Synchronous Narratives in Spanish: The Simple Present/Present Progressive Aspectual Contrast

Autor/in	Mayberry, Maria
Titel	Synchronous Narratives in Spanish: The Simple Present/Present Progressive Aspectual Contrast
Quelle	In: Hispania, 94 (2011) 3, S.462-482 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0018-2133
Schlagwörter	Video Technology; Morphemes; Verbs; Spanish; Language Usage; Narration; Morphology (Languages); Native Speakers; Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Morphem; Spanisch; Sprachgebrauch; Morphology; Morphologie; Muttersprachler; Diskursanalyse; Pragmalinguistik
Abstract	The purpose of this work is to examine the aspectual differences between the usage of simple present and the progressive forms in Spanish in the context of synchronous narratives (i.e., events that participants narrate at the same time they are watching video clips of the events). To that end, the study examines the distribution of verbal morphology in 368 synchronous narratives produced by 23 native Spanish speakers. Each participant described sixteen scenes. The findings suggest that tense selection in synchronous narratives is influenced by the interaction of discourse principles of foregrounding and backgrounding (Hopper 1979) and the inherent temporal characteristics of verbal predicates (i.e., lexical aspect) to encode aspectual distinctions. Thus, the context of synchronous narratives imposes constraints on discourse: punctual and telic events serve to foreground the plot and evoke the use of the simple present, as the preterite does in narratives in the past. Conversely, the progressive is used with atelic and durative events that provide the background of the present time frame narrative in a manner analogous to the imperfect in the past. (Contains 4 figures, 8 tables, and 14 notes.) (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Inc. 900 Ladd Road, Walled Lake, MI 48390. Tel: 248-960-2180; Fax: 248-960-9570; e-mail: AATSPoffice@aatsp.org; Web site: http://www.aatsp.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10