Otra mirada a los procesos de gramaticalización del Presente Perfecto en español: Perú y Argentina

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we analyze the Preterit (e.g. Estudié toda la noche) and the Present Perfect (PP) (e.g. He estudiado toda la noche) in the Lima variety of Peruvian Spanish (PER) and in Argentinian River Plate Spanish (ARG). PER and ARG have been described as “pretérito-favoring”. We revisit this proposal and show that - although the Preterit is widespread in both these dialects - the use of the PP and the tendency for the Preterit to appear in PP contexts is crucially dissimilar. Based on a thorough analysis of a corpus of oral data (125,352 words), we argue that the different patterns of development in PER and ARG are best explained by the disparate PP usage in continuative and same day/ recent past contexts. We contend that conflating PER and ARG under the umbrella term “Latin American Spanish” does not account for observed usage in oral interaction.