Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.7–31

The historical present in Spanish and semantic/pragmatic structure

| University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

The 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.

Keywords: historical present, conversation, narrative structure, discourse, tense switching, tense shifting, corpus data, semantics/pragmatics interface, Parallel Architecture, tier structure
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
  • 3.Corpus study
    • 3.1Method
    • 3.2Results and discussion
  • 4.The Parallel Architecture
  • 5.The Historical Present and the interaction between semantics and pragmatics
    • 5.1Narrative in the past
    • 5.2Narrative exclusively in the present timeframe (no use of HP)
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 7 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18017.ben
References
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen
1998 “Narrative Structure and Lexical Aspect: Conspiring Factors in Second Language Acquisition of Tense-Aspect Morphology.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 201: 451–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonilla, Carrie
2011 “The Conversational Historical Present in Oral Spanish Narratives.” Hispania 941: 429–442.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1995 The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cohn, Neil
2013 “Visual Narrative Structure.” Cognitive Science 341: 413–452. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014a “Narrative Conjunction’s Junction Function: A Theoretical Model of “Additive” Inference in Visual Narratives.” In Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane, and B. Scassellati, 2050–2055. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
2014b “The Architecture of Visual Narrative Comprehension: The Interaction of Narrative Structure and Page Layout in Understanding Comics.” Frontiers in Psychology 51: 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culicover, Peter, and Ray Jackendoff
2005 Simpler Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davies, Mark
2002 Corpus del Español. [URL]
Dunn, W. E.
1998 “The Effect of Inherent Lexical Aspect and Grammatical Person on Tense- Switching in Oral Narratives.” In Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Seattle: WA. Address.Google Scholar
Dyvik, Margrete
2004 “El presente histórico en el español de América: Un análisis de la lengua hablada.” Español Actual: Revista de Español Vivo 811: 69–83.Google Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne
1990 Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. Texas Linguistics Series. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Fludernik, Monika
1991 “The Historical Present Tense Yet Again: Tense Switching and Narrative Dynamics in Oral and Quasi-Oral Storytelling.” Text 111: 365–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul
1979 “Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse.” In Syntax and Semantics:Discourse and Syntax, ed. by Talmy Givon, 213–241. New York: Academic. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul, and Sandra Thompson
1980 “Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse.” Language 561: 251–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1990 Semantic Structures. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2002 Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010a Meaning and the Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2010b “Parts and Boundaries.” In Meaning and the Lexicon, 138–173. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2013 “A Parallel Architecture Model of Language Processing.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 1: Core Topics (online), ed. by Kevin N. Ochsner and Stephen Kosslyn. DOI logo, 22 pages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William
1972 “The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax.” In Language in the Inner City, 354–396. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald
1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. i1, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lubbers-Quesada, Margaret
2004 “Present and Imperfect for Past Description in Spanish Narratives.” In Language, Culture, and Mind, ed by Michel Achard and Suzanne Kemmer, 329–344. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian
2000 The CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Web.Google Scholar
Marcos Marín, Francisco
1992 Corpus oral de referencia de la lengua española contemporánea. Web.Google Scholar
Mayberry, María
2011 “Synchronous Narratives in Spanish: The Simple Present/Present Progressive Aspectual Contrast.” Hispania 941: 462–482.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl, and Ivan Sag
1994 Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah
1981 “Tense Variation in Narrative.” Language 571: 45–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sebastián, Eugenia, and Dan Slobin
1994 “Development of Linguistic Forms: Spanish.” In Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study, ed. by Ruth Berman and Dan Slobin, 239–284. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen
1983 “Tense and Aspect in Oral Spanish Narrative: Context and Meaning.” Language 591: 760–780. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
SPLLOC
2009 Spanish Learner Language Oral Corpora: Linguistic Development in L2 Spanish. Web.Google Scholar
Van Ess-Dykema, Carol
1984 The Historical Present in Oral Spanish Narratives. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfson, Nessa
1979 “The Conversational Historical Present Alternation.” Language 551: 168–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1982 CHP: The Conversational Historical Present in American English Narrative. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar