Overlap and divergence – aspects of the present perfect in World Englishes

On models and modelling

“…Werner's (2016) study on the present perfect is also unable to provide statistical evidence for evolutionary stage. Werner's solution (2016, pp. 132, 133, 134) to integrate the dynamic model with Modiano's (1999) Common Core model and Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann's (2011) variety typology is problematic, as the former is a diachronic model whereas the latter models are synchronic, and the overlaying of Schneider's stages onto a common core assumes that the common core would remain stable across time.…”

“…It is thus negative evidence from such studies that provides empirical evidence of an underlying common core. Werner (2016), for instance, uses a multi‐factorial approach and NeighborNet clustering to study the use of the present perfect across five ENL and six ESL varieties. The outcome (see Figure 2) shows that there is no clustering according to the Kachruvian variety types.…”

The present perfect in Nigerian English

“…We illustrated this approach in the present study by applying dot plots as an alternative to more traditional bar charts and related statistical calculations to explore frequency data for specific contexts and registers, establishing three types of PPF measurement. A complementary perspective to be taken is a global comparison of multidimensional data as developed in Werner (2016).…”

“…That is, it shows an overall higher proportion of PT forms, and lower co-occurrence values with the PP in variable contexts (see below). For instance, among the thirteen varieties of English studied in Werner (2016) it emerges as the variety with the second lowest PPF score (only Singapore English has a lower value). However, these results were of a preliminary nature, as only written data were available for these investigations.…”

“…Specifically, patterns in variable contexts and the influence of text types are investigated. The present analysis can therefore also be seen as a contribution toward broadening the scope of other recent studies discussing variation between the PP and PT in varieties of English in general (such as Hundt & Smith 2009), and we specifically aim at widening the perspective on the variation between the competing time-reference forms (TR forms) 3 in indigenized varieties of English, also known as 'New Englishes' (such as Yao & Collins 2012;Seoane & Suárez-Gómez 2013;Werner 2013Werner , 2016.…”