LINGUIST List 17.3316
Tue Nov 14 2006
Diss: Socioling/Semantics: Howe: 'Cross-Dialectal Features of the S...'
Editor for this issue: Hannah Morales
<hannahlinguistlist.org>
Directory
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
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 Perfectacross dialects of Spanish, building from a set of semantic featurescharacteristic of perfect constructions cross-linguistically. It has beenlong noted that use of the perfect in Spanish varieties spoken in Spaindiffers qualitatively from its use in Latin American dialects. Theprincipal contributions of this thesis are (i) the description of a set ofsemantic characteristics exhibited across languages with typologicallysimilar perfect constructions and (ii) the application of this set offeatures to the categorization of perfects across dialects of Spanish.
The analysis begins with an examination of the set of features used tocharacterize cross-dialectal variation in the Spanish perfect, arguing thatit exhibits many of the features of an archetypal perfect. Next, apartition of dialect groups is proposed, establishing a division betweenthose varieties that favor the perfective past, or pretérito, in referenceto past events and those that prefer the perfect. Two dialects—Peninsularand Peruvian Spanish—in which increased functional overlap between theperfect and the pretérito has been attested are then analyzed in detail. Itis argued that Peruvian Spanish is more generally representative of theLatin American pretérito-preferring norm, as opposed to Peninsular Spanish,characterized as a dialect that favors the perfect. The arguments developedin the preceding chapters are corroborated by the results of the author'sfieldwork conducted in Madrid and Valencia, Spain and Cusco, Peru.
The analysis concludes with a proposal concerning the variable mechanismsof semantic change responsible for the independent development ofperfective features observed in the perfect in Peninsular and PeruvianSpanish. While grammaticalization in both cases is motivated bydiscourse-related factors, the extension of the perfect in PeninsularSpanish is triggered by the erosion of relevance implications associatedwith the meaning of the perfect. In the case of the Peruvian Spanishperfect, increased perfectivity results from a widening of the notion ofrelevance. These two dialectal situations therefore represent distinctoutcomes of discourse-motivated semantic change.
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