Cover not available
Part of
Hispanic Contact Linguistics: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives
Edited by Luis A. Ortiz López, Rosa E. Guzzardo Tamargo and Melvin González-Rivera
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 22] 2020
► pp. 163–178

Chapter 7
Use of the Present Perfect Indicative in New York Dominican Spanish

| University at Albany, SUNY
| University at Albany, SUNY
| University at Albany, SUNY
Several studies have examined the functional distribution of the Present Perfect (PP) in Peninsular and Latin American Spanish. This study contributes to this line of research through examination of the morphology and function of PP in New York Dominican Spanish. The objective is to examine the degrees of diffusion and frequency of use of this tense in the speech of bilingual speakers. We also examine the functions of all PP occurrences in interviews with 23 speakers and explore any innovative uses. Results show that the majority of participants use PP especially for events that occurred in the indefinite past or continue to have current relevance, which is the normative context in which PP is used (Comrie, 1976).
Keywords: Dominican Spanish, Present Perfect, Preterite, Spanish in the US
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Present Perfect in Spanish
    • 2.2Present Perfect in US Spanish
    • 2.3Present Perfect in Dominican Spanish
    • 2.4The community
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection and extraction
    • 3.3Variables and coding criteria
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Diffusion of PP use
    • 4.2PP form
      • 4.2.1Auxiliary verb
      • 4.2.2Past participle
    • 4.3PP function
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.22.07cor
References (27)
References
Alba, O. (2004). Cómo hablamos los dominicanos: Un enfoque sociolingüístico. Santo Domingo: Grupo León Jiménes.Google Scholar
Begard, L. W. (2014). Have Dominicans surpassed Puerto Ricans to become New York City’s largest Latino nationality? An analysis of Latino population data from the 2013 American community survey for New York City and the Metropolitan Area. New York, NY: Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies.Google Scholar
Bullock, B. E., & Toribio, A. J. (2009). Reconsidering Dominican Spanish: Data from the rural Cibao. Revista Internacional De Lingüística Iberoamericana, 7.2(14), 49–73.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1976). Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. & Hedin, E. (2000). Current relevance and event reference. In Ö. Dahl (Ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe (386–401). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
DeMello, G. (1994). Pretérito compuesto para indicar acción con límite en el pasado: Ayer he visto a Juan. Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 4, 611–633.Google Scholar
Escobar, A. M. (1997). Contrastive and innovative uses of the present perfect and the preterite in Spanish in contact with Quechua. Hispania, 80(4), 859–870. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fleischman, S. (1983). From pragmatics to grammar: Diachronic reflections on pasts and futures in Romance. Lingua, 60, 183–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gómez Torrego, L. (2002). Gramática didáctica del español. Madrid: SM Ediciones.Google Scholar
Howe, C., & Schwenter, S. (2003). Present perfect for preterite across Spanish dialects. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 9(2), 7.Google Scholar
Howe, C. & Schwenter, S. (2008). Variable constraints on past reference in dialects of Spanish. In M. Westmoreland & J. A. Thomas (Eds.) Selected proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (100–108). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
IBM Corporation. (2013). IBM SPSS statistics for Windows, Version 22.0. [Computer program]. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.Google Scholar
Lope Blanch, J. (1972). Estudios sobre el español de México. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
López, G. (2015). Hispanics of Dominican origin in the United States, 2013. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.Google Scholar
Moliner, M. (1984). Diccionario de uso del español, Tome II. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Otheguy, R., & Zentella, A. C. (2012). Spanish in New York: Language contact, dialectal leveling and structural continuity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serrano, M. J. (1994). Del pretérito indefinido al pretérito perfecto: un caso de cambio y gramaticalización en el español de Canarias y Madrid. LEA: Lingüística Española Actual, 16(1), 37–58.Google Scholar
(1996). Accounting for morpho-syntactic change in Spanish: The present perfect case. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 3(1), 51–61.Google Scholar
Schwenter, S. (1994). The grammaticalization of an anterior in progress: Evidence from a peninsular Spanish dialect. Studies in Language, 18(1), 71–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwenter, S., & Torres Cacoullos, R. (2008). Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization: The ‘perfect’ road to perfective. Language Variation and Change, 20, 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2014). Bilingual language acquisition: Spanish and English in the first six years. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Squartini, M., & Bertinetto, P. M. (2000). The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In Ö. Dahl (Ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe (pp. 403–439). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Toribio, A. J. (2000a). Language variation and the linguistic enactment of identity among Dominicans. Linguistics, 38(5), 1133–1159.Google Scholar
(2000b). Nosotros somos dominicanos: Language and self-definition among Dominicans. In A. Roca (Ed.), Research on Spanish in the United States. Linguistic issues and challenges (pp. 252–270). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Westmoreland, M. (1988). The distribution and the use of the present perfect and the past perfect forms in American Spanish. Hispania, 71(2), 379–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zentella, A. C. (1997). Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar