The Evolution of Spanish Past Forms

Gibran Delgado-Díaz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367322472
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000352641
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Evolution of Spanish Past Forms examines how Spanish past forms have changed diachronically.

With examples from Medieval Spanish, Golden Age Spanish, and Modern Spanish literary works, this book demonstrates how language is dynamic and susceptible to change. The past forms considered here include the preterit, the imperfect, the imperfect progressive with estar (temporal to be), the present perfect, the imperfect progressive with other auxiliary verbs, the preterit progressive with estar, and the preterit progressive with other auxiliary verbs.

This book will be of interest to scholars and graduate students investigating tense and aspect phenomena in Spanish and other languages, grammaticalization processes, and language variation and change.

1Introduction

1.1Introduction

This book examines Spanish past-time expressions diachronically (i.e., in the historic dimension) within literary works with the purpose of tracking past-time expression constraints through time. This investigation considers the past-expressions illustrated in (1.1). Additionally, the data derived from literary works from Medieval Spanish, Golden Age Spanish, and Modern Spanish, following Torres Cacoullos’ (2012, 2015) methodology. Spanish past forms were chosen because, although they generally express different aspectual meanings (i.e., aspect is defined as “…different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation” [Comrie, 1976: 3]), there are instances when they convey overlapping aspectual notions. For example, previous investigations have found that the imperfect progressive with estar (1.1c) and the imperfect (1.1a) can be used to convey a past habitual function (i.e., an event that was repeated in the past) or past progressive (i.e., an ongoing event in the past) (Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca, 1994; Delgado-Díaz, in press; Lamanna, 2008, 2012). Moreover, the preterit (1.1b) and present perfect (1.1e) can be used to express single completed events in the past (i.e., perfective aspect) (Hernández, 2004; Howe & Schwenter, 2008; Schwenter 1994; Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos, 2008; among many others).

(1.1)	a. …cuando esto ovo fecho, odredes lo que fablava. (Cantar del Mio Cid)
	…when he had done this, they heard what he said.
	b. Fabló mio Cid, el que en buen ora cinxo espada. (Cantar Del Mio Cid)
	Mio Cid spoke, the one that in good time took his sword in arms.
	c. …se fueron hacia la parte donde aún estaba hablando… (El Quijote)
	…they went to the place where they were still talking…
	d. Esta tarde estuvo hablando con él… (Doña Perfecta)
	I was talking to him this afternoon…
	e. Ella me mira a veces con la ardiente mirada de que ya he hablado a usted. (Pepita Jiménez)
	Sometimes she looks at me with the burning look I have already told you.

Despite the various meanings that can be expressed through Spanish past-time expressions, previous investigations tend to focus only on a handful of forms in a dichotomous fashion. For example, most investigations examine the following oppositions: preterit vs imperfect, preterit vs present perfect, and imperfect vs imperfect progressive. This methodology assumes a form-function symmetry, it does not consider the complexity of the past aspectual system and the fact that past forms can share common aspectual meanings (Delgado-Díaz, in press; Poplack, 2018). In fact, Poplack (2018) rejects a form-function symmetry arguing that syntactic variation may entail neutralized functional distinctions. Consequently, researchers must include all the possible forms that may share aspectual meanings to present a complete picture of the envelope of variation (Delgado-Díaz, in press; Poplack & Tagliamonte, 1999). Therefore, the present investigation includes all forms that express past events. More specifically, we aim to determine if the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that constrain the use of these past expressions change through time. Additionally, we intent to study which forms interact within the progressive, habitual, and perfective aspectual domains (Bybee et al., 1994; Comrie, 1976)

It is worth highlighting that this investigation is guided by Grammaticalization Theory, which makes predictions on how lexical items gain and continue to develop further grammatical meaning. Similarly, it proposes a hypothesis about language change in the diachronic axis (Bybee et al., 1994; Heine, 2003; Hopper & Traugott, 2003).

The next section of this chapter is dedicated to aspect in Spanish because one goal is to determine which forms interact with each other on past aspectual domains. The study focuses on habitual, progressive, and perfective aspectual function, as defined by Comrie (1976) and Bybee et al. (1994). In addition, the following sections also discuss the different factors that influence the choice of past-expression in Spanish because some may overlap with aspect.

1.2Aspect in Spanish

Comrie (1976) defined aspect as “…different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation” (p.3). According to this scholar, the notion of aspect expresses the speaker’s point of view regarding a particular event or situation. By this definition, aspect is an internal characteristic of the event and does not necessarily make any reference to the moment of speech. Grammatical aspect refers to the aspectual information provided by morphology (see Figure 1.1). Comrie (1976) proposed the aspectual classifications presented in Figure 1.1, which demonstrates that aspect can be categorically divided as perfective or imperfective. The perfective category entails past events that have an end point and are completed while imperfect entails situations that are ongoing and/or incomplete (Comrie, 1976: 19). According to Comrie (1976), perfective events are categorized as being seen from an outside viewpoint while imperfective events are categorized as being viewed from the inside. Comrie’s (1976) categorization includes other readings of the imperfect, such as habitual, continuative, progressive, and non-progressive.

Figure 1.1Aspectual classifications (Comrie, 1976: 25)

Regarding the imperfective classifications, a habitual function is defined as an event that is repeated during an extensive period of time, in such a manner that it becomes an inherent characteristic of that event (Comrie, 1976). The example in (1.2a) illustrates a habitual aspectual function in which the event of pasaban ‘would spend’ occurred occasionally. The progressive aspectual function is considered to present an event as ongoing in the reference time (Bybee et al., 1994). The fragment in (1.2b) shows a use of the imperfect hacía ‘he was doing’ in a progressive context which is modified by mientras ‘while’. On the contrary, non-progressiveness refers to a nearly permanent state of affairs (Comrie, 1976). Comrie (1976) gives the example the sphinx stands by the Nile River as a non-progressive reading. He added that progressiveness and non-progressiveness differ in a temporary/permanent distinction. On the other hand, continuous is defined as a type of more general progressive in the sense that it can be used with progressive situations but can include stative predicates. However, Bybee et al. (1994) reject the categories continuous and non-progressive, because they did not find grammatical items that express these meanings in their data. Consequently, the present study focuses on the aspectual categories habitual, progressive, and perfective.

(1.2)	a. …y los demás días se los pasaban en flores. (El Quijote)
	…and the other days they would spend on flowers.
	b. …mientras él hacía frente en Madrid al formidable empuje de los acreedores. (Doña Perfecta)
	…while he was facing the formidable push of the creditors in Madrid.

This book focuses on Spanish past-expression for the following reasons: first, little is known about the evolution of these past-expressions in Spanish. Penny (2000) stated that the preterit and imperfect were inherited from Latin; but little...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Grammaticalization Theory
• 3 Previous studies on Spanish past forms
• 4 The study
• 5 Results
• 6 Discussion and conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index