‘Today is perfect, isn’t it?’
Another look at the functions of the Present Perfect in the Spanish variety of
Alicante.
Carmen Kleinherenbrink
supervisor: Dr. Paz González González
second reader: Prof. Dr. L.C.J. Barbiers
Leiden University
Master thesis Language & Communication
Motivation
As an enthusiastic second language learner, I have always been intrigued by the variation between the grammars of the languages that I acquired. In high school, the teachers carefully yet explicitly taught us all the rules and I found that, by consciously learning them, I was quickly able to speak another language. As for the Spanish language, I learnt that the Simple Past and the Present Perfect are applied in different contexts, which can be distinguished by learning their associations to specific temporal adverbials.
When I followed my bachelor Latin-American Studies at Leiden University, I followed an exchange program in Argentina, where I lived with a host family. In the time that I stayed there, nobody used the Present Perfect form that I had learnt to use in all the prior language lessons. This was confusing, especially when I wanted to describe the events that had happened on the same day, as I had learnt that this context requires the Present Perfect. Every time I consciously asked myself: “Which form do I use? The Present Perfect form according to the rules, or a Simple Past, as the Argentinians use all the time?” Fortunately, after some weeks of accommodation, when I had already taken over some features of the Argentinian variety, I realized that to be understood, it did not really matter which form I used.
Back in The Netherlands, I started my research project on the variation of the Present Perfect for my bachelor thesis, under the supervision of dr. Paz González. The literature is extensive on this subject, and I managed to collect data through an online questionnaire from Spain, Argentina and Peru. After graduating, Paz came in contact with one of the authors to whom I referred in the BA thesis (Margarita Jara Yupanqui) and I am very grateful for the amazing opportunities they both gave me. Our collaboration has flourished into the publication of the geographical variation study that 1 describes the data that I had collected. Moreover, in April 2018, we attended to the 9th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics in Queens, New York, to present the findings, which were also presented at a poster session at Going Romance 2018 in Utrecht.
After all, it was made clear to me that variation was mainly the effect of the process of language change. For this reason, I was left with more questions than answers on Spanish
sociolinguistic variation and, therefore, I carried out a second study on the uses and potential changes of the Present Perfect. This time I did not want to collect data online, so I flew to Spain to find participants of the speech variety of Alicante. In this MA thesis I present the new findings.
1 Gonzalez, P., Jara Yupanqui, M., & Kleinherenbrink, C. (2019). The microvariation of the Spanish perfect in
three varieties. Isogloss. Journal on variation of Romance and Iberian languages, 3(1).
‘Today is perfect, isn’t it?’ Another look at the functions of the Present Perfect in the Spanish variety of Alicante.
Abstract
This study investigates the functions of the Present Perfect in the variety of Alicante, Spain. Previous studies show that, in Peninsular Spanish varieties, the Present Perfect is the well-established form in hodiernal contexts (occurring on the same day as the moment of speech). Moreover, it is shown that the use of this form gradually increases in prehodiernal contexts (occurring before the day of the moment of speech). This gradual development is called the process of grammaticalization, which is traditionally described on the hand of successive stages. More recent studies, however, have revised those stages in order to explain in more detail, the change and variation of the Present Perfect. The goal of this study is to provide new data for the assessment of the revised stages. Furthermore, it includes three generational speaker groups to observe a change over time. The overall low frequency (17.8%) of Present Perfect tokens in the hodiernal narrative context supports the notion on the necessity to include more detailed perspectives to examine the grammaticalization of the Present Perfect.
keywords: Peninsular Spanish, Present Perfect, Simple Past, Grammaticalization
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 5. Method
2. Theoretical background 6. Results
3. Previous studies 7. Conclusions
4. Objectives of the study References
Introduction
Variation and change are two concepts which we can use to characterize every aspect that we come across in our lives. This variability, in either space or time, is always influenced by certain factors of which we are mostly unaware. Linguistic theories respond to these influences with the claim that free variation is unlikely to occur (Meyerhoff, 2006:10). However, the only right description of those
factors is based on the probability of their influence, rather than the determination of their causality (Meyerhoff, 2006).
This study examines the current functions of the Present Perfect in the Spanish variety of Alicante, Spain. It is assumed that in this particular variety, the Present Perfect , (henceforth Perfect or 2 PP), is able to fulfill innovative functions (Schwenter, 1994a). The goal of the present study is to find out to what extend the innovative functions are produced by and accepted with the Perfect form in the speech variety of Alicante. To do so, this grammatical feature is analysed in two contexts with temporal adverbials, which are chosen based on the revision of synchronic and diachronic data of previous studies. Moreover, this study integrates an age-based variationist approach. Hereby, to look for a change over time, three generational groups of the speech variety of Alicante are included.
The Perfect has been investigated from Romance perspectives (Fleischman 1983, Harris 1982) to Germanic perspectives (Brinton, 1988), to Balkan perspectives (Drinka, 2017).
Cross-linguistic studies show that the function of the Perfect is relational, as it relates a past
eventuality to the present moment (Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins, 1994; Schwenter, 1994a:74). In other words, it is able to align the time of the eventuality with the time of speech (Howe, 2006; González, Jara Yupanqui & Kleinherenbrink, 2019). Previous studies on the Spanish Perfect (Harris, 1982; Schwenter, 1994a; Escobar, 1997) show that, historically, this form has gradually developed
innovative communicative functions, and that this is actualized, in several dialects, by the increase of usage in new contexts (Bybee, 2008).
This gradual development, and therefore diachronic variation, of a grammatical feature is known as grammaticalization, which is the process through which lexical or grammatical elements become more functional (Bybee et al., 1994).
The innovative contexts, to which the PP seems to extend its uses, are traditionally reserved for the Simple Past form (Schwenter, 1994a; Kempas, 2006). The PP, therefore, is proposed to compete with the Simple Past (Schaden, 2009; González & Verkuyl 2017), which cross-linguistically functions as a temporal marker that relates the eventuality to a point of reference in the past (Bybee et al., 1994). In other words, the Simple Past encodes past situations as detached from the present (Bybee et al., 1994; González et al., 2019), which explains the compatibility with temporal adverbials (Howe, 2006).
By this means, in Spanish dialects, a completed action can be communicated with either the PP or the Simple Past verb form (Alarcos Llorach, 1970; Schwenter, 1994a) and the variability in the use of those variants can be examined by the envelope of variation (Labov, 1972). This term is used in variationist sociolinguistics for the identification of the contexts in which sociolinguistic variation is
reflected by two or more morphosyntactic constructions which fulfill functions that overlap (Sankoff, 1988; Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos, 2008).
The Spanish envelope of variation for the expression of completed past eventualities is documented by studies of synchronic data along the parallel paths of grammaticalization. Schwenter (1994a) shows that the development of the Perfect is observed in the distinction of ‘today’ and ‘before today’ contexts. In contrast, Azpiazu (2015) proposes that this development is observed by
distinguishing contexts based on the concept of present relevance. The current study, therefore, collected data through a narrative description task and an acceptability judgement task, which elicited ‘today’ and ‘before today’ contexts without present relevance.
The thesis is structured as follows. Section 2 defines the path of grammaticalization through the description of the process and the variation of Romance languages. Then, in section 3, the findings of variationist studies on the Spanish Perfect will be shown, followed by the research questions of the present study. Then, I present the methodology with the information on the participants and the applied methods of the data collection. In section 5, the results are given based on the two data elicitation tasks, where after they are analyzed in section 6. Finally, I present the conclusions on the current functions of the Perfect in Alicante.
2. Theoretical background
In this section, first, the grammatical features of tense, aspect and mood are introduced. Then, the description of the grammaticalization process of the Perfect is shown, based on the mechanisms of change. Then, the role of linguistic change in the description of cross-linguistic PP variation is presented. Afterwards, the evolutionary path of the Romance Perfect, proposed by Harris (1982), is presented, followed by the position of the Spanish PP in a new characterization of the Spanish tense system.
2.1 Tense and aspect
In communicating through language, a verbal phrase uttered by a speaker can indicate a location in time, the temporal form of a state or action and the speaker’s intention and attitude regarding the utterance (Hopper, 1982). These features are mostly entailed by the grammatical conjugations of the verb, which pertain to the categories tense, aspect and modality (TAM). First, the function of modality is to provide information on the speakers’ intentions and beliefs regarding the expressed utterance (Hopper, 1982).
Secondly, Comrie (1985:36) describes the function of tense as providing the location in time either in relation to the moment of speaking (absolute tense) or to another reference point in time (relative tense).
Thirdly, the communicative function of grammatical aspect is to call the hearers’ attention to 3 the presentation of the eventuality at stake (González, 2003). In other words, grammatical aspect enables the speaker to modify the temporal form of the eventuality, either characterizing it as completed or not completed4(Hopper, 1982).
Hopper (1982) notes that TAM is universal because there is no language that lacks all three categories, and therefore all speech events incorporate either one or more of them. However, the systems that express TAM do vary cross-linguistically, and according to Bybee et al. (1994) this is mainly due to the variation in the process of the grammaticalization.
Borik, González & Verkuyl (2004) note that the Spanish (or Romance) tense system is rich, compared to other languages, such as Russian (or Slavic). Here, rich refers to a high amount of tense forms which all fulfill a variation of TAM functions (González, 2003). In example 1a, the use of the Spanish Perfect tense shows that eventuality is presented as completed, and in 1b the use of the Imperfect tense it is not presented as completed . 5 .
(1a) He escrito una carta [Borik et al., 2004] I have written a letter
(1b) Escribía una carta [Borik et al., 2004] I was writing/wrote a letter
The PP in Spanish is traditionally characterized as a structure expressing a completed event with present relevance, while the simple past is used for expressing completed actions without present relevance (Alarcos Llorach, 1970; Schwenter, 1994a). The same this distinction based on present relevance seems to have been completely eroded in the French system (Schwenter, 1994a) and the ‘passé composé’ is used for all completed past actions in spoken language, see example 2 . 6
(2) J’ai le vu en 1980 [Cotte, 1987:101]
3 Aspect is viewed in two perspectives: inherent aspect refers to the characterization that is inherent to the
eventuality, and grammatical aspect refers to how the speaker characterizes the eventuality. Both can therefore function as a marker of either completion or non-completion (González González 2003).
4 In this paper, I prefer to refer to the grammatical aspectual functions as completed and uncompleted, rather
than perfective and imperfective. This is based on the notion that there is no consistency in describing the Present Perfect as a perfective marker in all dialects (Bybee et al., 1994). In other words, the PP expresses completed actions without being established as the perfective marker.
5The examples are taken from Borik, González & Verkuyl (2004)
6 This example is based on González, Jara Yupanqui & Kleinherenbrink (2019:4) and taken from Cotte
*I have seen him in 1980 I saw him in 1980
The processes of grammaticalization, on the other hand, present cross-linguistic consistencies based on principles such as source determination (Harris, 1982), direction and the linguistic constraints that 7 determine the paths (Bybee et al., 1994). Therefore, the variation is manifested by the variability of the so-called stages within the grammaticalization processes (Harris, 1982). In the next sections, the Spanish PP, which originated from Latin, will be characterized by variationist studies (Harris, 1982; Schwenter & Cacoullos 2008), rather than descriptive theories such as the English Present Perfect puzzle (Klein, 1992).
2.2 Grammaticalization: change in use
The gradual process of grammatical change, that is occurring in all languages, is known as grammaticalization. In this process new features are developed either out of lexical elements, grammatical elements or combinations of them, and this takes place at phonological, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic levels (Bybee, 2008). Most linguistic variation can, therefore, be explained by the development of grammaticalization (Bybee et al., 1994). For instance, it explains on the phonetic level, the difference between ‘I am going to’ that expresses the same meaning as ‘I’m gonna’ . And, 8 on the semantic level, it explains how the future tense construction of ‘be going to’ no longer just signals movement in space (Bybee, 2008).
As mentioned before, this process also contributes to the variation of the PP. First, the formation of a PP demonstrates its grammaticalized construction that consists of an auxiliary verb in the present tense, followed by a past participle. As the English Perfect tense such as have eaten developed from the possessive verb have, the Romance Perfect originated from the Classical Latin possessive verb habere (Bybee, 2008). Secondly, the construction that expresses the PP function can further develop to extend to new types of uses. In this instance, Schwenter (1994a) notes that the construction that marks present relevance is able to develop into a marker of past events that lack present relevance. This development captures how a grammatical element gains broader functions, and it characterizes the process of the Romance Perfect, that Squartini and Bertinetto (2000:404) call the ‘aoristic drift’. These developments of grammaticalization are proposed to be irreversible
(Haspelmath, 2004).
7 Grammaticalization theories refer to this universal direction with the notion of unidirectionality (Bybee et al.,
1994)
Since the early uses in Vulgar Latin, the construction has increased in frequency of use, continuing the process in the Romance languages of the twenty-first century (Schwenter & Cacoullos, 2008; Kempas, 2006; Escobar, 1997). This increase in frequency is the instrument that drives the long-term grammaticalization process (Bybee, 2008). In other words, the grammaticalization process (henceforth GP) is highly usage-driven and develops through gradual stages. Each stage of the GP of the PP is achieved by an increase in frequency that can be described on several linguistic levels.
From a semantic perspective, a loss of specific features of an earlier meaning creates the possibility to gain new meanings. In this case, have or habere do not signal their possessive function in the Perfect construction. The partial loss of original meanings is called semantic bleaching and this term does not imply that the original meaning is fully erased. Moreover, scholars who have
specialized on GP (Bybee et al., 1994, Hopper & Traugott, 2003) accentuate that old meanings and new meanings may coexist.
On a syntactic level, this process has changed the category type of the verb habere into the auxiliary that is specific to the Perfect construction.
On a pragmatic level, the increase in frequency of the PP in certain contexts leads to
determine them as prototypical (Howe, 2006). In Peninsular Spanish, these contexts are characterized as completed situations with present relevance (Alarcos Llorach 1970; Schwenter, 1994a; González, 2019). Moreover, speaker-hearer interaction is what drives the expansion into innovative contexts (Bybee, 2008).
In other words, and applied to the current study, the increase in frequency of the PP in new contexts is motivated by the interaction of speakers and hearers within a speech variety. For this reason, the more concrete inferences of the PP that relate the event to the present moment can be overruled by more abstract inferences that relate the PP to all completed past eventualities (Bybee, 2008). This equally provides the explanation of how the Perfect tense can replace the Simple Past, and how the variability within TAM systems is realized as well: the highly grammaticalized forms tense and aspect have reduced communicative values and their usages are highly inferential (Bybee, 2008).
2.3 Grammaticalization: the Spanish Perfect
The mechanisms of change through grammaticalization have been presented in section 2.2, and a closer look at the different stages of the Spanish PP is given here. The change from a PP into a past marker in Romance dialects did not occur in the need for a completed past tense, as the Simple Past already fulfilled this function (Schwenter, 1994a). Lehmann (2015:24) notes that as the new and the old constructions coexist for a long time, the new variant will only completely prevail when the old
form is absolutely out of use. In other words, as long as both variants are used by a speaker, their functions will be non-identical, and they will continue to be two functional categories.
As mentioned before, in Spanish, the synthetic Simple Past form coexists with the periphrastic PP form (Harris, 1982:49). The former, provided by example 1, is derived from the Latin Perfect cantavi and the latter, provided by example 2, is derived from the Latin resultative habeo cantatum, which is the analytical form (Harris, 1982; González et al., 2019).
(3) canté I sang (4) he cantado
I have sung
Harris (1982) documented the evolution of the Romance past system by distinguishing the contexts of use through the successive stages that are presented here. First, the use of the Latin construction 9 habeo factum/ I have done represents the first stage with the function of a resultative marker. Here, present relevance is implied in the form as it expresses a present state that results from a past action. Harris (1982) finds that the PP exclusively functions as a resultative in Sicilian and Calabrian varieties.
The second stage represents a PP that functions with past eventualities with present relevance that inherit the aspectual characteristic durative or repetitive. According to Harris (1982), Old Spanish varieties, Mexican Spanish and contemporary Portuguese showed uses within this stage, which means that the Perfects in these dialects cannot express eventualities that have the aspectual nature of
completion or terminativity (Schwenter, 1994a). 10
In the third stage, the PP is used in all past situations with relevance to the present moment, regardless of the aspectual characteristics of the eventuality. This stage integrates the prototypical functions of the Perfect that pertain to the following contexts: continuative, experiential, hot news, recent past, and thus, all contexts with current relevance (Bybee et al. 1994). According to the findings of Harris (1982), this marks the PP of contemporary Catalan and Peninsular Spanish.
The fourth stage reveals the use of the PP in all past contexts regardless of relevance to the present moment (Schwenter, 1994a). Harris (1982) notes that in this stage, as in French, the PP form is highly preferred over the synthetic past form in expressing all completed past eventualities. In this
9 I also refer to these contexts of use with the term ‘envelope of variation’. This term is used to describe the
contexts in which variation of a variable can occur (Labov, 1972a).
10 This refers to the notion of inherent aspect that can be categorized as either terminative or durative (Verkuyl,
1972). In his work, Verkuyl (1972) approaches aspect compositionally, therefore the inherent aspect is always only informative at the tenseless level. Aspect is not presented at the lexical or the verbal level individually and he rejects the need for the term Aktionsart (Verkuyl, 1972).
last development, the PP grammaticalized into a past marker, where it replaces the Simple Past in expressing all completed past events (Schwenter, 1994a).
From the perspective of the Simple Past, González & Verkuyl (2017:126) offer an
explanation of how this form, in Romance languages, can easily be replaced by the PP. The authors refer to a new characterization of TAM, based on the work of Te Winkel (1866). Te Winkel (1866) shows that in Germanic languages, like Dutch and English, the verbal tenses are motivated on the basis of a choice between the following three oppositions: (i) present vs. past, (ii) synchronous vs. posterior, and (iii) completed vs. uncompleted.
González & Verkuyl (2017:101) note that these oppositions can be argued to cover the whole TAM system, where the first opposition restricts to tense, the second fulfills modality and the third integrates aspect. According to these oppositions, which the authors of Borik et al.,(2004) applied to the Spanish tense system and shown in table 1, the Spanish Simple Past (Pretérito Indefinido) can become obsolete because it is placed outside the binary descriptions. In contrast, the Perfect form (Perfecto) is clearly classified in this view, exhibiting the following characteristics: present, synchronous and completed.
Table 1. The Spanish tense system, taken from González et al. (2019) and based on Borik et al. (2004)
As mentioned in section 3.2, the use of the PP form has increased in frequency, at least in French, but as well in Peninsular Spanish (Schwenter & Cacoullos, 2008; Howe, 2006) and other Romance
varieties (Harris, 1982). Therefore, the note of González et al. (2019:130) that assumes that the Spanish simple past may become obsolete, supports the early reports of Harris (1982) and Bybee et al. (1994) on the direction of the grammaticalization path of the Romance Perfect, which predict the increase of the PP by taking over the Simple Past form.
Based on his findings, Harris (1982) introduced the gradual stages in which the PP can take over the simple past in various Romance varieties. However, as languages are constantly perceptually changing (Geeslin & Long, 131), the GP cannot be explained only by the former proposed stages of Harris (1982). Therefore, in the next section, more recent approaches show the ability to research the contemporary microvariation of the Spanish PP through more detailed perspectives.
3. Previous studies
In this section, I first present studies that have added intermediate stages or other perspectives to describe the grammaticalization of the Spanish Perfect. Then, comparative studies that examined the variation in Latin America and Spain are provided. Finally, the variation between Peninsular Spanish varieties, shows again the necessity of more detailed examinations of the contexts of that elicit the PP form.
3.1 New perspectives for researching the Spanish Perfect
In 1994, Schwenter conducted a study to examine the use of the Perfect in the Spanish variety of Alicante, Spain (Schwenter, 1994a). The author collected data through recordings of elicited narratives and unelicited narratives, and a binary elicitation survey . The results of his study show 11 that the Alicante Spanish Perfect prevails over the Simple Past in expressing events that happened on the same day (hodiernal) . Moreover, the overall results of his survey demonstrated a frequency of 12 28% tokens of the Perfect in contexts that happened ‘before today’ (prehodiernal). Furthermore, an increase in the use of the PP was found when the author compared younger to older speakers, see table 2.
Table 2. Percentages of the binary selection task of the study of Schwenter (1994a)
Hodiernal context (n=147) Prehodiernal context (n=168)
Present Perfect Simple Past Present Perfect Simple Past
11 In the survey, the respondents selected a choice between the Simple Sast and the PP form (Schwenter, 1994a). 12The elicited and unelicited narration task in the study of Schwenter (1994a) displayed similar results of the
Younger (18-25) 94% 6% 39% 61%
Older (40+) 73% 27% 17% 83%
Based on his findings, Schwenter (1994a) proposes an integrated view of the grammaticalization path of the Alicante PP, that includes intermediate stages, as shown in table 3 . The main differences, in 13 comparison to Harris (1982), are based on the separation of hodiernal/today 14and prehodiernal/before today contexts, and the addition of the presence of temporal adverbials. 15
Table 3. The seven stages of the Peninsular Spanish Perfect proposed by and taken from Schwenter (1994a), based on Harris (1982) and Fleischman (1983).
Schwenter (1994a) shows that in his results, the PP displays the innovative uses of the sixth and seventh stage. Thus, the PP is shown in the narrative hodiernal contexts, but also in the non-narrative
13 In table 3, the Spanish Simple Past form is referred to as Preterite
14 In the current study, hodiernal and today are used interchangeably to describe the context of eventualities that
happened on the day of the utterance.
15 In the current study, prehodiernal is used interchangeably with before today to describe the context of
prehodiernal context. By these means, Schwenter (1994a:106) concludes that the Alicante PP has invaded the semantic domain of the simple past and that it appears to reach the final stage of Harris (1982), where it is used for all completed past events.
First, Schwenter (1994a) explains that the sixth stage is achieved because the PP is used more objectively for concrete today past situations. Furthermore, the author proposes that, according to his data, the uses of the seventh stage are shown because the PP has eroded its subjective concept of present relevance, and, therefore, its component of ‘recency’ (Schwenter, 1994a:103).
The component of recency is related to the subjectively experienced distance between the past event and the moment of speech (Schwenter, 1994a). For this reason, Schwenter (1994a:103) notes speculatively that the change of the PP tends to progress from the speaker’s subjective internal conceptions regarding the eventuality, to the objective external notion of the eventuality.
Another work that offers a more-detailed perspective on examining the Spanish PP is the study of Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008), who proposed the locus on the default past tense for expressing completed actions . The authors state that the default past tense is exhibited in the most 16 frequent and ‘least specified’ contexts in natural speech productions. Moreover, they use the term indeterminacy to emphasize the lack of temporal adverbial modification in these contexts (Schwenter & Cacoullos, 2008). Through their corpus-based findings, the authors show that for the Peninsular Spanish variety, the PP is preferred over the Simple Past in the most frequent and ‘least specific’ contexts, and they therefore conclude that the Perfect is the default past tense. Moreover, Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008) state that the PP will achieve its final stage when it appears in prehodiernal contexts which are specified explicitly by temporal adverbials.
The studies of Schwenter (1994a) and Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008) have contributed as a foundation for more recent approaches of researching the Spanish Perfect, as they provide a clearer view on the envelope of variation. Based on these studies, first, the today and before today contexts, and secondly, determinate and indeterminate contexts (based on temporal modification) are
distinguished and provide the envelope of variation for the present empirical study. In the next section, more recent research studies of the Spanish Perfect are shown, which also integrated the distinctions between these contexts.
3.2 Peninsular Spanish vs. Latin American Spanish
Among others, Hurtado Gonzalez (1998), Howe (2006), Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008) and González et al. (2019) show that the PP is much more used in Spain than in the rest of the Spanish speaking
16 As noted by Geeslin & Long (2014), the study of Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008) has pushed the field of
sociolinguistic research in viewing linguistic variants as forms that fulfill a ‘common function’, rather than viewing the variants as forms that express identical meanings.
world. Through a binary elicitation method, González et al. (2019) examined the preferences of Spanish, Argentinian and Peruvian speakers between Present Perfect or Simple Past forms in six contexts, that were based on the stages of Harris (1982) and Schwenter (1994a). First, the authors show that the varieties differ significantly in their choices, and that the Latin American dialects prefer the Simple Past in the contexts where Spanish speakers favor the Present Perfect. Secondly, for all varieties, their results show relatively low frequencies of the PP opposed to high frequencies of Simple Past preferences in prehodiernal contexts with temporal adverbials. Thirdly, their findings contribute to the studies of the micro-variation within the Latin American varieties, which show that the Peruvian variety shows higher PP uses (González et al., 2019).
Howe (2006), Jara Yupanqui & Valenzuela (2013) and Escobar (1997), among others, explain that this micro-variation is mainly manifested by the characteristics of the contexts in which several varieties use the PP to a higher degree than the Simple Past. In Andean and Amazonian Spanish varieties, the Simple Past is generally preferred in hodiernal contexts (Howe, 2006), but the PP is highly represented in narrative and prehodiernal contexts (Jara Yupanqui & Valenzuela, 2013).
In those contexts, the innovative uses are related to epistemic or evidential meanings (Escobar, 1997). By these means, it is used for discourse-pragmatic purposes (Howe, 2006), for example to make the narration more actual or more credible. This demonstrates that the Perfect can indicate spatial or temporal relevance (Howe, 2006).
As shown before, relevance is a subjective notion and, therefore, Howe (2006) explains that in Peruvian varieties, this form functions as a marker of subjectification. In other words, the PP in Peruvian varieties increased its uses in new contexts via widening of the notion of present relevance (Howe, 2006) and not via the loss of the present relevance function.
3.3 Variation in Peninsular Spanish dialects
I will now turn to the studies of Peninsular Spanish varieties, to get a closer view on the more recent uses of the Perfect in the hodiernal and prehodiernal contexts. Howe’s (2006:96) notes the
compatibility of the Perfect with definite past time adverbials in Peninsular varieties, especially those occurring in the today context. Moreover, Howe (2006:96) also shows the appearance of the PP in narrative contexts. Kempas (2006) demonstrated that, to some degrees, the Perfect shows frequencies in prehodiernal contexts in multiple Peninsular varieties.
According to these studies and the studies of Schwenter(1994a), the Perfect seems to follow the path of grammaticalization as predicted by the theory, where its use fulfills the expression of completed actions in before-today contexts in the presence or absence of temporal adverbials. In table 4, a recollection of Peninsular Spanish studies is presented, where the distinction between hodiernal
and prehodiernal Perfects is shown, based on the lower frequencies of the latter. The percentages demonstrate the frequencies of the use of the Perfect opposed to the use of the Simple Past, in contexts with temporal adverbials.
Table 4. Findings from Peninsular Spanish dialects on the Present Perfect uses.
hodiernal prehodiernal
Contexts with temporal adverbials
Alicante: 86% (Schwenter, 1994a).
Madrid: 96% (Schwenter & Cacoullos, 2008) Salamanca: 87% (Azpiazu, 2015)
San Sebastián: 100% (Azpiazu, 2015)
Alicante: 28% (Schwenter, 1994a) Alicante: 0.1% (Kempas, 2006)
Madrid: 0 % (Schwenter & Cacoullos, 2008) Salamanca: 2% (Azpiazu, 2015) San Sebastián 0.2% (Azpiazu, 2015)
In contrast to the hodiernal Perfect uses, Kempas (2006:207) did not find before-today uses of the Perfect in the Alicante Spanish variety . Kempas conducted a case-study with fifteen participants in 17 Alicante through an open questionnaire with twenty-nine phrases in the prehodiernal context with the presence of temporal adverbials. The questionnaire did not provide a binary selection, therefore the participants filled in a conjugated verb themselves. The author found one case (0.2%) of prehodiernal Perfect usage, as opposed to 437 (91.2%) simple past tokens. The results show highly different uses in comparison with the results of Schwenter (1994a), which were shown in table 2.
Another perspective on prehodiernal contexts, and the final stage, is presented by Azpiazu (2015), who examined the PP in San Sebastian and Salamanca, Spain through guided interviews in 18 hodiernal and prehodiernal contexts. The author notes that the development of the sixth to the seventh of the intermediate stages of Schwenter (1994a) is quite abrupt. Azpiazu (2015), therefore, offers an alternative model to describe the grammaticalization and increase in use of the PP in more detail, mainly by analysing the use of the Perfect in prehodiernal contexts with present relevance. In this case, the author distinguished the prehodiernal contexts, based on present relevance.
In her study, Azpiazu (2015) finds that in Salamanca, the Perfect is shown in prehodiernal contexts before it becomes completely consolidated in the hodiernal contexts. This finding contradicts Schwenter(1994a) who stated that the path of grammaticalization first develops the hodiernal Perfect. The overall results of Azpiazu (2015) do show high uses of the sixth stage in Salamanca, as the PP is used in hodiernal contexts in 87% of the tokens opposed to 13% of Simple Past forms. As for the
17 This study was conducted in 2001. (Kempas, 2006)
18 In the study of Kempas (2006), the author shows that the responses of the people in Bilbao that spoke Basque
as their first language did not significantly differ from those that spoke Spanish as their
first language or those of Spanish monolinguals. For this reason, it is hypothesized that the results of San Sebastian of Azpiazu (2015) are not affected by language contact.
prehodiernal uses (24%) in Salamanca and San Sebastián, Azpiazu (2015:283) shows that the
eventualities were always related to the moment of speech, indicating present relevance. Moreover, in the determinate prehodiernal contexts, the author only found 1% of PP uses, opposed to 99% of simple pasts. Therefore, she shows that those varieties, do not come near the final stage of Harris (1982) & Schwenter (1994a). Furthermore, to explain the high number of prehodiernal Perfect uses (in contexts with eventualities related to the moment of speech), Azpiazu (2015) states that this is due to the extension of the present moment , and not the extension to all past completed events, as 19 proposed by the aoristic drift mentioned in section 2.2. Schaden (2009;2012) hypothesized on this notion, that in spoken language, speakers overestimate the present relevance of their utterances which generally increases present relevance in natural conversations.
Therefore, again, the PP will only be able to fulfill the functions of the final stage, if the presentness of the PP is lost (Comrie, 1976). Azpiazu (2015) proposes that until then, the 20
prehodiernal uses can only be explained by the concept of relevance which refers to the same concept of subjectification of the Peruvian Perfect studied by Escobar (1997) and Howe (2006:2013) , 21 mentioned in section 3.2. Finally, she accentuates that detailed analyses based on discourse and stylistic differences of individual speakers are essential to investigate the use of the Perfect, (or the battle between the Simple Past and PP, in González and Verkuyl (2017) terms), in prehodiernal contexts (Azpiazu, 2015:287).
Another reference to present relevance is related to an observation based on the study of Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008). In another work, Schwenter (2013) argues that the following two examples (consisting of the same verb and temporal adverbial), have no independently-motivated difference in current relevance. In his argument he states that, beyond the circular argument that the PP signals current relevance, there is no empirically-motivated reason to consider the PP in 5 to be more currently relevant that the Simple Past in 6.
(5) ayer he comprado un aire acondicionado y me da calor [Schwenter & Cacoullos; 2008]
‘yesterday I bought (PP) an air conditioner and I’m getting heat (from it)’
19 The author (Azpiazu, 2015) also refers to the extended present theory, which Alarcos Llorach (1947:29) first
introduced to the Spanish Present Perfect in to explain uses either with or without temporal adverbials.
20 Comrie (1976:61): “The development that has taken place [in Romance] can be seen as a gradual reduction of
presentness of the relevant forms, which finally become pure past.”
21 Another note, which is not included in this study but worth mentioning, is that Azpiazu (2015), who supports
the function of subjectification of the perfect in Peninsular Spanish, reveals that this similarity between Peruvian dialects and Peninsular dialects can eventually overrule the explanation of the studies on contact-based change in the Andean varieties such as Escobar (1997).
(6) estas son prácticamente igual que las que compramos ayer [Schwenter & Cacoullos; 2008]
‘These are practically the same as the ones we bought (simple past) yesterday’
However, following a discussion at the 9th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 2018, after a talk based on González et al. (2019), a difference between these two examples can be stated. Scholars concluded that the sentence of example 5 does exhibit current relevance by the expression of the clause that follows which describes the relevance to the present moment. Therefore, to some degree this presents an empirically-motivated reason to consider the current relevance of the sentence . 22
Regarding the methodological issues, Schwenter (2013:24) states that natural elicitation of past contexts without present relevance is empirically unverifiable. In other words, data collectors are not always able to determine if eventualities expressed by participants are aspectually completed or not. Moreover, Kempas (2006) argues that for the study of Schwenter (1994a), the high frequency of prehodiernal perfect forms might be due to the binary elicitation method that Schwenter choose to use.
Therefore, the current study operates with a narrative description task and acceptability judgement scores rather than eliciting natural speech or binary selection. Furthermore, it includes a comparative research method that looks at generational variation. The next section shows how age-based variation can be used to examine language change, and for this study, therefore, the grammaticalization of the PP.
3.5
Age-based variationAs Boberg (2004) notes, sociolinguists, opposed to historical linguists, prefer to study language change through synchronic variation. This author refers to study of Labov (1994), who proposed that change can be studied through age-based or generational variation, mainly with the focus on
examining the variants that are used by innovative speakers . 23
Generational variation is explained by the notion that the grammar of a speaker shows stability over their lifetime and, therefore, the apparent-time hypothesis claims that change over time is demonstrated in age-based linguistic variation (Labov, 1994). By measuring the variation between speakers of different ages in a single-speech variety at a single time, the apparent-time hypothesis
22 This sentence is also represented in the acceptability judgement task of the current research method, however,
without the clause that is assumed to present current relevance, see section 5.4.
23 In this study, the innovative speakers are represented by younger speakers. However, the speaker group of the
variety of Alicante, as a whole, could be seen as innovative speakers as well, compared to other varieties (Schwenter, 1994a).
predicts that older speakers behave differently from younger speakers, because the younger speakers acquire the use of the new variant as children (Labov, 1994).
An important assumption needs to be considered for approaching the apparent-time
hypothesis. In order to test this hypothesis, the data of the generational variation at one point in time need to be compared to real-time data (Boberg, 2004). In this case, real-time means historical data that was taken at another point in time, in the same variety and of the same variable (Labov, 1994). The current study will compare the new data to the results of the generational variation in the study of 24 Schwenter (1994a), shown in table 3 in section 3.1. As Schwenter (1994a:96) notes, the PP is used much more in the speech of “younger alicantinos”.
4. Objectives of the study
As has been shown in the previous sections, the increase in the use of the Perfect, that seems to be taking over the Simple Past, is examined through the revision of the studies of diachronic and synchronic variation that have provided the contexts of use. These contexts are categorized based on several stages of development that show the path of grammaticalization (Harris, 1982).
However, more recent studies show that the development of the PP does not necessarily follow this exact path. Schwenter (1994a) finds that the Spanish variety of Alicante shows uses that can be distinguished between hodiernal and prehodiernal contexts. Azpiazu (2014), on the other hand, demonstrates that the PP in prehodiernal uses does not lose its marker for present relevance, and also, that this form is not (yet) completely established as the hodiernal Perfect.
The goal of the present study is to answer questions regarding the current stage of the PP in the variety of Alicante, by investigating the distinction between hodiernal and prehodiernal contexts. Hereby, it integrates the assumptions of Azpiazu (2015) and Schwenter (1994a), to find out if the Present Perfect:
a) functions as a narrative form in both the hodiernal and prehodiernal context, b) is accepted with the presence of prehodiernal temporal adverbials,
c) shows an increase over time based on age-graded variation.
5. Methodology
5.1 Overview
This study approaches age-based variation by including participants of three generational groups. In order to understand the current PP uses, inhabitants of the town Alicante were examined on their language production as well as their acceptability judgements. The tasks do not elicit personal situations and the phrases are not contextualized to make them more personal. By this means, the situations are objectively interpreted without inherent current relevance for the respondents. Furthermore, temporal adverbials are included to locate the situation in a determinate past context, which is opposed to the indeterminate context as in Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008). The twenty-eight participants first performed a narrative description task, where after they filled in a written language evaluation survey based on two Likert scales.
5.2 Participants
The inclusion criteria for finding participants only considered the place of birth to be Alicante, Spain. The participants are excluded if they were not native speakers of Alicante Spanish , if it was not clear 25 to which age group they belong to and if the respondent failed to perform the tasks in accordance to the instructions.
The data collector included participants who evidently pertain to the groups: young adults, 26 adults and elderly. Hereby estimating the ages of the participants into the following groups: younger participants between 18 and 30; middle-aged participants between 35-55; and elderly participants with an age above 65, the numbers are shown in table 5. The age groups will be compared to generational groups in the study of Schwenter (1994a) presented by table 3 of section 3.1. Nineteen women and 27 nine men participated in the study.
Table 5. Participants divided by sex and age group.
Female Male Total
N % N % N %
Younger (18-30) 9 47.4 4 44.4 13 46.4
Middle-aged (35-55) 5 26.3 4 44.4 9 32.2
Elderly (65+) 5 26.3 1 11.2 6 21.4
Total 19 67.9 9 32,1 28 100
25 There were two extra respondents from Latin America and one from León. 26 The data collector is the author of this thesis.
27 The younger participants of Schwenter (1994a), are the middle-aged participants of the present study, and the
As the area of sociolinguistic research generally includes a range of social factors, I provide another division of groups, illustrated in table 6, based on the characteristics of the locations where the participants were found: a) working in a hotel, restaurant or bar; b) attending a class at a language school or university , and c) residing a retirement home . This factor is not included for analysis, 28 29 30 however, the social categorization will be addressed to at the discussion section, since it differentiates the participants according to the day of the data collection . 31
Table 6. Participants divided by age group and social category.
Younger (18-30) Middle-aged (35-55) Elderly (65+) Total (n=28)
Working at restaurant, hotel or bar
3 (23%) 3 (33.3%) - 6 (22%)
Attending a language school or University
10 (77%) 6 (66.6%) 2 (33.3%) 18 (64%)
Living in a Retirement home (85+)
- - 4 (66.6%) 4 (14%)
Additional information is available for the participants who lived in the retirement home since there was more time to interact and to introduce and perform the tasks. The participants of the retirement home are exclusively women with the ages 85, 86, 88, 89 and 90 years old. During the second task, those participants read aloud the phrases, whereafter they responded to the data collector who then filled in the judgement task.
The data collector was able to take notes on the oral responses of the participants of the second task, which were used to verify if the participant followed the instructions. Participant 018, with the age of 88, is considered too deviant to be included in the results because this respondent was not able to perform the tasks appropriately . 32
5.3 The narrative picture description task
28 The name of the language institution is Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Alicante. 29The University main campus is located in San Vicente del Raspeig
30 The retirement home is named Residencia Nuestra Señora de Lourdes. 31 The data was collected within week 47 of 2018.
32 After repeating the instructions of the first task, participant 018 kept performing the task using simple present
verb forms. Therefore, I could not include any past verb form of this speaker. For the second task, the participant approved of all phrases in silence with a nodding smile, for this reason the data collector could not verify correctly if the participant understood the task.
In the first task, the participants were instructed to describe two days within the life of a fictional person referring to a ‘today’ and a ‘before-today’ context. This task is used to elicit the production of verbal forms of the three groups which will be subsequently analyzed through a variationist approach. The participants were first handed a paper with the illustration of a smiling male named Carlos (figure 3), whereafter they received the first A3-formatted laminated paper with four silhouetted illustrations33 , see figure 1 and 2. After describing the pictures, they received the second A3-paper. The A3 either contained the title: ayer ‘yesterday’ or esta mañana ‘this morning’ . To reassure the use of a past verb 34 conjugation, the participants were explicitly asked to describe the pictures in the past tense without further explanation how or why. The oral productions were recorded with a Philips Digital Voice Tracer and had an average duration of fifty-three seconds, with a standard deviation of 16,4 seconds. The recordings were transcribed and coded afterwards.
Figure 1. Picture description task context A and context B
Figure 2. Picture description task “Carlos ” 35
33The illustrations are designed by Mark van Huystee. They are used for the data collections of several Spanish
varieties in aInnovation in Education project leaded by Dr. P. Gonzalez .
34The prehodiernal context is tagged as context A and the hodiernal context is tagged as context B. Eleven of
the participants started with A and seventeen started with B.
The two elicited contexts of this task consist of four sketches that provide a minimum of four verbal forms per context, which in total equals eight verbal tenses per participant. The task is performed referring to the fictional male Carlos, therefore the data is collected in the third-person singular. The participants used verbal forms including the following four tenses: the Simple Present, the Simple Past, the Imperfect and the Present Perfect. In the next section, the results are initially coded as Perfect and non-perfect. Afterwards, to bring forward the opposition between the Perfect and simple past form, the data are coded as a) Perfect form b) Simple Past form c) other form. To give an overview of the elicited data format of the task, the transcriptions of participant 028 in the prehodiernal context are shown in example 7 and the data of participant 015 in the hodiernal context are shown in example 8.
(7) “Anoche llegó cansado del trabajo, se preparó la cena, y se puso a cenar, luego cerró las cortinas para dormir y se acostó.”
“Yesterday evening he came (simple past) home tired from work, he prepared (simple past) his dinner and started (simple past) his dinner, then, he closed (simple past) the curtains to sleep and he went (simple past) to bed.”
(8) “Pues Carlos esta mañana se ha levantado y ha visto salir el sol por la ventana, y ha
decidido empezar su día, ha abierto las cortinas, ha comenzado a desayunar,
después de desayunar pues ha salido de casa porque tenía que ir a trabajar, y se ha
ido a trabajar hasta ahora que es el tiempo del almuerzo.”
“So, this morning, Carlos got up (PP), he saw (PP) the sun rise through the window, he decided (PP) to start his day, he opened (PP) the curtains, he began (PP) to have breakfast, after having breakfast.. well, he left (PP) the house because he had (imperfect) to work and he went (PP) to work until now as it is time for lunch.”
The statistical analysis for this task, first, tests the variability of PP usage in relation to the four described pictures of the context (see figure 2). In this case, the t-test measures the size of the
differences between the produced tokens relative to the variation of the pictures. Secondly, for testing variability between speaker groups, a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed. This test looks at the mean scores and is appropriate for the data of this task for two reasons a) it captures the generational variation of three groups, therefore ANOVA, and b) the participants
produced four tokens for two contexts, hence each context is repeated four times. This equally implies that each out of four tokens is not independent of the other three tokens as they are produced by the
same participant. Additionally, a Chi-square test is used to examine the produced frequencies of each group in relation to the expected frequencies. The Chi-square test intends to look for the extent to which the observed distribution, in this case the distribution of frequencies of the produced tense variants, is due to chance. In other words, it measures how well the observed distribution of the collected data fits the distribution that is expected (Moore, McCabe & Craig, 2009).
5.4. Acceptability judgement task
The second task tries to reveal variation in attitudes towards the Perfect that functions as a past marker in determinate contexts. Firstly, by looking at the data in general, to collect an overall evaluation of Perfect forms in determinate past contexts. Secondly, by looking at the rating scores, to find out to what extent temporal adverbials affect the responses of the participants in the survey. Lastly, by comparing the three participant groups, to look for generational differences in the responses.
To do so, the participants filled in a Likert-scale score for sentences with ten temporal adverbials that differ in their distance to the present moment. The following adjectives were included at the end of the scales: abnormal v.s. normal and incomplete v.s. complete. The normality scale is included to assess the acceptability of the PP in combination with the adverbials. The second scale is included to assess ratings on completeness of a phrase. As according to the literature, the PP fulfills the function of expressing present relevance, a lack of this relevance might be evaluated as if the phrase is not complete. The written survey consists of fifteen phrases of which five are included as distractors containing Imperfect tense forms and contexts. Table 4 shows the format of the survey which the participants filled in writing, either in collaboration with the researcher or by themselves.
Table 7. Format of the acceptability judgement task
strongly agree
agree neutral agree strongly agree
Abnormal 1 2 3 4 5 Normal
Incomplete 1 2 3 4 5 Complete
The adverbials are included to manipulate the temporal distance between the phrases. The ten assessed phrases of the survey contained the following temporal adverbial modifications, ordered chronically from a prehodiernal ‘distant past’ (A) to hodiernal ‘recent past’ (J):
B. En 2012 - In 2012
C. En junio - In June
D. El verano pasado - Last summer E. El 3 de octubre - The third of October F. La semana pasada - Last week
G. El lunes pasado - Last Monday
H. Ayer - Yesterday
I. Anoche - Last night
J. A las ocho y media - At half past eight
The sentences all contain a single main verb, therefore all phrases consist of a single clause, see example 9 with context H. The single clauses do not end with a period and they can be grouped in 36 four grammatical person-categories: first person singular(4), first person plural(5), third person singular(4) and third person plural(2). There are five phrases that start and five of them that end with an adverbial. After analysis, those linguistic factors did not affect the outcomes.
(9) Ayer mi hermano ha comprado un aire acondicionado *Yesterday my brother has bought an air conditioner Yesterday my brother bought an air conditioner
The participants were instructed to respond to the sentences as if they were being articulated by a speaker. All ratings are documented and in the next sections the median scores of each variable 37 38 will be outlined. The Kruskall-Wallis test is performed to examine variation in the median scores. This test is adequate as the data of the scores are ordinal, where a rate of 1 is the lowest score and a 5 is the highest score.
6. Results
The data are presented from two angels. The results are first categorized based on the produced tense forms and the distinction of the hodiernal and prehodiernal context. Here, the speech variety of
36 This example is based on the sentence of Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008), see section 3.3
37The participants were recommended to read the sentences aloud and to fill in their responses without thinking
too much. A visual aid, showing a picture of two speakers having a conversation, was placed into the survey to prime the participant into this form of interpretation and to prevent the phrases to be rated on spelling. An example phrase was provided to practice the evaluation response.
38The use of averages will not demonstrate correctly the response data since the numerical levels only display
Alicante is displayed as one group as a whole. Afterwards, the results per task are presented based on the generational variation that distinguishes the three age groups.
6.1 Contextual variation: The narrative picture description task
The narration task was performed by describing a series sketches with actions performed by an imaginary person. The utterances of the speakers were short and produced with a focus on meaning rather than form. The twenty-eight participants produced verbal forms for eight pictures in two contexts, therefore a total of 224 verbal tenses is collected.
The frequency of produced PP tokens per context is shown in table 8. The Perfect is exclusively used in 8.9% of all tokens, with a probability of 0.178 in the hodiernal context and zero uses the prehodiernal context. The t-test was performed to look at the variation in the use of the four described pictures of the hodiernal context and it did not not suggest significant differences between the pictures. 39
Table 8. Frequency of the PP form. Combined features: “Context & Tense”
Perfect Non-perfect
Hodiernal 20 (17.8%) 92 (82.1%)
Prehodiernal 0 112 (100%)
Total (N=224) 20 (8.9%) 204 (91.1%)
A closer look into the data collection provides evidence that the narrative description task is not performed in a binary manner. As for both contexts, the Imperfect and Simple Present tenses are also 40 used, as shown in table 9. The distribution of produced verbal forms shows the high preference of all participants for the use of the Simple Past in both contexts.
Table 9. Frequency of all produced tokens. Combined features: “Tense & Context”
Hodiernal Prehodiernal
Present Perfect 20 (17.8%) 0 (0.0%)
39 This is also due to the observation that only 6 participants produced the Perfect, which shows a that the
Perfect is condensed. However, these so-called ‘outliers’ are spread over all age groups.
40 It needs to be mentioned that those other variants are used by speakers that pertain to two out of three
participant groups, therefore both variants and the participants have been included in the results and the statistical analysis.
Simple Past 88 (78.6%) 98 (87.5%)
Imperfect 2 (1.8%) 10 (8.9%)
Simple Present 2 (1.8%) 4 (3.6%)
6.2 Contextual variation: Acceptability judgement task
The results of the acceptability task include the ratings on phrases with a PP in combination with temporal adverbials.The histogram in figure 3 shows the counts of each level for the normal and complete Likert-scale. In general, the phrases are less accepted as normal, as the highest count of all respondents rated the phrases with the lowest score 1. As for the completeness of the phrases, the highest count was rated with the highest score 5. In other words, the participants agreed less with the phrases to be normal and they agreed more with the phrases to be complete.
The results presented in figure 4 show how the participants responded to each temporal adverbial as a independent variable. Here, we see a clear difference on the normality-scale between the prehodiernal adverbial ‘ten years ago’ and the hodiernal temporal marker ‘at 8.30’. The former phrase is presented in example 10 and the latter in example 11. As for the adverbial ‘yesterday’, which was based on Schwenter & Cacoullos (2008), the participants rated this phrase negatively with a 2.
As for the other temporal adverbials, the results display congruence since they are all rated with a score of 2, except for the temporal adverbial ‘the 3rd of October’, that scores with a 4. This is the only prehodiernal context that scores on the acceptance side of the scale. The sentence of this phrase is shown in example 12.
(10) Hace diez años he conocido a Rosa en Madrid *Ten years ago I have met Rosa in Madrid Ten years ago I met Rosa in Madrid
(11) Luisa ha ido al colegio a las ocho y media *Luisa has gone to school at eight thirty Luisa went to school at eight thirty
(12) Mis padres han recibido la llave de su nueva casa el 3 de octubre
My parents received the keys of their new home the 3rd of October
6.3 Social variation: The narrative description task
This subsection presents the results of the generational variation. As shown below, several statistical analyses do not suggest significant differences in the results. However, the results for each speaker group do display variation. In the narration task, the prehodiernal context did not elicit a Perfect token for all participant groups and the middle-aged group produced the highest frequency of the Simple Past form, see table 9. For the hodiernal context, the produced variants are divided by each group in table 10, showing that the middle-aged group used the Perfect with the highest frequency, followed by the younger group and finally the elderly speakers.
The ANOVA test performed on the data did not find statistical differences between the groups. Furthermore, the Chi-square test did not suggest statistical differences at p<0.05 , which 41 means that the data does not properly fit the adequate assumptions for post-hoc analysis. The conclusion section will elaborate more on these outcomes in relation to the sample size.
Table 10. Produced tokens in the prehodiernal context per group, in percentages Younger Middle-aged Elderly
Present Perfect 0 0 0
Simple Past 86.5 91.7 83.3
Other 13.5 8.3 16.7
Table 11. Produced tokens in the hodiernal context per group, in percentages Younger Middle-aged Elderly
Present Perfect 17.3 22.2 12.5
Simple Past 75 77.7 87.5
Other 7.7 0 0
F(2,25) = 0.1175, p<0.8896
6.4 Social variation: Acceptability judgement task
In the acceptability task, the survey tested phrases on their normality and completeness. In the histogram of figure 5, the median scores of the normality scale are presented for each group and each temporal adverbial. It stands out that the younger speakers rated the hodiernal adverbial ‘at 8.30’ lower than the middle-aged and elderly speaker groups. The statistical Kruskal-Wallis test integrates the median scores for the comparison of the three groups, and it suggests no significant differences in between group scores. The results pertaining to the completeness-scale will not be discussed in further depth due to the lack of significant differences.
A few additional notes are provided for the results of the second task. First, the day of the data collection might have influenced the rating score on the temporal adverbial ‘Last Monday’. The middle-age group was assessed on Wednesday and the elderly group on Saturday, which means that last Monday was still in the same week, relating to the continuative function of the perfect . The part 42 of the younger group that was found at the University of Alicante (77 %) performed the task on Monday, therefore ‘last Monday’ is not in the same week. Furthermore, the participant (019) with the highest ranking score of the elderly speaker group ranked nearly all phrases with the highest ranking score. However, when she evaluated the phrases she frequently responded by repeating the phrase
42 For the same reason, I add the time of the production task as a possible factor that affects the use of the
perfect. The participants that used a Perfect with ‘this morning’, were all recorded before 12.00 pm. This information, however, is not included in the results, as it is not provided for all participants.
with the PP form included. In other words, she verbally verified the verbal forms of each phrase and therefore the data collector assumes this participant did understand the task, see examples in 13a-b for the transcriptions of the participant’s responses. 43
Moreover, some anecdotal quotes that participants uttered while they filled in the survey demonstrate that the perfect is not quite accepted with prehodiernal adverbials, see example 14 and 15 from the younger participant group and example 16 from the middle-aged group. Example 17
demonstrates the response of the excluded participant from León, who points out her thoughts based on social stratification . However, one participant of the middle-aged group, after finishing the 44 45 survey, commented that according to him, the perfect and simple past can be used interchangeably in Spanish.
(13a) “Si, es normal, el verano pasado hemos nadado en el mar.” Yes, that is normal, last summer we swam (PP) in the sea.
(13b) “Ah muy bien se ha casado” Ah very well, she married (PP)
(14) “You only use this if it just happened”.
(15) “No, this is horrible!”
(16) “No, it is not possible because it is already ten years ago”.
(17) “I always loved grammar in school, so I would never use this phrase, maybe people who are less educated will say this.”
6.5 Summary of the findings
43 For the elderly participants of the retirement home, the data collector recorded by accident some of the
participants while they performed the second task, due to not pausing the recording device. Therefore, this detailed note could be made on the verbal reactions during the task.
44 Studies have shown that social class plays a factor in the production of the perfect.This is explained by the
fact that speakers of higher social classes act more to the norm of the standard varieties than lower social classes do (Jara Yupanqui & Valenzuela, 2013).
45 This participant is a language teacher and his comment demonstrates his metalinguistic awareness on the
variable (Geeslin & Long, 2014:20). Moreover, as the data collector is a native Dutch speaker, this participant assumably was giving more information to the data collector, to explain the features of the Spanish language more generally.
At first sight, the Perfect form is not produced in prehodiernal contexts, opposed to low frequencies in the hodiernal context. For the latter, younger and middle-aged speakers seem to use the PP with a higher frequency than the elderly speakers do.
The results for the narrative hodiernal context of the first task show that the middle-aged speakers produced the highest number of Perfect forms (22.2%), followed by the younger speakers (17.3%) and lastly the elderly group (12.5%). Moreover, the results show that the use of Simple Past forms in hodiernal contexts varies as well, with a decreasing tendency per age group: the elderly group produced the Simple Past with the highest frequency in 87.5% of the tokens, followed by the middle-aged group with 77.7% and lastly the younger group with 75%. The variation in use of Simple Past forms in the hodiernal context, however, is not only compensated by the use of the Perfect, but by the Imperfect and Simple Present tense forms as well. For this reason, the hodiernal context elicited a relatively low frequency (17.8%) of PP forms.
In the acceptability judgement task, all groups accept the use of the PP in combination with a hodiernal adverbial, with a median score of 5 on the scale, compared to a high frequency of negative scores for the prehodiernal adverbials. The data do not display an effect based on temporal adverbial modification within the prehodiernal context, but they do reflect some variation among the
generational groups.
All in all, the most striking finding that contradicts previous studies, is that the hodiernal context elicited a low frequency of PP forms. Although the data of this study seem to present sociolinguistic variation in the performance of both tasks, the statistical tests for all included factors do not display significant differences. This will be discussed in the next section.
7. Conclusions
Using a variationist approach, this study investigated whether the use of the perfect varies among contexts and age groups within one speech variety. The main findings (considering all the data together) for the Spanish Perfect were the following: the form is not used in a prehodiernal context and only used in 17.8% of the hodiernal contexts; it is not accepted with prehodiernal temporal adverbials; it does not affect the rate of completeness of a phrase; and lastly, there are no significant differences between three generations.
The results of the narration task contradict the research of Schwenter (1994a) because the hodiernal context elicited the high frequency of simple past tokens over a lower frequency of PP forms, and therefore, no significant distinction between contexts based on PP uses is apparent. Moreover, this shows that the Perfect is not completely established as the hodiernal perfect.
In contrast, the data of the acceptability judgement task supports Schwenter (1994a) as the results show a distinction between the acceptance of the hodiernal and the prehodiernal perfect. All
