John Benjamins Publishing Company
Perfecting the past
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Abstract
Studies on Spanish first language (L1) acquisition have shown that the Present Perfect (PP) appears together with the Present tense, or immediately after, and Peninsular Spanish children use it productively before the Preterit. Though the PP has become the default form of past reference in many varieties of Peninsular Spanish, this finding is surprising given the Perfect’s morphological and semantic complexity. In a corpus study of longitudinal spontaneous data of two L1 Peninsular Spanish children (María, 1;09–3;11; Emilio, 1;09–3;10), we explore the emergence and distribution of tenses, and the types of uses of the PP. Results are consistent with the absence of a complex, indirect referential meaning for the PP and suggest that children have a simpler meaning for it, and thus having the form does not necessarily imply having the meaning.
Abstract
Studies on Spanish first language (L1) acquisition have shown that the Present Perfect (PP) appears together with the Present tense, or immediately after, and Peninsular Spanish children use it productively before the Preterit. Though the PP has become the default form of past reference in many varieties of Peninsular Spanish, this finding is surprising given the Perfect’s morphological and semantic complexity. In a corpus study of longitudinal spontaneous data of two L1 Peninsular Spanish children (María, 1;09–3;11; Emilio, 1;09–3;10), we explore the emergence and distribution of tenses, and the types of uses of the PP. Results are consistent with the absence of a complex, indirect referential meaning for the PP and suggest that children have a simpler meaning for it, and thus having the form does not necessarily imply having the meaning.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction xi
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Part I. Theoretical and descriptive approaches
- No superiority, no intervention effects 3
- Overt PRO in Romance 25
- The semantics and pragmatics of andar and venir + gerund 49
- Sequence of tenses in complementation structures 69
- Fue muerto 89
- Temporal and spectral dependencies in the processing of Spanish and English stop consonant voicing 113
- Segmental and prosodic conditionings on gradient voicing assimilation in Spanish 127
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Part II. Language acquisition
- The sum is more than its parts 147
- Does agreement affect the syntax of bare nominal subjects in Russian–Spanish bilinguals? 169
- Perfecting the past 191
- The protracted acquisition of past tense aspectual values in child heritage Spanish 211
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Part III. Language contact and language variation
- Morphological adjectival intensifier variation in Lima, Peru 233
- An experimental approach to hypercorrection in Dominican Spanish 251
- Dialect identification and listener attributes 269
- Sociophonetic analysis of young Peninsular Spanish women’s voice quality 293
- A sociophonetic analysis of trill production in Panamanian Spanish 313
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Theoretical and descriptive approaches
- No superiority, no intervention effects 3
- Overt PRO in Romance 25
- The semantics and pragmatics of andar and venir + gerund 49
- Sequence of tenses in complementation structures 69
- Fue muerto 89
- Temporal and spectral dependencies in the processing of Spanish and English stop consonant voicing 113
- Segmental and prosodic conditionings on gradient voicing assimilation in Spanish 127
-
Part II. Language acquisition
- The sum is more than its parts 147
- Does agreement affect the syntax of bare nominal subjects in Russian–Spanish bilinguals? 169
- Perfecting the past 191
- The protracted acquisition of past tense aspectual values in child heritage Spanish 211
-
Part III. Language contact and language variation
- Morphological adjectival intensifier variation in Lima, Peru 233
- An experimental approach to hypercorrection in Dominican Spanish 251
- Dialect identification and listener attributes 269
- Sociophonetic analysis of young Peninsular Spanish women’s voice quality 293
- A sociophonetic analysis of trill production in Panamanian Spanish 313
- Index 337
