cawley (1971), accounts for the uses of the PP in English. Both

16
include four types of PP, and are similar. The third one, F. Ocampo (1987),
subsumes the four types of Comrie's or Mc Cawley's under two semantic
categories.

1.1.6.3.1. Comrie's classification of the PP

Comrie (1976) differentiates four types of 'perfect': (a) experiential, (b) of
result, (c) persistent situation, and (d) recent past.
(a) The experiential PP 'indicates that a given situation has held at least
once during some time in the past leading up to the present' (p. 58). His
example of this type of perfect is: 'Bill has been to America', which 'says that on
at least one occasion (though possibly on more than one) Bill did in fact go to
America' (p.59).
(b) In the PP of result 'a present state is referred to as being the result of
some past situation' (p.56), as in: 'John has arrived'.
(c) 'We've lived here for ten years" is an example of a PP of persistent
situation: it describes 'a situation that started in the past but continues (persists)
into the present' (p.60).
(d) In the PP of recent past 'the present relevance of the past situation
referred to is simply one of temporal closeness, i.e. the past situation is very
recent' (p.60). A typical example is: 'Bill has just arrived'.

17
1.1.6.3.2. Uses of the PP in English

It is not difficult to observe that, despite the use of different labels,
Comrie's classification mostly matches the one found in Mc Cawley (1971:104)
for the uses of the PP in English :
(a') existential, which indicates the existence of past events as in: 'I have
read Principia Mathematica five times';
(b') stative, in which the effect of a past event still continues: 'I can't
come to your party tonight, I've caught the flu';
(c') universal, which indicates a state of affairs that stretches from the
past into the present: 'I've known Max since 1960'; and
(d') is used to report hot news: 'Malcolm X has just been assassinated'.
The reason for calling (a') and (c') existential and universal respectively is
because they 'appear both to involve a quantifier that ranges over an interval
stretching from the past into the present and differ as regards whether that
quantifier is universal or existential' (p. 105). This relates to the lexical aspect of
the verb, as well as the compositional aspect of the situation.

18
1.1.6.3.3. PP: closeness vs. continuity

A different approach has been taken by F. Ocampo (1987) for the study of
the Spanish PP. He states that all four types of the classifications of either
Comrie or Mc Cawley can in fact be subsumed under two: (i) closeness and (ii)
continuity. Adopting Comrie's definition of the perfect aspect, he defines the PP
as a relation between two time-points, the first previous to the second in time,
and the second located at the time of utterance. The relation that exists between
the two points may be of different kinds, but--according to Ocampo--two
categories are sufficient to explain such a relation.
(i) Continuity encompasses Comrie's (a) experiential, (b) of result, and (c)
of persistent situation, and McCawley's (a') existential, (b') stative, and (c')
universal.
(ii) Closeness is proposed as a cover term for Comrie's (d) recent past and
Mc Cawley's (d') hot news. Closeness can be divided into three sub-categories,
which correspond to three different types of relation: (ii.i) temporal, (ii.ii) spatial,
and (ii.iii) empathy.
(ii.i) Temporal closeness is a relation in which the first time-point is close
in time to the second, as in the example: 'Juan ha terminado su trabajo esta
mañana'.

19
(ii.ii) Spatial closeness is a type of relation in which the situation referred
to and the moment of speech are not necessarily close in time, but they occur
within a shared spatial domain. Regarding this sub-category, Ocampo reports
that some speakers can utter: 'Pepe ha estado en Bogotá', only if they are in, or
nearby the city.
(ii.iii) The last sub-category is strongly subjective: the relation that holds
between the two time-points is one of empathy. For example, some speakers
may say: 'Marta González ha llegado a Madrid', only if they personally know
Marta González. They would rather utter: 'Marta González llegó a Madrid', if they
are not related to her in any way, or if she died after arriving. In these examples,
the relationship between the speaker and the referred person works as a
determinant factor for the selection of the form.
It is interesting to note that, when dealing with the speaker's selection of
a verbal form, psychological reality should be considered as relevant as objective
reality. This is clearly the case when a relation of empathy triggers the use of a
PP.
Ocampo concludes his study stating that not all varieties of Spanish are
sensitive to the same categories. For example, while the Castilian PP expresses
the full range of closeness and continuity, the Venezuelan PP only conveys the
latter.

20
A summary of the three classifications presented above follows. The
different types of 'perfect' are compared in Table 1:

Comrie
(typological)
McCawley
(for English)
F. Ocampo
(for Spanish)
(a) experiential (a') existential (i) continuity
(b) result (b') stative (i) continuity
(c) persistent sit. (c') universal (i) continuity
(d) recent past (d') hot news (ii) closeness
(temp/spat/empathy)
Table 1: Comparison of three PP classifications

Comrie's and Mc Cawley's three first types are equivalent, in the sense that (a) /
(a'), (b) / (b'), and (c) / (c') refer to the same phenomena, respectively. This is
not the case regarding (d) / (d)': while (d) recent past equals (ii.i) temporal
closeness, (d') hot news is pragmatically more complex. It implies that the
information contained in the proposition is thought to be surprising for the
speaker. Thus, it refers to a 'contrary to expectation' pragmatic function. Also,
(d') may involve (ii.i) temporal closeness, but not necessarily in all instances;
e.g., one can deliver surprising news which are in fact 'news' for the hearer but
occurred in a non-recent past.

21
1.1.6.4. The Spanish PP according to traditional approaches

In the following sections I will refer to existing approaches which deal
with the meaning or uses of the PP and the P specifically for Spanish.
Neither of the descriptions reviewed offer a systematic analysis of the
forms, or intend a classification of the PP; rather, each of them refer randomly to
some of the types either through examples or definitions. For this reason, I will
attempt a classification of the PP uses described and the examples provided
utilizing the PP types included in Table 1.
3
I will show that all classes of PP
proposed by Comrie for languages in general, and by Mc Cawley for English in
particular, are present in Spanish.
In these approaches it is possible to find some crucial issues that have
been raised. One of them is about the compositional aspectual meaning obtained
from the combination of the lexical meaning and the inflectional meaning of a
verbal form, as well as the whole situation. Another interesting issue is about the
acknowledgement of a subjective factor which might be part of the meaning of
the PP, or at least a factor strong enough to trigger its use. The latter implies
that traditional accounts had already considered psychological reality as
legitimate as objective reality in order to explain the PP.

3
This classification is included in square brackets. The letters correspond to the different types of
PP according to Comrie, Mc Cawley, and Ocampo.

22
1.1.6.4.1. Definitions of the Spanish PP and P

According to the RAE (1989), Gili Gaya (1961), and Alarcos Llorach
(1991), the PP--in the present-day language--is a marker of past / perfective
situations which hold a relationship with the moment of speaking. It is possible
that such a relationship does exist in the real world, or that it is just perceived as
existent by the speaker: 'Esta relación puede ser real, o simplemente pensada o
percibida por el que habla' (Gili Gaya 1961:159). On the other hand, the P is also
a marker of perfective situations, and has a meaning of absolute past.
Thus, the two forms are opposed by the presence or absence of a
relationship between a past situation and the moment of speaking; a relationship
that can be objectively real or subjectively experienced.

1.1.6.4.2. Uses of the PP

There is agreement among the descriptions offered by the RAE (1989),
Gili Gaya (1961), and Alarcos Llorach (1991) about the uses of the PP in Spanish:
(1) The periphrasis denotes a situation occurred in a period of time which
contains the moment of speaking [(i) continuity: (a) experiential / (a') existential,
or (c) persistent situation / (c') universal];

23
(2) It expresses immediate past [(ii.i) temporal closeness: (d) recent
past]; and
(3) It is also used for situations occurred in a remote past, whose
consequences still continue at the moment of speaking [(i) continuity: (b) result /
(b') stative]
The account offered by Alcina and Blecua (1980:802) is mostly in
agreement with those referred above. According to them, the PP typically
expresses a situation which recently ended [they refer to (ii): (d)]. However,
there are other uses in which the relationship with the moment of speaking
established by the PP is not always of the same nature: 'Unas veces se trata del
propio significado del verbo cuya acción llega con sus consecuencias hasta el
presente [(i): (c)/(c')]; otras, intenciones afectivas del hablante que aproximan la
acción remota [(i): (b)/(b') + (ii): empathy]; otras, la acción pasada habitual [(i):
(a)/(a')].'
Examples provided by the RAE (1931) and Bello (1914) will illustrate the
different types of PP included in Table 1:

(1) (a) experiential / (a') existential ((i) continuity):
'Pedro ha estado en Roma' (RAE).
(2) (b) result / (b') stative ((i) continuity):
'La Inglaterra se ha hecho señora del mar' (Bello).
(3) (c) persistent situation. / (c') universal ((i) continuity):
'He vivido muchos años en Inglaterra' (Bello).

24
(4) (d) recent past ((ii.i) temporal closeness):
'Él estuvo ayer en la ciudad, pero se ha vuelto hoy al campo' (Bello).
(5) (ii.ii) spatial closeness + (ii.i) temporal closeness; and (d') hot news.
‘Ha muerto’ (Bello).
(6) (b) result / (b') stative ((i) continuity): + (ii.iii) empathy ((ii) closeness):
‘Mi padre ha muerto hace tres años’ (RAE).

Regarding (5), Bello (1914:163) refers to the example 'ha muerto'
('[he/she] has died') indicating some situational appropriateness rules: 'Se dice
que una persona "ha muerto" cuando aún tenemos delante vestigios recientes de
la existencia difunta [(ii.ii) spatial closeness / (ii.i) temporal closeness. / (d)
recent past]; cuando aquéllos a quienes hablamos están creyendo que esa
persona vive [(d') hot news].' In the first case, it seems appropriate to utter 'ha
muerto' in the presence of a dead person immediately after s/he passed away.
Both spatial and temporal closeness are involved in this kind of situation. In the
second case, the use of the PP is motivated by the hearers' expectations: since
they think the referred person is alive, the information provided by the speaker
(i.e., 'ha muerto') constitutes surprising news--hot news, using Mc Cawley's
terminology.
Regarding (6), the RAE (1989:466) gives an example of a situation in
which the choice between a P or a PP is determined by the speaker's intention
on whether to express some attitude towards the proposition. The P is used
when the speaker objectively delivers information; instead, a PP is reserved to
convey the existence of a link between the proposition and the speaker's

25
emotions: 'A veces la relación con el presente es afectiva: así, ante una misma
situación objetiva decimos "Mi padre ha muerto hace tres años", si aquel hecho
repercute en mi sentimiento actual; en cambio, "Mi padre murió hace tres años"
no es más que una noticia desprovista de emotividad'. The former example--in
which the PP is used--expresses a relation of (ii.iii) empathy felt by the speaker
towards the memory of the referred person. It is interesting to note that in this
example--which classifies as (b) PP of result / (b') stative--both categories, (i)
continuity and (ii) closeness, are combined: it is precisely the relation of
closeness existent between the speaker and his/her father's memory--through
empathy--what connects the temporal reference 'hace tres años' (i.e. 'three
years ago') with the moment of speaking. This link between two points in time
conveys temporal continuity of the relation of empathy--a type of closeness--
experienced by the speaker.

1.1.6.4.3. Interaction between lexical and inflectional aspectual meaning

Bello (1914:162) distinguishes two types of verbs according to their lexical
aspect: 'desinentes', which denote telic situations--like 'nacer' and 'morir'--and
'permanentes', which denote atelic, unbounded situations--like 'ser', 'ver', and
'oír'. According to Bello, 'en unos verbos el atributo
4
, por el hecho de haber

4
‘Atributo’ can be interpreted as the lexical meaning conveyed by a verbal stem.

26
llegado a su perfección, expira, y en otros, sin embargo, subsiste durando: a los
primeros llamo "desinentes", y a los segundos "permanentes".'
The RAE follows Bello for this distinction, using also the same labels. Their
examples of 'verbos desinentes' are 'lanzar' and 'disparar', while 'saber' is
'permanente'.
Alcina and Blecua (1980:796) notice the confusion between inflectional
and lexical meaning found in previous descriptions. They point out that in the
past the aspects inherent in the meaning of the verb have been mistaken by
different aspectual uses of the P: 'En el uso del pretérito indefinido los
gramáticos han señalado característicos usos--iterativo, ingresivo, momentáneo,
etc.--que de hecho están implícitos en el significado del verbo.'
Also Marcos Marín (1980:255) raises the issue that inherent (lexical)
aspect ('modo de acción') should be considered independently from the
inflectional aspectual meaning of a form. Accordingly, he thinks that the PP does
not necessarily convey perfective aspect: 'El que la acción termine o no no
depende del aspecto del pretérito perfecto, sino del modo de acción del verbo.'
It is important to focus on the consequences of the interaction between
the aspect involved in the PP morphology and the aspect of the situations with
which the PP is combined. In previous descriptions of the PP, it has been
observed--although not fully explained--the interaction between the PP and the
lexical aspect of verbs. However, it must be noticed that the combination of

27
aspectual meanings provided by the lexical stem and the inflection of a verb
does not represent the complete aspectual meaning of a situation. Syntactically,
this also involves the consideration of other elements: the object, and aspectual
adverbials, along with the inflection and the inherent aspect of the verbal stem.
Verkuyl (1972, 1993) has demonstrated that there are rules that govern the way
in which sentential aspect is composed. Ontologically, the whole aspect of a
situation is obtained by the interaction that takes place between temporal and
spatial entities, according to their nature: bounded / unbounded (Klein 1994).

1.1.6.4.4. A study by Alarcos Llorach: PP vs. P

Alarcos Llorach (1991) studies both Spanish tenses, the PP and the P, (a)
in conjunction with temporal modifiers, and (b) in the absence of such
adverbials. In regards to (a), he concludes:
(a.1) The PP is used with adverbials that indicate a period of time
including the moment of speaking or writing, like hoy 'today', ahora 'now', estos
días 'these days', esta semana 'this week', esta tarde 'this afternoon', esta
mañana 'this morning', este mes 'this month', el año en curso 'the current year',
en mi vida 'in my life', durante el siglo presente 'during this century'.

28
(a.2) The P is used with temporal indexes which exclude the moment of
speaking, like ayer 'yesterday', anoche 'last night', el mes pasado 'last month',
aquel día 'that day', hace años 'some years ago', entonces 'then'.
(a.3) Both forms can be used with adverbials which convey duration or
repetition. In the case of the PP, the situation either occurs iteratively or
continues up to the present moment. In the case of the P, the situation ends in
the past.
In relation to (b), i.e., in contexts which do not contain temporal
modifiers, Alarcos' main points are as follows:
(b.1) The P expresses a situation occurred and bounded in the past.
(b.2) The PP suggests the idea of a present which extends into the past:
'nos da la idea de un presente ampliado hacia el pasado' (p. 29). The periphrasis
always indicates a situation leading up to the moment of speech, i.e., a situation
that occurs within an 'extended present': 'siempre designa una acción que se
aproxima al presente gramatical, esto es, que se produce en el "presente
ampliado", en un período desde un punto del pasado hasta el "ahora" en que se
habla o escribe' (p. 32). It should be noted that Alarcos Llorach’s concept of
'presente ampliado' is linked to Mc Cawley’s 'extended now' theory, mentioned in
Section 1.1.1.6.1. above.
(b.3) In the absence of expressed temporal marks of any kind, the
concept of 'extended present' involved in the use of the PP, depends on

29
subjective factors: 'Así se explican algunas preferencias afectivas por el perfecto
compuesto' (p. 33).
In his study, Alarcos Llorach rejects the idea that the PP / P distinction
could be originated in aspectual differences of the forms, or their combination
with the inherent aspects of the stem. Since both forms convey perfective
aspect--he says, if combined with the same situation they result in an equal
aspectual value. Hence, the distinction is solely based on temporal differences,
provided that 'time' is not only considered objectively but also as a product of the
conscious mind: 'No hay, pues, que buscar el origen de la diferenciación de
sentido del perfecto simple y del compuesto en el aspecto o en la significación de
la acción verbal, puesto que ambos "tiempos", al tener el mismo valor aspectual
perfectivo, producen el mismo resultado aspectual con una misma acción. La
distinción es puramente temporal, considerando el "tiempo" no sólo como una
circunstancia objetiva, sino también como un contenido de conciencia, y por
ende subjetivo' (p. 20).
In my view, the study carried out by Alarcos Llorach within a framework
of functional grammar offers some important issues to take into consideration in
a broader study of the Spanish PP:
(a) The relevancy of studying verbal forms in context in order to
understand their differences in meaning and use. Alarcos' study show how a
syntagmatic account of the forms leads to their paradigmatic analysis.

30
(b) The importance of combining a synchronic with a diachronic
perspective when dealing with the changing meaning of verbal forms.
(c) Semantic phenomena are extremely complex and do not only involve
the objective reality. It is possible to have a less partial view if the subjective
world of experience, perception, and symbolic representation is taken into
account for the analysis and explanation of semantic phenomena. Meaning,
particularly change of meaning, cannot be fully understood if human cognition is
not considered as playing an important role in shaping language.

1.2. Semantic complexity of the Spanish PP form

The meaning of the periphrastic form he cantado is composed out of
several pieces of semantic information, provided by the corresponding
morphological units. For the purpose of the present discussion, I will only focus
on aspectual and temporal information.
Before having grammaticalized into an auxiliary, haber was an existential
verb with the meanings: 'tener' ('to have') and 'poseer' ('to posess'). Its
Aktionsart classified as a state, and, consequently, as unbounded situation, since
the beginning and ending points are not inherently included in the notion of
state. On the other hand, the inflection of the form he (Present Indicative) has

31
two types of temporal information: as a tense, it points at the moment of
speaking; as an aspect, the Present is imperfective--i.e. unbounded.
The Past Participle form can convey any kind of lexical aspect, depending
on the type of situation expressed by the stem. The Past Participle inflection is
aspectually perfective--i.e. temporally bounded. The combination of a stem with
a Past Participle inflection denotes a wholly complete situation. There is no
deictic temporal mark in the Past Participle. However, a meaning of 'prior to the
moment of speaking' is inferred when a Past Partiple is related to the time of
utterance, since what is totally complete at present must have been completed in
the past, no matter how recently
5
.
The temporal and aspectual meaning units at work in the Spanish PP form
are summarized in Table 2:

5
In Spanish, the invariable verbal forms do not convey temporal information. The Infinitive,
neutral to all verbal parameters (i.e. person, number, tense, aspect, and mood), provides lexical
information as well as class membership (type of conjugation). The other two--despite their
misleading temporal labels: Past Participle and Present Participle--are markers of aspect:
perfective and imperfective, respectively.

32
Table 2: Temporal / aspectual information in the PP Spanish periphrasis

a. tense
he: present (speech time)
cantado: no mark

b. aspect
he:
inflection: unbounded (imperfective)
stem: unbounded (a state)
cantado:
inflection: bounded (perfective)
stem: depends on selection of verb

1.2.1. The Spanish PP category

Given the information on Table 2, it is not difficult to see the reason why
the Spanish PP category represents such a complex notion, in which aspect and
tense are intimately related: the inherent semantic richness provided by the
morphology must be accounted for, in some way, by the PP category. Also, this
richness seems to be what allows the PP form to adapt to different uses and
pragmatic functions.
As a result of such complexity, the PP category does not translate into a
unique meaning. Rather, it expresses a relation of meanings, which has proved
to be unstable along the history of the Spanish language. This suggests that the
meaning relations internal to the PP can be reinterpreted by alternating the
contexts of use. Also, from a diachronic perspective, there is the implication that

33
the use of the form in different contexts--in addition to subjective factors--must
have influenced the internal meaning relations, reshaping the category.

1.2.2. Semantic change and meaning shift

Harris (1982:62) gives the following general explanation regarding
meaning shift produced within the opposition P / PP: 'There exists a set of
closely related elements of meaning, which are not always objectively
distinguished from one another, and where semantic drift of a familiar kind
within a relatively fluid semantic area is frequently attested. Meaning shift in the
case of one paradigm may well open the door for the creation of a new
paradigm, which will in turn be drawn from an adjacent semantic area.'
Before a verbal form takes over another, gradual processes of semantic
change occur. The changing form becomes prone to be used, increasingly, in
different context types; and, throughout this process its meaning rearranges,
turning less specific.
First, an innovative combination is produced: the form is used in a context
not allowed before. If the new use is accepted by the speakers it may become
more frequent, and ultimately generalized in the language. Thus, as a result of
the frequency of use, the inherent meaning of the form might be reshaped in

34
such a way that some of its specific features are cancelled. I.e., over time the
result could be semantic simplification.
Moreover, when a form of a verbal paradigm undergoes this process, such
a situation might impact another member of the system. Since each member
performs a certain range of functions, the contextual expansion of a form might
result in the contextual shrinking of another. If the expanding form spreads to all
contexts previously reserved to the shrinking one, the former prevails while the
latter becomes useless and disappears. Modern oral French constitutes an
example of this situation. In this language the P has disappeared from the
paradigm and the PP performs all functions of both forms.
The history of the PP in the Romance languages in general, and Spanish
in particular, is particularly interesting in relation to this issue, because it shows
the progression of the semantic change of the form, as well as the semantic shift
between the P and the PP, which set the conditions for deeper changes in the
Spanish verbal system. It is important to find out which properties of the PP
make it such a good candidate for change. This, also, could lead us one step
forward to better understand the motives of semantic change.

35
1.3. The present study of the PP

I chose to study the PP because it represents a very rich topic, not fully
understood. The general conclusion at which one arrives after reading the
literature is that there are many questions still unanswered regarding the PP
category in general, and the Spanish PP in particular. It is interesting to note that
this is also the case across languages. In his typological study, Dahl (1985:129)
refers to the PP as a problematic category, and observes: 'The semantics of the
categories labeled "Perfect" in e.g. English ... belong to the most discussed
problems in the theory of grammatical categories. Claims as to the existence of a
universal category PERFECT have been met with skepticism based on ... the
difficulties in finding a definition of the category.'
There is no agreement across languages on the issue of considering the
PP as a tense or an aspect. According to Lyons (1977), although tense and
aspect are both temporal notions, they differ in that tense is a deictic category,
while aspect is a non-deictic one. Tense points at a certain time from the
moment of speaking, either directly or indirectly. Indirect reference is obtained
through other temporal points--marked in the discourse by verbs or adverbials--
which are temporal references themselves signaled from the moment of
speaking. Aspect, on the other hand, refers to 'different ways of representing the
internal temporal constitution of a situation'—according to the definition given by

36
Comrie (1976:52). Aspect traditionally refers to the opposition between
perfective and imperfective, and it has also been extended to make reference to
notions such as duration, habituality, iteration, frequency, inception, termination,
completion, continuation, and instantaneity.
Since aspects are conceived as referring exclusively to the internal
temporal structure of a situation, Comrie (1976) considers that 'the perfect is
rather different from these aspects, since it tells us nothing directly about the
situation in itself, but rather relates some state to a preceding situation.'
Accordingly, Comrie arrives at the conclusion that the perfect 'is an aspect in a
rather different sense from the other aspects.'
In my view, the fact that the PP category remains to be a fuzzy one to the
eyes of the analyst must be related to several issues:
(a) The lack of a general consensus about what is ontologically implied
under the label 'aspect', and the need for a comprehensive theory of aspect;
(b) The need for an approach which incorporates objective as well as
psychological reality in order to explain the phenomena involved in the study of
the PP;
(c) The need for studying verbal inflections within sentential aspect as a
whole;
(d) The need for a perspective which focuses on what kind of impact
pragmatic information may have in shaping and changing the PP category.

37
In addition, regarding the Spanish PP, the main points are:
(e) The lack of a systematic way of approaching the phenomena across
different accounts of the PP;
(f) The importance of reviewing the semantic complexity of the PP as a
product of its own morphology;
(g) The lack of a complete understanding of how aspectual
compositionality is syntactically achieved in Spanish;
(h) The need for the analysis of the PP using data consisting of actual
spoken language; and
(i) The need to systematically study the PP across Spanish varieties, since
the pace at which this form evolves is not the same in the whole Hispanic world.
This implies that a synchronic analysis may give different results in different
dialects.
It is easy to understand that several of the previous defaults regarding the
understanding of the subject matter will not be solved in this dissertation.
However, the present work intends to look at the phenomena which involves the
Spanish PP in a more comprehensive way, and for this reason, it should be
regarded as a new starting point in the search for more complete answers to
these issues.

38
1.3.1. The study

A comparative analysis of the PP and the P in two dialects of Spanish,
which are thought to differ in the usage of these forms, has been considered
suitable for the study. These varieties are: Madrileño, spoken in the Spanish
Peninsula, and Rioplatense,
6
spoken in Argentina. I chose them because an
alternation of the forms in specific contexts across varieties was expected. For
example, in contexts with a temporal reference of recent past, Madrileño uses
the PP while Rioplatense prefers the P.
A cross-dialectal study is useful to analyze the contextual use of the PP
and the P in oral language. In addition to the synchronic study, a diachronic
perspective is offered. In order to find out how the PP has developed, and what
can be predicted about the future of this form, a historic review of the PP was
needed. Consequently, a combination of both perspectives seems to ensure a
more complete explanation of the Spanish PP.

6
La Plata, located in the Río de La Plata area, is my own birth town. This facilitated the process
of finding speakers who agreed in being recorded as they talked in every day conversations. It
also contributed significantly to the interpretation and analysis of the data.

39
1.3.2. Goals of the study

My contribution to Hispanic Linguistics will be two-fold: (a) a semanto-
pragmatic account of the PP in Spanish, considering dialectal variation; and (b)
an explanation of the causes of the semantic change undergone by the Castilian
PP, namely, the change from marker of aspect to marker of tense.
In addition, it is my intention to extend the contribution to the field of
general Linguistics. This will be three-fold: (c) to the theoretical analysis of the
PP; (d) to the study of processes of semantic change; and (e) to a better
explanation of the notion of aspect.

1.3.3. Organization of the study

The chapters that follow will deal with different issues presented in
Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I develop my own ontological perspective regarding the
kind of temporal phenomena implied in the concept of aspect. Chapter 3
presents a review of the Spanish PP evolution suggested by Alarcos LLorach
(1991), as well as my interpretation of the grammaticalization processes (Heine
et al. 1991) undergone by this category along its history. Chapter 4 offers a
semanto-pragmatic description of the PP status in Rioplatense and Madrileño,
two varieties which proved to be at different stages of the historic evolution

40
presented in Chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 5 argues on possible paths the Castilian
PP may have gone through in its way to become a tense marker. The
explanation is based on evidence from Rioplatense, where a particular function
of the PP constitutes a perfect arena for pragmatic ambiguity and reanalysis.
Chapter 5 closes with the general conclusions drawn from the present study.

41
Chapter 2
Situations and time

2.1. Introduction

The notion of tense has been clearly defined and can efficiently be
incorporated to the analysis of verbal forms and adverbials. On the other hand,
the notion of aspect has not been so well defined, and is not yet fully
understood. There is no consensus in the way the literature portraits the notion
of aspect, or makes reference to particular aspects. This needs to be revised in
order to arrive at a more coherent way of understanding all types of aspect. An
outline of a revised characterization of aspectual phenomena will be offered in
this chapter.

2.2. Definitions of aspect(s)

Tobin (1993) presents a list of definitions given by a number of authors in
the course of many years. Those definitions are grouped according to a
'temporal' / 'non-temporal' view of aspect. I also find interesting to consider
whether the authors define aspect exclusively within an 'objective' domain, or

42
rather extend it to a 'subjective' domain. For example, Gonda (1962), Jakobson
(1971), Taylor (1977), Freed (1979), and Johnson (1981) only include an
objective component in their definitions; namely, the inherent structure of
temporal entities: '[the expression of] the moments or stages of the process'
(Gonda 1962:11); '[the] temporal values inherent in the activity or state itself'
(Jakobson 1971:130); 'the name for the function of discriminating the kinds of
temporal "things" which may be (linguistically) "located" in the sequential order
of time' (Taylor 1977:164); 'the TEMPORAL QUALITY OR CONDITION
7
of an
event with respect to itself, in terms of such things as inception, repetition,
duration, punctuality, etc.' (Freed 1979:10); 'reference to one of the temporally
distinct phases of the evolution of an event through time' (Johnson 1981:152).
On the other hand, a subjective component is involved in the following
definitions, which refer to the presentation of temporal entities by the speaker
according to different perspectives or viewpoints: 'whether the speaker looks
upon an action or event in its entirety, or with special reference to some part
(chiefly the beginning or end)' (Kruisinga 1931:221); 'les manières diverses de
concevoir l'écoulement du procès même' (Holt 1943:6); 'aspects are different
ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation' (Comrie 1976:
3); 'a speaker's viewpoint or perspective on a situation... as either completed
(perfective aspect), or as ongoing (imperfective aspect), continuing (continuative

7
Capital letters in the original.

43
aspect), ending (egressive aspect), or repeating (iterative or habitual aspect)'
(Brinton 1988:3).
Smith (1991) offers a detailed explanation on the issue of aspect. She
proposes to consider aspect as a universal parameter across languages, which
allows for individual variation. This parameter should include both, the objective
as well as the subjective component mentioned above, i.e. situation structure
and viewpoint, respectively, since both interact in language. Thus, Smith
(1991:3) regards aspect 'as the semantic domain of the temporal structure of
situations (events and states) and their presentation.' Speakers have a choice in
selecting a particular focus for the situations they present, which is possible
through idealizations made upon situation types. 'Idealized situation types
represent the temporal classifications of actual situations that people make on
perceptual and cognitive grounds' (p. 12). According to Smith (1991:13), 'in
talking speakers present an actual situation as an exemplar of a given situation
type,
8
from a given viewpoint.' Languages provide lexical and syntactic
information on situation type through verbs (specifically, lexical morphemes of

8
Smith (1991) proposes the following categorization of situation types, according to three
features: STATIC (STA), DURATIVE (DUR), and TELIC (TEL)
SITUATIONS: STA DUR TEL TYPICAL EXAMPLES:
States [+] [+] [-] be tall
Activities [-] [+] [-] eat cherries
Accomplishments [-] [+] [+] repair a radio
Semelfactives [-] [-] [-] knock
Achievements [-] [-] [+] leave

44
verbs) in conjunction with their arguments, while information about viewpoint is
given by grammatical morphemes and periphrastic verbal forms.

2.3. The conceptualization of time

Since aspect is understood as a temporal notion attributed to situations, it
should be useful to start thinking of the way time itself is conceptualized in order
to arrive at a deeper understanding of the conceptual category of aspect.
Alverson's (1994:62) metacultural definition of time
9
suggests that an
important component of what people of different civilizations experience as time
is the dynamic and constant succession of temporal entities, i.e. situations--or
rather, a stereotypic abstraction of that pattern: ' "Time" (i.e., that aspect of
experience which is temporal) consists in the cognizing and conceptual linking of
two or more sets of successive experiences--that is, experiences deemed to have
a before-and-after relation. "Time" is a two-fold relation of (1) before-and-after
succession within one set of experiences and (2) the (theoretical) linkage of two
or more sets of such before-and-after experiences.' Alverson refers to such
dynamic succession of situations as ‘temporal dynamism.’

9
This definition is based on Zwart (1976). It has been supported by a corpus of collocations
which predicate properties of time in four unrelated languages: English, Hindi, Sesotho, and
Mandarin.

45
Western philosophy has represented time in a linear way; however, there
are societies for which time is mainly conceived as cyclic. Comrie (1985:4-5)
states: 'On a limited scale all cultures necessarily have some concept of cyclicity
in time, given such microscopic cycles as that of day and night, or that of the
seasons of the year... Even in societies that have a cyclic concept of time, the
individual cycles seem to be viewed as chronologically arranged, i.e. there are
earlier cycles and later cycles, so that at best the cyclicity would be
superimposed on an overall conceptualization of time that is linear.'

2.4. Tense, aspect, and time

In order to explain the linguistic category of tense across cultures, Comrie
(1985:6) finds suitable to represent time as linear. He points out that situations
can be related to the time line either to indicate their location in relation to other
points or segments (since, ultimately, time location is always relative), or to refer
to 'the internal temporal contour of a situation', which 'provides the conceptual
basis for the notion of aspect'. Regarding the second kind or relation, a situation
could be represented as a point or as a stretch of the time line.
When people talk about the history of the world, the experiences of their
own lives, an anecdote, or a specific event, they talk about situations that occur
along the course of time. In order to convey a structured set of ideas, speakers

46
must refer to situations in relation to their location as well as their organization
along time. Furthermore, Smith (1991:136) recognizes that 'the conceptual
properties of a situation are visible only as the situation unfolds in time'. Thus,
time must be regarded not only as a construct where location of situations is
indicated, but also as part of the conceptual organization of situations and
viewpoints--i.e., the aspectual phenomena.
Despite the fact that there have been significant progress over the years
regarding a general understanding of the notion of aspect, I find that it still
remains partially defined. For Comrie (1976) and Smith (1991), for example, its
domain is limited to the internal (temporal) constituency of a situation. However,
this definition represents a restriction for the proper inclusion of the perfect
among the aspects. Comrie (1976:52), considers the perfect 'an aspect in a
rather different sense from ... other aspects.' Smith (1991:243) assigns a dual
aspectual quality to the perfect construction: 'It is a stative that refers to a prior
situation, the latter being non-stative or stative'; and adds (p. 246): 'The stative
value of the perfect does not override the viewpoint of the verb constellation, but
rather includes it.' Unfortunately, a full analysis of the way in which both
aspectual values interact is not offered. On the other hand, Fleishmann (1982)
assigns retrospective aspect to the perfect, which contrasts with prospective
aspect, conveyed by go-futures. Although she seems to be intuitively correct in

47
associating the retrospective to the perfect, a clear definition of this type of
aspect is not provided.
Apparently, Fleishmann's 'retrospective' and Smith's 'stative' are two
different names for the same phenomenon, namely, a type of aspect conveyed
by the perfect. However, although both refer to some kind of continuity between
the moment in which the situation either began or took place, and the moment
of speech, 'retrospective' and 'stative' differ in regard to the point of view from
which such continuity is presented. My interpretation is that 'retrospective'
describes a viewpoint located at the moment of speech, which points at a past
situation from that perspective. Instead, 'stative' could imply a viewpoint situated
within the situation itself, which points at the moment of speaking.
There is no doubt that the lack of consensus regarding the analysis of the
perfect is due to its own complexity; but--I assume--it is also due to the fact that
aspect still remains to be an elusive notion. To capture entirely such a concept
represents a task that goes well beyond the scope of these pages. Nevertheless,
I would like to introduce some ideas regarding the phenomena that lie behind
the notion of aspect, which might broaden in some way the comprehension of
this matter.

48
In my view, aspect involves the understanding of second-order entities
10
--
i.e. situations--within the whole conceptualization of time people seem to have
across cultures. I am referring to the idea of cyclic time along linear time, as
presented in the quotation from Comrie (1985:4-5) above. On the one hand,
situations must be related to linear time, since their properties are perceived as
they unfold in time, as Smith (1991) suggests. But this alone does not account
for the ‘temporal dynamism’--i.e., the dynamic and constant succession of
temporal entities mentioned in Alverson's (1994) metacultural definition of time.
Temporal dynamism does not involve time alone but rather the interaction
between situations and time. Since temporal dynamism deals with the
occurrence of situations along time, it has to be considered part of the aspectual
phenomena.
11

There is much evidence from Psychology on the idea that time is a
conceptual transposition of physical space (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976; H.
Clark 1973; E. Clark 1973). According to the hypothesis of localism, spatial
expressions serve as templates for temporal expressions (among other types of

10
Lyons (1977) makes a distinction between first-order, second-order, and third-order entities.
The first type include all physical objects (persons, animals and things): they have spatio-
temporal location, are observable and stable regarding their perceptual properties. Second-order
entities are those located in time: events, processes, states of affairs, 'situations' are entities of
this type. The last class include abstract entities, which are outside space and time; they function
as objects of propositional attitudes such as belief, expectation and judgment (i.e. 'intensional
objects').

11
In Hopper (1979), there is an implication about temporal dynamism in contrast with temporal
statism as aspectual phenomena within the analysis of foregrounding / backgrounding in
narrative discourse.

49
non-spatial expressions). Spatial expressions are semantically more basic than
temporal ones (Anderson 1971; Lyons 1977). In Lyons' (1977:718-719) words:
'The spatialization of time is ... obvious and ... pervasive ... in the grammatical
and lexical structure of ... many of the world's languages ... [T]here is an
obvious parallel between spatial and temporal deixis ... [and] remoteness from
the deictic zero-point of the here-and-now ... Aspectual distinctions are even
more obviously spatial, or spatializable, than tense-distinctions. Situations are
second-order entities whose relation to time is comparable to the relation that
first-order entities have to space.'
As empty space is occupied by spatial entities, according to our perception
empty time can conceptually be 'occupied' by temporal entities. However, unlike
spatial entities, temporal entities occur along a unidirectional sequence. This
condition provides a sense of dynamic time moving in one direction. In addition,
there exists a sense of static time, where no situations occur. Since our cognitive
apparatus allows us to perceive structures only as they emerge from a context,
temporal dynamism can only be ‘perceived’ as opposed to temporal statism, and
vice versa. It is my assumption that the generalized sense of the flowing of time
is produced by a simultaneous perception of the contrasting properties of
temporal dynamism and temporal statism. These properties would have been
synthesized from all possible situation types to shape our concept of time. In this

50
dissertation, dynamic and static time will be represented in spatial terms as cyclic
and linear time, respectively.
Smith (1991) argues that speakers can make aspectual choices for
presenting situations because they resort to idealizations of situation types.
These categories, based on the way we cognize actual situations, represent the
temporal classifications of those situations. According to Smith, concepts
denoting situation types have a prototypical structure: they can be represented
by the idealization of an exemplar with a cluster of properties central to the
category.
12
Smith thinks that people can arrive at a general schema of the
temporal structure of situations by abstracting away from different situation
types (and from non-temporal factors). I would like to suggest that this line of
thought is also applicable to explain what is involved in the conceptualization of
time itself: a highly abstract notion based on the structure, properties, and
organization of situations.
Dynamic situation types--prototypically events--give rise to the patterns of
dynamic, cyclic time; static situation types--prototypically states--can be
conceptually synthesized into static, linear time. These abstractions, created
upon events and states, can be projected into two different representations:
cyclic and linear time, respectively. In this way, linear time represents an empty,
ideal state; like space, it is the medium in which temporal entities are to occur,

12
See Taylor (1991) on the issue of prototypes.

51
one after the other. Cyclic time—as it has been suggested above--represents a
pattern idealized out of the properties of dynamic situation types. In utterances,
actual situations are understood in terms of their type, and must be related to
the corresponding temporal component in which they are able to exist; e.g.,
states will be associated with linear time while events will be related to cyclic
time. These phenomena constitute information provided by lexical morphemes of
verbs and their arguments.
In addition, speakers present actual situations from different possible
viewpoints. This kind of information is provided by grammatical morphemes and
periphrastic verbal forms. In my view, when dealing with conceptual, temporal
viewpoints two planes are needed in order to distinguish figure from ground--the
same way two planes are needed when dealing with perceptual, spatial
viewpoints. When speakers present any aspectual viewpoint of a situation--
associated with either temporal component according to its properties--both
temporal components, i.e. linear and cyclic, must be linked together (or
'superimposed', as it were) in order to function as two planes. They provide the
general context (ground) for the interpretation of situations (figure).
It is precisely the perception of this interaction between cyclic and linear
time, I assume, that produces the sense of entities in constant succession
experienced as 'time' by people of different societies, as Alverson (1994)
suggests. It is possible to hypothesize that linear and cyclic time are highly

52
synthetic representations abstracted from all essential properties of typical states
and events, respectively. I am implying that this abstraction that constitutes
'time' might have been casted on the structure and organization of all typical
second-order entities that can possibly exist within this dimension. Accordingly,
our conceptualization of the structure and organization of situations requires
associating them simultaneously with both temporal components, static and
dynamic.
More specifically, in actual conversation situations would be:
(a) categorized according to different (idealized) situation types;
(b) associated with the corresponding temporal component, linear or cyclic;
(c) contrasted against the other temporal component for contextualization; and
(d) presented and interpreted from a given viewpoint.
While stative situations unfold in linear time, dynamic situations unfold in
cyclic time. Consequently, the relationship that holds between situations, linear
time, and cyclic time should be the domain of aspectual phenomena.

2.4.1. Some examples

A few examples are needed in order to clarify what was expressed above.
They intend to illustrate what is involved within the domain of aspectual linear
time, i.e., the existence, structure, and organization of situations along time.

53
Let us see the following examples:

(1) I know that story very well. My mother used to read it to me when I was
a little child.

This example presents a stative situation, which occurs along linear time: 'to
know that story'. In (1) the speaker knows the story very well because, during
his childhood, his mother read it to him not once, but many times--maybe each
night before going to bed. During a stretch of time located in the past
[represents linear time, which functions as ground], a dynamic situation, ‘to read
a story’ [corresponds to one temporal cycle] kept recurring on a regular basis
[which functions as figure]. The speaker's mother had the habit of reading that
particular story to her child [refers to the organization of cyclic time along linear
time].

(2) I know that book very well. I have read it four or five times.

In (2), the reason why John knows well that book is that he has gone
through it more than once, a few times, although he does not remember exactly
how many. The recurrence of this dynamic situation is not presented as a habit,
as in (1), but as an experience repeated with no regular pattern [cyclic
organization / figure] throughout the speaker's life [linear time / ground]. (2)

54
deals with the existence / occurrence of a type of dynamic situation: 'to read that
book'. There have been a few unspecified instantiations of that type of situation
which correspond to several temporal cycles.

(3) I know that play. I have seen it.

In (3) Ann knows the play because she has experienced its performance:
maybe once in her lifetime, maybe more than once--this is not expressed. What
counts is that she must have seen the play at least once, as part of his life
experience, to be in a position of knowing it. Thus, the existence of a dynamic
situation (potentially recurrent) constitutes the cyclic organization in this example
[cyclic time]. Thus, (3) conveys the unspecified instantiation of the type 'to see
that play' [figure] within the context of the speaker's lifetime span [linear time /
ground].

(4.a) I know that play. I saw it in Broadway.

In (4.a) the speaker knows the play due to the fact of having seen it on
one specific occasion. Unlike the previous examples, it is possible to locate this
occurrence at a particular point in the past, as in (4.b), if the speaker chooses to
do so:

55
(4.b) I know that play. I saw it in Broadway on its last performance.

This particular point in the past--namely, the day of the last performance--
constitutes a temporal landmark where the situation [a specific cycle / figure] is
situated on the time line [linear time / ground]. A failure to recur characterizes
the cyclic organization of this situation.

(5) I love apples. I eat one every day. Well, today I was eating my daily apple
when I heard the news about some contaminated apples...

In (5) the speaker states that she loves apples: a stative situation [figure]
which occurs along linear time [ground]. Besides loving apples, she also eats
them. Every day she eats an apple [habitual = a dynamic situation repeats
cyclically / figure]. Here, the speaker presents the situation from a viewpoint in
which linear time functions as ground and cyclic organization as figure. This is
reversed in 'today I was eating my daily apple’, where the dynamic situation 'to
eat an apple' [a cycle] is presented as a process [a stative situation: linear time
within the cycle / ground]. In this case, the cycle is not seen from the 'outside',
but from the 'inside'. This viewpoint focuses on the dynamic situation before it
reaches its ending point (i.e., before the cycle is completed). Thus, the whole
temporal cycle (‘to eat my daily apple’) is implied as ground, while the process of
eating, i.e., the viewpoint internal to the cycle, functions as figure. However,

56
when the speaker utters the rest of the sentence, the situation 'today I was
eating my daily apple' is turned into ground for the interpretation of another
figure: 'I heard the news…' [a cycle]. This dynamic situation occurs in the
context of linear time during which the eating occurs. This cycle is presented as
a specific occurrence, located at a particular point in the past.
(1) to (5) present different kinds of aspectual phenomena, which involve
the existence, structure, and organization of situations along time. These
observations lead us to propose the following: while tense refers to the relation
between situations and linear time (which makes possible their location), aspect
implies a three-component relationship between situations, cyclic time, and linear
time. Moreover, it encompasses two kinds of viewpoints: situation-internal, which
involve the internal constituency of a single cycle; and situation-external
viewpoints, which may indicate the mere existence of a situation type, the
occurrence of a specific situation, or patterns of cyclic recurrence of situations
along linear time.

2.5. Spatial representations

The following sections will deal with spatial representations of linear and
cyclic time, static and dynamic situations, and the relations that hold among
them.

57
2.5.1. Linear time

I will follow the traditional representation of linear time (LT), i.e., a
horizontal straight line with an arrow on its right, as in Figure 1. This is an
abstraction that synthesizes the sequential, unidirectional occurrence of
situations along a continuum of time flowing from past to future (i.e., from left to
right in the representation). The straight line represents an empty container,
suitable for housing second-order entities (i.e., situations). Situations can occur
either simultaneously, or sequentially. However, only one direction of occurrence
is possible: from a more distant to a least distant past, into the present
consciousness of the speaker, and into the future. This direction of occurrence (a
spatial metaphor in itself) corresponds to the more abstract metaphor of the flow
of time, and is captured by the arrow to the right in the representation.

58

Temporal linearity is the model for the representation of states. When dealing
with aspectual viewpoints it may function as foreground in relation to cyclic time
(durative, stative aspects), or background (perfective, iterative, perfect aspects).
It functions also as background for the location of situations (tense).

2.5.1.1. Static situations as linear entities

States are characterized by a lack of change, i.e., the situation is identical
at all instances in its duration. For Comrie (1976:49) the most defining property
of states is their inherent continuity: 'With a state, unless something happens to

Figure 1:
Linear time

moment of
speaking

|
past present future

59
change that state, then the state will continue.' This characteristic relates states
to linear time.
It can be said that spatial linearity represents temporal stativity; a
horizontal line stands for an abstract state: the continuum of time. Therefore,
both static situations (i.e. states) and linear time have the same type of spatial
representation.

2.5.1.2. Situation-location on linear time

Utilizing a spatial metaphor, it is possible to say that temporal location of
situations is obtained by means of coordinates. I.e., the grammatical category of
tense and temporal adverbs mark location at points where occurring situations
intersect the ongoing time line. Since it is not possible to contextualize a
particular location point without any points of reference, at least another point is
needed. In the absence of an explicit point of reference in the discourse, the
moment of speaking is always granted.
The spatial minimal units on the time line are points, which correspond to
instants, or temporal minimal units. The time continuum can be segmented into
larger discrete units: minutes, days, years, seasons, ages, etc. Also, the
horizontal time line can be intersected by marks at points where situations occur.
In this kind of representation, situations are treated as instants, i.e., as

60
indivisible wholes. The intersections mark points from which it is possible to take
temporal distances. For example, when a Pluperfect is used three points are
necessary: one of them is the moment of speaking, another one is given by a
verb or and adverb, and a third one is marked by the Pluperfect inflexion.
Figure 2 represents time location on the continuum LT, where a', b', c', d'
mark coordinates at the points at which situations a, b, c, d occur, respectively:

sit.a sit.b sit.c sit.d
LT ---|-----|-------|------------|--------------------|-------->
a’ b’ c’<-----------
--------------------->d'
|
mom. of speaking

2.5.2. Cyclic time

For the spatial representation of cyclic time, I will adopt the sinusoidal
curve. The sinusoid is a function that occurs often in mathematics, physics,
audition, electrical engineering, signal processing, and many other fields. An
example in physics is as follows: if a pen is set on the bob of a pendulum, and a
Figure 2: Temporal location by means of coordinates and a referent point on linear time

61
paper placed below is pulled horizontally at a constant speed, the line drawn is a
sinusoidal curve. It represents the path of the pendulum.
Cyclic time can be graphically represented by a sinusoidal curve, as other
cyclic phenomena of a less abstract nature such as the periods of a pendulum, or
the sound waves.
The sinusoid of Figure 3 represents a temporal cycle.

2.5.2.1. Relation between cyclic time (CT) and linear time (LT)

The notion of cyclic time is used to understand and refer to recurrent
phenomena characterized as having different phases, like the four seasons in a

Figure 3: Temporal cycle

62
year, or human life. However, at least in Western societies, cyclic time is not a
self-contained notion, mainly because (a) it cannot be used for exact temporal
location, and (b) the temporal cycles recur according to an unidirectional
sequence, creating a sense of linearity. Therefore, cyclic time (CT) relates to
linear time, as represented in Figure 4:

As it has been expressed above, the idea of cyclic time seems to have its
foundations in the conceptualization of dynamic situations. Time does not exist
by itself. What exists is, on the one hand, a constant relationship among
situations, and, on the other, this conceptual construct called 'time' where
situations occur. Our conceptualization of time could have been shaped--it can
be hypothesized--by the structuring of situations. Therefore, the

LT
CT
Figure 4: Relation between cyclic time (CT) and linear time (LT)

63
conceptualization of time would be an abstraction of a much higher degree than
the conceptualization of situations.

2.5.2.2. Dynamic situations as cyclic entities

The notion of cycle has been used to explain diverse kinds of phenomena.
Disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural sciences, as well as
human sciences (history and anthropology, for example) have resorted to this
notion. Johnson (1987) refers to the cycle as one of the most prominent image
schemata which constrain human meaning and understanding. According to
Johnson, image schemata--such as paths, scales, links, center-periphery, and
cycles--are rich in internal structure, and provide a range of possible patterns of
reasoning. 'We experience our world and everything in it as embedded within
cyclic processes: day and night, the seasons, the course of life (birth through
death), the stages of development in plants and animals, the revolutions of the
heavenly bodies ... In addition to our natural cycles, our reality is structured by a
mass of overlapping, interwoven, and sometimes conflicting conventional cycles'
(Johnson 1987:119-120). These conventional cycles--related to business,
religion, politics, and social welfare--compose temporal boundaries for people's
activities. Johnson (1987:121) concludes that 'the CYCLE schema manifests a

64
definite recurring internal structure. This structure constitutes one of our most
basic patterns for experiencing and understanding temporality.'
In my view, it is possible to extend the CYCLE schema to the explanation
of dynamic situations, given that (a) this schema is commonly applied to a wide
range of natural and social phenomena; (b) the concept of cyclic time is
available; (c) time is involved in aspectual phenomena; and (d) dynamic
situations and cyclic time share a common pattern.
In essence, dynamic situations are cyclic temporal entities. This kind of
situations can be understood as cyclic phenomena according to their structure
and organization. The same pattern is shared by both the structure of a dynamic
situation and the skeletal, more abstract structure of a temporal cycle; therefore,
a parallel relationship can be drawn regarding the way we conceptualize them.
Three well-defined phases can be recognized as part of their constituency: a
beginning, a middle, and an end. Regarding their organization, they are
characterized by a capability of recurrence.
Thus, distinctive phases and potential recurrence are the properties that
lead us to associate dynamic situations with cyclic time. Since both are patterned
the same way, cyclic time functions as an empty container for this type of
temporal entities. Consequently, those situations will be graphically represented
the same way as cyclic time, i.e., by means of a sinusoidal curve.

65
Cyclicity constitutes temporal dynamism: the sinusoidal line stands for
time in constant change. Moreover, time can be conceived as an abstract chain
of discrete units (i.e. individual cycles). These units can be either perceived as
solid wholes, or as complex structures composed of internal parts, i.e., their
phases.

2.6. The domain of aspectual phenomena

2.6.1. The relationship between the structure of situations and the structure of
time: inherent (lexical) aspect, composed aspect, and viewpoint

If we consider that (a) static situations and static time share a linear
temporal pattern; (b) dynamic situations and dynamic time share a cyclic
temporal pattern; and (c) in order to conceptualize situations both temporal
components are in a permanent relationship; then, we can propose that the
notion of aspect includes two kinds of relationships. While the first one
associates each type of situation with its corresponding type of temporal pattern,
the second one relates each type of situation to the opposite type of temporal
pattern for contextualization, i.e., a figure / ground relationship. This two-fold
association provides structure identification for situations in discourse. It allows

66
recognizing and categorizing the inherent (lexical) aspect of situations provided
by verbs, for example.
Unlike space--where entities are identified and classified through
perception--time would be an evasive dimension if there would not exist some
kind of conceptual structure that supported classification, composition, and focal
presentation of temporal entities. Therefore, an interactive system of two planes
(linearity and cyclicity), which allows for foregrounding / backgrounding,
facilitates (i) classification of situations according to inherent (lexical) aspect, (ii)
aspectual composition of situations, as well as (iii) their viewpoint presentation in
discourse.
(i) Verb stems can denote different situation types with inherent aspect
(Aktionsart): states (‘know’), processes (‘learn’), events (‘arrive’), activities
(‘build’), achievements (‘achieve’), etc. They are perceived as bounded (events,
achievements, for example), or unbounded (states, activities, for example).
(ii) When speakers refer to spatial or temporal phenomena, boundaries
can be either suppressed from discrete entities or assigned to continuous entities
by means of compositionality. Spatial entities that belong to the class of
individuals (‘a fish’) can be composed as substance / mass in (6):

(6) She ate too much fish.

67
On the other hand, a substance ('coffee') is turned into an individual in (7):

(7) He ordered a coffee.

In addition, temporal entities can be reclassified with the purpose of
focusing on a part instead of the whole, or vice versa, or quantified in order to
present a group instead of an individual. In my view, this is possible because
second-order entities fit the schema provided by the cycle. This kind of temporal
structure provides the proper environment for temporal entities: one that
resembles their own structure. For example, 'to eat' classifies as an activity (a
part of a temporal cycle), which reaches its termination in 'to eat a strawberry' (a
whole, individual cycle). This particular situation can be transformed into a
different one that transcends the individual cycle: 'to eat strawberries (for hours)'
denotes an activity, which unfolds in linear time but includes a collection of
cycles as part of its structure. Another example could be a state, 'to be there',
which can be turned into a discrete entity when boundaries are assigned by
adding a simultaneous cyclic situation, as in 'to be there while eating a
strawberry.'
Thus, the combination of both temporal components, LT and CT, provide
a basic structure for identification and composition of situations. Each component
is characterized by a different kind of structure: linearity is continuous

68
(unbounded) while ciclycity is discrete (bounded), since each cycle constitutes a
discrete temporal unit. The combination of these two basic temporal structures
creates a more complex structure, in which both the segmentation of linearity
and the continuity of cyclicity are possible. In a relationship where linearity
functions as foreground and cyclicity as background (as in 'to be there eating a
strawberry') boundaries are projected on linear time / stative situations. If the
figure / ground relationship is reversed, i.e. cyclic time / dynamic situations
superimposed over linearity (as in 'to eat strawberries (for hours)’) the result is
an overall continuum with a cyclic substructure.
(iii) The kind of temporal structure described above also constitutes a
useful device for the presentation of situations from different aspectual
viewpoints.
Different ways of presenting situations are grammaticalized in human
languages through verbal morphemes: in Spanish for example, verbal marks for
perfective aspect (the Preterite Tense) and imperfective aspect (the Imperfect
Tense). Those morphemes encode standardized viewpoints, which can be
selected by speakers when they refer to situations. The choice is not completely
free: linguistic restrictions apply. In addition, speakers can resort to linguistically
more complex expressions to produce less ordinary viewpoints (Smith 1991).
In my view, all this is possible because a well-organized temporal
structure--in which linearity and cyclicity interact--is available to speakers for

69
orientation. In this kind of structure, two main aspectual perspectives can be
distinguished: one in which a situation is presented as cycle-internal, and
another in which the situation is perceived as cycle-external. Each of these two
perspectives deals with different 'aspects'. Cycle-internal aspects are, for
example, the inceptive, the durative, and the terminative, while the perfective,
the habitual, and the perfect are cycle-external aspects.

2.6.2. Spatial representations

In order to illustrate graphically both perspectives, i.e., cycle-internal and
cycle-external viewpoints, two kinds of spatial representations will be presented.
The first one is intended as a conceptualization of an individual cycle's
internal structure, as if it would be observed in a microscope. The second one
projects a macroscopic conceptualization of cyclic organization. Note that the
ratio between the two temporal components is not the same across
representations: in the micro-conceptualization, an individual temporal cycle
stands for a divisible entity, whose internal minimal unit (a single instant)
corresponds to a minimal unit (a single instant) of linear time. I.e., in this
representation a whole cycle can be segmented into smaller parts, because the
focus is on its internal structure.

70
Instead, in the macro-conceptualization cycles are treated as indivisible
entities, which are themselves minimal units equivalent to instants of linear time.
In this representation, cycles function as compact wholes, which, at the same
time, are parts of a larger entity. In spatial terms, cycles are points of linear
time.

2.6.2.1. Cycle-internal temporal structure

It is possible to represent the temporal structure of situations through
spatial metaphors. The first kind of conceptualization is analytic, and focuses on
the internal temporal structure of a cyclic situation. It represents a close-up of
the temporal cycle, conceived as a microstructure. Thus, a single situation is
seen as a complex entity, divisible in parts.
A dynamic situation represented in this way follows the pattern of a
temporal cycle, as in Figure 5:

71

The sinusoid represented with a line of dots suggests that a situation unfolds
following the pattern of a temporal cycle. It is also superimposed over a straight
line with an arrow on its right, which stands for a stretch of linear time. The
complete cycle can break down into minimal units, i.e., moments or instants
represented by dots, which correspond to points on the time line (LT). In this
way, dynamic situations are perceived as entities with internal complexity that
unfold in time.
All cycle-internal aspects--i.e., those that deal with the internal structure
of the cycle--are captured by this analytic representation. Each phase--the
beginning, the middle, and the end--constitutes the focus of a different aspect.

Figure 5: Micro-conceptualization of the relation between
linearity and cyclicity
LT

situat.
begins

situation
ends

72
The inceptive / ingressive and the terminative / completive refer respectively to
the beginning and ending instants of a situation. These ones correspond to the
beginning and ending points in the graphic representation, where the sinusoid
and the straight line intersect. Although either of these aspects refers solely to
an instant, the whole schema of the temporal cycle is needed to convey the idea
of ‘part’ vs. ‘whole’.
The durative refers to the middle section of the temporal cycle, which
excludes the beginning and ending points (or at least, the ending point). It
entails a relation between a stretch of the sinusoid (the ongoing situation), and a
stretch of lineal time. A durative situation is constantly in progress: although it is
part of a cycle, it never changes or reaches the end. Therefore, durative aspect
is represented by a section of the sinusoid that never intersects the straight line
(LT), as if both were parallel.
The durative is not the only aspect that refers to the mid section of the
cycle. The progressive is similar to the durative, but focuses on the straight line
(LT) instead of the sinusoid (CT). This one represents an on-going situation
perceived as static rather than dynamic. Comparatively, one could say that there
is an inversion of the relation foreground / background between the durative and
the progressive: the first one takes CT as foreground; the second one focuses on
LT.

73
2.6.2.2. Cycle-external temporal organization

In this conceptualization, cyclic situations are perceived as indivisible
entities. Although they do have internal structure (as shown in Figure 5), this is
disregarded from the perspective described here. This new representation is able
to capture the cycle's capability of recurrence along time. Situations--as cycles--
can occur more than once.
In a macro-conceptualization, a single situation is conceived as a minimal
unit, a whole with no internal structure. This indivisible entity occurs in an instant
of LT. In Figure 6, there is a straight line (= LT) made up of points (= instants).
The recurrence of a cyclic situation is represented here as points superimposed
over the time line. Each of these points stands for a synthetic representation of a
cycle.

Figure 6: Macro-conceptualization of the relation between time and situations

LT
••••••oooooo•o•o•o••••o••••o•••o••••ooo••••o•o••o•••oo••••••••••••
Recurrence of a situation along LT

[o =a situation=a cycle=an instant]

74
Cycle-external aspects are captured on Figure 6. The habitual / frequentative
refers to the cyclic recurrence of a situation. The semelfatic is opposed to the
former, since it indicates a unique occurrence of a situation. The perfective refers
to a specific situation as a whole (an instant in LT). The perfect is also included
among the aspects involved in the macro-conceptualization of the relation
between time and situations. A full explanation of the perfect aspect will be
presented in Chapter 3.

2.6.3. Cyclicity

To apply the notion of cyclicity to the explanation of aspectual phenomena
seems appropriate. Temporal cyclicity constitutes the basic pattern of dynamic
situations. There is a close relationship between situations and the temporal
cycle as a whole, its different phases, or its ability to recur.
The idea of cyclicity has been inspired by Bull (1971), who applied this
notion to explain a particular class of lexical aspect.

2.6.3.1. Bull's cyclic and noncyclic events

Bull (1971:44) makes a difference between cyclic and noncyclic events
(which corresponds, respectively, to desinent and permanent verbs, for Bello

75
1914; or non-stative and stative verbs, for Dowty 1979). According to Bull, 'when
something begins to revolve--for example, a top--it automatically and normally
reaches a point at which it completes one revolution. This single revolution has
all the attributes of the event girar ['to revolve']. It has a beginning, a middle,
and an end. Moreover, it cannot be said that the top has revolved until it has
passed through all three phases, until, in fact, one whole cycle is completed or,
in grammatical language, perfected ... This automatic termination is the
distinguishing attribute of a class of events which Andrés Bello called "desinent"
and which the physicist calls "cyclic." '
For Bull, the type of situation denoted by the verb dormir has no
connection with the notion of cycle: 'The fundamental difference between a
cyclic event and dormir is to be found in the fact that termination is not the
distinguishing attribute of dormir. All the attributes of dormir are observable at
the instant of its initiation, and if the event is prolonged it does not come to an
automatic termination. Actually, the termination of dormir is conceptualized as an
entirely different event, that is despertarse ('to wake up'). The factors that place
dormir in a separate class, that make it a noncyclic (indesinent) event are, then,
the fact that automatic termination is not a distinguishing attribute and the fact
that it can, theoretically, be prolonged indefinitely.'
In my view, Bull's approach of restricting the applicability of cyclicity to a
particular type of lexical aspect of verbs has the problem of presenting a partial

76
view of the issue. This limitation not only (implicitly) places the understanding of
lexical aspect apart from inflectional and sentential aspect, but also shadows the
fact that cyclic time is at the core of the whole notion of aspect.

2.7. Conclusions

This chapter presents arguments in favor of the idea that it is necessary
to have a more comprehensive understanding of all aspectual phenomena. Not
only situation-types may have been conceptualized upon the properties of real
situations, but also--in my view--the concepts of linear and cyclic time may have
been shaped upon the properties of linear and cyclic situation-types. All these
phenomena should be taken into consideration in any definition of aspect.

77
Chapter 3
The Changing Category of the Present Perfect in Spanish

3.1. Introduction

Alarcos Llorach (1991) states that the Spanish periphrasis with haber +
past participle has been through an evolution that can be summarized in four
stages:

(1) la tierra que me manda yo me la he ganada
13

(XIII Century; Libro de Alexandre)
(2) qué vale la gran osadía - de tantos honores que has adquirido?
(XV Century; Diego del Castillo)
(3) espantada me tienes con lo que has hablado
(end of XV Century; La Celestina)
(4) Al obispo, según después me ha dicho, le parecía muy grande, aunque
entonces no me lo dio a entender
(end of XVI Century; Santa Teresa de Ávila)

According to Alarcos Llorach (1991), the periphrasis expresses: in (1) a
present state as a result of a past situation; in (2) an iterative situation that leads

13
All the examples quoted in this chapter, with the exception of (11-12), were taken from
Alarcos Llorach (1991).

78
up to the present moment; in (3) a single situation produced in a recent past;
and in (4) a single situation produced in a distant past, but perceived as related
to the present moment.
The contexts where the Present Perfect has been allowed to occur over
the time played an important role in the semantic change undergone by the
form. Specifically, the reference to a distant or a close past; the type of situation
denoted--composed by several elements such as the verbal stem, the object
(according to specificity and number), and adverbial modifiers--and the
specificity or non specificity of the situation.
There are several factors to take into account in order to discuss the issue
of the PP meaning:
a. The PP is a relational category, which has two components: one (or
more) past situation(s), on the one hand, and a present state or a present time,
on the other. For this reason, the PP is more complex than the P category.
b. The key to approach an understanding of the changing meaning of the
PP is to be found in the process of inference. It is important to understand that
meaning is always relational. Any unit of meaning is attached to others in the
universe of discourse, and / or to the real universe, to be able to signify. Since
meaning is relational, and syntax contains only the basic rules to link particles of
meaning to each other, there is a great deal of inferential work to be done in
order to interpret a sequence of meaning units. The result is not the sum of its

79
parts, but a different product made up of relations produced at different levels of
abstraction. A single metaphor may be much more difficult to process than a
fragment of geographical description, because in the latter the meaning relations
are given mostly by the syntax, and the meaning gaps between words are
minimal. In the case of the metaphor, instead, much more inferential work is
needed: meaning gaps must be filled and relations established among words, at
a more abstract level. Consequently, the more abstract the level of inferential
work, the more vague or ambiguous the result.
The number of meaning units also makes a difference regarding the
degree of complexity of their interpretation. In Spanish, a P has only one word
containing one unit denoting ‘type of situation’, i.e., the lexical aspect of the
verbal stem, and one or more units for tense, aspect (i.e., viewpoint of
situation), person and number. Although there are several meanings in a simple
form of a verb--which implies several relations among those pieces of meaning,
and with others given in the context--it is apparent that a P is semantically
simpler than a PP, a compound form with two words, each of them with all the
units listed for the P.
c. Aspectual categories may evolve into tense categories (Fleischman
1982; Bybee 1985; Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994). The PP has proved to be
a changing category. The history of this form recorded in written documents in
Latin, in the Romance Languages in general, and in Spanish in particular (Harris

80
1982; Alarcos Llorach 1991) suggests that the PP has been prone to change
because the contexts of use have changed through time over the centuries.
d. (a,b) and (c) seem to be closely related as cause-effect, being (a.b) the
cause, and (c) the effect.
e. Verbal forms, like other categories, are used in certain contexts at a
certain time and place. However, at a different time in the history of a language,
or in different varieties of the same language, verbal forms can extend or change
the range of contexts in which they appear.
f. The context of use of a form is not opposed in meaning to the meaning
of that form. I.e., the form and its context are always compatible in meaning:
either both overlap or the context represents additional information.
14

g. Aspect is compositional: the aspect of the situation presented in a
sentence is not always obtained by a single lexeme (i.e., the verbal stem), but by
the addition of several units: specific or non specific nouns/pronouns functioning
as direct object, as well as the presence of aspectual and temporal adverbs.
h. The aspect of the situation presented in a sentence is combined with
the (aspectual) viewpoint of that situation, given by the verbal inflexion.
i. If aspect is understood as the internal structure of a situation (Comrie
1976), the PP represents a different kind of aspect.

14
Note that this is not necessarily true in poetic language.

81
j. Aspectual phenomena involve linear time / linear situations, and cyclic
time / cyclic situations.

3.2. Origin of the periphrasis in Classical Latin

It is useful to reviw Alarcos Llorach’s explanation about the origin and
evolution of the PP (Alarcos Llorach 1991). In Classical Latin habere was used
with adjectives with its full meaning: 'o bien indicaba ... un estado, una duración
presente (clausum habere = mantener cerrado) o bien la propiedad, la posesión
(emptum habere)' (p.36).
15
Habere is also found in constructions with and
adjetival past partiple. Thus, 'habere con el participio adjetivado indicará el
estado como resultado de la acción del verbo' (p.37). And Alarcos makes an
important observation:
16
'cuanto más ceda la significación independiente de
habere tanto más pesará el concepto de actividad existente en el participio y la
significación total de la expresión se acercará más y más a la del perfecto simple.
Pero, mientras habere conserva la significación independiente de "mantener",
"poseer", la construcción con participio no es un perfecto, sino un presente'
(p.37). Although he refers to the Latin verb habere, the remark also applies to
the Spanish verb haber, since the evolution of the periphrasis seems to be
parallel in both languages.

15
All page numbers in this chapter correspond to Alarcos LLorach (1991).
16
My analysis of the PP as a changing category lies--in part--on this observation.

82
3.3. Origin of the periphrasis in Spain: 1st. stage

The periphrasis almost disappeared between the I and the V centuries. In
Latin spoken in Spain, it was not very frequent, but when used, it had the same
meaning of the Classical Latin periphrasis in its first stage: 'indicando no una
acción pasada, sino un estado duradero o un resultado presente,' according to
Alarcos Llorach (p. 39). Haber still had its independent meaning of 'tener',
'poseer'. This is the status in the Cantar de Mio Cid (XII Century; Mester de
Juglaría), as shown in (5) below, although the periphrasis sometimes alternates
with the P with the same meaning, apparently for poetic or stylistic reasons:

(5) pagado vos he por todo aqueste año
(with the meaning of: 'what I've paid you equals the amount due for the
whole year).'

With the same resultative meaning, the periphrasis appears in the Libro de
Alexandre (XIII Century; Mester de Clerecía), as in (6-8):

(6) Veo que los agueros avedes olvidados.
(7) la tierra que me manda yo me la he ganada.
(8) Mucho me as bien fecho.

83
The past participle is still variable, agreeing with the object in gender and
number. According to Alarcos Llorach, this is another proof that the meaning of
the PP involves a resultative sense in the present.
While the periphrasis with haber was used to refer to a present state as a
result of a past situation, the P was the form used to refer to past situations. In
the Libro de Alexandre there are examples of the way in which the P was used in
the XIII Century: 'el perfecto simple sirve para cualquier acción pasada (incluso
en "presente ampliado")' (p. 40), as in (9-10):

(9) Semeja que viniemos aquí por trebejar.
(10) Siempre esperé este día.

The meaning that the periphrasis with haber had in Spanish in its first
stage has been lost in modern Spanish in relation to the PP. However, such a
meaning has been recovered by a new periphrasis with tener plus a variable
past participle, which agrees in gender and number with its object, as in (11-12):

(11) Ya tengo leídos varios libros para el examen.
(12) Finalmente, tengo la tesis terminada.

In examples (5-8;11-12), the two words of the periphrasis clearly have
independent meaning: this is marked syntactically by the agreement between

84
the past participle and its direct objet, and the allowed word order. It is possible
to split the periphrasis by the insertion of the objet or an adverbial modifier.
Each word of the PP has an independent meaning, and both must be related.
Let us see what is the temporal/aspectual meaning of each word of the
periphrasis, and which type of relationship can be established between them.
Haber (with the value of tener in the XII and XIII centuries) and tener (in
Modern Spanish) are two verbs typically stative, since ‘to possess’ classifies as a
state. In the periphrasis under study, these verbs appear in the Present
Indicative (he, tengo), a form marked for imperfective aspect. Thus, there are
three meanings in he or tengo:

stem: state (of possesion) = unbounded situation
inflexion: present moment (location) + imp aspect = unbounded

The lexical aspect of the stem is always under the scope of the inflexional aspect
(i.e., the viewpoint of the speaker). This situation is characterized as unbounded
(a state) at the Present moment.
On the other hand, the situation given by the past participle + object can
be analyzed as follows. (The numbers refer to the former examples).

(5’) pagar (bounded)
(6’) olvidar los agueros (itert = unbounded)

85
(7’) ganar la tierra (bounded)
(8’) fazer mucho bien (unbounded)
(11’) leer varios libros (itert = unbounded)
(12’) terminar la tesis (bounded)

All types of aspect are allowed for the situation given by the past participle.
However, what is most relevant is the classification according to bounded /
unbounded. In the past participle, the aspect of the situation is under the scope
of the aspect of the inflexion, which is marked for perfective (Pfv), i.e., bounded.

Pfv inflexion (Pfv situation) = Pfv / bounded
Pfv inflexion (Imp situation) = Terminat = bounded
Pfv inflexion (Iter situation)= Terminat = bounded

Notice that there is no specific temporal mark in a Past Participle. The situation
denoted by the Past Participle is interpreted as occurring in the past as a result
of its relationship with the situation denoted by haber / tener, a state located at
present.
Summarizing, there are two different situations in the original periphrasis.
They can be seen as two separate sets of meaning-units:

Set 1 (haber/tener): Pres + Imp sit. (unbounded)
Lexical meaning: possession
Set 2 (past partic. + other components): Pfv / Terminat sit. (bounded)

86
The temporal focus of the periphrasis is in set 1, i.e., where the only temporal
deictic available is placed. Thus, the PP in its origin was about a present
situation: a certain present state. The sets are chronologically ordered. One
occurs after the other. Set 2 occurs in the Past, and is related to set 1 (at
Present). Usually, what is being possessed are entities, but in the case of the
resultative PP, we are dealing with situations. Since it is not possible to own an
activity or an event, the closest meaning must be assigned: the possessor of a
certain present state (set 1) is in such a state after having accomplished
(="obtained") a particular situation (set 2). Set 2 assigns Past to the situation,
since it is Perfective (bounded); it must be completed before the present state
occurs in order to be "possessed" by the "possessor". The basic relationship that
holds at a more abstract level between the two sets is one of cause - effect, in
chronological order:

Figure 7: PP, first stage: a resultative marker.
Representation of type of relation between
Past Participle (+ other components) and haber / tener

cause -----------------------------------------------------> effect
| |
Set 2 Set 1
| |
(sit completed in the past) (present state)
|
TEMPORAL FOCUS

87
Figure 7 represents the type of relation between both sets of the periphrasis in
its first stage. Two words with independent meaning associated by inference
gives as a result a temporal, aspectual and causal relation presented from the
point of view of the effect, i.e., the present state. This representation intends to
illustrate what Alarcos means by 'resultativo', in reference to the PP.

3.4. The PP: 2nd. Stage

Alarcos Llorach (1991) reports that in the XIV Century the periphrasis
continued to be used with its original meaning across documents and literary
works. An example from El Conde Lucanor is shown in (13):

(13) Et don Illán dixol que él era deán et omne de grant guisa et que podría
llegar a grant estado, et los omnes que grant estado tienen, de que todo
lo suyo an librado a su voluntad, olvidan mucho aína lo que otre a fecho
por ellos.

However, a change in meaning has begun to develop, since examples have been
found, although infrequent, where 'la forma compuesta indica no el resultado
presente, sino la acción durativa o iterativa que llega al presente' (p. 42). Alarcos
illustrates with the following examples:

(14) A mi plaze de grado--de les fazer mercet, que mucho han pujado--oganno
las mis rentas (López de Ayala, Rimado)

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(15) E después de una noche, porque non fue bien guardado--fuyose de la
cadena, nunca rastro le han fallado (López de Ayala, Rimado)

During the same period. the P still appeared in the same context
presented in example (15), as (16) shows:

(16) En el mundo fallé--dos hombres, y no más;--y nunca alcançé--el tercero
jamás (Sem Tob)

During the XV Century the PP became more frequent. (17)-(20) are
examples of this period. The usual meaning of the form at that time was the one
that began to develop in the XIV Century:

(17) qué vale la gran osadía--de tantos honores que has adquirido? (Diego del
Castillo)
(18) los grandes señores que tú has criado...--do son que te dejan estar
olvidado? (Diego del Castillo)
(19) tal que ha hecho en el rebaño--con su hambre mayor daño...--que no el
más hambriento lobo--de cuantos has visto hogaño (Mingo Revulgo)
(20) que non es el ombre señor de tener una gallina, que aun non ha salido el
umbral, que luego es arrebatada. (Arcipreste de Talavera)

Alarcos characterizes this meaning as an iterative or durative situation that leads
up to the present moment.
Here, I present an explanation of how the PP changed from the first to
the second stage. Two factors, at least, must have been at work:

89
(i) Haber has undergone a process of bleaching, its meaning becoming
more abstract. It has lost its independent (lexical) meaning, becoming just a
mark of present tense and imperfective aspect. It is no longer a full word, but a
morpheme. Two pieces of evidence are the use of the periphrasis with
intransitive verbs (in Modern Spanish: *Tengo ido a la biblioteca); and the
appearance of a new verb, tener, with the old meaning of haber.
(ii) The contexts of use of the PP must have been aspectually restricted to
unbounded situations (durative and iterative). This is my own assumption, which
is based on the belief that it was a necessary condition for the semantic change
of the PP. Later in the discussion, I will come back to this point.
First, let us analyze the composition of the imperfective contexts in the
last four examples:

(17’) has adquirido tantos honores
(18’) tú has criado los grandes señores que…
(19’a) con su hambre ha hecho mayor daño en el rebaño
(19’b) de cuantos [lobos] has visto hogaño = hogaño has visto lobos
(20’) una gallina aun non ha salido el umbral

In (17’-18’) the iterative meaning is obtained through a plural, non-specific direct
object. Any transitive verb, disregarding its lexical aspect, completes its aspectual
cycle when it is combined with a singular direct object. If the direct object is
plural, the effect will be the multiplication of the cycle. The time span working as

90
background is possibly the whole life. (19’b) is similar, with the exception that
the time span is specified in the context: 'hogaño.' In (19’a), the situation 'hacer
(mayor) daño' implies one complete cycle; but, with the addition of 'en el
rebaño'--a modifier with a singular, collective noun--the cycle is multiplied by the
individual entities of the collective noun. Finally, in (20’) the situation 'una gallina
ha salido el umbral' (= one cycle) does not hold within the time span 'aún', i.e.:
‘not even once, out of the possible occurrences that could have existed up to
now.’
The previous analysis shows that the aspect of the situations is
imperfective / unbounded. Let's compare now the first and second stages to see
which units of meaning have remained or changed in the PP:

1st stage:
Set 1 (haber/tener), a state: Pres + Imp sit. (unbounded)
Lexical meaning: possession
Set 2 (past partic. + other components): Pfv / Terminat sit. (bounded)

2nd stage:
Set 1 (haber: Aux), linear time Pres + Imp
Set 2 (past partic. + other components): Durat / Iterat = Imp sit
(unbounded)
Non Specific situation

In the second stage, haber does not denote a situation as in the previous stage.
After the loss of its lexical meaning it became an auxiliary verb, i.e., a

91
morphological mark in a separate word in the periphrasis. Aspectually, it denotes
a linear time span, which functions as background for the interpretation of the
cyclic situation(s) denoted by the past participle and the other aspectual
components of the sentence. In addition, it has a reference point: the moment of
speaking.
With the new arrangement of meaning units, the PP has become a two-
layer category: the two sets, which were separated along the time line in the
first stage, are over-imposed through time in the second stage. In my view, this
transformation took place due to two reasons:
(a) The process of bleaching suffered by haber , which had existed as a
verb of possession--i.e., a state--and ended up as an auxiliary. In the second
stage, the auxiliary retains the meaning units of imperfectivity and present
location, and represents linear time: a span that starts somewhere in the past
and ends at the moment of speaking.
(b) The second reason that contributed to the change of meaning of the
PP was the use of the periphrasis in combination with durative or interative
(imperfective) situations. Apparently, this one was the preferred context of use
of the periphrasis during its second stage.
Thus, the meaning of the PP changed because there was a change in its
meaning units. This led to a rearrangement of relations among them. Both sets
of meaning units (i.e., the one of the auxiliary, and the one of the past participle

92
+ other aspectual components) have one feature in common: imperfective
aspect. In the second stage, there is a parallel association between the two
entities with this feature in common
A radical change has been produced in the relation between the two parts
of the periphrasis: from a "horizontal" relation, i.e., a relation of cause / effect
chronologically ordered, to a "vertical" relation between an iterative or durative
situation and a time span on linear time that contains the present moment. The
two sets are now overimposed, the temporal focus being placed on the
Iterat/Durat situation occurring along the time span. Figure 8 offers a
representation of the new stage:

Figure 8: PP, second stage: a retrospective marker.
Representation of type of relation between
Past Participle (+ other components) and haber

Imp situation (Iterat / Durat) |
|| || || || || || || || |
set 2: || || || || || || || || |
|| || || || || || || || |
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ |
-------------------------------------------------------
set 1: Time span (LT) containing Present moment |
|
<-------------- TEMPORAL FOCUS --------------->|
|
mom. of speaking

93
3.5. The PP: 3rd. stage

At the end of the XV Century, the PP began to develop a new meaning.
According to Alarcos Llorach (1991:42-43), 'la forma compuesta empieza a ser
usada para designar acciones no durativas, esto es, puntuales, ocurridas en el
"presente ampliado", junto a los demás casos semejantes a los anteriores, en
que aún la forma simple indica hechos ocurridos en el "presente ampliado" y la
forma compuesta indica las acciones durativas que llegan al presente.' The
following examples are from La Celestina:

(21) espantada me tienes con lo que has hablado
(22) la paga será tan fiera qual... el intento de tus palabras ha seído
(23) Oh bienaventuradas orejas mías, que indignamente tan gran palabra
havéis oído!

In (21) Celestina is frightened (at the moment of speaking) because of
something just said a moment before. Hablar had the meaning of decir in the XV
Century; it was a transitive verb: 'hablar palabras'. In this example, the context
is: 'has hablado lo'. 'Lo', the direct objet, is singular and specific. The situation is
bounded: it stands for a unique cycle.
(22) presents the following situation: 'el intento (=la intención) de tus
palabras ha sido fiero'. Although 'ser fiero' refers to a state, the intention ('el
intento') is associated with some words just spoken: a bounded situation.

94
In (23), 'oír tan gran palabra' is also a bounded situation (a single cycle),
because the direct objet closes the cycle.
(21-23) have one element in common: the temporal location of the
situation is very close to the moment of speaking. I.e., in all three examples, the
situation occurred in a past immediately before the present moment.
On the other hand, the type of context analyzed above was not reserved
exclusively for the PP during that period. (24-25) are also examples from La
Celestina with a P instead of a PP:

(24) que es especie de heregía lo que agora dixiste
(25) ¿qual dios te traxo por estos barrios no acostumbrados?

Examples (21-25) share the same type of context: a specific, bounded situation
(a single cycle) occurred recently, i.e., in a past very close to the moment of
speaking.
Regarding the third stage of the Spanish PP, it seems that a key role was
played by the new context of use of the form: the PP indicates a bounded,
specific situation (a single cycle), located in the past immediately before the
present moment.

95
Let us compare the status of the PP at its second and third stages:

2nd stage:
Set 1 (haber: Aux), linear time Pres + Imp
Set 2 (past partic. + other components): Durat / Iterat = Imp sit
(unbounded)
Non Specific situation

3rd stage:
Set 1 (haber: Aux), linear time Pres
Set 2 (past partic. + other components): Pfv / Terminat sit. (bounded)
Specific situation
Recent past

At its second stage, the PP indicates a situation that occurs along the time span,
coinciding with it in all or some points, or not even one point of all possible
occurrences. Instead, at the 3rd stage, the PP is associated with a bounded,
specific situation (a unique cycle), marked for location from a reference point,
i.e., the moment of speaking. The location of the situation is marked for recent
past.
In my view, at stage 3 both sets merge into one. The relations among the
semantic units of the periphrasis have been rearranged once more, resulting in
the fusion of the two sets. The PP has gone one step forward towards
abstraction and simplification. Possibly, there are two reasons for this new
change. One may be that the auxiliary lost its aspectual feature, remaining solely

96
a marker of present. It functions now as a reference point on linear time, not as
a time span. There is a new relation of closeness between the referent point of
the moment of speaking (marked by the auxiliary), and the specific, bounded
situation (marked by the past participle + other components). In the type of
contexts described for the third stage, the PP has turned into a tense marker.
The new category is represented as follows:

Figure 9: PP, third stage: a tense marker.
Representation of type of relation between
Past Participle (+ other components) and haber

location:
recent past
|
Unique set: *<……<……<……<……*
| |
| |
specific sit mom. of speaking
|
TEMPORAL FOCUS

3.6. The PP: 4th stage

During the XVI century, the use of the PP with its new meaning became
more common. However, the form is also used in different contexts with the old
meaning:

97
(26) éste es argumento en que Marcelo ha puesto su estudio y cuidado (Los
Nombres de Cristo)
(27) y ansí fui yo loado della hasta hoy día de los amos que yo he tenido (El
Lazarillo de Tormes)
(28) por experiencia he visto, dejando lo que en muchas partes he leído...
(Santa Teresa de Ávila)

The PP can also be found in its second stage in contexts of recentness:

(29) he comido estos días por allí fuera (El Lazarillo de Tormes)
(30) Perdóname, Señor, la multitud de defectos que he hecho en este santo
lugar (Fr. J. Sigüenza)

Alarcos Llorach reports that the P is reserved, in most cases, for contexts
that refer to past, perfective situations. Some examples can be found where the
situation occurs in a recent past:

(31) Dios te ha hecho merced en topar conmigo; alguna buena oración rezaste
hoy (El Lazarillo de Tormes)

Alarcos Llorach suggests that the PP began to go a step forward in its
evolution at the end of the XVI Century. According to Alarcos, the PP was then
also used to express 'una acción momentánea no inmediatamente anterior, pero
sentida en relación con el presente, es decir, producida en el “presente
ampliado” ' (p.46), as in (32):

98
(32) Al obispo, según después me ha dicho, le parecía muy grande, aunque
entonces no me lo dio a entender (Santa Teresa)

In my view, the 4
th
stage represents a new function of the PP, but not a
change of meaning. The representation of the PP shown in Figure 9 above
applies also to the new stage. The PP used at the 3
rd
stage implied an objective,
temporal relation between an specific past situation and the moment of
speaking. What is new at the 4
th
stage is that this relation can be also of a
subjective nature. Consequently, the PP may indicate not only a temporal
(objective) relation between the past situation and the present moment, but also
a spatial or empathic one (subjective).

3.7. Conclusions

In its origin, both words of the periphrasis had their independent
meaning. At the 1
st
stage they represent two different sets of meaning units,
which correspond to two different situations in a relation of cause-effect. At the
2
nd
stage, haber has lost its independent (lexical) meaning, becoming just a
mark of present tense and imperfective aspect. Haber became a marker of
linear time, in which an iterative or durative situation occurs. In the new
interpretation both sets are over-imposed. At the 3
rd
stage, the auxiliary looses
its aspectual feature, remaining solely as a tense marker. As a consequence,

99
both sets of meaning units merge into a unique one. The periphrasis becomes a
marker of recent past. From a resultative marker, the PP changed into a
retrospective marker, and finally, into a tense marker. The 4
th
stage does not
imply a change of meaning, but adds a new function for the PP. At this stage, it
is used when subjective considerations apply.
The temporal focus of the Present Perfect category has moved from a
present state, to the iterative / durative situation along linear time, and finally, to
the specific past situation. These changes have brought the PP very close in
meaning to the P.

100
Chapter 4
The PP in Rioplatense and Castilian Spanish:
Same form, Different Meaning

4.1. Introduction

It has been noticed that in some varieties of South America the PP is used
with less frequency than in Spain. In addition, the P is used even in contexts
where only the PP is allowed in the Peninsula (Lapesa 1980; Rojo 1974; RAE
1989). It has been also noticed that in those South American varieties an
appropriate use of the form is aspectually marked as durative or iterative (Harris
1982). Here, I will illustrate the usage of the PP with the following examples
uttered in La Plata, Argentina:

(l) Todavía no leí el libro que me prestaste.
(2) Juan llegó hace unos minutos.
(3) Cliente: Ud. no tiene levadura de cerveza X ¿no?
Vendedor: No. La he tenido, pero ahora no.

According to traditional descriptions such as those established by the Real
Academia Española (1989), (l) would present a context compatible with a PP

101
instead of a P: the referred reading has not taken place yet in the stretch of time
between the act of borrowing the book, and the moment of speaking, marked by
the adverb todavía. The context of (2) would also be compatible with a PP
instead of a P, because of the recentness of the act of arrival performed by Juan.
In (3), a PP is contextually acceptable; but this form--which is characteristically
used for situations that occur in the past but have present relevance--conveys
here an iterative / habitual meaning in a past disconnected from the moment of
utterance. According to Rioplatense speakers, a close paraphrase could be: ‘solía
/ sabía tenerla, pero ahora no’ (Hab / Iter) ['I used to have it, but not now'.] It is
interesting to note that, in Spanish, the Imp is the form traditionally associated
with the Hab / Iter aspect--including Rioplatense Spanish. The PP in (3) is an
instance of Comrie's experiential perfect or McCawley's existential,
17
which in fact
has an Imp component. Nevertheless, both forms differentiate. The Hab / Iter
represents a mid-cycle situation structurally divided into a non-specific number of
cycles (tenerla + an inference: la cannot refer literally to the same entity, but to
different lots of yeast that the seller bought, stored, and sold). In (3), the cycle
tenerla in the context of the span time given by the auxiliary, plus the inference
mentioned above, results in an Iter situation made up of a non-specific number
of cycles. The relation with the present moment is cancelled by the seller. The PP
in this context functions as a Habitual.

17
See Chapter 1.

102
4.2. The data

Data from different sources have been used in this study:
(i) Rioplatense:
a. A corpus of eighteen hours of informal conversation recorded by
Francisco Ocampo and myself in La Plata, Argentina, during July-August 1986,
and Septermber 1987. The total of speakers is 28. They were born and raised in
La Plata, and have always lived in this city. Their ages range from 26 to 79 years
old.
b. A set of transcriptions gathered under the title: El habla culta de la
ciudad de Buenos Aires. Materiales para su estudio (UNBA 1987), which includes
interviews of speakers who were born and raised, and lived in the city of Buenos
Aires.
(ii) Castilian of Madrid:
a. A corpus gathered in Madrid during May-June 1985 by myself and other
graduate students. These data were recorded for a U.S.C. sociolinguistic
seminar, taught in Madrid by Professor Silva-Corvalán.
b. Interviews recorded by myself in Los Angeles, California, during June-
July 1989 of speakers born and raised in Madrid.
c. Interviews recorded by myself in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during March-
July 1990 of speakers born and raised in Madrid.

103
d. El habla de la ciudad de Madrid. Materiales para su estudio (Esgueva
and Cantarero 1981).

4.3. The study

Two forms have been analized in both sets of data: the PP and the P. As
shown in Chapter 3, the PP has expanded its contextual use at the expense of
the P. Thus, it was important to determine the status of each form in both
varieties. The forms have been analized according to the contexts of occurrence.
These contexts are determined by the aspect of the situation, and the temporal
reference.
The data considered for the quantitative analysis were the set labelled (a)
for Rioplatense, and nine hours of transcriptions selected from (a - c) for
Madrileño. The total of speakers of this variety is 13, their ages ranging from 21
to 54 years old.

104
4.4. Rioplatense (RP)

4.4.1. The Preterite

In the RP data there are no occurrences of the PP in contexts of recent
past. In these contexts a P occurs, even if the moment of speaking is explicitly
expressed by means of an adverb. This is shown in the following examples.

(4)
M: ¿Ana compró de ese material así también?
[
A: sí: también sí sí. Sí
[ [
M: ahá Pero no la vio a ésta todavía
A: no:: y si: recién la acabo de saca:r mami, (...) ¿cómo la va a ver?
L: no, allá
[
M: no::: allá:
A: no: no: no cre:o no - si la compré aho:ra a-
[
M: la compraste ahora

In (4) there are two instances of the P modified by the adverb 'ahora', and one
in which the situation of 'ver' do not occur even once in a period that includes
the Present moment: 'todavia'. Instead, when a speaker wants to mark
specifically a situation as recent (immediately prior to the present moment)
utilizes the periphrasis: 'acabar de + Infinitive'.

105
(5-6) are similar cases where the P co-occurs with adverbs which refer to
an extended now: 'ahora' and 'ya':

(5)
F: puso un negocio y ahora, creo que se retiró ya.
(6)
C: ése es - esto esto para mí no (me ...) (2.4) en Buenos Aires hasta hace unos años,
pocos años, había (0.6) e esas casas de café de Brasil, donde usted - podía tomar filtro
o express. Ahora desapareció, el filtro.
F: ¿sí?
C: no, hay que tomar express porque todo el mundo quiere express. Entonces si a usted
le gusta filtro, váyase a otro planeta.

In (7), the family is taking lunch. Speaker A utters "ya terminé" one
instant after finishing her food:

(7)
A: no:, no:, es que no le gustó que se le - mancharas el mantel
[
F: che, estamos usando los platos ingleses
[ [
A: ya terminé pará un poco.
¨Dónde hay un - un papel absorbente, papel higiénico o cualquier cosa, por lo
menos.

In (8) and (9) the situation referred to by the P has happened within the
day of the utterance, which is expressed by the adverb 'hoy':

(8)
F: capaz que - e lo que - lo que pasa que el otro lo vimos ayer, éste lo vimos hoy

106
(9)
S: nosotros nos levantamos a las - nueve y media, hoy.

In examples (4-9) it has been shown the co-occurrence of a P and the
adverbs 'ahora', 'hoy', 'ya' and 'todavía', which include the present moment in its
reference. In examples (10-13), the P co-occurs with 'siempre' and 'nunca',
which refer to a time span that includes the whole existence up to the present
moment:

(10)
P: qué sé yo, algunos que tienen problemas de hí:gado, por ahí, el alcohol - lo tienen
igual.
F: claro
A: mh
F: ahí. Pero - cirrosis
[
P: yo nunca t:uve problemas así de:
A: no:, yo en cambio los vinos muy malos, no:, enseguida me hacen mal. Enseguida me
ha - me hacen mal
(11)
N: y yo siempre creí - siempre - y, creo que es así nomás (0.6) que ustedes dos querían
a su padre, que a mí no me querían. Y: - y que: Patricia, sí me querí a a mí. (1)
Patricia siempre estuvo conmigo y me quería a mí.
(12)
N: e p siempre fue celosa. Ahora más celosa que antes, parece.
(13)
P: vos, a éste, por ejemplo - a ella, si la reta otra persona que no seamos nosotros, se
enoja.
C: claro
N: y si yo nunca los reto (...)
[
P: y se enoja, y no y - (...) no:, no le gusta.
N: no los reté nunca. Nunca. A Leo (...)
[
P: ni yo los puedo retar porque me pegan.
[risas]

107
Notice that in examples (4-13) the P is used for recent past as it was used
in Old Spanish. Compare these examples with (21 - 22) of Chapter 3, section
3.5., which correspond to the end of the XV Century, when they were still
common; and also with (28) in the same Chapter, section 3.6., of the XVI
Century, when both the P and the PP were already used in contexts of
recentness.
When used in combination with absolute past reference, or a past that
ends at the moment of speaking,'siempre' and 'nunca' are aspectually
ambivalent: they refer both to a span and to a whole period of time. As a span,
'siempre' and 'nunca' can be decomposed into instances. In this case, a PP in its
second stage of meaning fits the context. But it is also possible to conceive the
meaning of these two adverbs as a compact and undivisible whole, because they
refer to the whole existence, or to a whole period. With this meaning, a P results
appropriate in the context, since it refers to a whole cycle.
However, if a PP is allowed in RP in any of the contexts given in (4-13), it
will be precisely in those containing the adverbs 'siempre' and 'nunca', because
they refer to the time span contained in the meaning of the PP. In fact, a few
instances were found in the RP data, as shown in (14):

(14)
C: ese tipo de cosas yo creo que: - son las que uno trataría de aprovechar más.
Compartir cosas con amigos. Yo d - siempre he sido: muy - amiguista. Siempre he
sido m - de compartir mucho tiempo con amigos.=

108
Let us turn now to cases where the P is used in contexts containing the
words 'vez' or 'veces'. This is important because these words refer to one ore
more instances where a situation occurred--i.e., a cycle occurred--out of many
possible instances in which the same situation could have occurred. This relation
represents the one included in the meaning of the PP.
Examples of a P in a context containing 'vez'/'veces' refer to sing
(spec/non spec) or pl/spec instances where the situation occurred, as in (15-17):

(15)
M: pero, bueno, pero si uno encuentra com vos - le llevaste la billetera aquella vez a la
manager me - que de nueva - la anterior manager ¿te acordás que le fuimos a
comprar la billeterita allá que: que era tan linda?
(16)
L: -qué trabajo para preparate todo eso (...)
[
M: a::h pobreci:ta. Pero yo no te decía (0.2) te
decí a traé unas cositas de esas que trajiste la vez pasada pero no ta:nto, nena
(17)
A: K-Mart the savings place es e: (0.6) ah - ah y le tenemos que cantar la canción de K-
Mart [risueña]
F: ah: sí bueno pues - he he he
L: en televisión?
L: ¿es el jingle?
A: no, es un jingle que hicimos nosotros una vez que estábamos aburridos en un auto y
veníamos del Ca - de San Francisco (0.8) estábamos medio dormidos entonces
empenzamos a inventar un: jingle (0.4) de esta ca:sa, que es una casa de cosas
bara:tas

Also a P can be found referring to plur/spec instances, as in (18), or sing/non
spec, as in (19):

109
(18)
P: no pero - sabés que ustedes - hay un problema. Ustedes do:s
[
N: no es que no me dejaron
[
P: son muy solicita:dos, acá en toda la
familia.
A: he he he
[
P: (pero t) - hay una competencia, medio como por ustedes. Como nosotros los
trajimos acá, parece que de allá
[
N: sí. Patricia, tiene una competencia, que los quiere acaparar a
[riéndose] ustedes [riéndose] Patricia los quiere acaparar.
[
A: qué ridículo. Porque allá ya fuimos tres
ve: - allá ya fuimos tres veces.
(19)
S: No era para cambiar. El equipo yo lo – había comprado (0.6) y lo había cambiado. Lo
que pasa que él necesitaba un equipo (0.8) y allí donde lo: había ido
[
G: (...) quitame (esto)
S: a cambiar no tenían cambio no tenían la otra prenda (0.4) para darme el número que
le correspondía y me devolvieron
[
A: mhm
S: el dinero. Fui un montón de veces
P: ¿Sí?
A: no
S: entonces hoy fuimos hasta Mateu
A: ¿Y te lo compraste o no?

Also, it is possible to find a P in contexts which refer to plur/non spec instances--
although these are also appropriate for the PP, as it will be seen later in this
chapter. This is shown in (20 - 21):

110
(20)
C: dos o tres su:stos, tuvo::
F: ah, el corazón?
C: sí pero, no eran infa:rtos, eran pequeños avi:sos
(21)
C: las sí. Claro que había tipos como Frontera. ¿Se acuerda Frontera?
F: ¿se acuerda Fron - después me estaba acordando de Frontera
[
C: yo lo vi varias veces a Frontera.

4.4.2. The periphrasis tener + past partiple

In RP the periphrasis 'tener + past participle' is used with the original
meaning of the PP in Old Spanish, i.e., the first stage of the PP.
18
The past part.
agrees in gender and number with the object. Let us see examples (22-23):

(22)
P: el carnice:ro=
F: =¿qué?=
P: =yo lo tengo - lo tengo hablado, al carnicero.
F: ¿qué carne es ésa?
P: yo lo - ya acá a todos los comerciantess, es decir, voy y le ha:blo, con el tipo. (...)
conozco ya el negocio de la ca:rne, le hablo, che qué tal (...)
[
S: bueno, el asunto está, nomás

18
See Chapter 3, Section 3.

111
(23)
S: a:h, a la verdulera la tiene: conquistada, Polo.
[
F: ¿sí?
P: le hablo todo (...)
[
F: che, ¿qué le hacés, a la verdulera?
S: la verdule:ra:
P: ah, le hablo
[
S: la tiene lo:ca

4.4.3. The Present Perfect

It was expected that the most frequent use of the PP in RP would be in
contexts of iterative situations, referring to multiple, non spec. cycles. Indeed,
that has been the case. It is apparent that the Rioplatense PP is still at its second
stage of development.
19

There have been found examples of a P co-occurring with Iter situations.
However, the data show that this kind of combination is not frequent. The Iter
use of the PP is shown in examples (24 -27):

(24)
J: Yo lo he hecho lavar [el auto] varias veces en Buenos Aires, en las lavadoras
automáticas.
(25)
M: A veces uno ha hecho caramelo y ha volcado el arroz, así.

19
See Chapter 3, Section

112
(26)
I: Al enseñar me he dado cuenta de muchas cosas.
(27)
M: se dormía y él, bajaba, (0.3) bajaba, agarraba cosas y robaba. (1.35) Y robaba.
[
L: y él aprovechaba
M: Y así la - se han encontrado en la pieza no sé con cuántos estuches de alhajas que
ha robado y que ha vendido

In (24) the cycle 'lavar el auto' is repeated 'varias veces'; in (25) 'hacer caramelo'
and 'volcar el arroz' are situations that have occurred 'a veces'; in (26), within
the temporal frame 'al enseñar', the situation 'darse cuenta de (algo)' repeats
because of the plur/non spec object 'muchas cosas'; in (27) 'encontrar' refers to
a single instance. However, it gets multiplied because what is found is a lot of
boxes, which used to contain the stolen jewels. The use of the PP for 'robar' and
'vender' is triggered by the plur/non spec object 'alhajas', but also, the PP implies
the repetition of 'robar' and 'vender', announced before: 'robaba... y robaba'.
(28) is an interesting example where a P co-occurs with single, individual
situations, while a PP is coherent with the multiple-cycle situation of the last
clause:

(28)
L: Aunque cada cocinera tomó su [propio] modo de trabajar, todas han tomado algo de
Petrona.

113
A similar example is (29):

(29)
M: Cuando vos te has ido y yo me he quedado, siempre hubo llamadas raras.

Here, the situations referred to by the PP are ‘all and every instance of irse and
quedarse.’ This meaning is conveyed by 'cuando', which in this context means
'whenever'; instead, the situation 'haber llamadas raras', occur with 'siempre'. It
seems that Rioplatense speakers perceive situations framed within the period of
time conveyed by 'siempre' and 'nunca' as an indivisible whole. With these
adverbs, a P is much more frequent than a PP. P + nunca/siempre has been
found in 63 occurrences; instead, PP + nunca/siempre: only 9 occurrences.
The PP in RP is not necessarily utilized for iterative situations. The next
favorite context is the type of Imp situation existentially quantified for 'at least
once, out of all possible occurrences', as shown in (30):

(30)
L: En alguna película hemos visto las calles florecidas.
[Dice esto mientras mira una postal de San Francisco]

In (31-32) the PP refers to 'not even once, out of all possible occurrences', which
is the context next favored by the PP:

114
(31)
L: No lo he visto a Vittorio Gassman, que está en Buenos Aires, no lo he visto en ningún
noticiero.
(32)
Am: Ni la cama hemos hecho.

In RP, examples of Dur PP can also be found. These are examples of
Universal PP. In (33-34) a single situation hold through a time span up to the
present moment:

(33)
P: ¡Este verano ha hecho un calor!
(34)
A: ¿La gente sigue hasta tarde en Buenos Aires? ¿como siempre, o no? ¿o ya no?
S: Un poco menos, ¿sabés por qué? Bueno, primero que no hay guita. Y, este, apagan
las - - por ejemplo las luces de los negocios mucho más temprano-
F: ah, para no pagar
S: este, está mucho más subdesarrollado que antes, este, las patotas, bueno, ahora no
sé si leyeron en el diario, pero es terrible. Es terrible cómo se ha degradado.

Notice that, in (34), the situation 'degradarse' may (or may not) continue
to hold in the real world beyond the present moment. However, when a speaker
utters a PP this is disregarded:s/ he only takes into consideration the situation on
a span that ends at the moment of speaking.
In the data, cases of the Universal PP denote either a state or a process.
'Tener', 'ser', 'hacer' are favored in this context.

115
States:
-han tenido mano floja
-lo han tenido con psiquiatra
-yo he hecho una vida arreglada
-siempre ha sido lo primordial
-siempre he sido muy amiguista
-han seguido más apegados a su tradición
-se han conservado igualitos

Processes:
-a través de muchos años nos han llevado a eso
-ha sido un proceso bastante complejo
-acá han subido enormemente los precios
-ella la ha acostumbrado
-no se han transculturalizado

4.4.3.1. The Universal/Experiential PP

All examples presented of RP are instances of a PP with the meaning that
the periphrasis had in Peninsular Spanish in the XV century. It corresponds to the
second stage of its evolution. A graphic representation of this meaning was given
in Chapter 3. This meaning covers the types of PP called by Comrie ‘Experiential
PP’ and ‘PP of persistent situation’, or McCawley's ‘Existential’ and ‘Universal’,
respectively. Either a situation holds during all points of the time span, or maybe
many, several, a few, at least one, or not even one out of all possible points.
What makes the difference is the type of quantifier that is assigned: a universal
quantifier for Dur situations, or an existential quanatifier for the rest. It is
important to note that, in any case, the number of points of coincidence is non-

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specific. This is different from the type of situation referred to by the P, which is
specific.There is a correlation between perfectivy and specificity on the one
hand, and imperfectivity and non-specificity on the other.

4.4.3.2. An explanation of example (3)

The Rioplatense PP do not convey the same aspect as the periphrasis
'soler + Inf', which marks habituality. Turning back to example (3), if the PP is
replaced by the periphrasis with 'soler', the ending point of the Hab sit is not
entailed; what is marked is the continuous habit in the past. Instead, the PP
marks that the occurrences held in the past, up to/before Present, and that the
relation between situation and temporal span reference do not hold beyond the
moment of speaking.
The difference between (A) 'he tenido levadura X' and (B) 'sol¡a tener
levadura X' are explained through the following steps:

(A):
(a) tener = mid-cycle situation (a state)
(b) tener levadura X = the object completes the cycle
(c) 'tener levadura X' in relation to span 'he' (or: within its temporal frame: 'from
past up to present') = the individual cycle 'tener lev. X' (Semelfatic aspect)
gets multiplied (X times) turning into an Iterative situation.
(d) 'tenido lev. X' in relation to 'he'= Pfv Past Pple ('tener lev. X' x 'n-times') =
Pfv (Iter) = Pfv (Imp) = Terminative

117
(B):
(a) and (b) same as in (A)
(c) 'tener levadura X' in relation to aspectual frame 'soler' (= habitually) = the
individual cycle 'tener lev. X' (Semelfatic aspect) gets multiplied (X most
instances) turning into an Iter/Habitual situation.
(d) 'sol¡a tener lev. X' = Imp inflexion ('tener lev. X' x 'most instances') = Imp
(Iter/Hab) = Imp

The basic difference between (A) and (B) is the one between a Ter situation (a
subclass of Pfv; a complete cycle type) and an Imp situation. The use of the PP
by the seller in (3) represents, in my view, a metaphoric extension, because the
present status of the situation is cancelled. It is a way of presenting a repeated
situation, Perfective at Present, i.e. a situation whose repetition was a habit, but
which is now Terminated. A few instances of this use of the PP have been found
in the data.

4.4.3.3. Modal use of the PP

An interesting use of the PP among Rioplatense speakers is in contexts
that convey epistemic modality:
(39)
P: Tenés razón, seguro que ha pasado eso.
(40)
L: Estaba peleando con el marido y no ha visto lo que la perra hacía.
[The speaker is supposing what happened, because she was not there].

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(41)
P: Y [el niño] dijo "yo le juego al diez", eso porque ha escuchado el otro día [=ha
escuchado la frase dicha por los mayores].
[The speaker is the mother of the small child who had uttered that phrase,
appropriate for grown-up people. She is guessing why the child said so].
(42)
AM: Me parece que las he visto [las manzanas] a mil pesos una docena.
(43)
J: Capaz que no han vuelto a la casa.

(39-43) are examples of epistemic modality in the past, which represent low
hypotheticity. (I.e., they are ranking high in a scale having factuality at the top).
In my view, epistemic contexts fit the meaning of the Rioplatense PP, because it
represents 'many/at least one instance(s) of occurrance'. In the case of 'at least
one instance', it is implied 'out of many instances/possibilities'. Epistemic
modality deals with possibilities of occurrence. Combining the PP meaning and a
single (hipothetical) situation with an epistemic marker of supposition conveys an
inference. This is usually a resource for speakers who want to refer to past
situations that they have not witnessed. In this sense, it is also an evidential
marker.
Notice that, while in (39) 'seguro que',in (42) 'me parece que', and in (43)
'capaz que' the modality is explicit, in (40-41) there is no linguistic mark, but
rather, the epistemic reading is obtained by changing the pitch. Other modal
contexts found with the PP are: 'creo que', 'a lo mejor' and 'no sé si'.

119
4.4.3.4. Exclamative use of the PP

An expressive use of the PP have been obeserved in the Rioplatense data:
when speakers want to highlight a specific, Perfective past situation, instead of a
P they use a PP in combination with a change of pitch. The pragmatic meaning
inferred is that the utterance must be interpreted as an evaluative comment
towards the situation. The comment is usually one of admiration, wonder or
surprise. It is my assumption that the Iterative/Durative meaning of the PP
translates as ‘intensity’ when it is combined with a specific, Perfective, factual
situation. The change of pitch signals it as non-ordinary.
The following are two examples of the pragmatic function described
above:

(44)
AM: ¡Te ha vendido un lomo como en los mejores tiempos!

Here, the speaker has begun eating. After trying the meat, she makes the
comment to her sister, who had bought the meat the day before.(The implicit
agent of vender is the butcher).

(45)
N: ah ¿por él? Por él va a tener [dinero], sí, porque él es capaz de hacer- de hacer valer
la casa, eh viste cómo- -¡¿cómo ha hecho eso sin plata?! Nadie lo ayudó a él. Lo hizo
con la plata que él va juntando - e - que él va recibiendo.

120
In (45) speaker N. comments about the financial ability of her son-in-law. The
referent of eso in 'ha hecho eso' and lo in 'lo hizo' is the remodeling of his house
-which, although not linguistically explicit, is part of the shared knowledge of the
participants in the speech act. Notice that the PP is expressively used in 'cómo ha
hecho eso sin plata' because what astonishes or surprises N. is precisely that
fact, i.e. to remodel a house without money. Instead, when she reports without
evaluating, a P is used in reference to the same situation.

4.4.3.5. The 'Other' PP

There are some examples of the PP in Pfv contexts that could not be
categorized. I grouped them under the label 'Other'. They could be explained as
having a resultative meaning -as in (46); however, this does not seem conclusive
in either of these examples.
Examples (46) and (47) were included in this category:

(46)
M: que nos vamos mañana, que nos vamos pasado, que nos vamos dentro de de dos
días e:ste le dije, nos vamos a ir al supermercado. No:: dice, para qué vamos a ir al
supermerca:do si de todos modos - nos vamos. Viste como si: n:os fuésemos () a La
Quiaca y no: este regresáramos nunca más!
A: claro [se ríe]
M: una cosa así es
A: [se ríe]
Q: [se aclara la garganta] (1.4) Han abierto aquí en:: la zona norte de:: () de Buenos
Aires ahí por donde está la Ford
F: mh

121
Q: sobre:: () sobre Ruta Panamericana
F: sí s¡í
(0.8)
Q: hace unos años un::: supermercado () al: estilo de los
[
M: hará dos años () Carfur
Q: americanos. Es
F: ah sí?
Q: eno:rme tiene tres o cuatro manzanas. () Y es un supermercado que: - este:: incluso
desde acá, desde La Plata, vale la pena ir () y proveerse para todo un me:s dos
me:ses o:: todo lo que puedas traer
(47)
Q: y incluso: el el surtido, la variedad, porque hubo una época que vend¡an hasta autos.
A: ¨autos?
[
F: [se ríe)
A: -a eso no han llegado!
Q: =a:utos, la:nchas
A: m?
M: vos sabés que Quique siempre dice
[
Q: neumá:ticos, repuesto::s - para automoto:res
F: mh?
M: yo eso: e no lo sabía - realmente. Quique siempre me hace ese comentario je
[
Q: tiene de todo
M: [riéndose] y yo siempre le digo lo mismo, yo de eso no me enteré nunca. () No sé si
estamos hablando del mismo, Quique, porque a lo mejor - hay otro que se
especiali:za en e:so pero: () cuando yo fui al menos no lo he visto.

4.4.4. The contrast P - PP in Rioplatense

The Rioplatense PP contrasts with the P aspectually, not temporally. An
Iter or Dur situation that occurs in the Past and ends prior/immediately prior to
the moment of speaking can be referred to by either form.

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In my view, this is a choice that speakers have to refer to multiple-cycle
past situations. It represents a kind of aspectual choice related to the one Smith
(1983) explains for the Progressive.
In Rioplatense, a speaker can refer to a Terminative situation from two
different perspectives, or points of view: from the "outside" of the situation,
disregarding its internal structure, or from its "inside", including information
about the internal structure. In the first case, the speakers use a P; for the
second case, a PP is available. The following example presents this choice:

(48)
I: Yo me sicoanalicé y estoy de vuelta del sicoanálisis. Yo hago una sicoterapia - me he
sicoanalizado muchos años con sicoanalistas de primerísima categoría.

4.4.5. Rioplatense PP: frequences of use

Aspect of
situation
Unbounded
(Imp)
Bounded
(Pfv)
Total
tokens 244 23 267
% 91% 9%
Recent
past
Distant
past
tokens 4 19
% over total 1.5% 7.5%
Table 3: Distribution of PP according to aspect of situation

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Pfv sit Epist Exclam Other Total
tokens 3 12 8 23
percent 13% 52% 35% 100%
Table 4: Distribution of PP combined with Pfv / spec contexts

tokens % over Imp occurrences
244 tokens
% over all PP occurrences
267 tokens Total Imp 244
Universal 26 11% 9.5%
Existential 218 89% 81.5%
Table 5: Distribution of PP combined with Imp / non-spec contexts

tokens % over Exist occurrences
218 tokens
% over PP occurrences
267 tokens Total Exist 216
Many instances 68 31% 25.5%
Some instances 8 3.5% 3%
Once 8 35 2.5%
At least once 54 25% 20%
Not even once 43 20% 16%
Habitual 8 3.5% 3%
Habitual past 5 2.5% 2%
Epistemic 17 7.5% 6%
Exclamat 9 4% 3.5%
Table 6: Distribution of Existential PP

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4.5. Madrileño

4.5.1. The P

The data analyzed confirms the status of the P described by Alarcos. This
form is used for complete-cycle situations that occur in a distant past. However,
a few occurrences of P in contexts of recentness have been found. In example
(49), speaker L. refers to the situation 'yo dije "Alicia" nada más' by means of a
P. Such situation has occurred immediately before the utterance, as it can be
seen:
(49)
L: [Cuelga el teléfono y explica el motivo de la llamada.] Quer¡a preguntar- quer¡a
hablar con él porque han hecho un- un libro juntos [A: mhm] entonces ahora Tony
tiene la introducción - ya - preparada [A: hum] y Oscar supuestamente la tiene que
revisar, corregir, etcétera. Y no sé- [A: hum] dónde está.
A: Bueno le dijiste que- ni se- debe haber- dado cuenta quién era yo, no se puede haber
imaginado probablemente. (...) Ocampo es el apellido.
L: Claro, yo no- yo dije "Alicia" nada m s [A: s¡, s¡, s¡, (...)] [Se ríen] No, pero, le ha
parecido muy normal [A: ¨Ah, s¡? Bueno (...)] S¡ - o sea que yo creo que s¡ que sabe
quién eres [A: A::h, capaz que s¡ (...)] Claro- s¡, s¡, le ha parecido supernormal,
vamos, que "yo estoy aqu¡ con Alicia que est haciendo un estudio" [A: he, he, he] y
le he explicado todo [Se r¡en] y, -se ha quedado tan conforme!

4.5.2. The PP

The frequence of occurrence of the PP is considerably higher in Madrileño
than in Rioplatense. This is due to the fact that the range of contexts of use have

125
widen in the former variety. The PP is currently used with either of the meanings
assigned for the form in its three historical stages--discussed in Chapter 3. This
distribution is shown in Table 7:

stage 2 3 4 total
tokens 193 136 152 481
percent 40% 28% 32% 100%
Table 7: Distribution of Madrileño PP according to historical stages

According to Table 7, the least frequent use of the PP is as recent past -
which corresponds to the new meaning at stage 2. However, in my view, this
information only represents the outcome of this set of data in particular, and it
should not be taken as necessarily true for the whole variety. The reason for this
assumption is because the possibility of occurrence of the PP in different types of
contexts is controlled by discourse needs at a different pragmatic level. When a
speaker talks about events happened during the morning, the PP of recent past
occurs very frequently. Instead, if the speaker chooses not to talk about recent
events -even if asked by the interviewer- there will be no adequate context for
the PP of recentness.
The most important conclusion after Table 7 is that in Madrileño the PP
cooccurrs frequently with all three contexts listed as follows:

(i) stage 2: Imp (Dur/Iter), non-spec situation

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(ii) stage 3: Pfv, spec, recent situation
(iii) stage 4: Pfv, spec, non-recent situation + present relevance (temporal,
spatial or emphatic)

(50 - 56) illustrate (i):

(50)
M: S¡, s¡ en - no en el, no, nac¡ en O'Donnell, cerca del barrio de Salamanca, o sea en
maternidad. Y luego toda, toda la vida he vivido aqu¡ en Quevedo.
(51)
R: yo tengo dos hijos y no, siempre he dicho: prefiero llevar a dos calzaos - que a cuatro
con zapatillas.
(52)
R: El sábado suele hacerse siempre paella ... aquí en el colegio se ha hecho los sábados.
(53)
J: Y me ha pasado muchas veces, al citar un trabajo
(54)
Ag: tengo muy buenos amigos allí, que han estado aquí.
(55)
J: Últimamente, hace al menos diez años que no he vuelto por allí
(56)
C: Yo sigo saliendo por Madrid- y a mí no me ha pasao absolutamente nunca- nada. Y
nadie se ha metido conmigo, ni nadie me ha dado un: - atraco, ni nadie me ha
robado ni nada. Yo no he notado - absolutamente nada. Aunque dicen que no, que
en ese sentido Madrid ha cambiado mucho.

In (50) the same state holds during the entire life up to Present; (51) presents
an Iter/Hab situation: the repetition of the cycle 'decir X" occurs along the
temporal frame 'siempre'; in (52) there is another Hab made up of a cycle
('hacerse paella') repeated 'los sábados'. Notice that in this example, the first
statement refers to a universal present, while the second measures the

127
occurrence of the habit up to the moment of speaking, disregarding the status of
the situation after Present. (53) is a case of an Iter Existential PP, while in (54)
the situation holds 'at least once', since there are no specific reference to number
of occurrences. (55 - 56) are examples of situations that hold 'not even once',
with the last statement in (56): 'Madrid ha cambiado mucho', where the change
represents a process and the accomplishment of the process. It classifies as a
Universal PP.
The context listed as (ii) above is exemplified in (57- 58), as follows:

(57)
R: ¿Hoy habéis comido - mm - melón con jamón?
(58)
M: tengo cantidades de libros - lo que pasa es que están todos, todos guardados porque
yo me he - me he separado hace relativamente poco.

While in (57) the situation 'comer X' refers to a specific, Pfv cycle within the
temporal frame of 'hoy', in (58) the unique cycle 'separarse' occurs in a past, not
as recent as 'hoy', but still perceived as recent by the speaker: 'hace
relativamente poco'.
The most interesting use of the PP that the data show is when speakers
tell a narrative about events occurred earlier, the same day of the narration.
Although the PP results appropriate for the time reference, in this case it is
performing a function reserved for the P. This use of the PP has an interesting
implication, i.e. that the PP advanced one step more at the cost of the P. It has

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spread to replace the P in its prototypical use. In the context of a narrative, a
tense with the features 'Past' and 'Pfv'is needed, to present the situations as
successive cycles. The dynamism is kept by referring to one cycle after another,
linking the ending point of a situation with the beginning point of the next one.
In my opinion, this new function of the PP shows that both forms are much
closer in meaning. In a narrative, the contrast between the P and the PP could
be defined as a temporal one.
This is also true when a PP cooccurrs with 'cuando', as in: 'cuando he
llegado' (which is included in ex. 59). Here, no relational meaning (between a
situation and a time span) is retained in the reference of the PP. The only
reference is to a situation completed before Present, which is very similar to the
meaning of the P (Pfv and Past).
(59 - 60) are examples of a PP of Recent Past in the context of a
narrative:
(59)
L: Yo corrijo el español. Intento que el español salga con pocas erratas, ... y que los
libros salgan - medianamente bien, de:- corrijo la:- el estilo y la tipografía. [A: mhm]
Y ése es mi trabajo.
A: E:m, entonces es un trabajo que no todos los días ts - hay la misma cantidad de
trabajo?
L: No. ¡Ese es el problema! [se ríen] Por ejemplo hoy ha sido un día especial,
especialmente raro porque:- bueno, yo, ayer, hablé con mi jefe y mi jefe me dijo - yo
tengo un jefe en Ediciones y otro je - y una jefa, que es norteamericana, en
Producción, entonces, entre ellos dos pues no se llevan muy bien. La cosa es que yo
estoy en el medio. Y:::-
A: ¡Qué desagradable!
L: Sí, muy muy desagradable. Luego tengo una compañera que es- argentina como tú,
en la parte de Comercial, y ella como que es un poco m s razonable que mi jefe
porque mi jefe hay d¡as que tiene::- la vena: - los nervios así un poco - cambiados y

129
tal. Y: bueno, la cosa es que hay - hay - movidas - [A: mhm] e - "movida" es -
¨entiendes "movidas"? [A: s¡, s¡] Bueno, he, he, hay movidas un día s¡ y otro no. Y
hoy - me ha tocado a mí. Nunca - la verdad es que hasta ahora nunca - me hab¡a
tocado a m¡, pero hoy precisamente me ha tocado a mí, entonces, mi jefa, cuando
esta mañana, ha llegado a la oficina, y ha visto que yo no estaba allí, o sea, le ha
dao, un ataque de nervios - por lo visto. Ha empezao a decir que qué pasaba, que
dónde estaba Lola, que si- que Lola tenía que estar all¡ hasta el último día porque -
Esta agencia trabaja con - con contratos, entonces, cuando ellos tienen trabajo nos
dan trabajo a nosotros, [A: mhm] cuando - dejan de tener trabajo, nos dicen que nos
vayamos a casa. [A:mhm] Entonces- hay muy poco trabajo ya, pero -
A: Una pregunta, ¿les pagan por hora?
[En este momento la narrativa queda interrumpida por otros temas que surgen en la
conversación. Sin embargo, más adelante L. la retoma, cuando A. pregunta por lo
ocurrido esa mañana.]
A: Y:: - y a todo esto no me terminaste de contar- lo que pasó esta mañana.
L: Ah, e - es verdad, vamos a - volvemos al principio, he, he, he [Se ríen] Bueno,
entonces, el problema - es quem: - que mi jefa es norteamericana y mi jefe es- es
argentino, y no - no - no hablan entre ellos, entonces - ayer, el jefe dijo- que no:: -
que hoy no viniéramos, que hoy no fuésemos a trabajar - somos - cuatro
compañeros - porque no iba a haber trabajo. Y resulta que esta mañana la gente de
Montaje - ten¡a unas páginas. Y mi jefe como no tenía otra cosa que hacer porque él
está - también como nosotros ¿no? Ha cogido esas páginas, se las ha llevado a su
mesa - sin tener los originales, porque un corrector tiene que leer siempre con un
original, o sea te - te guías por algo ¿no? para saber [A: mhm] si una cosa está bien
o está mal. He, se las ha llevao a su despacho, y se ha puesto a hacer el trabajo de
corrector - que es mi trabajo. Porque - esto entre paréntesis, a mí:: me - me -
cogieron, esta compañía me solicitó el permiso de trabajo, porque yo vine con la visa
F-2, visa de - de esposa de estudiante [A: Ah, de esposa, mhm, claro] Entonces yo
no pod¡ - no podía trabajar en los Estados Unidos, [A: Claro] que era por lo que yo
no me quería venir también, porque sab¡a la - la situación. Pero esta compañía me
solicitó permiso de trabajo, y me han dado permiso de trabajo por ellos [A: hum]
Entonces tengo - ahora tengo una H-2 que me permite trabajar por un tiempo, que
se puede renovar-
A: Ah, ¿con la H-2 se puede trabajar?
L: Sí, para esta compañía, o sea sólo puedo trabajar para esta compañía (...) Entonces
digamos que yo soy la proof-reader oficial de - XX International. [A: (...)] Y me
solicitaron, por eso, y tal. Bueno, hubo muchísimo lío, tardaron un montón de meses
en - en contestar - [A: mhm] Eso también fue un calvario porque durante un tiempo
no pude cobrar. Entonces, claro, fue - mm - la verdad es que ahorramos un tiempo
porque si no, en mis manos se hubiese gastado todo ese dinero porque me encanta -
vesti:r - comprarme cositas y tal. Bueno. [A: mhm] Pero - la cosa es que mi jefe ha
cogido todos esos papeles, se ha puesto a corregir y - Polly, que es mi - la jefa de
Producción, le ha visto, le ha visto que no estaba usando original, entonces eso le ha
parecido muy raro. Mi pobre jefe - no es mala persona, pero tiene antecedentes de
beber - he, entonces, he - la verdad es que nadie le toma en serio. Y es una pena
porque yo, digamos que hoy me he sentido muy mal porque estaba en el medio. Por

130
un lado Polly que me ha mandado llamar, a través de m - de: mi otra compañera
argentina, y me ha dicho que me fuera - a la oficina, porque me necesitaban en la
oficina porque las - la gente de Montaje me necesita para - para entender el español
y todo. Y por otro lado mi jefe que no sab¡a nada. Entonces yo he llegado a la
oficina, me he encontrado con mi jefe que no me hablaba, literalmente - Yo,
intentando decirle que no tenía nada que ver con el asunto, que era Polly la que me
había llamado, que es mi jefa, bueno. Un número, no te puedes imaginar qué
número. Uno de los d¡as peores de - de - de sentirme mal realmente. [A: Claro,
claro] El resto de mis compañeros no han ido - lo cual me parece también mal. No
hay trabajo - nada m s que para mí en este momento. [A: mhm] Pero por qué para
mí y no para otra persona, entiendes, o sea, la situación es - es mu::y delicada - en
este momento. [A: mhm] La verdad es que sólo va a ser hoy y mañana, pero para mí
- a m¡ no me gusta, o sea, yo - yo trabajo con esta gente desde hace un montón de
meses, son mis compañeros - me siento un poco::- mal. [A: sí, entiendo, entiendo]
¿Entiendes? Bueno la - por un lado- después ya me ha hablado, el jefe, pero después
de much¡simo rato. Eh, Polly me dice unas cosas, Tino me dice otras - e::h- son los
nombres de - de estas personas. Bueno, un desastre. Y yo al medio y soy una -
simple - y vulgar correctora de pruebas, ¡que me dejen en paz!
A: Claro, claro, no tenés un puesto:: ejecutivo o que -
L: Claro, no, no, encima, encima - hoy por ejemplo mi - el - el jef - mi jefe se ha ido, se
ha ido a casa. Entonces, supuestamente mañana va a ir una serie de gente - que -
que se va a presentar allí y no hay trabajo, para ellos, entonces yo me tengo que
encargar de llamar a esa gente para decirles que no vayan. [A: hum:: - qué
desagradable!] Es muy desagradable, no te puedes imaginar. La empresa privada
aquí es - es - hum, cómo te diría, es peor que en ningún otro lugar. (...) aquí ya es
salvaje, muy salvaje. Entonces, yo nunca he querido entrar en esa dinámica de
salvajismo, porque:: porque puedo entrar, también, si quiero, o sea - en plan
individualista, en plan de - a pillar. [A: claro, pero, por convicción-] Pero no - no
quiero porque no soy pilladora. No - no - no me - no me sale. Pero claro, tamp - no
soy pilladora ¡pero tampoco me puedo quedar sin trabajo! (...)
A: ¿Y por qué se fue a la casa el jefe, así porque quiso o porque - ?
L: Se fue porque s - porque quiso. Y esta mañana desapareció también como dos horas.
Cuando yo he llegado no estaba todavía. [A: hum] Él es muy irregular pero es buena
persona. Pero claro, tampoco me voy a poner de abogada del diablo. Los americanos
son muy estrictos - y muy - [A: no perdonan] ¿cómo te dir¡a? No perdonan nada, y si
por ejemplo un día - ven que:: has bebido o ven que:: cualquier cosa, eso lo tienen
en cuenta. [A: hum] Y:: pues él, se ve que tiene problemas con - con el alcohol. Y es
- es muy buena persona, o sea él me ha dao a mí el trabajo. [A: hum] Pero:: por
ejemplo hoy pues por lo que sea quería él hacer - la corrección.
A: Y pero- ¿vos hablaste con él - realmente?
L: Sí. Sí, sí, he hablao con él y le he dicho "yo no tengo nada que ver en este asunto"
[A: ¿Y él que te -?] Me ha dicho "no, no, ya sé que tú no tienes nada que ver" me
dice [se ríe] Dice "pero:: bueno" Me ha dicho así como, como diciendo:: "no tienes
nada que ver pero::, cuidao conmigo" o algo así, sab - Es - es una persona que tiene
muy malas pulgas por las mañanas. Yo lo sé.
[Una llamada telefónica interrumpe la conversación]

131
A: E::mm, ah, lo que te iba a preguntar, que por qué al final se te hizo más tarde, por el
problema de-
L: Ah, sí, porque - mm:: el - el:: trabajo que yo hago, forma parte de - de - un - es un:
eslabón dentro de una cadena, no? (...) y - digamos que yo doy trabajo a la gente de
fotomecánica, si yo no leo no tienen trabajo los de fotomecánica, entonces -
Producción, la jefa de Producción me ha pedido - expresamente que me quedase
más - hasta más tarde hoy. [A: hum] Entonces me he quedado - hasta las seis y
cuarto (...)
A: O sea que el día te resultó exactamente al contrario de -
L: Claro - al contrario porque yo pensaba en- yo pensaba que hoy no iba a trabajar (...)
Entonces yo esta mañana me iba a ir a Target, - a, a que me doblen - a que me
copien unas fotos (...) y estaba señalando las fotos cuando me han llamado y ha
empezado todo el - (piritoste), que ha sido gordísimo, o sea, en mi vida me he visto
en otra igual! - Te lo digo, o sea, algo - increíble.
(60)
[Llama el teléfono]
L: Hello ... sí ... eh, bueno no, es que no sé dónde está Oscar ... ¿lo de Silvia? ¿Quién es
Silvia? ... Ah, es que mira, eh, yo le he llamado varias veces, esta- eh- por la tarde, y
no estaba aquí, entonces me ha extrañado porque:: mm:: est aquí Alicia (...) Y:: me
está haciendo la:: ... s¡, pero yo hoy iba a llegar más tarde porque Polly me ha
pedido que me - que me quede - Polly, mi jefa, me ha pedido que me quedara más
tiempo. Hoy ha sido un día irregular a tope para mí, no te puedes imaginar. Ha sido
uno de los días raros de mi vida ... porque he llegado, tenían en la oficina una
montada a cuento - a cuenta de:: de la corrección del español que no te puedes
imaginar ... Entonc - ... cuando - ... le he empezado a llamar como a las cinco o así, y
desde las cinco no estaba aquí porque yo iba a llegar más tarde y quería que - que le
dijera a Alicia, o que me diera el teléfono de Alicia que yo no lo tenía, para decirle
que iba a venir más tarde. Al final todo se ha arreglado porque ella, se hab¡a perdido
con el coche - y me ha visto bajar del autobús, ¡fíjate qué carambola! ... Y:: pero:::
yo no - no::: no sabía dónde estaba Oscar, entonces ha llamado aquí el Zahy y me
ha preguntao a mí::, yo le he dicho que no:: que no sabía dónde estaba, me ha
empezao a decir que está muy preocupado, que a ver si yo le meto caña, que no sé
qué:: que no sé cuánto, ya sabes cómo es ... Y::: yo qué sé, el Oscar está de
vacaciones también. (...) Pues no sé, qué - qué quieres que te diga yo, yo - ... no sé,
que aparezca el Oscar un día de éstos, nada más ... No, si a mí me da igual pero,
pero Andrés, pero Andrés, por favor, he, he ... he, he, no, toda la energía la tengo
ahora mismo metida en el trabajo, tú no sabes el (cisco) que tengo en el trabajo
montado (...) que no lo - no lo he montado yo además, es que es un - una cosa - de
lo más- espantoso que te puedas imaginar

132
The context expressed in (iii) is also exemplified in the data. Non-recent Pfv
situations related to Present in a subjective way constitute usual contexts for the
PP of Persistent Situation . Examples of this type are as follows:

(61)
A: ¿Y en qué har¡as el Master exactamente?
L: En:: - No lo sé. Probablemente haga ESL, porque es lo más práctico. (...) Y, si vuelvo
a España, puedo enseñar inglés, en España. [A: claro] Porque claro, yo también
tengo que pensar, porque, siempre yo estoy, así como que no se sabe muy bien - [A:
comodín, he, he] Claro, de comodín. [A: claro - ¡pobre!] [Se ríen] Hombre, también
lo he elegido, o sea-
(62)
R: Ya tengo un nieto de seis años, una de año y medio - y otra de un año que ha hecho
el d¡a 29.
(63)
R: en la última reunión del gobierno ... ha salido aceptado lo del - ... lo que ha dicho el
PESOE

A function of the PP that is related to context (iii) is the one of a mere
retrospective. The PP refers to a situation previous to some temporal point. This
is a purely temporal function, similar to the function of the Pluperfect, although
with different temporal reference. This is shown in examples (64 - 66):

(64)
L: Entonces yo preparé:: las oposiciones para dar clase a los - supuestos currelas - pero
nunca aprobé, [A: mhm] porque además es que hay - poquísimas plazas y muchísima
gente que se presenta (...) Y luego, tienes que estar pendiente porque se public - se
publican en un - en un periódico especial que se llama Boletín Oficial del Estado.
Entonces tú tienes que ir al Bolet¡n, y mirar cuántas plazas han salido de esto,
cuántas han salido de lo otro, o sea es - es todo un mundo eso.

133
(65)
R: pero llega un momento que ... tanto el uno como el otro está un poco desequilibrao,
y no se dan cuenta - o n - o se le ha olvidao a ella tomarse la pildorita
(66)
J: Y me ha pasado muchas veces, al citar un trabajo, y que después que he publicado el
trabajo, "tenía yo esto aquí que se podía haber utilizado"

This retrospective function seems to subsume the current meaning of the PP
in Madrileño. It is the dominant (Dahl 1985) meaning: it is present in all
functions of the Madrileño PP.

134
Chapter 5
Rioplatense vs. Castilian:
The case of the Spanish Present Perfect

5.1. Inferential processes and pragmatic ambiguity (a hypothesis)

When we study linguistic forms which have undergone new meanings
throughout their history, there is always the question of what type of connection
has produced a change into a new meaning. This is usually very difficult to find
out, and, in most cases even impossible. The case of the Present Perfect –a
verbal form that has undergone semantic changes in several languages- still
poses many unanswered questions. In Spanish, the PP offers an excellent field of
study, because its semantic and pragmatic values are not homogeneous across
areas of the Spanish speaking world.
Traugott (2002) states that shifts from one linguistically coded meaning to
another often occur because of the cognitive and communicative processes by
which pragmatic meanings are conventionalized and can be reanalyzed.
According to Traugott (2002: 24), “the chief driving force in processes of regular
semantic change is pragmatic: the context-dependency of abstract structural

135
meaning allows for change in the situations of use, most particularly the
speaker’s role in strategizing this dynamic use.”
The Castilian Present Perfect (PP) has undergone different semantic
changes along its history: it developed from a resultative, and passed through a
stage of perfect (that is, a retrospective) to become a recent past. What could
have been the source(s) of the change which transformed an aspect marker into
a time marker? I attempt to answer this question proposing a hypothesis of a
possible explanation.
The same line of evolution traveled over by the Castilian PP was found to
occur unidirectionally across languages (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994). This
implies that Spanish dialects in which the PP is marked as perfect are at an
earlier stage than those with a temporal marker of recent past (like Castilian).
Rioplatense Spanish, which currently has a perfect PP, can be selected to
provide the meaning of an earlier stage of the Castilian PP.
Summarizing, the three stages of the Castilian PP are as follows:

1. aspect marker: resultative
2. aspect marker: perfect / retrospective
3. tense marker: recent past

Castilian Spanish has a perfect / retrospective PP, i.e., an aspectual
marker. But it also uses the PP as a tense. In this way, the past tense reference

136
is divided into to forms: the P is deictically marked for distant past, and the PP is
marked for close past. Let us see examples (1) – (3):
(1) [Madrileño] : Stage 2
Propusimos un... proyecto alternativo recuperando parte del adoquinado y además con
un diseño bastante... eh... es decir, más agradable, más funcional... eh... que además
ha quedado muy bien la primer cuadra que ya la han terminado- - - y- - - lo aceptaron y
se inició inmediatamente.
(2) [Madrileño]: Stage 2
Y tendríamos aún que considerar otro tipo de poesía que por lo general no
cumplimenta... las reglas exigidas... por la verdadera poesía y que es la celebratoria o
patriótica. Generalmente es grandilocuente, solemne, abstracta. Ustedes saben, porque
ya lo hemos dicho, en torno al cuento, que el niño... no puede interpretar... la metáfora
a nivel preescolar, y, por supuesto, tampoco las abstracciones.
(3) [Madrileño]: Stage 3
...y el hombre ha entrado por esa puerta hace quince minutos y nos ha preguntado que
qué hacíamos...

One of the typical uses of the Preterite can be found in narratives.
However, speakers from Madrid use the PP of third stage even in narratives, if
the situations occurred in a past within the same day in which they are narrated.
In Rioplatense Spanish this is not possible, because the current value of
the PP corresponds to the second stage, as in examples (4-5):

(4) [La Plata]: Stage 2
S: no:, che, está acá esta pi pila de li:bros, esta casa es un despiole, () no porque está
es este: () tengo la mitad de las cosas acá, la mitad de las cosas allá. Y esto es de
una biblioteca que - se donó a la Alliance. Estaban por tirar los libros.
F: ah -
S: entonces yo salí - al rescate. [risas] Por supuesto - no::, en serio, había libros este: ()
qu‚ s‚ yo, que los m
A: igual - s¡, otras veces le p le:: otras veces le ha pasado a ‚l, no? que este: que por
ah¡ le dec¡an, bueno vamos a tirar todos estos libros

137
(5) [La Plata] Stage 2
M: ay este m - yo creo que en todas las escuelas de La Plata lo pusieron, Francisco. Le
han comprado guitarra le...han enseñado guitarra (0.2) le han puesto profesores le -
han hecho de to:do! (0.4) No - nada, no tiene na n no tiene nada en esa cabeza!

The second-stage PP expresses ‘existence of a type of situation’. It is not
marked to convey time reference. This is to say, it does not contain a temporal
deictic. Since the type of situation signaled by the PP existed, it must have
existed over some period of time occurred in the past. The past participle in the
PP form provides the information of what type of situation occurred. The
auxiliary ‘haber’, to have, provides the time-span in which the occurrence takes
place. There is a boundary to this span: the present reference included in the
auxiliary ‘haber’. This deictic mark places the speaker at a point that intersects
the time span. To interpret the PP form as a retrospective, then, it should be
added that the view point of the speaker counts in order to interpret the whole
concept conveyed by the combination of meanings. It is the speaker that ‘sees’
the time span as a whole from his own perspective. This is why this span in time
does not represent a chronological line of time, from past to present. Instead,
the speaker, from his perspective perceives the span time of the PP as a “space”
seen from his own present towards the past. This time span, then, is where a
particular type of situation occurs.

138
As described above, this is the typical PP used in Rioplatense Spanish
(RP), which functions as an existential: a particular type of situation occurred (at
least once) within the time span.
The Preterite, instead, has a deictic mark for past. It refers to definite
situations, which are perceived as tokens, not as types. This is why the Preterite
allows combining with adverbials of specific time, while the PP does not. In
Rioplatense Spanish, the Preterite is used to refer to past of any closeness to the
present point.
On the other hand, the Rioplatense PP is also found in contexts where it
conveys a pragmatic function that traditionally has been called ‘emphatic’. Here,
we will describe it as contrary to expectation, or deviant from expectation, as in
(6):

(6) [La Plata]
N: Coca, s¡. Ah che, cuándo vas a - cuándo vamos a ir a visitarla - a: visitarla a - a la
Gringa?
A: denos un - un descansito, [riéndose] por favor he he he
N: no:, porque ah¡ ya les han da:do ya basta:nte de descanso...
-----
A: (...) estoy muy afónica de hablar tanto. (...) estoy muy afónica
S: andan mucho?
N: has habla - has hablado mu:cho

By using a PP with this function, the speaker indicates that the assertion is
surprising, which is to say, far from what is expected to be the norm for that
type of situation. The use of the PP with this pragmatic function is found in

139
contexts where a Preterite would be the norm. Therefore, here the PP is used in
spite of the fact that the situation referred to is a specific token which occurred
in a specific time. I am suggesting that the PP can be used iconically to convey
contrary to expectation. The fact that the use of a PP in a context where a P is
expected indicates that analogically, the situation itself referred to by the PP
must also be interpreted as contrary to expectation. In this way, this pragmatic
function is conveyed by means of a metaphor.
The use of the PP to convey contrary to expectation may have a past
reference, which may be distant or close to the moment of speaking. However, it
is the reference close to the present of the speaker what is of most interest to
this analysis.
According to Sweetser (1990), in cases of pragmatic ambiguity the basic
semantic value of a particular form pragmatically expands to cover other
meanings. A word (a verbal form, in this case) with only one meaning may have
several functions. Contexts can be found where two different interpretations are
possible. Thus, it is not difficult to find examples uttered in the context of some
kind of pragmatic ambiguity.
It is interesting to analyze a PP in a context in which different
interpretations are possible, as in (7). This example has been actually uttered in
La Plata, Argentina, in a conversation between two RP speakers. However, it is
possible to find the same utterance in a conversation between speakers of

140
different varieties of Spanish—e.g., RP and Castilian-- with PP forms at different
stages: one of them at stage 2 (i.e., perfect / retrospective), and the other at
stage 3 (i.e., recent past). It would be useful to think of a moment in history
where two Castilian speakers could have assigned different interpretations to the
same utterance. I intend to show that different inferential processes could have
led to the beginning of the semantic change undergone by the PP to reach stage
3. The social situation is as follows.
After eating a substantial meal, a RP speaker comments to a Castilian
speaker:

(7) Hemos comido como náufragos…
We’ve eaten like shipwrecked people…

Both speakers interpret (7) as an evaluation of a recent situation. However, the
Castilian interpretation does not fully match the RP intended reading. This is due
to the fact that the PP is obligatory in Castilian to indicate past temporal
closeness, while in RP there is a choice between the Preterit and the PP, which
translates into differences of an expressive kind.
As expressed above, the Rioplantense PP expresses occurrence of a type
of situation along a time span perceived retrospectively from the present point of
view of the speaker. The PP is used in assertions in this way. For a different type
of speech act, the message will be different: when the speaker does not inform

141
but evaluates the situation, the PP is used--instead of a P--to convey the
pragmatic function of contrary to expectation.
In (7), the speaker characterizes the recently ended occurrence of comer
(‘to eat’) as out of proportion, or uncivilized; hence, as an uncharacteristic token
of ‘comer’. This instance is compared with another situation of the same type
experienced in extraordinary conditions: to eat like shipwrecked people. This
proposition contains an external evaluation of the situation, one expressed
through lexical and syntactic means. In RP, this could have been expressed by
using the Preterite, as in (8):

(8) Comimos como náufragos…

since a Preterite can be used in a context of recent past to convey occurrence of
a token of a situation.
Instead, the PP used in (7) adds a considerable amount of complexity.
The speaker is interested in presenting the situation completed just before the
utterance as deviant from what is expected to be the norm. In this sense, it is
true that the use of the PP is ‘emphatic’ (as has been traditionally called). It is
emphatic because it construes the situation as contrary to expectation, adding
another layer of meaning (simultaneously with the lexical expression utilized).
To be able to understand de double-layered evaluative message intended
by the speaker, it is crucial to have into consideration to elements: the kind of

142
speech act, and the opposition between type and token, in terms of Peirce
(Houser 1992). As shown above, the PP indicates a type of situation; while the P,
and also the PP of recent past in Castilian, indicate a token of a situation.
To pay attention to the type of speech act is important, because the
interpretation is not the same when we find a PP in utterances with pure
informative value, compared to a PP contextualized in an utterance where the
speaker’s intentions are to evaluate or comment on the situation he is referring
to. (7) presents an explicit evaluation of a situation that has taken place just
some minutes prior to the moment of speaking. The speaker and his friends had
dinner. They were very hungry and there was a lot of food. All of them ate
excessively. This is why the speaker characterizes that specific situation as out of
proportion. In this way, that specific situation is conceptualized as a token, a
non-prototypical instance of the category ‘comer’. This token is lexically
compared to another situation of the same category (or type), experienced
within extraordinary conditions: to eat in starvation, after being a long time
without food, in a shipwreck. We can almost visualize this image in the speaker’s
comparison: both groups of hungry people ate without control. This represents
an ‘external’ evaluation conveyed by lexical and syntactic means: the selection of
the word náufragos, and the comparative construction.
However, to obtain this kind of evaluation, it was not necessary to use a
PP. Indeed, a P is expected to occur. The speaker wants to present the situation

143
even more dramatic by adding another layer of meaning to the same evaluation.
He chooses the PP instead of the expected P, as a stylistic resource. The effect
of choosing a form contrary to expectation is an indication that the situation
referred to by the form must be construed in the same way.
Thus, the speaker is interested to signal the situation as out of the norm,
and this can be achieved by referring simultaneously to the same situation as
type and specific token. While the PP presents the situation of eating as
‘occurrence of a type of situation’, specific token is obtained through the spatio-
temporal context in the form of an index pointer. The reference to the situation
that occurred previously is unambiguous. Those friends were still in the same
place where the event happened in a recent past.
If we try to visualize the contrast produced between type of situation
‘comer’ and token of situation ‘comer’, we will perceive an effect of saliency. A
figure / ground contrast (Givón 1989) is produced when a token of the situation
comer is signaled as ‘one of a kind’ by a spatio-temporal index pointer against its
type (provided by the PP). Therefore, in (7) the speaker’s evaluation of the
situation as deviant from expectation is redundantly accomplished by external
(i.e. textual) as well as internal means.
Up to this point, the analysis has been presented within the Rioplatense
interpretation. However, it is also possible to obtain a different interpretation
reanalyzing (7) through an alternative inferential path.

144
In Castilian, the PP is interpreted as past occurrence of a specific token in
the context of recentness. This is precisely the way in which a Castilian speaker
would interpret the PP in (7). This form contains deixis which marks a situation
for occurrence in a past close to the moment of speaking. The deictic tense mark
can only point to a specific token of the situation, not to its type.
In the Castilian interpretation, the index pointing to the situation is not
located in the spatio-temporal context, but in the form itself. One can think of a
point in history when the current Castilian interpretation was not the norm.
However, a reanalysis of the complex message conveyed in Rioplatense is
possible. The deictic mark, which indicates recent past, can be transferred from
the spatio-temporal context to the PP form itself by means of an implicature in
the form of a metonymic process (Lakoff 1987). Traugott (2002) points out that
implicatures are a type of metonymic, associative, and indexical strategy. The
proximity between the time and space of the moment of speaking and the
time/space of the specific event makes possible a different analysis, assigning
the index to the PP itself in such a context. In this interpretation, the textual
evaluation remains, but the internal one is lost, because the effect of saliency is
lost.
I am suggesting that this could be the way in which the PP became a
temporal marker of recent past.

145
Contexts of pragmatic ambiguity, like (7), for which two different
inferential processes can apply, may constitute pieces of evidence for a
diachronic explanation of the PP. At a point in time, speakers may have chosen
the path of least resistance to avoid processing complexity. Obviously, it is more
complex to be able to infer the double evaluation of the same situation (external,
as well as internal), than to process only the external one. This type of
conversational interaction could have lead to the present status of the Castilian
PP as a temporal marker of recentness.

5.2. Conclusions

In this Dissertation it has been shown that the verbal form called Present
Perfect in Spanish represents a changing semantic category. A diachronic
analysis (Chapter 3), as well as a cross-dialectal analysis of the form in Modern
Spanish (Chapter 4) have demonstrated that the PP does not bear the same
meaning through time, or through geographical space.
The diachronic study of the PP added important information in order to
understand the differences in meaning observed across the two varieties
analyzed. The case of the PP form is an example of the importance of inference
in shaping complex categories. The independent meanings of haber and the past
participle combined in the original periphrasis developed later into two sets of

146
meaning units. The relations between these sets produced a category which
changed over time. The PP constitutes an excellent example of the complexity in
temporal and aspectual relations that the form would continue to bear, with
modifications, at later stages, after those relations were semantically
internalized.
On the other hand, the synchronic analysis of the PP form in two dialects
has demonstrated once more that the realization and pace of a linguistic change
is hardly predictable. The general conditions that helped to maintain steady the
PP category for five hundred years in Rioplatense are as difficult to recognize as
the ones that produced an acceleration of semantic change in the Castilian PP.
Nonetheless, the analysis of the contexts of use of the form in both dialects
sheds some light on the understanding of the PP and its successive changes.
A definition of the PP category at stage 2 is given in (1). It represents the
status of the PP in the Spanish spoken in the Peninsula during the XV Century, as
well as its status in Modern Spanish spoken in the Río de la Plata area:

(1) The PP category expresses a relation between a time span, which
begins in the past and ends at the moment of speaking, and a non-
specific situation--Iterative or Durative--that occurs at any point(s) of
the span. The PP marks the existence of a type of situation along
linear time.

A definition of the PP category at stage 2 is given in (2). It represents the
status of the PP in present day Castilian:

147

(2) The PP category expresses a relation between the moment of
speaking and a specific situation occurred in a recent past.

Finally, it has been suggested that uses of the PP in contexts of pragmatic
ambiguity may be considered a plausible cause of meaning change.

148
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The present study deals with the meaning and use of the Present Perfect (PP) in Spanish. This verbal form is analyzed in relation to the Preterite from two different perspectives, diachronic and synchronic.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ocampo, Alicia Martini (author)

Core Title The present perfect in Spanish: a study on semantic variation

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Spanish

Publication Date 12/04/2008

Defense Date 07/03/1995

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag aspect,corpus study,discourse,OAI-PMH Harvest,perfect,pragmatics,present perfect,semantic change,semantics,Spanish,tense,variation

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (committee chair), Lazar, Moshe (committee member), Saltarelli, Mario (committee member)

Creator Email focampo@umn.edu,ocamp001@umn.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1869

Unique identifier UC1310543

Identifier etd-Ocampo-2560 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-130078 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1869 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Ocampo-2560.pdf

Dmrecord 130078

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Ocampo, Alicia Martini

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu