Present History Research Articles

The Historical Present qātēl in Biblical Aramaic


 
 
 This article offers a typologically-driven and corpus-based analysis of the historical present (HP) “active participle” qātēl in Biblical Aramaic. The authors argue that qātēl instantiates the HP category quite neatly and provide three main arguments. First, qātēl complies with the definition of a progredient/propulsive HP that emerges from crosslinguistic literature: while, in its prototypical use, qātēl expresses some type(s) of present, it may also be employed in narrative to introduce past perfective events. Second, when used as an HP, qātēl exhibits functions that are consistent with tendencies attested across languages: stylistically, the HP qātēl is often associated with expressivity, mirativity, and dramatism, while discourse-pragmatically, it is predominantly related to the progression (rarely, the climax) and atomization of the plot. Third, most other properties exhibited by the HP qātēl also harmonize with the behavior of HPs observed in linguistic typology; these concern types of clauses in which the HP qātēl appears, and subjects and verbs used. Overall, the HP qātēl can be viewed as a highlighting narrative device—subjective although linguistically constrained.
 
 

The historical present in Spanish and semantic/pragmatic structure

AbstractThe historical present (HP) is the use of the present tense to refer to past events, usually as part of a narrative. Most work on this topic has dealt with the functions of English HP, mainly within the context of tense switching in conversational narrative. Relatively little work focuses exclusively on HP in Spanish, and most of it deals with the function of HP in conversational narratives. There is a gap in the literature regarding the specific interaction between the semantics and pragmatics involved in the use of HP, especially with respect to the formal representation of this interaction. In order to fill this gap, this paper analyzes the use of HP within the Parallel Architecture framework (Jackendoff 2002) and examines the implications for the semantic/pragmatic structure. Language samples produced by native speakers of Spanish and data from a large Spanish corpus are used as part of the basis for analysis. The present study also explores how the use of the preterite and imperfect in narrative in the past parallels the use of the simple present and the present progressive in narrative within the present timeframe, and shows how this can also be fruitfully analyzed employing the Parallel Architecture. The result is an original model that extends the formal apparatus of the Parallel Architecture to an area where it has not been applied before, the interface between semantics and narrative structure.

Stories Down Under: Tense Variation at the Heart of Australian English Narratives

We examine tense variation in the complicating portion of unreflecting narratives of past personal experience in Australian English (AusE). Previous research has shown that the simple past tense (PT), historical present (HP) and historical present perfect (HPP) alternate innovatively in performed AusE narratives, enabling speakers to foreground pivotal events in the story. However, little is known about the sociolinguistic factors constraining tense variation more generally. Foregrounding is mostly performed by the HP in American English and by the HP and the HPP amongst working class London preteens. We provide a multivariate analysis of the sociolinguistic factors contributing to tense choice in the complicating clauses of 100 narratives of past personal experience collected in Perth in 2011/2012 and told by 38 high school- and university-educated native speakers of Anglo-Celtic AusE, aged 12–62. Multivariate analysis using Goldvarb X reveals that the PT is consistently favoured in complicating action clauses, as per its unmarked function in narrative, while the HPP is used minimally (1% (9/678)). Foregrounding in our narrative corpus is significantly constrained by speaker age. The PT dominates in the 36–62 cohort (89%). The HP is significantly favoured with quotative verbs by speakers aged 12–28 (0.66). Our cross-generational results indicate that AusE narrative style has undergone significant changes in line with Rodríguez Louro's contentions on the reorganization of the AusE quotative system. Namely, the rise of quotation amongst youth (notably the upsurge of quotative be like) is crucially intertwined with the use of the HP to foreground pivotal events in conversational narrative. The apparent time perspective afforded by our methodology shows that the HP has systematically encroached on AusE story-telling.

The immediacy of recollection: The use of the historical present in narratives of autobiographical episodes by patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy

Objectively measuring the experiential phenomenon of “reliving” a personal memory without relying on the retrieval of specific contents such as richness/vividness of perceptual details is difficult. There are, however, some circumstances in which an indirect measure that does not require conscious retrieval or deliberate assessment of such information, would be quite useful (e.g., in very young children, in patients with poor fluency or inappropriate use of rating scales). Here, we examined the use of the historical present (HP), defined as a present tense that refers to a past action, in autobiographical narratives. The HP indexes a sense of reliving because the memory of the event is vividly re-experienced as occurring again in the current moment. We compared the use of the HP in narratives from neurologically intact controls and from patients with unilateral temporal lobe excisions or epilepsy (TLE). Results indicate that patients used fewer instances of the HP than healthy controls. Also, the use of the HP correlated positively with other measures of recollection, such as the total number of perceptual details contained in a narrative. We provide the first empirical evidence that a linguistic construct can be used to assess the conscious experience that accompanies recollection.

Neural correlates of recognition memory in schizophrenia

Objectively measuring the experiential phenomenon of “reliving” a personal memory without relying on the retrieval of specific contents such as richness/vividness of perceptual details is difficult. There are, however, some circumstances in which an indirect measure that does not require conscious retrieval or deliberate assessment of such information, would be quite useful (e.g., in very young children, in patients with poor fluency or inappropriate use of rating scales). Here, we examined the use of the historical present (HP), defined as a present tense that refers to a past action, in autobiographical narratives. The HP indexes a sense of reliving because the memory of the event is vividly re-experienced as occurring again in the current moment. We compared the use of the HP in narratives from neurologically intact controls and from patients with unilateral temporal lobe excisions or epilepsy (TLE). Results indicate that patients used fewer instances of the HP than healthy controls. Also, the use of the HP correlated positively with other measures of recollection, such as the total number of perceptual details contained in a narrative. We provide the first empirical evidence that a linguistic construct can be used to assess the conscious experience that accompanies recollection.

Discourse Quotatives in Australian English: Adolescents Performing Voices

This paper examines the discourse quotatives of Australian English (AE) found in sociolinguistic interviews with adolescents. The investigation focuses on a description of the types and linguistic conditioning of the discourse quotatives and a documentation of the discourse meanings and contexts of their realization. Results indicate that the innovation be + like is located in the discourse quotative system of AE but faces opposition from go, say and the null/zero (Mathis & Yule 1994) form. A comparative analysis of AE with North American, Canadian and British English shows that go and null/zero discourse quotatives are prominent in the data, realized with minimal tense variation, i.e. the Historical Present (HP) dominates. Further, the trajectory of be + like in the AE data confounds the typical accessibility pattern for grammatical person. The form has a relatively limited distribution but appears to be grammaticalized for the third person. Analysis of the discourse context highlights the saliency of oppositional experiences, i.e. 'me and them' tales including voices expressing solidarity with the teller's position. The HP successfully captures both meanings--the enduring ongoing voices of 'others' and the chorus of support from their peers. These meanings effectively exclude the innovation be + like. The AE adolescents appear to be embracing the be + like innovation but its implementation in the system is constrained by the discourse role of the voices, expression of solidarity and the continuing 'other', and the propinquity of null/zero forms.