Diachronic Study of the Spanish preterite and present perfect
Emiko SUZUKI
In standard modern Peninsular Spanish the preterite indicative and the present perfect indicative are distinguished semantically. The preterite refers to actions viewed as completed in the past, whereas the present perfect denotes events that have happened in a period of time that includes the present.
Although such functional distinction is firmly established in modern Peninsular Spanish, it does not necessarily mean that such clear distinction has always been maintained through the history of the language.
The present perfect, which is included in the verb tense system today, originally was only a periphrasis and the principal verb HABERE maintained its original meaning of possession, indicating on the whole a state as a result of the possession. Later it extended its meaning to a part of the functional domain (perfectum praesens) of the preterite.
The preterite, on the other hand, originally had two functions, i.e. it indicated not only the events in the absolute past (perfectum historicum) but the events that happened in the period which is related to the present (perfectum praesens). However, according to the functional extension of the present perfect, the preterite would lose gradually the function as perfectum praesens limiting its own domain to that of perfectum historicum.
From a geographical point of view, it is observed that today the functional distinction between the two verb forms in Latin-American Spanish differs from that of European Spanish. In Latin-American Spanish the preterite also can refer to events which occurred in the so-called "amplified present". Based on this observation it is sometimes considered that this modern Latin-American Spanish usage represents archaism in that the preterite in this variety of Spanish seems to maintain its original duplicity.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible relation between the geographical variation of the distinction observed in modern Spanish and its diachronic aspects. For this purpose we intend to clarify the usage of the two forms in the colonial age Spanish both in the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America. Is it appropriate to say that in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean there was usage which coincided with that of modern Latin-American Spanish and the old stage has continued until today in Latin-American Spanish? To make sure of this point, our survey will be centered in the following three aspects of the language: usage variation in modern Spanish-speaking countries, usage in Peninsular Spanish from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century and that in colonial Spanish in the same period. The core of this study is formed by chapters 2 to 4, in which the survey of these three aspects will be made.
In Chapter 2, after referring to some different studies about the tense usage in modern Spanish-speaking countries, we analyse examples from modern Spanish and Mexican dramas in order to observe the regional difference in the use of the two forms. It is clear that in Peninsular Spanish the present perfect can frequently be used for any very recent events as well as for events whose effects are still relevant in the present. In Mexican Spanish, however, as in many other varieties of Latin-American Spanish, all completed actions tend to be expressed by the preterite tense, the present perfect almost being limited to the use for events that continue until present.
In Chapter 3, after making general survey of the two forms from a historical view, we intend to clarify how they were used in some Spanish dramas and autobiographic works written from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. The analysis makes clear that the state of affaires observed in the corpus does not necessarily correspond with that of modern Latin-American Spanish. While the preterite is used to a certain extent for recent past, the present perfect is also used frequently for the same meaning. On the basis of this observation we have to question the hypothesis of archaism supposed for the past tense usage in Latin-American Spanish, in that probably the original state in Peninsular Spanish differed from that of modern Latin-American Spanish.
Chapter 4 is devoted to the description of the use of the two verb forms in colonial documents written in 6 Latin-American cities from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In these documents it is also verified that there is a state of "coexistence" in which both the preterite and the present perfect express any recent events in the past.
According to these observations, we come to a conclusion that the frequent use of the preterite and less use of the present perfect in modern American-Spanish doesn't represent a state as a result of constant conservation of the old usage observed in the colonial age. It is rather supposed that since the colonial age, in which there was a transitional state of distinction, European Spanish and Latin-American Spanish have established its own criterion of differentiation respectively.