Title: Subjectification and the development of the English perfect
Abstract: Present perfects are typically characterised as encoding a relation of relevance between a past event and the present moment: some version of the ‘current relevance’ view is adopted in Jespersen (1931), Li, Thompson, and Thompson (1982), Anderson (1982), and Langacker (1991). For example, the utterance John has mowed the lawn (so he can come to the movies) indicates that the past event (the completion of the lawn mowing) is related to John's present ability to go to the movies. Current relevance is an inherently subjective notion in that the link between the past event and the current situation is dependent on the attitude/judgement of the speaker. Harris (1982:54) comments that, in some contexts, ‘only the speaker's subjective judgement determines the presence or otherwise of “present relevance” and hence the choice of the paradigm’. The view that the perfect is imbued with subjectivity is prevalent throughout the literature on tense and aspect (cf. Benveniste 1959, Fleischman 1990).
Publication Year: 1995
Publication Date: 1995-11-30
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 121
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