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Corpus Dialectology
Edited by Elissa Pustka, Carmen Quijada Van den Berghe and Verena Weiland
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 110] 2023
► pp. 154–175

Dialectology as a matter of gradience

The case of Spanish aoristic present perfect in the Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish (COSER)

| Universidad de Salamanca

This article demonstrates how corpus linguistics may help to unveil the gradience of dialectal phenomena through a study of the remote present perfect (PP) in European Spanish. I will address how the fulfilment of certain conditions may account for the use of Spanish aoristic PP, and whether this is reflected in a geographical pattern mirroring its degree of grammaticalization. To this end, a sample taken from the Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish is analysed and mapped. The evidence supports the proposal that Spanish remote PP exhibits traits of a geographically influenced gradient phenomenon, as strongly grammaticalized PPs concentrate in focal areas, while those whose presence is more easily explained from context are spread out around the periphery.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and aims
  • 2.Gradience and dialectal phenomena
  • 3.The basics of Spanish aoristic PP
    • 3.1A note on the structure and development of Spanish PP
    • 3.2The development of Spanish PP towards anteriorness
  • 4.Hypothesis and methods
  • 5.Linguistic analysis
  • 6.Geolectal analysis
  • 7.Unveiling the gradience of aoristic PP
  • 8.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.110.07pas
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