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Article published In:
Revue Romane
Vol. 56:2 (2021) ► pp.267–296
Articles linguistiques

The Pluperfect and its discourse potential in contrast

A comparison between Spanish, French and Italian

| University of Cologne

This paper intends to compare the functions of the Pluperfect in discourse from a comparative perspective, taking into account the use of this particular tense form in three different Romance languages, namely French, Italian and Spanish. In particular, it tries to elucidate in what way the Pluperfect contributes to the building and structuring of discourse segments or, to put it differently, how it helps to create coherent units of discourse and interacts with other units on a more comprehensive structural level. The analysis also focuses on the interplay of the Pluperfect with competing past tense forms, the perfective Simple Past and the Perfect. The account put forward in this article tries to present a unified analysis by resorting to the tense-in-discourse framework developed by Becker & Egetenmeyer (2018).

Keywords: tense, Pluperfect, discourse, tense in discourse, comparison of Romance languages
Article outline
  • 1.The Pluperfect – A less considered tense
    • 1.1Introduction
    • 1.2The Pluperfect in the tense literature
  • 2.A tense in discourse framework
  • 3.Pluperfect(s) in Spanish and French
    • 3.1The Pluperfect in Spanish
    • 3.2The Pluperfect in French
    • 3.3Developments in French and differences to Spanish – A contrastive view
  • 4.The discourse potential of the Pluperfect in contemporary Italian narrative prose
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 6 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.20008.pro
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