LINGUIST List 17.3316
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Tue Nov 14 2006
Diss: Socioling/Semantics: Howe: 'Cross-Dialectal Features of the S...'
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1. Lewis
Howe,
Cross-Dialectal Features of the Spanish Present Perfect: A typological analysis of form and function
Message 1: Cross-Dialectal Features of the Spanish Present Perfect: A typological analysis of form and function
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Date: 13-Nov-2006
From: Lewis Howe <choweuga.edu>
Subject: Cross-Dialectal Features of the Spanish Present Perfect: A typological analysis of form and function
Institution: Ohio State University
Program: Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2006
Author: Lewis Chadwick Howe
Dissertation Title: Cross-Dialectal Features of the Spanish Present Perfect: A typological analysis of form and function
Linguistic Field(s):
Semantics
Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s): Spanish (spa)
Dissertation Director:
Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach
Craige Roberts
Scott A Schwenter
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation presents a typological analysis of the Present Perfect
across dialects of Spanish, building from a set of semantic features
characteristic of perfect constructions cross-linguistically. It has been
long noted that use of the perfect in Spanish varieties spoken in Spain
differs qualitatively from its use in Latin American dialects. The
principal contributions of this thesis are (i) the description of a set of
semantic characteristics exhibited across languages with typologically
similar perfect constructions and (ii) the application of this set of
features to the categorization of perfects across dialects of Spanish.
The analysis begins with an examination of the set of features used to
characterize cross-dialectal variation in the Spanish perfect, arguing that
it exhibits many of the features of an archetypal perfect. Next, a
partition of dialect groups is proposed, establishing a division between
those varieties that favor the perfective past, or pretérito, in reference
to past events and those that prefer the perfect. Two dialects—Peninsular
and Peruvian Spanish—in which increased functional overlap between the
perfect and the pretérito has been attested are then analyzed in detail. It
is argued that Peruvian Spanish is more generally representative of the
Latin American pretérito-preferring norm, as opposed to Peninsular Spanish,
characterized as a dialect that favors the perfect. The arguments developed
in the preceding chapters are corroborated by the results of the author's
fieldwork conducted in Madrid and Valencia, Spain and Cusco, Peru.
The analysis concludes with a proposal concerning the variable mechanisms
of semantic change responsible for the independent development of
perfective features observed in the perfect in Peninsular and Peruvian
Spanish. While grammaticalization in both cases is motivated by
discourse-related factors, the extension of the perfect in Peninsular
Spanish is triggered by the erosion of relevance implications associated
with the meaning of the perfect. In the case of the Peruvian Spanish
perfect, increased perfectivity results from a widening of the notion of
relevance. These two dialectal situations therefore represent distinct
outcomes of discourse-motivated semantic change.
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