Abstract
Abstract Research into the use of the Present Perfect in various Romance languages often finds that the Present Perfect is taking over functions previously accomplished through the Preterite. This is also the case in Peninsular Spanish. A key constraint on the alternation of the Present Perfect and the Preterite involves the time-frame distinction of “today” versus “before-today”. Among the various dialects of Spanish spoken in Spain,the regional dialect of Bilbao has been identified as having the highest percentage of “today” Present Perfects. Nonetheless, no community-based study of this dialect has been carried out. This study reports the results of a variationist study of the increasing use of the Present Perfect instead of Preterite in the city of Bilbao, Spain, based on 49 sociolinguistic interviews. Twenty factor groups involving linguistic constraints were analyzed. The findings support the findings of previous research except for the case of telicity, polarity and clause type that were not found to be significant in previous research. In addition, the findings provide new evidence of the significance of the following factors in a multi-variate analysis of the alternation of the Present Perfect and the Preterite: mood, the following verb’s mood, the following verb’s tense and narratives.
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