Variable past-time expression across multiple tasks in Tucumán, Argentina

We examine variable past-time expression in urban Tucumán, Argentina, an understudied region representative of the set of Andean varieties included in Northwestern Argentinean Spanish. We analyze the present perfect (PP) and preterit in two contexts of data collection: a sociolinguistic interview an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revista española de lingüística aplicada 2018-12, Vol.31 (2), p.605-637
Main Authors: Terán, Virginia, Kanwit, Matthew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Data collection
Grammaticalization
Language varieties
Social factors
Sociolinguistics
Spanish language
Time
Written language
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Summary:We examine variable past-time expression in urban Tucumán, Argentina, an understudied region representative of the set of Andean varieties included in Northwestern Argentinean Spanish. We analyze the present perfect (PP) and preterit in two contexts of data collection: a sociolinguistic interview and a contextualized preference task across a range of linguistic and social factors, such as temporal reference and speaker age. Oral results indicate that Tucumán has a higher frequency of use of the PP than has yet been documented in Latin American varieties and even Peninsular Spanish, previously argued to have the highest rate. Preference task results yielded somewhat lower PP rates, confirming that the PP is preferred in speech, whereas the preterit is more viable in written language. The current study documents the highest rate of use of the PP to date across a number of linguistic contexts, contributing to our knowledge of the processes of grammaticalization and task-related differences.
ISSN:0213-2028
2254-6774
DOI:10.1075/resla.16013.ter