A review of history of the "pretérito perfecto" in spanish

Abstract

This paper presents how the pretérito perfecto (PP) was formally and functionally composed from Latin to the Romance languages, with special attention to the Spanish and varieties. For this purpose, we recover some assumptions from the grammaticalization studies to understand the processes involved in the PP history. To this reference we added the observation of the use of the language in different stages of its formation, comparing the medieval use with the contemporary use. Our database is based on ancient textual fragments compiled by philologists and by texts spread throughout the journalistic sphere (newspaper and radio interviews). This proposal is justified by allowing the contemplation of the process of changes and accommodations that the pretéritos perfecto compuesto (PPC) and perfecto simple (PPS) have been suffering, making possible the understanding that the behaviors described in the varieties of contemporary Spanish correspond to a process under construction in this language as well as in the other Romance languages.