The article focuses on certain cases in which the use of the compound perfect (CP) of Peninsular Spanish presents problems of interpretation, or apparently contradicts the norms for the use of this form, i.e., the CP is used together with a prehodiernal expression of time (e.g.,
This paper deals with the concept of “simultaneity” in relation to the Spanish Present Perfect based on the descriptions made by Rojo (1974) and Rojo & Veiga (1999), and seeks to link it to other similar concepts proposed by other scholars, such as Alarcos’ presente ampliado (“Increased Present” (IP)), McCoard’s Extended Now (XN), and Iatridou et al.’s Perfect Time Span (PTS). Although not all these terms refer to the same concept, as their limits depend on the respective languages they account for, they all share the notion that there is some kind of temporal coincidence between the event and the speech act that informs the Perfect. We posit that the way this temporal coincidence is conceived may explain the temporal and aspectual differences between the Perfect in languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and English.
The numerous studies on the perfect compound form in Spanish lack a detailed analysis of the subjunctive and future forms (haya cantado and habré cantado), which under certain syntactic and pragmatic conditions are parallel to the indicative one, he cantado. Based on our knowledge of the Spanish indicative present perfect and its use in different Spanish-speaking areas, this paper deals with the distribution and functions of these two “modalised perfects” and their relationship with the corresponding simple forms (cantara and cantaría). The aim is to determine the extent to which these two pairs of forms are functionally and diatopically similar (or not) to the pair he cantado – canté. Our findings help us to better understand the functions of all simple and compound perfect forms in Spanish and their development in eight Spanish-speaking cities in Spain and the Americas.
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