Semantics of the perfect and its implementations in American English
DOI:10.30842/alp2306573714110
Bondar V. A. Semantika perfekta i yeye
realizatsiya v amerikanskom angliyskom. Acta Linguistica
Petropolitana. 283.
The paper deals with the analysis of the
perfect/preterit distribution in American English from a diachronic
perspective. Prevalence of preterits in contexts with temporal
adverbs, in which British English, as a rule, gives preference to
the perfect in its immediate meaning, is interpreted as a
consequence of a language shift caused by substratum interference.
These changes emerge due to wrong perception of the perfect
category by native speakers of foreign languages in the process of
L2 acquisition. The spread of the preterit in the contexts of
resultative-immediate eventualities is enhanced by the use of
respective temporal adverbs like already, yet, just as well as
verbs with respective Aktionsart characteristics. In the course of
the so-called hypoanalysis the semantics of a context is attributed
to the preterit which thus acquires a new function of expressing
results in resultative-immediate contexts. The perfect, which
retains certain pragmatic properties (current relevancy), is used
to highlight a certain significance of the context for the
speaker.
Keywords
References
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