Syncope as the Cause of Präteritumschwund: New Data from an Early New High German Corpus

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Sapp
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Weak Verbs

This paper examines the cause of the decline of the preterite tense in favor of the present perfect tense in Early New High German. This development has long been attributed to apocope, which rendered the 3sg. weak preterite suffix -te homophonous with the 3sg. present suffix -t. By analyzing a database of over 20,000 past-tense clauses, this study evaluates the apocope account and more recent hypotheses. The resulting data lead to a new explanation: syncope in the 2sg. and 2pl. of weak verbs yielded dispreferred final clusters (-tst and -tt), resulting in a preference in these contexts for the present perfect, which then spread to other contexts.*

Recent change in non-present perfect constructions in British and American English

Corpora ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyue Yao ◽  
Peter Collins
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
British English ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries

A number of recent studies of grammatical categories in English have identified regional and diachronic variation in the use of the present perfect, suggesting that it has been losing ground to the simple past tense from the eighteenth century onwards ( Elsness, 1997 , 2009 ; Hundt and Smith, 2009 ; and Yao and Collins, 2012 ). Only a limited amount of research has been conducted on non-present perfects. More recently, Bowie and Aarts’ (2012) study using the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English has found that certain non-present perfects underwent a considerable decline in spoken British English (BrE) during the second half of the twentieth century. However, comparison with American English (AmE) and across various genres has not been made. This study focusses on the changes in the distribution of four types of non-present perfects (past, modal, to-infinitival and ing-participial) in standard written BrE and AmE during the thirty-year period from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Using a tagged and post-edited version of the Brown family of corpora, it shows that contemporary BrE has a stronger preference for non-present perfects than AmE. Comparison of four written genres of the same period reveals that, for BrE, only the change in the overall frequency of past perfects was statistically significant. AmE showed, comparatively, a more dramatic decrease, particularly in the frequencies of past and modal perfects. It is suggested that the decline of past perfects is attributable to a growing disfavour for past-time reference in various genres, which is related to long-term historical shifts associated with the underlying communicative functions of the genres. The decline of modal perfects, on the other hand, is more likely to be occurring under the influence of the general decline of modal auxiliaries in English.

scholarly journals A STUDY OF TENSES USED IN ENGLISH ONLINE NEWS WEBSITE

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 248-258
Author(s):  
Jittra Muta ◽  
Nutprapha Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Online News ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Research Instrument ◽  
News Website ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Data Collections

The purposes of this study were to analyze and describe English tenses used in an online news website and to examine which types of English tenses are frequently used in an online news website. The material in this study was 20 news in Mini-Lessons from B r e a k I n g N e w s E n g l i s h .c o m. The research instrument was a checklist which determines and categorizes English tenses as past tense, present tense, and future tense. The data collections were analyzed with the frequency and percentage. The research findings of the study showed that all using of English tenses in the 20 news from the Mini-Lessons were 279 sentences; past tense were 155 sentences (56%), present tense were 120 sentences (43%), and future tense were 4 sentences (1%). The most English tenses aspect of the news were past simple tense and present tense; past simple tense, present simple tense, present perfect tense, and present progressive tense, respectively. In contrast, breaking news used the least English tenses aspect of the news was past perfect tense, future simple tense, past progressive tense, present perfect progressive tense, and future perfect tense, while there were no used past perfect progressive tense, future progressive tense, future perfect tense, and future perfect progressive tense in the 20 selected breaking news.

Temporal adverbials and the present perfect/past tense alternation

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Werner
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Phylogenetic Networks ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
British English ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
The Difference

Specification by certain temporal adverbials has been shown to be one of the typical triggers of the present perfect in British English. Often, however, L2 varieties display different patterns of temporal co-occurrence, especially using the simple past tense. This study is based on corpus data from twelve components of the International Corpus of English and analyzes the distribution between present perfect and past tense for a number of co-occurring temporal adverbials. In addition, it establishes three measures of similarity across the varieties (hierarchical cluster analysis, phylogenetic networks and a distribution-based measure). On the basis of 6 353 adverbials in total, this paper suggests (1) that there is a L1–L2 divide, (2) that the difference between “traditional” and “transplanted” L1 varieties is less pronounced, (3) that L2 varieties allow more variation, which indicates that in these varieties, the present perfect is partly used as a tense (sensu Quirk et al. 1985), and (4) that some temporal adverbials are less categorically attached to either present perfect or past tense than others. Finally, some conclusions with regard to the importance of geographical and socio-cultural proximity of certain varieties can be drawn.

scholarly journals Interlanguage: A Case Study of English Narrative Discourse of an Indonesian Studying in the U.S.

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Stefanus Angga B. Prima
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
The U.S

The aim of this study is to see how an Indonesian studying in the U.S. uses English tense and aspects to produce meaning oral narrative discourses. The Indonesian’s verbatim of narrative discourse is compared to that of a Minnesota-born English speaker studying in a university in the midwestern of the United States. The audio-recorded narrative discourses are transcribed, then foregrounding and backgrounding clauses of each participant’s oral narrative discourse are analyzed to count the number of verbs produced by each participant. The verbs are categorized into past verbs (simple, progressive, pluperfect) and non-past verbs (base forms, present tense, present progressive, present perfect). By analyzing the morphology distribution, the researcher recorded that the Minnesotan participant used past tense more frequently in foregrounding and backgrounding clauses in both narrative tasks, while the Indonesian used more temporal adverbs than that of the Minnesotan.

scholarly journals Nachzustand, Distanz und Aspektualität als Komponenten einer formfokussierten Steuerung von Perfekt und Präteritum

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Focus On Form ◽  
Input Enhancement ◽  
Metalinguistic Feedback ◽  
L2 Instruction ◽  
Past Tenses ◽  
Form Approach

The fascinating complexity of the German past tenses has created many scientific contributions within the pedagogic, linguistic and SLA communities. Not often though the findings of the theoretical branches have been applied for pedagogic purposes. The article aims at bridging this gap by elaborating the semantic respectively pragmatic concepts of post-state, distance and aspect within a focus on form approach. The concepts of post-state and distance help to present systematically the different readings of the German present perfect and past tense. Reflections on aspectual meanings lead to insights into L2 decoding and coding preferences of learners whose L1 grammaticalises aspect. I propose several proactive and reactive focus on form activities (input flood, input enhancement, metalinguistic feedback, dictogloss) to increase the salience of the elaborated concepts within the L2 instruction of the German past tenses.

scholarly journals Penggunaan Linguistik Korpus dalam Mempersiapkan Bahan Ajar English For Specific Purpose Di Bidang Radiologi

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Euis Reliyanti Arum ◽  
Wiwin Winarti
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs

Minimnya buku ajar English for Specific Purpose yang berkenaan dengan bidang radiologi yang sesuai untuk mahasiswa program studi radiologi di Indonesia menjadi tantangan bagi para dosen pengajar Bahasa Inggris di program studi radiologi Politeknik Al Islam Bandung. Untuk mengantisipasi keterbatasan bahan ajar ESP di bidang radiologi tersebut maka dilakukan penelitian terhadap buku teks radiologi yang berbahasa Inggris dengan menggunakan linguistik korpus sebagai alat untuk mendapatkan kosa kata di bidang radiologi serta gramatika dan fitur kelas kata yang digunakan dalam buku tersebut. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode gabungan antara kuantitatif yang diaplikasikan di awal penelitian serta metode kualitatif yang digunakan pada proses analisis untuk mendapatkan simpulan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 12.395 kata berbeda yang digunakan dengan total jumlah kata secara keseluruhan termasuk kata yang diulang-ulang adalah sebanyak 428.117 kata. Kata-kata tersebut diklasifikasikan ke dalam kelas kata nomina, verba, ajektiva, adverbia, singkatan, dan lain-lain. Secara garis besar, dari hasil tersebut diantaranya ditemukan adanya penggunaan kalimat aktif dan pasif, tenses yang meliputi present, present continuous tense, past tense, present perfect, auxiliary verbs, countable dan uncountable noun, dan comparative degree. Selanjutnya, hasil analisis ini akan digunakan untuk menyusun bahan ajar ESP bidang radiologi.

scholarly journals THE USE OF PRESENT PERFECT IN THE EXPRESSION OF PAST TEMPORALITY IN L2 SPANISH AND CATALAN BY CHILDREN OF MOROCCAN ORIGIN

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-149
Author(s):  
Eulàlia Canals
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Story Retell ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

This study examines the acquisition of Catalan and Spanish past-tense verbs (Preterite, Present Perfect, and Imperfect) by children of Moroccan origin in three schools in the Barcelona metropo1itan area. It presents data that allow us to study which of the three tenses poses the most problems for the second language (L2) speakers as compared to the native speakers in a control group. The data were obtained using elicited story-retell tasks and oral narratives. The results show that in both languages acquiring the accurate functional use of verbs is more difficult than making the right lexical or morphological choices. The greatest functional difficulty lies in the acquisition of the Preterite vis-à-vis the Present Perfect. These results provide additional evidence that form precedes function. However, they challenge an established position on the acquisition of tense and aspect in Romance languages, which holds that the most difficult functional feature to acquire for L2 learners of these languages is the difference between perfective and imperfective tenses.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document