The Present Perfect in Non-Native Englishes
Topics in English Linguistics 77
Editors
Bernd Kortmann Elizabeth Closs Traugott
De Gruyter Mouton
The Present Perfect in Non-Native Englishes A Corpus-Based Study of Variation
by
Julia Davydova
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-3-11-025501-0 e-ISBN 978-3-11-025502-7 ISSN 1434-3452 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davydova, Julia, 1977 — The present perfect in non-native Englishes : a corpus-based study of variation / by Julia Davydova. p. cm. — (Topics in English linguistics ; 77) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-025501-0 (alk. paper) 1. Language and languages — Variation. 2. English language — Globalization. I. Title. P120.V37D38 2011 427—dc23 2011024518
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin/Boston Cover image: Brian Stablyk/Photographer’s Choice RF/Getty Images Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen © Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
xn
1. Introduction 1.1. General background 1.2. Research questions and goals 1.3. Previous studies on the present perfect 1.4. Principal definitions of the study 1.4.1. Working terminology 1.4.2. Native speaker vs. non-native speaker 1.4.3. Second language vs. foreign language 1.4.4. Language acquisition vs. language learning 1.4.5. Simplification 1.4.6. Avoidance strategies 1.4.7. Transfer 1.4.8. Varieties vs. interlanguage 1.4.9. Acrolect, mesolect, basilect 1.5. Outline of the book
1 1 4 6 7 7 8 9 9 11 12 12 14 15 16
2. Non-native varieties of English 2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English 2.1.1. Case study: English in Russia 2.1.1.1. History 2.1.1.2. English in Russia: some social aspects 2.1.1.3. Essential characteristics of the English spoken in Russia: from acrolect to basilect 2.2. Second-language varieties of English 2.2.1. Case study: Indian English 2.2.1.1. History 2.2.1.2. Indian English: some social aspects 2.2.1.3. Essential characteristics of Indian English 2.2.1.3.1. Acrolectal varieties of Indian English 2.2.1.3.2. Basilectal varieties of Indian English 2.3. Summary
18 18 23 23 24
3. Some theoretical preliminaries 3.1. The category of tense 3.2. The category of aspect 3.2.1. Aktionsart
42 42 45 47
26 29 29 29 32 34 35 39 40
vi
Contents
3.3. The present perfect: tense or aspect? 3.4. Summary
49 50
4. Towards a theoretical explanation for variation between the present perfect and preterite 52 4.1. Thepretente 52 4.2. The present perfect 54 4.2.1. The meaning of the present perfect 56 4.2.1.1. The resultative perfect 57 4.2.1.2. The extended-now perfect 58 4.2.1.3. The experiential perfect 60 4.2.1.4. The perfect of recent past 61 4.3. Semantics of the perfect and preterite: Contrastive analysis.... 62 4.4. Limitations of the semantic analysis of the perfect and preterite 66 4.4.1. Analysis of the collocation of the perfect and preterite with other elements in the sentence 67 4.4.2. Pragmatic analysis of the perfect and preterite 70 4.4.2.1. The preterite and pragmatic discourse 71 4.4.2.2. The perfect and pragmatic discourse 72 4.5. Summary 73 5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect 5.1. Complexity in the history of linguistics 5.1.1. Absolute approach vs. relative approach to measuring complexity 5.2. Complexity in language 5.2.1. Phonology 5.2.2. Grammar 5.2.2.1. Syntax 5.2.2.2. Inflectional Morphology 5.3. Definitions of complexity adopted in this study for evaluating the linguistic status of the English present perfect 5.3.1. Complexity in morphology 5.3.2. Complexity as a function of strategies employed in structure formation 5.3.3. Complexity of temporal relations 5.3.4. Complexity in semantics 5.3.5. Learners'complexity 5.3.6. Complexity and frequency 5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category 5.4.1. Structural make-up ofthe English present perfect
75 76 78 80 80 80 81 81 82 82 83 84 84 84 85 85 .87
Contents vn 5.4.2. 5.4.3. 5.4.4. 5.4.5. 5.4.6.
Expression of temporal relations by the English present perfect Semantic composition and polysemy of the English present perfect The order of acquisition of the English present perfect The English present perfect and frequency The English present perfect as a complex category: Some additional arguments
6. Metrics of complexity 6.1. Complexity as a degree of language-internal variation 6.2. Complexity as L2 acquisition difficulty 6.3. Summary
88 89 90 97 99 101 102 107 109
7. Empirical design of the study and methodology 110 7.1. Data: Some general comments 110 7.1.1. Large-scale corpora Ill 7.1.2. Small-scale corpora 112 7.1.2.1. Small-scale corpora: sample design and sociolinguistic hypotheses 112 7.1.3. Large-scale and small-scale corpora: hypotheses concerning language-internal variation 115 7.2. Collecting data 118 7.3. Identifying the variable context and coding the data 119 7.3.1. Classifying tokens according to semantic context 124 7.3.1.1. Identifying extended-now contexts 125 7.3.1.2. Identifying resultative contexts 126 7.3.1.3. Identifying experiential contexts 128 7.3.1.4. Identifying contexts of recentpast 129 7.3.2. Classifying tokens according to Aktionsart 131 7.3.3. Classifying tokens according to transitivity 138 7.4. Methods 142 7.5. Summary 143 8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC) 8.1. Data 8.2. Quantitative analysis 8.2.1. Distributional analysis 8.2.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 8.2.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts
144 144 145 145 145 147
viii
Contents
8.2.2. Multivanate analysis 8.2.3. Discussion of findings 8.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 8.4. Summary
152 157 156 159
9. Acrolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE) 9.1. Sociolinguistic history of Indian English 9.2. Data 9.3. Quantitative analysis 9.3.1. Distributional analysis 9.3.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors 9.3.1.2. Language-internal factors 9.3.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 9.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 9.3.2. Multivariate analysis 9.3.3. Discussion of findings 9.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 9.5. Summary
160 160 160 161 161 161 162 162
10. Upper-mesolectal variety of Indian English (ICE) 10.1. Data 10.2. Quantitative analysis 10.2.1. Distributional analysis 10.2.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 10.2.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 10.2.2. Multivariate analysis 10.2.3. Discussion of findings 10.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 10.4. Summary
174 174 175 175 175
11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE) 11.1. Data 11.2. Quantitative analysis 11.2.1. Distributional analysis 11.2.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors 11.2.1.2. Language-internal factors 11.2.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts
192 192 192 192 192 193 193
163 167 168 170 173
182 185 188 188 190
Contents
11.2.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 11.2.2. Multivariate analysis 11.2.3. Discussion of findings 11.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 11.4. Summary
ix
197 200 201 202 203
12. Basilectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE) 12.1. Data 12.2. Quantitative analysis 12.2.1. Distributional analysis 12.2.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 12.2.1.2. The simple past tense in present perfect contexts 12.2.2. Multivariate analysis 12.2.2.1. Stages in the formal and functional development of the English tense-aspect morphology 12.2.3. Discussion of findings 12.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 12.4. Summary
205 205 205 205 205 211 214
13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE) 13.1. Sociolinguistic history of East African English 13.2. Data 13.3. Quantitative analysis 13.3.1. Distributional analysis 13.3.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 13.3.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 13.3.2. Multivariate analysis 13.3.3. Discussion of findings 13.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 13.5. Summary
220 220 222 223 223 223
14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE) 14.1. Sociolinguistic history of Singapore English 14.2. Data 14.3. Quantitative analysis 14.3.1. Distributional analysis 14.3.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts
215 217 218 218
225 229 230 231 234 235 235 236 237 237 237
x
Contents 14.3.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 14.3.2. Multivariate analysis 14.3.3. Discussion of findings 14.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 14.5. Summary
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE) 15.1. Sociolinguistic history of English spoken in Russia 15.2. Data 15.3. Quantitative analysis 15.3.1. Distributional analysis 15.3.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors 15.3.1.2. Language-internal factors 15.3.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 15.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 15.3.2. Multivariate analysis 15.3.3. Discussion of findings 15.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 15.5. Summary 16. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)... 16.1. Sociolinguistic history of English spoken in Germany 16.2. Data 16.3. Quantitative analysis 16.3.1. Distributional analysis 16.3.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors 16.3.1.2. Language-internal factors 16.3.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts 16.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts 16.3.2. Multivariate analysis 16.3.3. Discussion of findings 16.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts 16.5. Contrastive summary
246 250 252 253 255 257 257 257 258 258 258 259 259 265 268 270 271 272 274 274 275 275 275 275 276 276 281 284 287 288 288
Contents
xi
17. Developing a bird's-eye perspective on the variability of the present perfect across non-native Englishes 17.1. Metrics of complexity 17.1.1. Complexity as adegree of language-internal variation 17.1.2. Complexity as L2 acquisition difficulty 17.2. Complexity of the English present perfect and its repercussions for a non-native grammar 17.3. The concept of current relevance 17.4. Summary
295 296
18. Concluding remarks
306
Abbreviations References Corpora Appendixl Appendix2 Index
310 311 331 332 334 338
291 291
297 301 305
Acknowledgements
The present work is the result of a two-year project (from 2007 till 2009) earned out at the collaborative research centre (SFB 538) on multilinguahsm and at the University of Hamburg. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Peter Siemund, my Doktorvater, for giving me a chance to embark upon a journey that has taken me as far as Bnansk (Russia) and New Delhi (India); for providing input to my work in the form of discussions; for challenging and nurturing and, more importantly, for giving me enough time and space for my ideas to grow. Funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgememschaft is gratefully acknowledged. I am grateful to many institutions and people for granting their permission to reproduce material from previously published sources and hereby acknowledge that two text passages from Housen (2002: 165, 166), two tables from Housen (2002: 158, 162, Table 1 and Table 2) and the graphs from Radden and Dirven (2007: 204, 205) were reproduced with kind permission by John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, www.benjamins.com. Five charts from Petersen (2004: 57, 105) were reproduced with permission by Peter Lang. One table from Bnnton (1988: 29, Table 1.6) was reproduced with permission by Cambridge University Press. The text passage from Melchers and Shaw (2003: 180) was reproduced by permission of Hodder Education (p. 20). The text passage from Winford (2009: 208) was reproduced with permission by Taylor and Frances. The text passages from Leather and James (1996: 272) and from McCoard (1978: 135) were reproduced with permission by Elsevier. One text passage from Gobelsmann (1995: 116) was reproduced with kind permission by Riidiger Kopper. I thank Marianne Hundt for allowing me to reproduce one table from Hundt and Smith (2009: 63). While getting this book ready for publication, I made every effort to obtain necessary permissions for the publication of the previously published material. If any omissions are brought to my attention, I will be happy to provide appropriate acknowledgements in subsequent editions of this work. I also feel much indebted to Prof. Bernd Kortmann, Birgit Sievert, Ulnke Swientek and Frank Benno Junghanns for their invaluable help at various stages of the publication process. I would also like to thank Prof. Anvita Abbi, Prof. Osten Dahl, Prof. Peter Trudgill, Prof. Donald Winford, Dr. Martin Elsig, Dr. Shantanu Gosh,
Acknowledgements xin Dr. Lukas Pietsch, Dr. Devyam Sharma, Dr. Bidisha Som and Tomke Briiggemann for shanng their expertise and providing constructive criticisms in the form of discussions and (written) comments. I thank Prof. Dan I. Slobin for his generous encouragement in the initial stages of my project and Prof. Thomas Berg, from whom I learnt that it takes a critical mind to tackle and conquer the most complex issues in linguistics and in life. I thank my numerous informants for the time they took to explain to me the intricacies of the tense-aspect distinctions inherent in their native-language grammars. I am just as grateful to those informants who consented to give me an interview during the data collection period. My special thanks are due to L.M. Khokhlova, Flonan Zieger and Mayank Jain for their invaluable help in organising the interviews and introducing me into their communities. This project started to become a reality as a direct result of their kind support. Finally, I would like to thank Prof. Sail A. Taghamonte for her encouragement and support at various stages of my Ph.D. project and her genuine interest in my work, and, more importantly, for being who she is: the perfect role model that shaped my linguistic thinking in an essential way. It goes without saying that all remaining shortcomings are my own responsibility. Last but not least, I thank and dedicate this work to my family: Jean Remy, Robert, Dasha, Zhenja and my Mom. This work would not have been possible if it were not for their unconditional love and belief that everything will turn out just fine.
1. Introduction
1.1. General background The overarching aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive account of the category of the English present perfect (also referred to as the perfect or HAVE-perfect) in the light of data obtained from non-native varieties of English, both second-language (or L2) varieties such as Indian English (IndEng), East African English (EAfEng) and Singapore English (SingEng) as well as foreign-speaker varieties of English exemplified by the English spoken in Russia and Germany (RusEng and GerEng respectively). We focus on the present perfect because "the sheer complexity and abundance of grammatical apparatus concentrated in this area of the grammar make it an excellent site for examining the differences and similarities amongst related [forms of English]" (Taghamonte 1996: 351). In more concrete terms, the study aims at investigating the perfect and other surface variants in what has become known as present perfect contexts in the relevant theoretical literature. Thus, some scholars distinguish as many as three dominant contexts for the present perfect (cf Jespersen 1924; Zandvoort 1932; Bauer 1970; Fenn 1987; Winford 1993; Taghamonte 2000). These contexts are (i) resultative contexts, (h) extended-now or continuative contexts and (m) experiential contexts. They are illustrated in (1) through (3). (1)
resultative context He has broken his arm.
(2)
extended-now context / have lived in Hamburg since 2001.
(3)
experiential context I have never been to Russia.
In addition, some researchers single out a context of recent past and its subtype, a hot-news context, as a distinct semantic environment requiring the present perfect in Standard English (Leech 1971a; McCawley 1971; Comne
2
1. Introduction
1976; Bnnton 1988; Klein 1994; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Siemund 2004; Radden and Dirven 2007), as exemplified in (4).1 (4)
context of recent past The Prime Minister has resigned recently.
In a nutshell, the resultative context suggests that a past action results in a change of state at the moment of utterance, whereas the extended-now context implies that a situation that started in the past still obtains at the moment of utterance. In contrast, the experiential context typically refers to a situation or an event that occurred once or several times prior to the moment of utterance. Finally, the context of recent past is taken to describe a recent event. (A meticulous description of these semantic environments is given in Chapter 4.) The project was initiated by the basic empirical observation that forms other than the present perfect surface in present perfect contexts across nonnative varieties of English. These forms are the present tense, the simple past tense, the past perfect, lone past participle, etc. Moreover, the previous research has revealed that the only other form which alternates with the present perfect in all present perfect contexts across all above-mentioned varieties of English is the simple past tense, otherwise known as the preterite (cf Davydova 2008). Even in standard varieties of English, namely British English and American English, there is always a considerable amount of variation between both forms in present perfect contexts despite clear preferences in favour of either one form or the other in a specific context in a given standard variety. Such a robust variation between the present perfect and other forms does not seem to be a matter of a mere cross-varietal coincidence. Rather, what we deal with here is a subtle phenomenon that needs to be elaborated on. Along these lines, the study proposes to consider the matter by adopting a second- (and foreign-) language learner perspective and to examine the variation between the perfect and other verb forms in varieties that have been labelled together as non-native Englishes.
1 We use the term 'Standard English' to refer to the variety of British English promoted by normative pressures and codified in various (grammatical and typological) descriptions of English (e.g., Leech 1971a, 1971b; Comrie 1976, 1985; Quirk et al. 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Radden and Dirven 2007, etc.).
1.1. General background
3
But why should one study variation in non-native varieties of English? To start with, variation in non-native Englishes has remained a much neglected issue because for a long time non-native English was thought of as simply wrong English. The present study is thus supposed to bridge this gap by providing a comprehensive description of the category of the English present perfect across different forms of non-native English. Moreover, the existing studies dealing with non-native forms of English (mostly indigemsed varieties) are largely descriptive, thus frequently failing to provide a differentiated account of various morpho-syntactic phenomena. The present study is therefore concerned with working out a methodologically sound and theoretically insightful framework within which non-native varieties of English (both second-language varieties and foreign-speaker varieties) can be examined and compared across the board. Since many morpho-syntactic peculiarities of non-native varieties of English have been described as having emerged as a result of (imperfect) second-language acquisition, studying non-native variation of English may help us to understand what co-occurrences are results of the processes frequently claimed to underlie L2 acquisition (e.g., transfer or substrate influence) and are thus of a specific and localized nature, and what patterns of variation can be claimed to possess a more general character. Thus, studying non-native Englishes should ideally lead us to a better understanding of cross-varietal patterns, their pervasiveness as well as their limits. By the same token, studying variation across non-native varieties of English seems to be a promising approach since it may provide us with additional insights and clues leading to a better understanding of mechanisms governing language variation because variation attested in second-language output is arguably just as rule-governed as the native-speaker variation. Finally, the spread of English as a global lingua franca has repercussions for its non-native users, who - to put it in Berns' (1995: 10, cited in Jenkins 2003: 43) words - find themselves "in the midst of an exciting, challenging, and creative social and linguistic phase of their history". Studying this "sociolinguistic history-in-the-making" becomes particularly important as empirical evidence becomes increasingly available through, for instance, the Internet and other advanced communication technologies (cf Jenkins 2003). Since most non-native Englishes are to a large extent products of educational systems, language-internal variation observed in non-native varieties is compared to the variety of Standard English English (StEngEng), a form of English spoken by the educated native speakers in England. This perspective on studying non-native variation is very attractive for two major reasons. First, it provides a researcher with a straightforward design for
4
1. Introduction
empirical work. Thus, it seems to be natural to "take some norm as a base of reference and to investigate how and why the learner misses it" (Klein and Perdue 1997: 307). Second, it allows a researcher to establish the degree of affiliation between a reference variety (which serves as a yardstick against which the data is measured and compared) and a respective nonnative variety. This procedure might in its turn enable us to reveal patterns of pervasive regularities across different varieties of English which might lead to a better understanding of the systematicity of processes underlying the occurrence of the present perfect across non-native Englishes.
1.2. Research questions and goals The perfect is one of the most intricate phenomena of the English morphosyntax primarily due to its formal and functional complexity. Its full use is one of the last features of English acquired by native learners (cf Van Herk 2008). It therefore should not come as a surprise that a non-native speaker frequently substitutes this structure with other variants in the process of language learning what often gives rise to a robust variation of forms in contexts that require the perfect according to the traditional descriptive accounts of English grammar. Hence, from a wide perspective, the major question addressed in the study can be formulated as follows: How can we explain variation between the present perfect and other verb forms in present perfect contexts in theoretically insightful ways? In order to account for the patterns of variation observed in the data, we rely and elaborate on the notions of complexity employed in linguistics. We first of all show that the English present perfect is a linguistically complex category whose full system of uses is mastered only by the most advanced learners of English. Second, we demonstrate how variation of morphological variants populating present perfect contexts can be studied in terms of varying complexity levels across non-native Englishes. The other issue dealt with in this study concerns the mechanism that underlies variation between the perfect and its major rival: the preterite. Relying on the results of previous research (cf. Davydova 2008), we seek to ascertain in how far the co-occurrence patterns of these verb forms can be explained in terms of the notion of current relevance. To that end, both distributional and multivariate evidence is put into a comparative perspective. While describing and explaining patterns of variability, we rely on the results of the distributional and multivariate analyses, which help to uncover
1.2. Research questions and goals
5
the area of the present perfect marking in a (non-)native English grammar. The goal of the distributional and multivariate analyses is to find out what the studied varieties have in common and along what dimensions they differ. Together, both analyses allow a researcher to establish shared and idiosyncratic patterns, elucidating common linguistic variables (or factors) conditioning the occurrence of the present perfect form. Such internally differentiated comparisons across varieties should shed some light on the mechanisms shaping variation in present perfect contexts (cf Davydova et al. 2011). Yet another question addressed in this study concerns the provenance of nonstandard verb forms used in present perfect contexts in place of the perfect. Where do they come from? Are they a result of a substrate /mothertongue influence or have they emerged due to some general mechanisms involved in L2 acquisition? Alternatively, can these forms be explained in terms of contact with native varieties of English? Carried out within the sociolinguistic (vanatiomst) paradigm, this study aims at assessing the role of the sociolinguistic variable of sex in the production of the HAVE-perfect across non-native Englishes. More specifically, females are assumed to use the more "correct" HAVE-perfect more frequently and consistently than males (see also Chapter 7, section 7.1.2.1. for the elaboration of this hypothesis). Furthermore, non-native speakers use the perfect in contexts from which it is banned in Standard English, at least according to the descriptions available in modern reference grammars (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002). To provide an example, Mesthne and Bhatt (2008) report the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect with definite past time adverbials such as last month, many years ago, etc. across various "New Englishes", a finding which is in line with our results. Given the keen academic interest that this feature of non-native Englishes has evoked in the past few decades, these tokens were included in the study but analysed qualitatively rather than quantitatively due to low token counts, which often jeopardize a quantitative (i.e. multivariate) analysis. The central issue surrounding these forms concerns their origin. In other words, we seek to discover whether the occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts is better analysed in terms of processes underlying second-language acquisition (i.e. transfer, overgenerahsation) or whether they are triggered by other factors such as pragmatic constraints imposed by the speaker on an utterance in the discourse. Last but not least, one of the goals of this study is to show how studying variation attested in non-native Englishes can be informed by the findings
6
1. Introduction
from the fields of Second-Language Acquisition (SLA) and contact linguistics. In other words, while analysing variation between the perfect and other verb forms in the same contexts, we take recourse to various concepts traditionally employed within both disciplines (e.g., transfer, or substrate influence, substrate-independent learner strategies such as overgeneralisation, simplification, etc.). We furthermore rely on the major findings concerning the development of the tense and aspect system in a secondlanguage learner of English (e.g., Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis). In doing so, an attempt is made to bridge the "paradigm gap" (Sndhar and Sndhar 1986) that has existed between the SLA studies and the studies of English for quite some time now (cf Mesthne and Bhatt 2008: 156). Though not longitudinal in its design, the study nevertheless comprises "synchronic snapshots" of data, which enable us to trace the trajectory of the development of the English present perfect in a non-native grammar.
1.3. Previous studies on the present perfect This section provides an overview of the literature dealing with category of the English present perfect. The English perfect has been a subject of enormous interest to linguists of various affiliations. Early structuralist accounts of the perfect can be found in Jespersen (1924) and Zandvoort (1932), whereas more recent descriptive reports are represented by Bauer (1970), Quirk et al. (1985), Huddleston and Pullum (2002) as well as Declerck, Reed, and Cappelle (2006). A typological perspective on the English perfect is provided in Comne (1976), Dahl (1985) and (1999), Dahl and Hedin (2000) and Haspelmath et al. (2005). A meticulous semantic-pragmatic account of the category can be found in Fenn (1987), whereas its description from the cognitive perspective is given in Radden and Dirven (2007). The historical development of the HAVE + participle construction has been extensively studied by various authors (cf. Visser 196373; Bnnton 1988; Demson 1993). The present perfect has received much attention in the sociolinguistic literature on non-standard varieties such as African-American Vernacular, Tnnidadian English and Samana English (cf. Winford 1993; Tagliamonte 1996, 1997, 2000 and Van Herk 2008). Studies on the so-called shift variety of Irish English have on the other hand focused on what might be termed as the functional equivalents of the English perfect, i.e. verb forms used in place of the perfect (cf. Hams 1984a, 1984b; Filppula 1997a, 1997b, 1999; Siemund 2004; Pietsch 2005b, 2007, 2009; Hickey 2004b,
1.4. Principal definitions of the study
7
2007; Kirk and Kallen 2006). Elsness (1997) is a large corpus-based study focusing on variation between the present perfect and "its chief rival, the preterite" in British and American English (Elsness 1997: 1). Last but not least, emergence and development of the category of the English present perfect has been closely examined in accounts on both firstand second-language acquisition. Hence, Chomsky (1969), Nussbaum and Naremore (1975), Gathercole (1986) and Slobin (1994) deal with the acquisition of this structure in a native English grammar, whereas Felix (1978) and Housen (2002) report the development of the English perfect in a nonnative grammar. Furthermore, Odlin and Alonso-Vazquez (2006) discuss the role that the native language exerts on the acquisition of the present perfect by a second-language learner. Finally, Agmhotn, Khanna, and Mukherjee (1998) is a sociolinguistic study designed to crystallize socio-psychological variables underlying the acquisition of the tense and aspect system including the English perfect by second-language learners in New Delhi. As is clear from this quick overview, researchers working within the sociolinguistic paradigm have focused mainly on those varieties of English which are spoken natively. By contrast, very little vanatiomst research has been conducted on non-native varieties of English. This study attempts to fill this gap by giving an exhaustive description of the English present perfect across non-native Englishes of various types. 1.4.
Principal definitions of the study
This section elaborates on some key concepts and important terminological distinctions drawn in the present study. 1.4.1. Working terminology There is no unanimous agreement in the relevant literature on how to refer to the category of the English present perfect, its surface realisations as well as its semantic readings or use types. This study employs the terms "the perfect", "the present perfect" and "the HAVE-perfect" interchangeably to refer to the morphological variant consisting of the auxiliary HAVE and a past participle of the main verb (e.g., have talked, have spoken, etc.). It also uses the terms "resultative perfect/context", "extended-now perfect/context", "experiential perfect/context", "perfect/context of recent past" to refer to the major functions or semantic environments of the English present perfect.
8
1. Introduction
The alternating variants of the present perfect are labelled as follows. The terms the "preterite" or the "simple past tense" are used to refer to verb stems inflected for the past tense (e.g., asked, sard, etc.). The label "past perfect" is employed to designate constructions of the type 'had + past participle'. The label "lone past participles" is related to forms such as gone, been, etc., and "lone present participle" to forms such as gomg, smoking, etc. Constructions comprising the auxiliary BE and a past participle are referred to as the "BE-perfect", whereas the label "present (tense)" is used to describe both the inflected simple present forms (e.g., he goes, she does etc.) and the present progressive forms (e.g., he is going, I am swimming, etc.). Moreover, "bare verb stems" are invariant verb forms such as come, travel, like, etc., whereas "three verb clusters" are constructions of the type am done spent, etc. Finally, the terms "morphology" (e.g., perfect and preterite morphology) and "morpho-syntactic form" are used to refer to surface realisations, or variants, of the linguistic variable studied here.
1.4.2. Native speaker vs. non-native speaker Relying on traditional accounts, Mesthne and Bhatt (2008: 36) draw the following distinction between a native and a non-native speaker of a language: Traditionally a native speaker is assumed to be one who has learnt a language from birth without formal instruction. By contrast a non-native speaker of a language has learnt it as a second (or later) language some time after being initiated into his/her native language. The most important characteristics of non-native speakers of English is that they (i) do not use English as a (primary) means of communication in the family and (n) live in an environment where English is not a prevailing means of communication. Given the obvious differences in the acquisitional contexts obtaining between second-language varieties and foreign-speaker varieties on the one hand and (monolingual) native-speaker varieties on the other, a distinction between native and non-native English in the sense of Mesthne and Bhatt (2008: 36) is maintained in this study.
1.4. Principal definitions of the study
9
1.4.3. Second language vs. foreign language Since this study deals with variation observed in second-language and foreign-speaker varieties of English, we should also look at the differences between a second language and a foreign language. Traditionally, a second language plays an important role as a means of instruction at school and in the academic environment, and as a means of interethmc communication. By contrast, a foreign language is used for international communication, teaching and research and is not used in everyday life (cf. AH 1999: 4). Thus, Englishes spoken in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc. are good examples of a second language in contrast to Englishes spoken in China, Japan, Russia and most European countries, where they perform a function of a foreign language. In this study, we will use the terms 'non-native varieties of English' or 'non-native Englishes' to referto second-language and foreign-speaker varieties of English. 1.4.4. Language acquisition vs. language learning In studies on language acquisition a distinction is usually drawn between the process of language acquisition and that of language learning. The former is postulated to be a "natural process of internalizing linguistic rules without formal instruction or conscious efforts" (cf. AH 1999: 5). It is believed that children learn their native language this way. The latter on the other hand is a process requiring a conscious effort on the part of the learner. Hence, a first (native) language is acquired, whereas a non-native language (be it a second language or a foreign language) is learned. Having said that, we must add that such a rigorous terminological distinction is not always maintained in the relevant literature and both terms may be used interchangeably to refer to the processes and outcomes of second-language acquisition (cf. Edmondson 1999: 7). From the perspective of second-language acquisition theory the processes underlying the acquisition of a second language as well as a foreign language are considered to be essentially the same, with no distinction being drawn between the two (cf. Winford 2003). It follows that the major cognitive mechanisms underlying the emergence of second-language and foreignlanguage varieties can be argued to be by and large identical. Second language (acquisition) is thus understood as both second and foreign language (acquisition). It has been noticed in the relevant literature that language learners make various 'errors' (omissive, additive, substitutive errors or errors related to
10
1. Introduction
word order) in their L2 production. Here are some examples illustrating these 'errors': (5)
Learners'errors a. Iask0 him yesterday, (omissive error, simplification ) b. James and Henry like quarrelling with themselves. 'each other' (substitutive error, overgeneralisation/reanalysis)
The term 'error' focuses on the outcome of L2 acquisition. The processes that produced these errors are simplification and overgeneralisation (or reanalysis) amongst others. These processes are also referred to as a set of principles that inform second-language acquisition (Winford 2009: 205). In the ensuing chapters we will use the generic terms "cognitive (or learner) strategies", "universal strategies of second-language acquisition", "universal (language) learning strategies" or "umversals of language creation" to refer to the processes and the outcomes of second-language acquisition of mistype. In fact, all these cognitive strategies have been argued to be the most influential factors in adult language learning (King 1969), accounting for the generally simplified outcome of most L2 systems. The follow-up studies will make it clear that second-language learners' systems are not always 'simpler' than those of native speakers of English. In fact, the learners' attempts to come to terms with a linguistically and cogmtively unusual phenomenon of the English present perfect may give rise to quite complex systems of variation between the perfect and other verb forms in present perfect contexts across non-native varieties of English. We shall elaborate on the notion of complexity in the following chapters. To sum up the preceding discussion, no strict distinction between a foreign language and a second language is drawn in this study as it is assumed that the cognitive mechanisms underlying the acquisition of a second language and a foreign language are fairly similar (cf Winford 2003). Following Edmondson (1999), we will use the terms learn and acquire interchangeably to refer to the processes and outcomes of second-language acquisition.
1.4. Principal definitions of the study
11
1.4.5. Simplification Perhaps the most important process (i.e. strategy) "employed by learners as compensation for partial or incomplete acquisition is simplification" (Winford 2003: 217). It therefore requires a special word of explanation here. Simplification generally refers to the non-realisation (i.e. reduction, omission or deletion) of morphological markings and grammatical words, a strategy designed to ease the learner's perception and production. Consider, for instance, the case where a non-native speaker uses forms such as gone, come, done, etc. instead of have gone, have come, have done, etc. in the target language. Furthermore, bare verb stems (e.g., But other state never visit) are frequently outcomes of inflection reduction. More importantly, simplification is a process whereby an L2 learner replaces a complex form of the target language with a simpler one. For instance, a German speaker using the simple past tense in a context where Standard English and spoken German vernacular require the present perfect can be conceived of as simplification. (6)
Mesolectal German English (HCNVE: GE08) ci I visited French lots oftifnes ' 'I have visited France many times.' German b. Ich habe Frankreich mehrmals besucht. I have France many times visited. 'I have been to France many times'
Additionally, non-native speakers tend to use the structurally and semantically simpler present tense in contexts where a native speaker of English is very likely to employ the HAVE-perfect. Such cases can also be accounted for in terms of simplification strategies. Consider, for instance, (7). (7)
Indian English (ICE: Sla-030) No, initially it [the climate] didn 't affect me but now my resistance is much less. '...my resistance has subsided (decreased).'
Thus, simplification is understood as a very general (and largely substrateindependent) strategy, whereby learners use the semantically and morphosyntactically simpler, i.e. "least marked" (Housen 2002: 160) or more "natural" (Davydova et al. 2011), variant in their L2 production where the
12
1. Introduction
target language requires a semantical^ and a morpho-syntactically more complex form2
1.4.6. Avoidance strategies Avoidance strategies (Edmondson 1999: 96) is another key concept in SLA studies used to refer to a process, whereby learners tend to avoid producing those forms in their target language that they perceive as difficult. To provide an example from Edmondson (1999), learners of German tend to produce diminutive forms of nouns with the -chen suffix, which always signals a neuter form, if they are not sure what gender they should assign to the corresponding noun. So they might say das Ttschchen instead of der Ttsch, das Stuhlchen instead of der Stuhl. The ensuing chapters will clarify how the rare occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in some varieties of English can be viewed as a result of speakers using avoidance strategies in order to come to terms with the complex phenomenon of the English present perfect.
1.4.7. Transfer For the purposes of the present study it is also crucial to draw a distinction between learner strategies and language transfer. The former were treated in some detail in the foregoing sections. What still needs to be elaborated on is the notion of language transfer. First and foremost, language transfer can be described as reinforcing influence of the mother tongue on the second language, resulting in a language change (cf Winford 2005: 373; Kirk and Kallen 2006: 88; Odlin 2009: 265). Other labels (i.e. 'interference', 'substratum influence' 'imposition') have been used to refer to this type of linguistic phenomenon. There seems to be consensus that learners employ features of their mother tongue to compensate for their limited proficiency in a second language (cf. Winford 2005: 379). Such direct mappings include vocabulary and semantics but can also extend to phonology, morphology and syntax. In more concrete terms, transfer means that certain structures of one's LI can be used to express an L2 meaning. To provide an example, a German speaker of English may say Peter probably sings tomorrow meaning 2 It must be noted here that simplification may also refer to other processes such as rule regularisation (see also Winford (2003: 217-219) for a detailed discussion).
1.4. Principal definitions of the study
13
Peter will probably sing tomorrow. The "mcorrect" sentence is the result of a direct influence from German, in which one can use the present tense to express futurity (e.g., Peter singt wahrscheinlich morgen). What is apparently happening here is a speaker employing an LI structure (present tense) to express an L2 meaning (futurity in English) in analogy to German.
German (LI)
English (L2)
Semantic domain: Future reference
Semantic domain: Future reference
Structure: Present tense
Structure: Present tense
Figure 1.1. The process of language transfer The speaker thus mentally projects the structure available in the semantic domain of her mother tongue (i.e. present tense for future reference) onto the corresponding semantic domain of her second language (i.e. future reference). The result of this direct mapping is the use of the present tense to express future meaning in English. For this process to become possible the speaker also needs a structure in her L2 that can be analysed as a corresponding LI structure (for instance, present tense in English and German). To put it differently, transfer requires cross-linguistic identification of two linguistic forms in LI and L2. When the connection between an LI and an L2 form has been established, a whole set of LI structure-meaning correspondences is activated within the speaker's mind. These structuremeaning mappings available in LI are then projected onto L2. In this study, the terms "language transfer", "mother-tongue interference" and "substrate influence" are used interchangeably to refer to the process as well as its outcomes outlined in the preceding paragraphs. The approach used in this study to detect substrate influence on nonnative English is to contrast learners' interlanguage performances with respective native languages such as Hindi, German, Russian, etc. While describing contrasts and similarities obtaining amongst distinct language forms, we rely on actual data produced in the interlanguages labelled col-
14
1. Introduction
lectively as non-native Englishes (cf. Odlin 2009: 266). By contrast, patterns of mother-tongue use draw on the structural descriptions of the native language provided in grammar books. We will also use the introspective method, relying on the native speakers' translations of the English sentences, in order to elicit what verb structures are used in the speaker's mother tongue in contexts where Standard English requires the HAVEperfect (see also Appendix 1).
1.4.8. Varieties vs. interlanguage Variety is one of the key concepts in this study and is in need of an explanation. To start with, a variety is a distinct form of language spoken by a particular group of people or in a particular region (sociolect vs. dialect). A time dimension could be added to introduce historical varieties of a particular language (for instance, the 19th-century Irish English). In addition, all recognised varieties are rule-governed and relatively homogenous, i.e. they exhibit a number of fixed idiosyncratic features of their own in the area of phonology or morpho-syntax what accounts for their unique flair when contrasted with other varieties of the same language. Interlanguage on the other hand has traditionally been described as a linguistic system developed by a non-native language learner who has not yet become fully proficient in the target language, her non-native output constantly approximating to native speakers' proficiency. Moreover, interlanguage developed by each speaker has generally been characterised as a variety in its own right exhibiting a number of idiosyncratic characteristics coming about as a result of the learner's unique experiences with the L2. More importantly, non-native language learning is constrained by processes and principles that are universal in nature. In other words, learners make use of similar strategies or take recourse to some general mechanisms while learning another language. Additionally, non-native language learners sharing the same mother tongue and an equal exposure to the target language tend to form a relatively homogeneous community of speakers whose interlanguage exhibits a number of relatively fixed peculiarities in the area of phonology and morpho-syntax. From the perspective developed in this study, interlanguage is a language variety shaped by mother-tongue influence, substrate-independent learner strategies as well as input from native-speaker varieties (see also Chapter 2).
1.4. Principal definitions of the study
15
1.4.9. Acrolect, mesolect, basilect Since varieties discussed in this study reflect various stages of the longitudinal development of the interlanguage grammar, the notions of acrolect, mesolect and basilect are also in need of an explanation. To start with, the three terms originate from the studies on decreolisation (cf DeCamp 1971; Bickerton 1975 cited in Schumann and Stauble 1983). Being a situation in which a superstate language (i.e. the socially and politically dominant language) and a Creole exist side by side, decreolisation gives rise to a variety of lects that form a post-creole continuum. Hence, the lect closest to the Creole is called a basilect, the one closest to the superstate language is referred to as acrolect. Finally, the intermediate varieties of the Creole are known as mesolects in the relevant literature (cf. Mesthne and Bhatt 2008: 226). Bickerton (1975, cited in Schumann and Stauble 1983: 261) was the first to suggest that the developmental stages exhibited in the process of second-language acquisition may parallel those exhibited in the process of decreohsation since in both cases the speakers' position along the continuum is motivated by the degree of contact they have had with the target language. Drawing on the analogy of decreolisation continuum, non-native Englishes can therefore be systematically described if we conceive of these varieties as exhibiting various degrees of conformance to the standard pattern. We can thus frequently encounter different sub-vaneties within a nonnative variety of English (for instance, IndEng). Depending on the type of the learner, some of these varieties can be described as closely resembling Standard English, whereas others deviate from the standard pattern to such a considerable extent that they are virtually incomprehensible to a native speaker of English. Yet other varieties fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Non-native varieties of English can be said to form a continuum on which basilectal forms are most distantly located from the standard language and acrolectal forms are most closely approaching it. Mesolectal varieties occupy an intermediate position on this continuum. Acrolect, mesolect and basilect can in principle be construed as interlanguage systems (or varieties) within which the observed variation is constrained by speakers' mother tongue, universal processes of second-language acquisition and the amount of exposure to the target language in both classroom and natural environment among a few other factors. Basilectal varieties are represented by speakers with very little exposure to the target language. By contrast, speakers with intensive exposure to the target Ian-
16
1. Introduction
guage constitute acrolectal varieties of a language. Mesolectal speakers demonstrate a moderate amount of contact to the reference variety. The boundaries between one form and another on this continuum are not always clear-cut and in fact speakers may gradually move from one point on this continuum to another as their knowledge of English expands. Moreover, the speakers' position on that continuum can be said to mirror their level of competence (i.e. knowledge of grammar) in Standard English. But how do we know what level of competence a particular group of speakers has in English? The most straightforward answer to this question appears to be that linguistic competence is presumably reflected in the patterns of language use (cf Cedergren and Sankoff 1974: 333-334). In order to elicit the level of competence of a non-native speaker we need to establish the patterns of use of the present perfect in the standard variety of English which will then serve as a point of comparison against which to compare variation of the present perfect in non-native varieties of English. The level of L2 competence is then a function of the degree of conformance to the standard pattern.
1.5. Outline of the book The issues mentioned in this introduction will be elaborated on in the ensuing chapters of the monograph. Having developed a general perspective on studying non-native Englishes (Chapter 2), we shall turn to a more theoretical discussion of the English present perfect. Chapters 3 and 4 present a comprehensive analysis of the English present perfect in the light of the current theoretical accounts of tense and aspect. Chapter 5 elaborates on the contention that the English present perfect is a linguistically and cogmtively complex phenomenon, whereas Chapter 6 shows how variation observed in present perfect contexts across non-native Englishes can be studied and explained in terms of varying complexity levels. Chapter 7 introduces the empirical design of the study and its methods; the major criteria (or independent variables) according to which the corpus data will be analysed in the subsequent analyses as well as the hypotheses underlying the choice of these variables. In what follows, data analyses are presented. Thus, Chapter 8 discusses the patterns of occurrence of the present perfect in the standard variety of English. Chapters 9 through 14 present analyses of variation attested in second-language varieties of English exemplified by different varieties of IndEng as well as upper-mesolectal varieties of EAfEng and SingEng. Chapters 15 and 16 deal with foreign-speaker varieties of English
7.5. Outline of the book
17
spoken in Russia and in Germany. Chapter 17 develops a bird's-eye perspective of the variability of the present perfect across non-native Englishes. It provides a synthesis of the results of this study by taking recourse to the concepts elaborated on in the theoretical part of the book. Chapter 18 provides some concluding remarks about the most important findings of this study, pinpointing their relevance for the ongoing and future linguistic research.
2. Non-native varieties of English
This chapter focuses on developing a perspective that would help to bring the existing differences between second-language (or indigemsed) and foreign-speaker varieties of English to a common denominator. Taking the variety of IndEng and the English spoken in Russia as examples, we will demonstrate what these different varietal types have in common and along what dimensions they may differ. The procedure will enable us to develop a common ground allowing for a comparison of these quite distinct forms ofEnglish. 2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties ofEnglish As a global language, English boasts a multitude of speakers that use the language for different purposes and in different forms (cf Crystal 2004). Despite this heterogeneity, three principal groups of speakers of English speakers have been distinguished (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Kachru 1985, 1986; Crystal 2004): those who speak English as a native language and thus belong to countries of the inner circle; those who speak English as a second language and hence inhabit countries of the outer circle, in which English enjoys the status of an official or co-official language; and, finally, those who use English mainly as a foreign language and belong to the countries of the expanding circle, where English is not recognised on the official level and is mainly used as a means of communication with foreigners. The immediate questions arising from the preceding considerations are twofold. First, one might wonder if it is justified to accord a variety status to those non-native forms ofEnglish that are spoken in countries where the language does not have an official status. Second, one might also ask why we need to study foreign-speaker varieties ofEnglish. Since the answer to the second question seems to be more straightforward, we shall consider it first. To start with, as the process of globalisation proceeds, English is becoming a common "linguistic denominator" worldwide. It is one of the very few features that a Korean executive in Russia, a German Eurocrat in Brussels and a Chinese geneticist at an international symposium in Sweden have in common (cf. Power 2005: 65). Native speakers of English tend to become more and more disadvantaged by this phenomenon, failing to communicate their message to foreigners and thus
2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English
19
losing out on deals when they do not folly understand how English is being used by non-natives (cf. Power 2005). Furthermore, non-native speakers of English (including foreign speakers) outnumber native speakers 3:1 (cf. Crystal 2004). This trend is likely to continue, as English has become a language of technology and commerce and is a target language for an ever growing number of population groups. Consider the following figures from Graddol (1997: 10): First-language speakers: 375 million Second-language speakers: 375 million Foreign-language speakers: 750 million The following citation illustrates the impact the English language has had on various spheres of life in different countries all over the world: One out of five of the world's population speak English to some level of competence. Demand from the other four fifths is increasing ... By the year 2000 it is estimated that over one billion people will be learning English. English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising. Graddol (1997: 2) Thus, some thirty years ago English was used for work only by elites such as diplomats and CEOs. Nowadays English has spread into other social strata, gaining in importance among staff of workers, guides, taxi drivers and ordinary citizens in countries such as China, Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and many others. The situation is very similar in Western European countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc., i.e. countries that boast long traditions of teaching and learning the English language. It is probably for this reason that English is taught and learned at an increasingly earlier age in these countries. To provide an example, English is now taught starting at the age of 6 in many schools in Russia. In 2004, primary schools in major Chinese cities began offering English in the third grade, rather than in middle school (cf. Power 2005). English is taught as a first foreign language in schools in all of above-mentioned countries, which accounts for its special status in these countries (cf. Crystal 2004). A similar idea is expressed in Melchers and Shaw (2003):
20
2. Non-native varieties of English Once a language becomes widely known, schools tend to make its dominance self-perpetuating. If it is observed that English is a useful language on the world stage, then schools start to teach it. Once more people in more countries have learnt it at schools, it becomes more useful because there are more foreigners with whom it can be used. So, if following the wishes of parents and pupils, schools teach the language even more, so even more people learn it, it becomes even more useful. [...] At present the world's schools are forces to strengthen the position of English. English is the main foreign language taught in Japan, China and other Asian countries. The EU issues education figures for 26 expanding circle European countries which are members of the EU or EEA or candidates for that status (Pilos 2001), and in all but two English is the most studied foreign language. ... The age of beginning English study is gradually being lowered and it is not unusual to start before the age of 10 (Pilos 2001). Melchers and Shaw (2003: 180)
Finally, English is spreading not only in the top-down direction, i.e. through educational institutions, but also bottom-up, i.e. through individuals representing subcultures in countries all over the world. In such social contexts, English is used as a lingua franca by the members of subcultures associated with computers and hip-hop, heavy-metal and rock music (cf Melchers and Shaw 2003). These subcultures enjoy covert prestige and often represent a network of knowledgeable individuals that make use of English for communicative purposes. Interestingly enough, the English spoken within such subcultures is characterised by a standard conformant (technical) vocabulary but varied grammar. As can be seen, a whole new world of Englishes has been emerging, a world that needs to be investigated in 'real-time'. Since no in-depth descriptions have been provided for the varieties of English of the expanding circle so far, future research should focus on studying these forms of English. While approaching a more complicated issue as to whether or not foreign-speaker Englishes can be classified as self-contained varieties of English, we might want to consider a few general factors that shape variation of both foreign-speaker varieties and second-language varieties of English. First, similar to speakers of second-language varieties (e.g., IndEng), speakers of the expanding circle are exposed to the input from the native-speaker varieties (mostly British English and American English) - by and large through the media - and can thus be said to be native norm sensitive and in many cases - native norm dependent. Second, just like speakers of the outer circle, speakers of the expanding circle learn English from non-native
2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English
21
speakers of English. For instance, in Russia secondary school students learn English from native speakers of Russian that have had a professional training in the English language; the same applies, by and large, to secondary school students in Germany. We can conclude, therefore, that the English spoken in an ESL classroom in Russia and in Germany but also in France, the Netherlands, etc. is indeed characterised by a number of idiosyncratic features of its own in the areas of phonology, lexicon and grammar, this specificness being due to the influence from the teachers' and students' respective mother tongues. We should, however, bear in mind that foreignlanguage learning is always standard conformant in that the foreignlanguage learner is always, or at least most of the time, native-speaker competence oriented. However, despite their striving for native speakers' competence, most foreign-language learners are bound to make errors as a result of native language transfer processes and universal mechanisms of second-language acquisition, which become activated in a language learning situation. Interestingly enough, a considerable number of peculiarities exhibited by the second-language varieties of English are, to a great extent, the result of the substrate influence and learners' strategies employed during secondlanguage acquisition. Here the question is to what extent foreign-speaker and second-language varieties of English are shaped by substrate influence and what linguistic features can be ascribed to (the) 'universal', i.e. cogmtively salient, mechanisms of second-language acquisition. The case studies in the ensuing chapters address this question. Finally, similar to second-language varieties, foreign-speaker varieties of English can be described as extremely heterogeneous forms of English, as speakers master their English to various degrees. This difficulty notwithstanding, many (if not all) second-language varieties of English, also referred to as New Englishes (cf Schneider 2007; Mesthne and Bhatt 2008), have been frequently described in the relevant literature as possessing relatively consistent forms in the area of phonology, lexicon and even grammar. By contrast, no attempt has been made so far to provide a systematic description of the linguistic properties of foreign-speaker forms of English. It is, however, important to realise that varieties of both types share one essential characteristic, i.e. they come into existence as a result of 'imperfect' second-language acquisition and are thus subject to similar constraints that shape the linguistic systems of non-native speakers of English. Factors constraining the variation found in non-native varieties of English are summed up in Figure 2.1.
22
2 Non-native varieties of English Input from the standard varieties ofEnglisMBritishEnglishand American English)/ Superstate influence
4 Universal (learner) strategies of L2 acquisition
Non-native grammar of English
Degree of proficiency in (or amount of contact with) the target language
tf " Language transfer/ Substrate influence
Figure 2.1. Factors shaping non-native forms of English Other factors constraining non-native variation include the motivation of learners and the social function of the second language (cf Winford 2009: 223). Being by and large compatible with the analyses of constraints on nonnative-speaker variation provided in Klein and Perdue (1997) and Winford (2006, 2009), the account presented above establishes a general perspective on studying non-native varieties of English: variation attested in non-native varieties of a language is just as rule governed as variation attested in fullyfledged languages (for instance, native English). More importantly, this analysis allows us to grant foreign-speaker Englishes a variety status. To be more exact, all non-native Englishes (be it second-language or foreignspeaker varieties) are systematically shaped by similar factors such as speakers' mother tongue, speakers' proficiency, degree of input from the standard varieties of English and universal mechanisms of L2 acquisition. It follows that language forms constrained by identical parameters should in principle be comparable across the board. It is thus a highly interesting task (as well as a challenge) for the analyst to assess the exact role of each factor in the formation of non-native Englishes.
2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English
23
2.1.1. Case study: English in Russia Most expanding-circle varieties of English have been described only scantily in the relevant literature. The English spoken in Russia is no exception to the rule. These difficulties notwithstanding, the ensuing sections will attempt to show that phonology, lexis as well as the grammar of English spoken in Russia can be systematically portrayed in analogy to the existing descriptive accounts of the indigemzed varieties of English. In doing so, we assess the role that historical, sociolinguistic as well as cultural context may have played in shaping the specific character of English spoken in Russia.
2.1.1.1. History Russia is probably best described as a country in which studying European foreign languages has formed an essential part of good education. Starting from the 18th century up until the revolution of 1917 various European languages were used by the Russian elite. German, for example, was very popular in the 18th century since many spouses of the Russian Tsars came from Germany including Catherine the Great. To provide a more vivid example, most professors of Moscow University founded in 1755 were Germans, the only exception being Mikhail Lomonosov, the founder of the university, who, however, received his education in Germany (cf TerMinasova 2005: 445). In the 19th century French became the language of education and a means of communication for Russian nobility. To give a notorious example, Ekatenna Dashkova (1743-1810), Head of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy, knew four foreign languages but could barely speak Russian (cf. Ter-Minasova 2005: 445). In the 20-century, especially after the Second World War, the focus of public attention shifted towards English. During the Soviet era, English was an indispensable part of the Russian education system, although the attitude towards foreign languages in general and to English in particular was somewhat negative. In fact, during the first decades of the 20th century foreign languages were declared to be a sign of bourgeoisie and aristocracy and therefore banned from the school curricula in Russia and did not return until the late 1920s. After heated debates, English was re-introduced into educational institutions including universities and since that time English was an invariable part of the curriculum in the Soviet system of education. However, people studying foreign languages including English were looked
24
2. Non-native varieties of English
down upon as potential spies, emigrants or cosmopolitans lacking loyalty and patriotism (cf. Ter-Minasova 2005). For years and years studying English was a "love-for-love's-sake" enterprise (Ter-Minasova 2005). This kind of attitude towards students of English and the language in general remained dominant up until the end of the Soviet period and had repercussions for the conditions under which English was acquired during those times. Because the Russian community was cut off from the rest of the world during the Soviet era, generations of teachers were raised who never had a direct contact to a native-speaker variety of English during their acquisition period. The English acquired behind the Iron Curtain was the language that was learnt under conditions where learners did not have an access to the English radio, television, newspapers as it was the language of the "enemy". The situation was in many cases aggravated by inadequate teaching materials. As is clear, this type of the acquisition setting is very similar to that of secondlanguage varieties of English (for instance, IndEng) where most learners do not get to interact with native speakers of English and, in fact, have comprehension difficulties, both phonological and contextual, or for that matter cultural (cf. Sndhar and Sndhar 1986: 6).
2.1.1.2. English in Russia: some social aspects "A most striking change this country is now experiencing is, among other thrilling novelties, an unprecedented and ever-increasing urge for foreignlanguage learning - mostly and overwhelmingly English" (cf. Ter-Minasova 2005: 451). Since the times of perestroika English has enjoyed a prestigious status amongst professionals and the more general population alike, although it is a younger generation, i.e. the generation born in the 1980s, that is more exposed to English and, as a result, more proficient in the language. Russian learners of English can be subdivided into four major groups: (i) schoolchildren counted in millions, (h) students of higher education counted in millions, (hi) the new class of Russian capitalists and (iv) middle-class people of all ages with various goals in mind such as business, career, travelling, and emigration (cf. Ter-Minasova 2005). As in many countries where English has no official status, English is used in Russia in four principal domains - advertising, the media, business, interaction with outsiders and education. First, English shapes Russian advertising culture: it is one of the salient features of Russian TV commercials, exerting influence on the advertising discourse structural patterns of commercials produced in Russia (cf. Ustinova
2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English
25
and Bhatja 2005). Thus, the majority of Russian commercials employ a 'bilingual mix' (cf. Ustinova and Bhatja 2005) which inevitably increases English awareness among the general population of Russia. Similarly, a vast majority of Russian advertisements are at least partially in English, and these appear in supermarkets, on the sides of buses, in newspapers, etc. English has therefore established itself as a language of advertising creativity in Russia. Second, English is the primary language for addressing foreigners and tourists in Russia. Since the Internet has become a popular medium of communication, English has been increasingly used as a lingua franca in this social domain so that it could be argued that in Russia, English is fairly closely associated with the Internet. Third, English has been making inroads into the Russian media as well. Thus, some Russian newspapers (ARI, Russian Information Agency, The Chechen Times, Delovoj Peterburg, Extrabalt, Ichkena, MosNews, Neva News, Tatarskaya Gazeta, ZR Press, etc.) have an English edition. All these newspapers host a site on the Internet and supply their English versions in electronic format as well. Naturally, the newspapers are written and produced by Russian native speakers for whom English is a non-native language. Furthermore, popular culture in Russia is intrinsically connected to English. For instance, a substantial proportion of pop-song lyrics heard on Russian radio and TV channels are in English. In addition, Englishlanguage programmes have recently become available on satellite TV and their audience is increasing constantly. Fourth, many young and educated native speakers of Russian come into contact with the English language through the software installed on their personal computers. Although major international products are available in Russian, more knowledgeable users prefer authentic versions of software as they are associated with a better quality. Fifth, multinational companies (e.g., Airbus, Ford) operating in Russia adopt English as a company language for newsletters, correspondence, documentation, etc. In addition, negotiations within international companies are typically held in English. Finally, English is sometimes used as a medium of instruction in institutions of tertiary education, while the national language is widely employed as the medium of education in primary and secondary schools. But even this situation is slowly changing. More and more Russian parents are hiring private tutors of English so that their children start acquiring English simultaneously with other subjects. Thus, Russia has more than 350 Englishlanguage schools, where English is used as a major medium of instruction.
26
2. Non-native varieties ofEnglish
In addition, more and more students attend various courses taught in English such as business studies, law, advertising so that they learn the language along with the subject. These socio-economic pressures stimulate many Russian universities (for instance, Moscow University) to offer courses taught in English and to attract the best researchers they can get from all over the world. Last but not least, Russian Ph.D. theses are often written in English which once again confirms its status as a lingua franca of the academic world and shows that Russia is no exception to that rule. We should, however, bear in mind that most domains of Russian social life are unaffected by English. English has not as yet penetrated such spheres of communication as home and family life, religion and courts, national administration and national politics, and some others. Moreover, English is not used amongst friends in Russia as is the case with, for instance, IndEng, nor is it used as a 'link language' (cf Sndhar 1991) to unite people constituting different communities of the country. Summing up, a close examination of the sociolmguistic history of RusEng revealed that even though English fulfils an extensive range of functions in Russia, its functional domains are not as wide-spread as they are in the countries where English is granted an official status. However, the context in which English is acquired in this country bears one crucial similarity to the acquisition^ context of second-language Englishes: the language is acquired mostly through non-native speakers in the countries of the outer and expanding circle.
2.1.1.3. Essential characteristics of the English spoken in Russia: from acrolecttobasilect As elaborated on in the introductory part of the study, a variety can be understood as a distinct form of language that is spoken by a particular group of people in a particular area. The expression 'distinct form' implies that a variety must possess a number of morpho-syntactic, lexical and phonological features that would distinguish this form of speech from any other forms of speech. The major purpose of this section is, therefore, to describe some distinct features of RusEng in the area of phonology, lexicon and grammar.1 1 The ensuing analysis draws on data obtained from the Hamburg Corpus of NonNative Varieties of English (see the chapter on the empirical design of the study for further details).
2.1. Foreign-speaker varieties of English
27
In the field of phonology, the basic distinctive features of RusEng can be summed up as follows. To start with, mesolectal and basilectal RusEng lacks aspirated consonants /p/, hi and /k/ typical of native-speaker varieties of English. Thus, the phonological feature of aspiration is by and large absent in these varieties of RusEng. Second, the dental fricative consonants /0/ and 16/ are frequently replaced by the alveolar stops hi and /d/ in basilectal and mesolectal RusEng. Third, many Russian speakers of English tend to make no distinction between long and short English vowels as vowel length is not a distinctive phonological feature in Russian. For example, there may be no distinction between the pronunciations of bin and bean in mesolectal and basilectal varieties of RusEng. It should be noted that all phonological peculiarities of RusEng presented here correlate with the proficiency level of a given Russian speaker of English. Thus, advanced speakers of English are likely to have mastered aspiration so that their English will be standard conformant in this respect. By contrast, mesolectal and basilectal speakers' pronunciation will exhibit deviations from the standard pattern. It is this particular circumstance that makes this foreign-speaker variety very similar to second-language vaneties (for instance, IndEng), in which variation observed within a particular linguistic domain is also dependent on the speaker's proficiency level. Similar to phonology, the morphological and syntactic differences between RusEng and Standard English are variable rather than categorical. Thus, the acrolectal variety of RusEng may be argued to exhibit only minimal deviations from the native-speaker pattern. In fact, this variety can be expected to exhibit the highest degree of conformance to the reference variety. It is the mesolectal variety that deviates from the norms of the target language. The ensuing description of the RusEng morpho-syntax is therefore derived from the latter. To start with, the mesolectal variety of RusEng is characterised by frequent omission of articles both definite and indefinite as this category is not attested in the Russian language. (8)
Russian English (HCNVE: RE06; RE01) / have 0 very good family. YMeHHeoHeHBxopomaHceMBH.
Second, the present tense of the copula BE tends to be omitted, whereas the past tense of the copula BE is rarely omitted. This peculiarity may also be explained as a result of substrate influence from Russian, which lacks the copula BE in the present but not in the past tense.
28
2. Non-native varieties of English
(9)
Russian English (HCNVE: RE13) Maybe a few years ago we were weak, now we 0 strong. HecKOJiBKO Jiex ra MM 6BUIH CJia6He, cennac MM 0 CHJIBMBIC
Moreover, some mesolectal speakers of RusEng tend to overgeneralise the progressive aspect to habitual events and situations, as in (10) Russian English (HCNVE: RE13) And every day I am sitting in the Internet for thirty minutes. Other interesting features in the domain of tense marking concern the use of the present tense in extended-now contexts and the simple past tense in resultative contexts, as in (11) Russian English (HCNVE: RE05; RE01) a. / m studying French for five years. b. - For how long has she been running it [the beauty salon]? -May be three weeks, but she progressed a lot. Finally, the present perfect is sometimes used in RusEng to describe events with definite past time reference, as in (12) Russian English (HCNVE: RE10) / don't think that Europe has done the good thing when they united in one. Note that many morpho-syntactic peculiarities of RusEng are, in fact, frequently encountered in second-language varieties of English (cf Mesthne 2004a; Kortmann and Schneider 2004). The mesolectal domain of the RusEng lexis reflects the sociolinguistic and cultural background of the local ethos like no other linguistic domain. As in other non-native varieties of English, Russian words are introduced into English. (13) Russian torn*-beatroot soup pelmeni - meat balls sci - cabbage soup khlebandsoV- bread and salt
2.2. Second-language varieties of English
29
The expression khleb and sol' can also be idiomatically used to mean 'Russian hospitality', as in (14) Russian English (HCNVE: RE04) It \Russian culture] is not only khleb and sol' as all the people think. Summing up, RusEng exhibits some distinct linguistic features of its own. More importantly, many of these features (i.e. overgeneralisations, tense and aspect marking, etc.) bear striking similarities to those attested in second-language varieties of English.
2.2.
Second-language varieties of English
In his discussion of vernacular data, Siemund (2009) observes that specific properties attested in different varieties of English must be considered against their socio-cultural and historical background (cf Siemund 2009: 335). The following sections will show how extra-linguistic context may affect language-internal structure of a given second-language variety. Our focus is on IndEng, one of the most important varieties of English throughout the globe in terms of number of speakers (cf. Schneider 2007).
2.2.1.
Case study: Indian English
2.2.1.1. History First and foremost, IndEng is marked by enormous internal differentiation: it is partly a native variety, partly a shift variety2 and partly a second-language variety (cf. Siemund 2009). To be able to understand what gave rise to such enormous linguistic heterogeneity, we need to consider the development of this variety against its historical and socio-economic background. To start with, Engfish was introduced into India in the early if h century (cf. Schneider 2007) but it was not until the beginning of the 18th century 2 Following Thomason (2001) and Siemund (2009) the term 'shift variety' is used for those varieties that emerge when a community of non-native speakers of English gives up its mother tongue as a means of communication and shifts to English.
30
2. Non-native varieties of English
that it was in regular use. The gradual spread of English in India is intrinsically linked to the establishment of the British influence on the subcontinent. British sailors and traders were the first to bring English to India's shores followed by missionaries, who established English-medium schools in various parts ofthe country throughout the 17th, i s l a n d 19th centuries. The early English input was far from elitist since those that came to India belonged to the uneducated strata ofthe British society (cf Schneider 2007). In fact, Mehrotra (1998, cited in Schneider 2007) asserts that Northern British dialects and Cockney represented the biggest English language input at the initial stages ofthe development of English on the subcontinent. At the same time it was noted in, for instance, Mesthne and Bhatt (2008) that most ofthe missionaries in India were not ofthe working class. Thus, out of 550 missionaries based on the subcontinent in the period 17891859, only 114 were working class (cf. Mesthne and Bhatt 2008: 195). In fact, "teachers who became missionaries in India then, were drawn from the better educated, professionally conscious, ranks of teachers" (Piggin 1984: 34, cited in Mesthne and Bhatt 2008: 195). In the second half of the 18th century the British East India Company rose to a prominent position in Bengal, thus taking more and more power from the Mogul emperor, and eventually became responsible for civil government and education. Since then, the Indian population has been divided into two large groups as regards the question of whether or not English should remain the language of education. Thus, "onentalists" see English as a threat to indigenous Indian culture and languages, whereas "westernize d believe that mastenng English was the best way to gain access to Western knowledge (cf. Melchers and Shaw 2003: 137). Thus, some indigenous authors have voiced their concern that English would take over other languages of India. For instance, Y.C. Bhatnagar (1988) emphasises in his monograph "Foreign-language teaching (FTL) in India" that it is necessary to develop "operational efficiency" in one ofthe indigenous languages at the national level and other national at the state level, thus encouraging 'literate multilingualism' (cf. Bhatnagar 1988: 38). The author regards English as a threat to Indian indigenous cultures and languages. In this view, "unless the honzontal unity of the ruling class based on English is broken, India is headed for a slow and sure disintegration due to linguistic and cultural intolerance" (Bhatnagar 1988: 26). An essentially similar stand has been taken more recently in Dua (1994), who claims that "the question of switch-over from English to Indian languages in higher education is most crucial to cultural and linguistic renaissance in India". Last but not least, Bhatnagar claims that English has influenced the
2.2. Second-language varieties of English
31
study of other foreign languages (for instance, Russian, German, French, etc.) in the country negatively (cf Bhatnagar 1988: 37). Other authors, however, regard English as the principal means to solve linguistic problems that one inevitably encounters in a multilinguistic society like India. This stand is taken in Meena (1991: 104), Bailey (1996: 48), Ferguson (1996: 36) and Agmhotn and Khanna (1997: 14). The general impression is that the long-standing controversy between "orientalists" and "westermzers" led to the victory of the latter (cf. Schneider 2007: 161). It is, however, interesting to note that criticisms with respect to English as a pan-Indian medium can still be encountered in the relevant academic literature. In the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century English established itself as the language of the elite. English has become even more widespread since India gained its independence in 1947. Even the introduction of Hindi as one of the official languages of India did not stop English from becoming the most prestigious means of communication among well-to-do people and those aspiring for more prosperous positions in life alike. English is thus the principal language of higher education and government, justice and legislation, diplomacy and trade, journalism and tourism. There are basically two reasons for this phenomenon. First and foremost, English is perceived as a neutral language (as opposed to Hindi) by a vast majority of the population. As a result, it is the language in which people coming from different parts of India (for instance, Bihar and Tamil Nadu) are likely to converse. By contrast, Hindi is a language associated with a specific ethnic group. Introducing Hindi as a lingua franca implies that Hindus have a certain degree of privilege over other ethnic groups. It is for this reason that the introduction of Hindi as a national language met with great resistance on the part of many people in India. The second reason for English being so wide spread in India is that it is a language normally associated with literacy, privileged social status and economic prosperity. To provide an example, mastering English is often the only way to get a well-paid job and have a career. There are, however, many social domains from which English is barred even today. For instance, 95% of the time on state radio and TV is devoted to broadcasting in Hindi; the milestones, routes of state transport buses, number plates of private and public offices including shops and departmental stores are all in the regional languages (cf. Bhatnagar 1988: 15). In addition, results of the survey on language use in Himachal Pradesh reported by Mishra and Raj (1980) reveal that more than 40% of the listeners report listening to news and programmes in Hindi, about 15% to 19% in dialects
32
2. Non-native varieties ofEnglish
and only 13% in English (cf. Mishra and Raj 1980, cited in Bhatnagar 1988). A similar idea is expressed in Schneider (2007), who points out that "the majority of realities and lives of people on the subcontinent are untouched by the presence of English" (Schneider 2007: 161).
2.2.1.2. Indian English: some social aspects This section elaborates on some aspects of the sociolinguistic reality of IndEng. In particular, it focuses on the social characteristics of speakers of IndEng as well as the differences in conditions under which the language is acquired by different social groups. To start with, although English is spoken by a considerable proportion of the Indian population, only a very small group of South Asians (around 100,000) has English as their mother tongue. These are so-called "AngloIndians", descendants of mixed marriages between Indians and Britons. Furthermore, it has been estimated by some researchers that only 6% of the entire population of India speak English with "native-like" competence (cf. Ghosh Shantanu November 2007: personal communication).3 However if we consider the entire population that has acquired English as a second language and is proficient in it to an extent ensuring successful communication, the figure is likely to increase up to 40%. Another observation is that despite its official status, English is not always acquired as a second language in schools, in the sense that it is not always used as a means of instruction in secondary education. More often than not it has to be taught as a foreign language in many Indian schools due to the lack of financial resources. In particular, many government schools in India do not offer English as a medium of instruction, and even if they do, the teachers' level of proficiency in English is very often below the marginal mark so that subjects are often taught either in Hindi or in other indigenous languages. This has in its turn repercussions for the acquisition of English in Indian government schools: English is acquired as a foreign language rather than a second language. As a result, the level of proficiency in English varies dramatically from school to school as well as from region to region. To give an example, New Delhi is often described as the heartland of English language proficiency, i.e. most fluent speakers of IndEng come from New Delhi since the best educational institutions of secondary and tertiary levels are located here. Thus, Indians educated in private (or 3 Prof. Shantanu Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi.
2.2. Second-language varieties of English
33
public) schools of New Delhi are better at English than Indians that got their education in private (or public) schools in, for instance, Bihar. The importance of attending a good public school for receiving good education in English has been pointed out in Agmhotn, Khanna, and Mukherjee (1998): In India, being able to attend a good public school generally indicates greater exposure to English, relatively high socio-economic status, a more positive attitude towards English and a greater use of English in different domains of activity. .. .There is a very sharp contrast between 'good public schools' and 'vernacular government schools' which represent the two extreme ends of the continuum reflecting schooling. It is only in good public schools that facilities are provided to create a pleasant and comprehensible input in anxietyfree situations (Krashen 1982). These schools generally have a highly qualified teaching staff, very good libraries and several recreational facilities where children can learn while playing. It is obligatory to use English all the time in these schools. On the other hand, English is hardly used outside the classroom in government schools and the teaching generally focuses on discreet grammatical issues. The ordinary government schools generally cater to children from poor socio-economic backgrounds. There are minimal opportunities to use English, the libraries are not well-stocked and recreational facilities available are very limited. The medium of instruction in the good public schools is invariably English, whereas in the government schools it is the mothertongue. Agnihotri, Khanna, andMukherjee (1998: 114-115) Summing up the preceding discussion, it is necessary to point out that there is a considerable social stratification as well as regional variation in terms of conditions under which the English language is taught and acquired in India. The better-off upper-middle classes acquire English as a second language, whereas a considerable proportion of Indian population acquires English under conditions which are very similar to those of foreign-language acquisition. It follows that varieties of IndEng form a linguistic continuum, relating to social as well as regional factors. Furthermore, lack of sufficient knowledge of English arguably hinders the process of education at the tertiary level. This is particularly true of secondary school students from government high schools. Summing up, English has established itself as a major medium of communication (or as an inter-state lingua franca for that matter) in India, being acquired as a second language by the upper-middle class of the Indian society. English is a language that can be characterised by the upward mobility, being the most prestigious means of communication, the language of administration and the sign of power, both social and economic.
34
2. Non-native varieties ofEnglish
2.2.1.3. Essential characteristics of Indian English There has been an ongoing controversy concerning the term 'Indian English' (McArthur 1992; Hickey 2004a). The obvious problem here is that the term 'Indian English' "implies a certain unity which many scholars would maintain does not exist" (Hickey 2004a: 542). Thus, some linguists are likely to argue that referring to the Englishes spoken on the Indian subcontinent as a single variety of IndEng carries the danger of simplification, as these are extremely heterogeneous forms of English, exhibiting no linguistic characteristics common to all (cf Singh 1998; Mufwene 2000). An essentially similar view is defended by Anvita Abbi ( November 2007: personal communication),4 who contends that there are basically as many Indian Englishes as there are indigenous languages in India, the English spoken by a particular group of native speakers (Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi, Bengali, etc.) being by and large determined by the respective substrate language. Other scholars on the other hand argue that the label 'Indian English' should be preserved as a cover term comprising a host of varieties differing from each other along various dimensions such as speaker's proficiency, ethnicity, and speaker's social and regional background, etc. (cf. Schneider 2007: 172). Indeed, variation that can be observed in IndEng is frequently a matter of regional diversity, speakers' respective mother tongues exerting the major influence on their second-language output. Furthermore, variation in IndEng can be explained in many cases in terms of social stratification. We have seen in the previous section that acquisition of English in India is determined by the type of school that a learner attends, which is in its turn related to the learner's socio-economic background. Thus, in Hindimedium and also in many government schools the manner of acquisition of English often resembles that of foreign-language acquisition, most instruction being provided in Hindi or in other regional languages. By contrast, English-medium (i.e. private and public) schools including convents provide excellent facilities and a well-trained teaching staff, thus creating all necessary conditions for acquiring English as a second language rather than a foreign language. To sum up, it seems that varieties of IndEng should be stratified according to the respective substrate language and the amount of exposure to the target language including formal learning at school in order to provide a detailed account of variation of different language forms (cf.
4 Prof. Anvita Abbi, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
2.2. Second-language varieties ofEnglish
35
Melchers and Shaw 2003). An important observation at this point is that foreign-speaker varieties can be described along these lines as well. Speakers of IndEng (and other Englishes as well) can thus be described as forming a continuum demonstrating various degrees of proficiency in the target language. It is, however, the IndEng of speakers with high socioeconomic status that approximates the standard variety of British English most closely, while still exhibiting some idiosyncratic features of its own. Summing up the preceding discussion, varieties of IndEng produced by speakers educated in (private) English-medium schools can be defined as acrolectal varieties of IndEng. By contrast, English produced by speakers who got their instruction in (government) Hindi-medium or regional language-medium schools could be described as mesolectal and basilectal vaneties of IndEng. As a matter of fact, there is a sharp contrast between acrolectal varieties of IndEng on the one hand and basilectal varieties on the other in terms of phonology, lexis and morpho-syntax. Mesolectal forms of IndEng fall somewhere in between incorporating the features of both. We now turn to describing some salient features typical of the acrolectal and basilectal varieties of Ind-Eng, hence demonstrating to what extent both forms of IndEng differ from each other.5
2.2.1.3.1. Acrolectal varieties of Indian English Phonology First and foremost, many (if not all) varieties of IndEng are rhotic, thus demonstrating an obvious similarity to Standard American English. The IndEng M is, however, often trilled or tapped (as in Scottish English). Second, StEng alveolar hi and /d/ may be pronounced as retroflex. Similarly, the voiceless stops /p/, hi, Dd may be unaspirated. Here, a certain amount of variation is expected as a result of different levels of mastery of English. Furthermore, standard conformant varieties of IndEng lack diphthongs /ei/ and W, replacing these phonemes with long vowels /e:/ and /o:/ respectively so that words such as name and coat are pronounced as /ne:m/ L /ko:t/ (cf Mukherjee 2007). Finally, British English / 3 / is replaced with the voiceless post-alveolar fricative /J/ by some IndEng speakers. However, this phonological feature is particularly characteristic of Bengali speakers of IndEng.
5 The ensuing analysis employs the data from the Hamburg Corpus ofNon-Native Varieties ofEnglish. All remaining sources are indicated accordingly.
36
2. Non-native varieties of English
Moreover, IndEng has a number of characteristic prosodic features. A general pattern is that most IndEng sentences end with a rising tone, which serves as a marker of politeness. Furthermore, word stress has been described as non-distinctive (cf Melchers and Shaw 2003) and subject to individual variation. In addition, word stress in IndEng is presumably influenced by the speakers' respective native languages. Moreover, sentence stress and intonation system does not appear to be as important to conveying the message as they are in British English and American English (cf. Melchers and Shaw 2003). Furthermore, IndEng can be described as a syllable-timed variety of English as opposed to stress-timed native varieties of the language. The pitch range is, however, much wider than that of Standard English and the function of volume change may have different functions when compared to the native standard. This short survey of the major phonological features of acrolectal vaneties of IndEng reveals that these varieties indeed have systematic phonological characteristics which makes them quite distinguishable from other varieties of English, both native and foreign-speaker varieties. A noteworthy observation is that the degree to which all above-mentioned features are maintained within a particular speaker strongly depends on her level of proficiency in English. Thus, in certain cases, features just described may not be attested in speech of many educated speakers of English in India as they may have trained away some phonological features traditionally associated with IndEng. As is clear, this observation provides a parallel to the one we have made about Russian speakers of English, the preceding discussion having demonstrated that variation in non-native varieties of English is largely proficiency-dependent. Morpho-syntax In the area of morpho-syntax the contrasts between acrolectal IndEng and Standard English are less obvious. Furthermore, the formal written register of IndEng generally shows signs of being a British English conformant variety. In this respect, formal written IndEng can be compared to the English written in Russia, which has always been under the great influence from Standard British English. At the same time, some researchers observed that the grammar of IndEng vernacular (i.e. spontaneous speech) is as diverse as the indigenous languages spoken on the subcontinent (cf. Abbi, Anvita November 2007: personal communication). However, it is so far unclear which features systematically represent which variety of IndEng since there are to the author's best knowledge - no in-depth studies of Indian Englishes
2.2. Second-language varieties ofEnglish
37
representing different substrate languages (for example, Tamil English, Bengali English, and so on). Yet some grammatical features can be described as characteristic of all acrolectal (or educated) varieties of IndEng irrespective of the speakers' mother tongue. Hence, one grammatical feature that has been traditionally analysed as being typical of different vernacular (or informal) varieties of IndEng is invariant tag questions. In particular, the invariant tags isn't it and no have been described as being characteristic of the informal register of educated IndEng (cf Bhatt 2004: 1021). (15) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular; from Bhatt 2004: 1022) a. We can sit here, no? b. You said you will do the fob, isn 't it? However, it must be noted that some speakers have a preference for one form rather than the other. For instance, Bengali speakers of English use the particle no as the invariant tag form. Furthermore, one important empirical observation is that the invariant tag isn 7 it is not very frequent in the speech of Hindi speakers, being often replaced by the invariant tag M, which is a clear substrate influence from Hindi. To be more exact, ha is a literal translation of 'yes' in Hindi and performs a number of pragmaticdiscourse functions in an utterance, signalling politeness and interest on the part of the speaker. This analysis of the functions of the invariant tag ha is compatible with the analysis of the invariant tag isn 7 it proposed in Bhatt (2004: 1022). Another salient feature typically associated with acrolectal IndEng is the expansion of function of the progressive forms. In educated IndEng vernacular progressive forms frequently surface in contexts from which they would be barred in Standard English. The progressive aspect expanded its functions to habitual contexts and to stative verbs in IndEng with the result that progressives are perceived as normal in these contexts by most educated speakers of IndEng. (16) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) a. I am thinking that it is a good idea. b. Sometimes I am easily falling ill. Furthermore, IndEng educated vernacular is characterised by the absence of the auxiliary-subject inversion, as in (17).
38
2. Non-native varieties ofEnglish
(17) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) Why I would tell this story? Finally, IndEng has undergone some morphological innovations. First, some English nouns have been converted to verbs in IndEng. Take, for instance, words such as horn, airline, slogan and public that can surface only as nouns in native English. In IndEng, however, these nouns can be used as verbs as well. Lexis It is impossible to give a comprehensive account of the varieties of IndEng, both acrolectal and basilectal varieties, without mentioning some lexical features constituting the idiosyncratic character of these forms of English. First and foremost, some indigenous words have become a part of the vocabulary stock of some northern varieties of IndEng, where Hindi predominates as a regional language. As a rule, these words describe objects and phenomena essential to Indian culture and Indian way of life. Here are some examples demonstrating which English nouns have become permanently replaced with equivalents from Hindi: (18) Indian English roti,paratha- bread
cW-nce masala- spice daal- lentils prarihna-wxf* puja- the act of worshiping Second, some Hindi verbs have found their way into the vocabulary of IndEng even though they are considered to belong to the informal style of IndEng (cf Som, Bidisha November 2007: personal communication)6 (19) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) a. Could you please sit still, don't hilo. '...don't fidget' from Hindi hilo meaning 'to make fidgeting movements while sitting' 6 Dr. Bidisha Som, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
2.2. Second-language varieties ofEnglish
39
b. Stop chatofying me! 'Stop boring me by talking too much!' from Hindi ca^a meaning'to talk' Third, some Hindi nouns are used in the function of verbs in IndEng, as in (20) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) He wets line fitciYofvxfiQ with her 'He was engaged in mild flirtations with her.' from Hindi line mama meaning 'mild flirtation' Furthermore, some English words have undergone a change of meaning in IndEng. To give an example, the intransitive verb bunk, which has a meaning 'to sleep in someone else's house' has become transitivised and has undergone a complete change of meaning in IndEng. (21) British English (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English) You can bunk down on the sofa for tonight. 'You can sleep on the sofa tonight' (22) Acrolectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) / bunked the lecture today. 'I missed the lecture today.' Finally, the vernacular vocabulary of IndEng can be characterised by the abundant presence of abbreviations specific to the country's cultural realities. To provide some examples, CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), ST (scheduled tribes) and SC (schedules castes) reflect local and social reality of India.
2.2.1.3.2. Basilectal varieties of Indian English As mentioned above, basilectal varieties are produced by speakers who have typically not been exposed to English as a medium of instruction, having attended Hindi-medium government schools. Such speakers are characterised by a very limited amount of contact with the target language. Basilectal varieties of IndEng exhibit a number of idiosyncratic features in the area of phonology and grammar which make them quite distinct from acrolectal varieties.
40
2. Non-native varieties of English
The first empirical observation is that only basilectal (and sometimes mesolectal) speakers of IndEng insert an initial vowel before the consonant clusters /sk/, /si/ and /s P / in onset positions, as in Askul/ school, /istejan/ station, /is P i:ty speech, A s l a n t / student, etc. Second, omission of copula BE and (in)defimte articles is typical of basilectal varieties of IndEng. (23) Basilectal Indian English (spoken vernacular; from Mukherjee 2007) a. This BaranasQ very old city. b. Varanasi 0 our very oldest city in India. Third, basilectal speakers of IndEng do not usually mark the verb for the 3 rd person singular, as in (24) Basilectal Indian English (spoken vernacular) This radio soundQ good. Finally, neither the progressive nor the perfect surfaces regularly in basilectal IndEng, which forms a rather sharp contrast to the acrolectal varieties of IndEng. Hence, we could assume that morphological and semantic complexity of these morpho-syntactic structures leads to their underrepresentation in the speech of those speakers who have not attained sufficient levels of proficiency in their target language.
2.3. Summary The major purpose of this chapter was to work out a common ground which would allow us to compare varieties of the outer and expanding circle despite the marked difference obtaining between them. Several generalisations can be made at this point of our discussion. First and foremost, although foreign-speaker Englishes are not used in as many domains as second-language Englishes, linguistic variation observed across varieties of the outer and expanding circles yields consistent descriptive accounts (see also Kachru, Kachru, and Nelson 2006). Examples from RusEng showed that the foreign-speaker varieties exhibit structural properties fairly similar to those attested for second-language varieties of English. It follows that providing systematic accounts of languageinternal variation across non-native Englishes might shed some light on the
2.3. Summary
41
universal mechanisms underlying the occurrence of language forms in these varieties (cf Davydova et al. 2011). Second, varieties of both types exhibit extreme language-internal heterogeneity, resulting in a continuum of basilectal to acrolectal forms. This heterogeneity is best understood in terms of socio-economic conditions under which English is acquired in the countries of the outer and expanding circle and in terms of the sociohistoncal contexts in which these non-native Englishes emerged (cf. Schneider 2007: 4). More importantly, we have seen that the description of phonological and morpho-syntactic features found in these varieties largely depends on parameters such as speakers' proficiency (or the amount of contact with the target language), speakers' native tongues, stylistic register, etc. It follows that studying variation of different linguistic forms in varieties of both types must ideally include the aforementioned (extra)-linguistic variables. Only a detailed investigation of these variables will allow us to assess their exact role in constraining variation of the linguistic phenomenon under analysis. Last but not least, we can generally expect that differences in (extra)linguistic settings will give rise to the marked differences between individual varieties (cf. Schneider 2007: 4). By contrast, similarities in the sociolinguistic background will arguably help to account for similar outcomes in variation of linguistic forms observed across different Englishes.
3. Some theoretical preliminaries Before embarking upon the task of analysing the occurrence of the perfect across different varieties of English, it is necessary to elaborate on some theoretical issues concerning the status of the perfect as a verb category. Furthermore, it is important to consider the relations that obtain between the perfect and another form frequently surfacing in all present perfect contexts in all varieties of English studied here: the preterite. The major purpose of the ensuing chapters is, hence, to unify the existing contrasts between these verb forms. It will be without any doubt very useful to consider the present perfect and preterite in the light of the categories "most commonly referred to in discussions of how the English verb expresses time: tense and aspect" (Elsness 1997: 14). 3.1. The category of tense Despite the fact that there is no unanimous agreement in the academic world with respect to the question of how or in what terms the category of tense should be defined, many researchers agree that tense is a deictic category, i.e. it relates actions, events or situation to a certain time point also known as the deictic centre. In most languages, the time of utterance (the present moment to be more exact) forms the deictic centre, and tense performs the function of locating situations and events before, after or simultaneously with the time of utterance. This view is explicit in Reichenbach (1947), Lyons (1969), Comne (1985), Komg (1995) and Le Poidevin (2002), who believe that (i) tenses express relations such as 'before' (<) or 'after' (>), 'is included in' (C) and 'is simultaneous with'; (n) the arguments of these relations are speech time (S), event time (E) and some other time point known as reference time ( R ) / A different stance on the issue of tense is taken in Klein (1994), who argues that the category of tense "expresses a relation between the time of utterance and some time for which the speaker wants to make an assertion - the 'topic time'" (Klein: 1994: 24).2 Probably the most recent approach to tense is found in Radden and Dirven (2007: 201-232). Since it will be adopted for the analysis of the 1 Comrie (1985) uses a slightly different but entirely compatible terminology: the speech time (S), the event time (E) and the reference point (R). 2 See Klein (1994) for further details.
3.1. The category offense
43
present perfect in the ensuing chapters, we examine their position on the category of tense in some detail here. First, Radden and Dirven (2007) state that tense "relates to the way a situation is located in time from the speaker's viewpoint" (Radden and Dirven 2007: 201). Tense, however, also relates to the presentation of a situation as a mental space in the speaker's and hearer's mind (cf Radden and Dirven 2007: 202). Speech time (S), event time (E) and reference time (R) are treated as parts of mental spaces. The moment of speaking serves as a deictic centre, which allows the speaker to refer to three different time spheres representing deictic times: the present time sphere, the past time sphere lying behind the speaker and the future time sphere lying ahead of the speaker. Deictic times, which relate to speech time, are typically expressed by what Radden and Dirven call simple tenses. Simple tenses are the present tense, which locates the situation at, around, or included in speech time; the past tense, which locates a situation at a time earlier than speech time, and the future tense, which locates a situation at a time later than speech time. By contrast, complex times always involve two temporal relations: relation between speech time and a deictic time and a relation between the deictic time as a reference time and the time of the anterior or posterior event (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 204-205). In other words, complex times are characterised by a reference time, which links an event to speech time (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 207). Complex times are expressed by complex tenses. Complex tenses in English include past perfect (had left) and past prospective {was going to leave), present perfect {has left) and present prospective (is going to leave), future perfect (will have left) and future prospective (? will be going to leave). As is clear, the major difference between simple tenses and complex tenses is that the latter involve a reference time, and thus express more elaborate temporal relations, whereas the former do not. Moreover, some researchers are likely to support the idea that a verb form marked for tense can be treated as a polysemous category in natural languages. For instance, in his monograph on tense and aspect, Petersen (2004: 156) contends that English verb forms are "non-monadic", that is to say that one verb form may have more than one meaning. The basic function of tense is to locate situations and events on the time axis, thus grounding a situation in time, and its meaning can in principle be defined in terms of temporal relations.3 Furthermore, in some studies it has 3 Yet proponents of the tradition of Functional Semantics believe that the meaning of the category of tense cannot be described in time referential terms; in fact, Functional Semantics does not define linguistic meaning in terms of reference
44
3. Some theoretical preliminaries
become a tradition to distinguish between absolute tenses, relative tenses and absolute-relative tenses (see Comne 1985 for a detailed discussion). Another important facet of the linguistic category of tense is its formal representation in a given language. It is for this reason that tense is defined as a "grammaticahsed expression of location in time" (Comne 1985: 9). Tense is, therefore, a grammatical category, i.e. it is integrated into the grammatical system of the language. Tense is indicated on the verb, either by verb morphology (for example, affixes, vowel alternations, etc.) or by grammatical words such as auxiliaries. In some languages, tense is expressed by particles (cf Klein 1994). Many traditional grammars argue that tense is a verbal category on the basis of its morphological attachment to the verb. Comne's claim is that this category must be ascribed to the whole sentence or to the whole proposition since "it is a truth value of the proposition as a whole... that must be matched against the state of the world at the appropriate time point" rather than just a property of the verb. This comment is quite stimulating since it implies that elements other than those pertaining to the field of semantics should be considered when giving an exhaustive account of the grammatical category of tense. It will be suggested here that the description of the meaning of tense cannot and - more importantly - should not be restricted to semantics only, the discipline traditionally associated with the investigation and explanation of the invariant meaning, and must involve the investigation of pragmatic elements as well. This claim can be substantiated by the following observation. In German, the so-called present tense can be employed to refer to the future: (25) German Peter kommtjeden Tag um 6 Uhr abends nach Hause. 'Peter comes home every day at 6 p.m.' (26) German Peter fahrt morgen nach Berlin. 'Peter is going to Berlin tomorrow.' The overall tense meaning of (25) and (26) can be deciphered with the help of lexical modifiers jeden Tag, morgen used in the sentence. In some cases, and referential categories at all (Petersen 2004: 199). It does not fall within the scope of this book to discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of that approach. Let it suffice to refer here to the exhaustive account of this approach provided in Petersen (2004).
3.2. The category of aspect
45
however, the meaning of a particular tense form cannot be inferred from the overall meaning of the sentence. Linguistic information is not enough in such cases; it is at this point that extra-linguistic factors start playing a decisive role in analysing the meaning of the grammatical category under study. Let us consider the following example: (27) German — Wo ist Peter? 'Where is Peter?' — Er koifijfit UYH 6 Uhr yictch Hctusc
'He comes home at six.' The linguistic context alone does not allow for the correct interpretation of this bit of dialogue. The hearer needs additional information about the participants of the conversation (such as the conversation between Peter's daughter and wife), some particular knowledge about Peter's habits (for example, the fact that he regularly comes back from work around 6 o'clock) as well as some knowledge about the time at which the conversation takes place (let us say 5.30 p.m.) to be able to interpret the proposition Er kommt nach House um 6 Uhr as Er wird um 6 Uhr zu House sem (He will be coming home oround 6 o 'clock) and, therefore, as an utterance with the future reference. The extra linguistic context, or rather an implicature which arises out of it, thus allows the hearer to attribute the correct time reference to the verb form. An important inference can be made from this observation: the description of tense, a traditionally grammatical category, thus involves not only morphological and semantic criteria but a pragmatic parameter as well. Later discussion will demonstrate the role played by the pragmatic context in defining the meaning of the present perfect and another closely related form-the preterite. At this point, however, we raise an issue concerning the grammatical status of the perfect: Is it a tense or is it something else? Since there is no hard-and-fast answer to this question, we consider this verb form in the light of another linguistic category typically mentioned in discussions on time encoding of the English verb - aspect.
3.2. The category of aspect Aspect is yet another fairly controversial term in linguistics. To start with, 'aspect' is a translation of Russian vtd (which is in its turn a translation
46
3. Some theoretical preliminaries
from Latin) traditionally used to refer to perfective/imperfective opposition. Nowadays this term is used to cover a variety of other "oppositions based upon the notions of duration, instantaneity, frequency, initiation, completion" (Lyons 1977: 705) that receive a grammatical encoding in a given language. The most prominent aspectual opposition in English is that between progressive and non-progressive verb forms, "which at least in its most central uses can be explained in terms of the fundamental aspectual concepts of perfectivity" (Elsness 1997: 17). Klein (1994) views aspect as the relationship that obtains between "the time of some possible situation", or time of situation in Klein's terminology, and "the time span to which the speaker's claim is confined", i.e. topic time. Klein's (1994) contention is that aspect expresses the way in which some situation is hooked up to some topic time (cf Klein 1994: 6). Lyons (1977: 689) notes that there is an obvious connection between temporal notions and other notions typically classified as aspectual, pointing out that "anteriority is not always distinguishable from completion and termination" (Lyons 1977: 689). For this reason some linguists find it difficult to decide whether the present perfect and past perfect in English differ from the respective non-perfect forms in terms of tense or in terms of aspect (cf. Lyons 1977: 689-690). Anderson (1973a, cited in Elsness 1997: 18) suggests that aspect is "concerned with the relation of an event or state to a particular reference point: it is located before (retrospective), after (prospective) or simply at (AORIST) a particular point in time" (Anderson 1973a: 39-40, cited in Elsness 1997: 18). The major problem with this approach is that the boundaries between the categories of tense and aspect become blurred under this definition of aspect as a reference point is frequently included into the description of the category of tense (cf. Comne 1985: 65). The stance taken here is that aspect is "the grammatical form used by a speaker in taking a particular view of a situation" (Radden and Dirven 2007: 175). In most general terms, aspect evaluates a situation or an event as it progresses in time irrespective of the moment of utterance (cf. Maslov 1988: 63). For that reason it is characterised as a non-deictic category primarily concerned with describing an "internal temporal constituency of a situation" (Comne 1976: 3), thus viewing it [the situation] as if from within. Aspect is in this sense very different from tense, which is a deictic category. Summing up, aspect has been defined differently by different authors. The answer to the question about whether or not the perfect can be considered to be an aspectual category is by and large determined by the definition that one chooses to operate with (cf. Elsness 1997: 18).
3.2. The category of aspect
47
3.2.1. Aktionsart Another category closely connected (and sometimes confused) with the category of aspect is that of Aktionsart, i.e. a lexical category which basically expresses the same type of notions (duration, frequency etc.) as aspect does. This notion plays an important role in this study since one of its objectives is to find out whether or not the lexical meaning of the verb is implicated in the choice of the present perfect in the standard variety of English and in non-native varieties. We will therefore discuss this term in some detail here. The term Aktionsart was introduced into the study of language by the linguists and philosophers interested in demonstrating (i) how verbs can incorporate the features of duration, dynamic processes and change; (n) how the categorical interplay between tense, aspect, and Aktionsart occurs. The best-known typology establishing the ontological division state/process/ event with regard to verb semantics is the one provided by Vendler (1967). His classification is based on the assumption that all verbs possess inherent lexical properties such as states, processes, occurrences, achievements, and so on, and can be categorised according to these features. Vendler thus distinguished between four classes of verbs expressing states, activities, achievements and accomplishments which can be best illustrated as demonstrated below.
state
6
3
activity
g
A-
achievement accomplishment Figure 3.1. Vendler's verb classes typology (adapted from Petersen 2004: 57) The clearest way to describe Vendler's four categories is by means of a number of semantic features, namely [± stative, ± durative, italic, ±voluntary]. The four classes can thus be characterised as follows:
48
3. Some theoretical preliminaries
state
+stative + durative - telic - voluntary
activity
+ stative + durative -telic ± voluntary
accomplishment
- stative + durative + telic ± voluntary
achievement
-stative -durative ± voluntary
Figure 3.2. Semantic features of Vendler's verb classes (adaptedfromBrintonl988:29) These lexical verb classes will not be discussed in any detail here as a comprehensive account of all verbs is provided in the chapter on methods, including criteria for classifying specific verbs found in the data as states, activities, accomplishments or achievements. The notion of Aktionsart is also important here because it is directly related to what has become known as the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (IAH) in second-language acquisition studies, which predicts the path of acquisition of the tense and aspect morphology (cf Andersen 1991; Housen 2002). In his account of the development of tense and aspect in English as a second language Alex Housen (2002) notes: In its most general reading, the Inherent Aspect Hypothesis states that the emergence, early use and development of TA [tense and aspect] morphology in language acquisition is influenced by the inherent semantic properties of the verb predicate which the learner uses to refer to a particular situation (Andersen 1991; Andersen and Shirai 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 1999). These semantic properties are aspectual in nature and are most commonly defined in terms of Vendler's (1967) model of inherent verb semantics. Housen (2002: 165) Housen (2002) furthermore provides specific claims with respect to the development of the past tense morphology in English: a. During at least some early stage of morphological development, learners associate and use past and perfect tense morphology (hereafter PAST) predominantly with prototypical punctual-telic predicates, or achievements (e.g., fell, dropped); atelic and durative verbs tend to remain uninflected (e.g., want, play, grow up). At this stage, learner's use (or non-use) of PAST morphology is largely independent of the grammatical and discourse-
3.3. The present perfect: tense or aspect?
49
pragmatic values of the TL [target language] (e.g., past and perfect time reference, grounding status in narrativediscourse). b. At later stages of development, the initial strong bias of PAST is progressively extended, first to less prototypical achievements and then to other predicate types, following a systematic pattern of lexical diffusion... The final stage of development is all verbs in past- and perfect-time contexts are properly marked for tense, irrespective of their inherent aspectual values. Housen (2002: 166) In most general terms, the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis predicts that Aktionsart must be implicated in the choice of the present perfect in mesolectal varieties of English (i.e. in varieties whose speakers have had moderate exposure to the target language). More specifically, this hypothesis predicts that less advanced speakers of English (such as mesolectal speakers) should favour the present perfect (i.e. constructions comprising an auxiliary HAVE and a past participle) and the preterite (i.e. verb stems inflected for past time reference) with verbs of achievement and accomplishment. By contrast, stative verbs and verbs of activity (otherwise known as dynamic verbs) can be expected to be disfavoured with both verb forms.
3.3. The present perfect: tense or aspect? Having sketched the major features characteristic of tense and aspect, we can now pose a legitimate question with respect to the relevance of these categories for the perfect. Should the perfect be regarded as a tense, an aspect or a separate category in English? This issue has remained unsolved so far, researchers frequently expressing divergent opinions on the subject. Thus, there are some who believe that the perfect should be subsumed under the category of aspect (Comne 1976; Quirk et al. 1985; Klein 1994; Biber et al. 1999), although some of them admit that "it is an aspect in a rather different sense from other aspects" (Comne 1976: 52). Others (Mustanoja 1960; McCoard 1978; Inoue 1979; Fenn 1987; Elsness 1997; Hantson 2005; Declerck, Reed, and Cappelle 2006; Radden and Dirven 2007) consider the perfect to belong to the category of tense on the basis of the time reference expressed by this verb form. In addition to that, some authors tend to assign the perfect to a separate grammatical domain (Dahl 1999; Musan 2002) since "it is sufficiently uniform in its semantics and morphosyntactic behaviour to be considered a cross-linguistically valid category" (cf Dahl 1999: 290). More recently, Michaelis (2006: 224) suggested that the perfect
50
3. Some theoretical preliminaries
be viewed as an aspectual construction that "may function as a tense without losing its aspectual properties"4 In the section dealing with aspect it was mentioned that whether the perfect can be recognised as an aspect depends on the definition of aspect one operates with. Taking the definition of aspect adopted in this study into account, the category of the perfect can hardly be regarded as an aspect in a strict sense, although one could argue that the perfect possesses some sort of aspectual meaning with respect to "the inherent structure of the overall situation" (Radden and Dirven 2007: 206). The position advocated here is to regard the English perfect as a complex tense in the sense of Radden and Dirven (2007). Such an approach seems to have its own advantages for the study of linguistic variation since it allows us to regard the perfect and other forms such as the present tense or the simple past tense as representatives of the same linguistic category (i.e. the tense). It is in this way that we can ensure a homogenous perspective on comparing the perfect and other tense forms and investigate these grammatical phenomena systematically. To give an example, the present perfect and preterite are semantical^ quite distinct; yet these forms share the same cognitive meaning (i.e. reference to the past) and can for this reason be treated as variants of the same linguistic variable or functional realisations of a "common underlying formin present perfect contexts (cf Tagliamonte 2006: 72). Similarly, the present tense and the perfect are far apart from each other in terms of their semantics. However, when used in extended-now contexts, both verb forms refer to an event or situation that started in the past and continues to exist at the moment of utterance. In fact, "the linguistic variable need not to be confined to cases in which the variants necessarily mean precisely the same thing" (Tagliamonte 2006: 76). It is "the sameness of cognitive meaning" or general functional equivalence that is believed to be the relevant criterion for identifying grammatical forms under analysis as variants of the same linguistic variable (cf. Winford 1993: 142).
3.4. Summary We have so far established that tense is a deictic category, whereas aspect is not. Furthermore, a verb form marked for tense can be regarded as a non4 For further discussion see Michaelis (2006: 223-224).
3.4. Summary
51
monadic (polysemous) category, which means that "it is not the case that there is one and only one meaning of a single [verb] form" (Petersen 2004: 156). Additionally, aspect is not to be confused with Aktionsart, which is a lexical, not grammatical category. An excursion into recent accounts on tense, aspect and Aktionsart has shown that three categories are closely intertwined; it will, therefore, be interesting to try to find out if the inherent lexical meaning of the verb is implicated in the choice of the perfect in a non-native grammar. Last but not least, following the definitions of tense and aspect proposed in this study, we argued that the English perfect is better analysed as a tense category rather than an aspect category.
4. Towards a theoretical explanation for variation between the present perfect and preterite
As mentioned earlier, the only other form which alternates with the present perfect in all present perfect contexts is that of the preterite. Indeed, the preterite is the major functional competitor of the HAVE-perfect across different varieties of English and needs to be considered in some detail here. In order to determine what mechanism may underlie variation between these verb forms, we need to elaborate on a general theoretical perspective which will help us to describe the most essential characteristics of the present perfect in StEngEng and oppose them to other verb forms, in particular to the preterite. This chapter argues that the most salient features of the present perfect are best understood in the light of the notion of current relevance.
4.1. The preterite Since there is a general agreement with regard to the grammatical status of the preterite, we will start the discussion with this verb form. The first observation is that the preterite is - to use Comnan terminology - an absolute tense, i.e. it "includes as part of its meaning the present moment as its deictic centre" (Comne 1985: 36). The preterite is thus deictic, i.e. the meaning of this verb form depends on a certain contextual feature (the moment of utterance to be more exact) which forms a deictic centre in relation to which the event expressed by the preterite is located on the time axis. Furthermore, the English preterite has a morphological marker -ed inflected on the verb, which is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the inclusion of the preterite into the tense system of English. The preterite places a situation or an event prior to the time of utterance on the time axis (cf Petersen 2004: 105): El
i r
TU Figured.
Thepasttense
4.1. Thepreterite
53
The basic function of the preterite is hence the location of the situation prior to the present moment. Moreover, the preterite performs another important role in Standard English, i.e. the one of the narrative tense. It is therefore useful to make a distinction between these two functions of the preterite: (i) the reference to past actions and events occurring at a specific moment in the past and (11) the narrative function, used for describing a string of events which occurred one after the other at some time in the past; these events are viewed by the speaker as not being connected to the time of utterance. Special attention needs to be given to contexts featuring time adverbials such as never, ever, always etc.. Such environments are associated with the perfect in some varieties of English and with the preterite in others. (28) American English (from Fenn 1987: 127) Did you have lunch (yet, already)? (29) American English (from Vanneck, 1958: 237, cited in Fenn 1987: 95) IUve in New York. But I never saw the St. Patrick's Day Parade. (30) Standard British English I have never been to New York. (31) Irish English (HCIE: Dunne 12) I never had so much to do as~at present. Another important observation here is that the narrative context is generally the domain of the preterite across varieties of English.1 It follows that the occurrence of ever, never, yet, etc. in narrative contexts is not relevant for our discussion of the perfect. (32) Standard British English (beginning of a narration) My grandmother was a queer creature. She never wore pearls like most women ofher generation did. The meaning of the preterite can be defined as the one of definite past time, the element of defimteness being suggested either by the speaker or by adverbial specification (Elsness 1997). The hearer frequently decodes this element of definite meaning relying on the context in which the proposition 1 Australian English is perhaps the only exception to this - otherwise pervasive pattemofuse.
54
4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
is being uttered. As a rule, the speaker and the hearer are assumed to have some shared knowledge of the world upon which their interaction is based. The information about the temporal location of the verbal situation (i) can be inferred from a wider linguistic context or (11) can be provided by some extra-linguistic situation. If no such information is available in the context, the communication will probably fail. Defined as a notion of definite past time, the preterite often appears with overt indicators of definite past time such as past time adverbials yesterday, in 1999, some day ago, etc. or in contexts suggesting a definite past time reference (i.e. narrative contexts). By contrast, the HAVE-perfect is ungrammatical in such environments - at least in Standard English: (33) Standard English a. / bought it years ago. b. */ have bought it years ago. However, it is sometimes the case that verbs marked for past tense as well as the HAVE + past participle morphology occurs without any explicit time signal in a sentence: (34) Standard English a. I wrote a letter. b. / have written a letter. In such cases, the preterite relates an event or a situation to some definite time in the past and it often becomes clear from wider contexts (either linguistic or extra-linguistic) to what time in particular the speaker refers. Later in this chapter we will see how situational (extra-linguistic) context can convey the idea of definite past time reference and thus make the hearer decode the message as the one referring to a particular moment in the past.
4.2. The present perfect The analysis of the perfect is generally highly controversial and, as shown earlier in the discussion, there is little agreement about the grammatical status of the English perfect. Moreover, there is just as little consensus on the issue of the semantics of the English perfect. Some scholars argue that semantical^, the perfect can be analysed in terms of several independent meanings or readings (see Leech 1971a, 1971b; McCawley 1971; Comne
4.2. The present perfect
55
1976; Dahl 1999; Dahl and Hedin 2000; Lindstedt 2000) and, therefore, understood as an ambiguous verbal category. Others (McCoard 1978; Inoue 1979; Meyer 1992, 1995; Klein 1994; Musan 2002; Radden and Dirven 2007) postulate one central meaning for this verb form, claiming that all other readings are mere pragmatic realisations of the prototypical meaning. However, opinions are divided as to what meaning should be considered the fundamental property of the perfect. Consonant with the approach defended in Leech (1971a, 1971b), Comne (1976), Dahl (1999), Dahl and Hedin (2000) and Lindstedt (2000), the stance taken in this study is that the perfect is a polysemous or, to use Petersen's (2004) terminology, non-monadic verbal category. It differentiates between as many as four established meanings (or senses) which can be described in terms of its basic use types.2 The major argument in favour of this approach is that not all languages that have forms with perfect meaning have the full range of the meanings rendered by the English perfect, while in some languages there are distinct forms for some of these meanings" (Comne 1976: 56). This typological observation captures one important insight: Various manifestations of the perfect can be regarded as cross-linguistically valid semantic categories that may (or may not) receive a grammatical encoding in a language (cf Dahl 1985: 133, 142; Haspelmath et al. 2005: 271). In other words, specific languages may grammaticalise either some or all of these meanings. It is on these grounds that the English perfect can be assumed to be a polysemous linguistic category, which has one grammatical marking for the expression of several cross-linguistically valid semantic properties of the perfect. Additionally, all the types of the English perfect are established readings in the sense that they are described at some length in traditional grammars of English (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002). Following Cruse (2000: 109), established readings of a linguistic item are meanings (or senses) of that item.
2 This approach is also roughly compatible with that of Declerck, Reed, and Cappelle (2006), who distinguish between two meanings of this verb form - a 'before now' meaning and a 'co-extensive' meaning (cf Declerck, Reed, and Cappelle 2006: 234). The similarity between the two approaches is revealed by the fact that the authors acknowledge that the present perfect can be regarded as a category with more than one meaning or function.
56
4. Explammgvanation between the present perfect and preterite
4.2.1. The meaning of the present perfect In most general terms, the English present perfect can be characterised in terms of three properties: focus on the present time, current relevance and indefimteness (Radden and Dirven 2007: 212). More specifically, the focus on the present time makes the present perfect compatible with present time adjuncts (e.g., Our tram has just left and now we 're stranded here. Cited from Radden and Dirven 2007). The component of current relevance implies that a past situation is still (perceived as) relevant at speech time. The overall indefimteness expressed by the perfect manifests itself in the fact that this verb form is incompatible with adjuncts that specify a definite setting (cf Radden and Dirven 2007: 213). This definition of the English perfect can be conceived of as a default reading, i.e. "a meaning that would come to the mind in the absence of contextual information" (Cruse 2000: 108). It is this reading that every competent native speaker of English should in principle be able to reconstruct when presented with the HAVE-forms (e.g., have written, have done, have been, etc.) without any context. The major uses of the English perfect listed below may be viewed as more specific and contextual^ restricted senses, representing subvaneties of this very general sense.3 What all the senses of the category have in common is a semantic component of current relevance. This makes possible an account of the present perfect in terms of polysemy (cf. Cruse 2000: 109) 4 The ensuing analysis, however, will show that some use types are more central to the category of the perfect than others. In what follows, we will elaborate on the semantics of these use types, while relying on the state-of-the-art typological and cross-varietal accounts of the perfect. This procedure will allow us (i) to establish the ground for a contrastive account of the perfect and preterite in the subsequent discussion and (ii) to build up hypotheses for the ensuing analyses of the present perfect in the standard variety of English and related non-native varieties.
3 This type of polysemy was referred to as autohyponymy in Cruse (2000: 110). 4 In his account of polysemy Cruse (2000) states that a linguistic item can be can be viewed as polysemous if its two or more established senses are related to each other.
4.2. The present perfect
57
4.2.1.1. The resultative perfect The resultative perfect (referred to as the strive perfect by McCawley 1971) refers to a situation that inherently involves a change of state (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 145), thus expressing a resultant state. (35) Standard English (from Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 145) a. She has broken her leg. He has closed the door. She has gone. b. She's been to the bank. She has run ten kilometres. As the preceding examples demonstrate, resultative perfects are often (but not always!) associated with verbs of accomplishment and achievement. The meaning of the resultative perfect is considered to be a "central manifestation of a perfect" (cf Comne 1976; Siemund 2004) and seems to be the most explicit with respect to the expression of the notion of current relevance, a concept typically associated with the category of the present perfect. (36) Standard English (from Siemund 2004: 414) She has eaten the pizza all on her own. (There is no pizza left on the table) In order to understand how the notion of current relevance is manifested in the meaning of the resultative perfect, let us consider the sentences John broke Ms leg two months ago vs. John has broken Ms leg [and can't walk right now]. Thus, in the first sentence, a simple reference to an action which took place at some time in the past is being made and it is not at all clear form the proposition made in the first sentence whether John's leg has since then been healed or is still broken, whereas in the second sentence the result of a prior situation still holds for the present, i.e. John's leg is still broken at the moment of utterance. This type of result is known as a continuing result: the resultant state begins at the time of occurrence of the past situation and continues through into the present (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 145). Continuing results generally correlate with verbs denoting a change of state and current relevance can thus be said to derive directly from the meaning of these verbs. Yet in other cases current relevance is heavily dependent upon pragmatics of resultative perfects. For instance, in She's been to the bankthe meaning of current relevance cannot be derived directly from verb semantics; it hinges upon the circumstances in which the proposition is pronounced: for instance, current relevance is contained in resulting
58
4. Explammg variation between the present perfect and preterite
implicates like "She has some money" or "The cheques are deposited" (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 145). Finally, current relevance might also be implied in so-called 'ml results'. Hence, in I've tried to phone her but she is not answering current relevance manifests itself as a failure to obtain the expected or intended result (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 145). Furthermore, the fact that resultative meaning is a central manifestation of the perfect is corroborated by data on non-standard native varieties of English. For instance, Miller (2004) observes that resultative contexts are commonly associated with the present perfect morphology even in nonstandard varieties of English, whereas the simple past tense morphology is widely used for all other meanings of the category (cf. Miller 2004: 305). To sum up, the hotly debated semantic component of current relevance, unmistakably recognisable in resultative contexts, should be taken into the ensuing theoretical account of the opposition 'present perfect : preterite'. More specifically, the perfect can be expected to be preferred over the preterite in resultative contexts in the corpus data.
4.2.1.2. The extended-nowperfect The type of meaning conveyed by the extended-now perfect has been labelled in literature in many different ways: 'inclusive past-and-present', 'universal perfect', 'continuative perfect' or the 'perfect of persistent situation' (cf. Filppula 1999: 123). This perfect describes a situation that started in the past and continues or persists into the moment of utterance. As a consequence, current relevance is quite tangible in such contexts. (37) Standard English It has been raining since morning. It is therefore no surprise that the perfects of this type often combine with verbs of activity or duration in Standard English. It has furthermore been noted in the relevant literature that the continuative perfect is frequently associated with certain time adverbial specifiers such as since 1950, for a longtime,allhislife,uptillnow,ctc. The extended-now perfect subsumes another type known as habitual perfect, which indicates that an event started to occur at a certain point in the past and has occurred regularly up to the moment of utterance as in / have watched CNN on Saturdays for more than three years now. Both uses
4.2. The present perfect
59
are expected to exhibit a propensity to occur with the perfect rather than the preterite in the corpus data, the notion of current relevance being overtly manifest in both types of contexts (cf Siemund 2004: 414). When considered cross-linguistically, the perfect in extended-now contexts seems to be an idiosyncratic property of Standard English as a vast majority of other languages employs the present tense to convey a continuative meaning (Dahl 1985: 137; Dahl, Osten 2007: personal communication). 5 Here are only a few examples: German Ich lebe sett 2001 in Hamburg; French J'habite a Hambourg depuis 2001; Russian Ja zhivu v Gamburge s 2001 goda6 Furthermore, cross-varietal evidence is highly consonant with these typological findings. For instance, in Irish English the present is fairly frequently used in the contexts under analysis: And they are fighting ten years in the North for an all-Ireland republic (Filppula 1999: 122). Moreover, the present tense in extended-now contexts has been attested in all varieties of non-native English studied here. Yet another observation is that the present tense was used in the contexts under discussion at earlier stages ofEnglish. (38) Early Modern English (from Henry VI, I, 1.2.40, cited in Siemund 2004: 409) Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brained slaves, And hunger will enforce them to be more eager: Of old I know them; rather with their teeth The walls they 11 tear down than forsake the siege. '...Ihave known them foralong time...' In fact, the present tense was used in the continuative contexts throughout the Old English and Middle English periods. The perfect appears in these environments only in later Middle English (cf. Traugott 1972: 145). (39) Late Middle English (from Canterbury Tales, Knight A.929, cited in Traugott 1972: 146) We han ben waitynge al this fourtenycht.
5 Prof. Osten Dahl, Stockholm University. 6 Languages that use the perfect in continuative environments similar to Standard English include Amharic, Estonian, Finnish, Kammu, Kikuyu, Limouzi (present tense is also given as an alternative), Spanish, Swedish and Wolof (cf. Dahl 1985: 137).
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4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
It continues to compete with the present tense throughout the Early Modern English period before ousting the latter from the standard dialect a few centuries later (cf Traugott 1972).
4.2.1.3. The experiential perfect The experiential perfect, also known as 'existential' perfect or 'indefinite anterior' perfect, suggests that a situation or an event has taken place once or several times during a period of time leading up to the present. Thus, a sentence / have been to America implies that the speaker has visited the country at least once up to the moment of utterance. Experiential perfects frequently appear with the stative verbs such as be or have but also with the verbs indicating duration or activity: (40) Standard English (from Siemund 2004: 414) / have played tennis, but not very often. Klein (1994) notices that the distance between the topic time and the time of the situation is much longer in case of the experiential perfect in contrast to resultative perfects, where the temporal distance between the two is very short indeed (cf. Klein 1994: 112). The notion of current relevance can be described in terms of iterativity or 'repeatability', i.e. the situation takes place in a time span which is not over yet (such as one's life time) and it can thus be repeated (cf. Dahl and Hedin 2000: 388). It is this unspecified connection to the present moment which basically accounts for this use type in Standard English. We could thus claim that current relevance is not as explicitly expressed in experiential contexts as in resultative contexts, simultaneously hypothesising that experiential contexts are less favoured by the perfect when compared to resultative contexts or extended-now contexts. The latter assumption is in line with an empirical observation provided in Miller (2004) that "in spontaneous speech and in non-standard English the experiential interpretation is regularly (and frequently) assigned to clauses with Simple Past" (Miller 2004:315).
4.2. The present perfect
61
4.2.1.4. The perfect of recent past The English perfect is also used for situations where the present relevance of a past situation is simply the one of temporal closeness, that is, the past situation is very recent (cf Comne 1976: 60). (41) Standard English (from Huddlston and Pullim 2002: 145) a. It has been a bad start to the year, with two fatal road accidents overnight. b I ve discovered how to YHQYICI the fuse c. She has recently/just been to Pans. ' It is for this reason that the perfect of recent past collocates with the adverbs recently, lately, this year, etc. Moreover, Klein (1994) contends that the perfect of recent past seems to be compatible with the past tense, i.e. it expresses the relation between the time of utterance and the time of the situation, not the relationship between the time of the situation and topic time, characteristic of all other uses of the HAVE-perfect. Therefore, this usage looks like the beginning of a new development in the course of which the perfect develops into the past tense (cf. Klein 1994: 113). Due to its very general semantic nature, the perfect of this type can surface with lexical verbs of virtually all groups in Vendler's typology: state, activity, accomplishment and achievement. The use of the perfect in this function seems to be a unique property of Standard English as well since all other European languages use the preterite or 'historical perfect' in this case (cf. Dahl and Hedin 2000)7 In addition, studies on non-standard varieties of English report that the simple past tense is used to express recent past time. Thus, in his account of Scottish English, Miller (2004: 313) mentions that recent past time can be signalled by the use of the simple or progressive past with there in this dialect, as in (42) Scottish English (from Miller 2004: 314) / was speaking to Susan there. It follows from this discussion that the recent past meaning of the perfect is not its prototypical use, which should not come as a surprise. What is, however, important for the present study is the assumption that the recent past 7 For the definition of a 'historical perfect' see, for example, McCoard (1978: 235).
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4. Explammgvanation between the present perfect and preterite
meaning does not play a crucial part in triggering the HAVE-perfect in our data since cross-linguistically "recency" does not seem to be a decisive semantic feature in determining the choice in favour of the perfect (cf Dahl and Hedin 2000). The overall conclusion is that contexts of recent past are less explicit with regard to the expression of the semantic component of current relevance. It seems that the only way to link the past event to the moment of utterance in contexts of recent past is to say that the event is very recent. Hence, it can be generally expected that contexts of recent past are less favoured by the perfect in our data.
4.3. Semantics of the perfect and preterite: Contrastive analysis The ensuing discussion is devoted to establishing a common theoretical ground for unifying the existing contrasts between the English present perfect and its major competitor in the domain of past tense marking: the preterite. The procedure, by no means simple, should contribute to the longstanding scientific debate about the relationship obtaining between the present perfect and preterite in English. Moreover, working out a consistent approach is no doubt helpful in explicating the patterns of use of these verb forms in the reference variety of English and its non-native varieties. We saw that the perfect is generally characterised by its four basic use types: the resultative perfect, the experiential perfect, the extended-now perfect and its subtype, habitual perfect, and the perfect of recent past. As mentioned above, what these all use types have in common is the notion of current relevance, i.e. "the linking of a situation which began or happened in the past to the time or moment of utterance" (Siemund 2004: 414). A similar idea is expressed in Huddleston and Pullum (2002), who claim that the major use types of the HAVE-perfect can be thought of as classification of different ways in which the past situation may have 'current relevance' (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 143). Since the semantic feature of current relevance, inherent in all perfect use types, makes the perfect quite distinct from the simple past tense, it is suggested that the semantic meaning of the perfect and preterite can be described in terms of the following compositional analysis:* 8 This analysis could be extended to include the simple present tense, which would appear to be the most unmarked member of the paradigm lacking the features
4.3. Semantics of the perfect and preterite: Contrasts analysts 63 Table 4.1. Semantic composition of the perfect and preterite reference to current thepast relevance preterite perfect
+ +
+
focus on the present
focus on the past
+
+
indefinite- definite+
+
The first observation is that both perfect and preterite are characterised by the 'reference to the past'. It is on this ground that both verb forms can be regarded as functionally equivalent, although semantical^ not identical.9 To be more precise, the proposed semantic analysis reveals that the perfect possesses one semantic component more when compared to the preterite: current relevance. It appears that current relevance is a feature that makes the perfect stand out as a verb form. It is this notion of current relevance coupled with the 'focus on the present' which allows the perfect to collocate with the time adverbials whose semantics includes both the time of the past situation and speech time (today, these two years, for the past twenty years, etc.) in Standard English (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 215). By contrast, the absence of this feature in the semantic make-up of the preterite coupled with the 'semantic focus on the past' nicely explains why the simple past tense is normally used with the definite past time adverbials (yesterday, two hours ago, etc.) in English: a situation that occurred at a specific moment in the past cannot be in any way connected to the present moment. What still needs to be elaborated on is the notion of current relevance. Traditionally, current relevance is believed to convey "resultativeness" (cf. Elsness 1997: 68), i.e. it shows that the results of some prior action are still tangible at the moment of utterance and are in this way relevant for the speech time. Dahl and Hedin (2000) give an essentially similar definition of current relevance, endorsing the idea of "the continuance of a result" as being indispensable to the interpretation of current relevance (Dahl and Hedin 2000: 392). Moreover, Siemund (2004) argues in much the same vein that current relevance is "the linking of a situation that began in the past to the moment of utterance" (Siemund 2004: 414), whereas Declerck, Reed, and 'reference to the past', 'current relevance', 'focus on the past' and 'definiteness'. 9 This observation is particularly important for the subsequent analyses of our data, in which the preterite and the perfect are viewed as verb forms sharing a similar function, i.e. reference to the past.
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4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
Cappelle (2006: 213) contend that current relevance is a "speaker's concern with NOW". All preceding definitions of current relevance capture the major insight that current relevance is a semantic component that links a past situation to the moment of utterance. They can hence be adopted for this study. Moreover, this notion has been described as a "condition of repeatability" (Inoue 1979: 561). According to the latter analysis, current relevance describes a discourse topic which refers to a situation as "either repeated or repeatable at the time of speech act" (Inoue 1979: 574). Current relevance implies that a situation occurred or started to occur at some time in the past and is either being repeated at the moment of speaking or can be repeated later on. Thus, Inoue (1979) understands current relevance as the component of meaning that focuses the speaker's and hearer's attention on the present or even the future rather than the past. In this respect, current relevance can be said to be opposed to singular non-repeatable actions in the past, typically expressed by the preterite. Inoue's analysis of current relevance has nevertheless some limitations despite its undeniably useful insights into the semantic nature of the perfect. Thus, one of the consequences of the definition of current relevance provided in her analysis is the assumption that the present perfect cannot be used if the discourse topic refers to a non-repeatable activity. This claim is, however, untenable since there are instances of the usage of the perfect in non-repeatable contexts. Compare: (43) Standard English (from Elsness 1997: 35) John has completed his thesis. The discourse topic introduced by this sentence is non-repeatable (since a particular thesis can be completed only once) and yet the use of the perfect is totally acceptable in this case (cf Elsness 1997: 35). Being strongly associated with resultative contexts, the verbs of accomplishment and achievement introduce non-repeatable activities in the discourse, thus accounting for the inconsistency of the analysis of current relevance in terms of repeatability. Our conclusion is that Inoue's analysis of current relevance is best applied to experiential contexts such as Tom has seen this film twice, which typically imply that the event occurred once or several times before the moment of utterance during a time span which is not over yet and can for this reason be repeated in the future. Finally, current relevance has been defined as an implicature (Kortmann 1995: 194) which over time was grammaticalised and became a part of the
4.3. Semantics ofthe perfect and preterite: Contrasts
analysts
65
inherent meaning ofthe perfect, a verb form that gradually developed into a semantical^ more complex member of the opposition 'perfect: preterite': On the one hand, it has been suggested in literature on conversational implic a t e s that whenever there is a choice between two forms differing in structural complexity the speaker should choose the structurally simpler form. If the speaker selects the complex form instead, the interpreter is entitled to believe that the relevant utterance may conversationally implicate something "by virtue of its 'taking more effort' or 'taking the speaker further out of his way' than some alternative utterance." Kortmann (1995: 194) It follows from this observation that current relevance can also be understood as exerting a complicating effect on the semantic opposition 'perfect: preterite', in which the perfect is a semantically more "loaded" member and thus a more complex one. Such a definition of current relevance is completely in line with the analysis ofthe perfect and preterite elaborated on so far. Current relevance is, hence, a semantic component that implies the linking of a past situation to the moment of utterance, thus rendering the semantic composition ofthe English present perfect fairly complex. However, the degree to which current relevance is manifested in a sentence varies from use type to use type. Thus, it is obvious in resultative contexts, which have been claimed to be a central manifestation ofthe perfect (cf. Comne 1976; Siemund 2004), and needs little motivation in ext e n d e d ™ contexts, which typically describe a situation that started in the past as persisting into (and, hence, being valid at) the moment of utterance. In contrast, in contexts of recent past and in experiential contexts the notion of current relevance has been claimed to be less vivid. To give an example, the proposition The Prime Minister has resigned this year is not necessarily associated with any change of state at speech time. In other words, a recent (or a fairly remote) event has no immediate repercussions for the speakers at the moment of utterance. In contrast, an event immediately preceding speech time frequently involves a change of state in the present, which in its turn might have direct consequences for the participants ofthe situation (cf. Dahl and Hedin 2000). Similarly, the only way to justify the semantic component of current relevance in experiential contexts is to describe it in terms of repeatability, i.e. by saying that the past situation or event logically applies to a time span which is not over yet (e.g., / have been to America three times in my whole life) and can thus be repeated. It is this unspecified connection to the present moment which basically accounts for this use type in Standard English.
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Following this assumption, we can construct a hierarchy of uses of the present perfect as regards the expression of current relevance, with the resultative and extended-now perfects occupying the top positions in the ranking followed by the recent past and experiential use types. resultative extended-now recent past
experiential
Figure 4.2. The hierarchy of uses of the present perfect Taking this idea one step further, we can say that resultative and extendednow perfects are the most salient representatives of the category of the English perfect as opposed to experiential contexts and contexts of recent past because the notion of current relevance is manifested more vividly in the former contexts. Note that this claim is made with respect to the English language alone without any attempt at a cross-linguistic generalisation. Indeed, this hypothesis will hardly hold cross-linguistically since the vast majority of languages employ the present tense in extended-now contexts, as mentioned earlier. Moreover, it is resultative and experiential perfects that appear to be the most robust semantic categories cross-linguistically (cf Haspelmath et al. 2005: 271). Finally, the category of the present perfect is generally very unstable cross-linguistically, easily moving into cogmtively related domains: its shifting of meaning can be described as developing from the meaning of the result of a past action, further to anteriority relative to speech time and finally to the past proper (cf. Khlebmkova 1973: 127).
4.4. Limitations of the semantic analysis of the perfect and preterite The proposed semantic analysis of the perfect and preterite suggests that the co-occurrence patterns of these verb forms are context sensitive in Standard English. However, this analysis cannot account for all the instances of use of the perfect and preterite. Neither can it always explain their specific distribution mechanism across varieties of English. Evidently,
4.4. Limitations of the semantic analysts ofthe perfect and preterite
67
this approach must be supplemented with an investigation of other factors that might influence the choice between the perfect and preterite in StEngEng and its varieties. As mentioned above, the analysis of tense meaning - or the meaning of the perfect and preterite for that matter - cannot be restricted to the analysis of its semantics. McCoard (1978: 4), for instance, observes that it is a fruitful strategy to study "how available form-choices are used, rather than to restrict ourselves to describing the explicit, invariant semantic content of lexical and semantic constituents." Hence, additional linguistic phenomena such as components constituting a sentence and pragmatic discourse will be considered with the purpose of enlarging the scope ofthe analysis.
4.4.1. Analysis of the collocation of the perfect and preterite with other elements in the sentence It has been recognised that factors other than semantic contexts featuring the perfect and preterite condition their variation (cf Winford 1993; Taghamonte 2000; Van Herk 2008). For instance, occurrence of these morphological variants may be triggered by some other sentence constituents. In particular, time adverbials are felt to affect the choice between the perfect and preterite (cf. McCoard 1978; Inoue 1979; Van Herk 2008). Current literature reports that the choice of a particular verb form (either the perfect or the preterite) often depends on the time adverbial with which it appears in a sentence. To that effect, several groups of time adverbials have been identified: adverbials that collocate with the preterite only, adverbials that require the perfect exclusively, and adverbials that can generally collocate with both verb forms, although in certain varieties strong preferences in favour of one ofthe verb forms are attested.10 Time adverbials of all these groups are believed to differ from each other with respect to the expression of a certain semantic feature which, as will be claimed, can be defined in terms ofthe notion of current relevance. In his useful account, McCoard describes this feature as ± THEN and proposes the following classification of time adverbials (McCoard 1978: 135): 10 For instance, some speakers of British English are likely to claim that adverbials like just, already, and never can go with the perfect only. In contrast, speakers of American English feel that the usage of the preterite with these adverbials is perfectly natural. It is for this reason that McCoard assigns them to the ±THEN group.
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4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
Table 4.2. McCoard's classification of time adverbials + THEN
±THEN
-THEN
long ago five years ago
long since today in my life today recently just now often always
at present up till now so far as yet not yet during these five years since the war before now
yesterday the other day those days last night in 1900 at 3:00 after the war no longer
already before
This classification provides a good example of how the co-occurrence patterns of various adverbials with the perfect and preterite can be described in a systematic way. However, such an analysis presents one with a problem since the above presented classification suggests that all the -THEN adverbials should be compatible with the present tense. In terms of logic, the semantic feature -THEN should be equated to some semantic feature +NOW, and therefore to the moment of utterance. It is nevertheless not always the case: */ am trying to get in touch with you during these five hours is unacceptable in Standard English. McCoard admits that the -THEN feature cannot equated with the present tense. However, he does not provide any specific definition of the -THEN feature nor does he say what temporal frame this feature should be assigned to. McCoard's classification clearly presents us with a difficulty of defining a specific semantic feature allowing for a consistent arrangement of time adverbials. It is therefore suggested that the time adverbials under analysis can be organized into distinct cohorts according to their ability to express the notion of current relevance. The difference between an event which occurred at a particular time in the past and an event which occurred during the time span stretching up to the moment of utterance can be summarised as follows: an event which took place at a particular moment in the past (three weeks ago, yesterday) cannot be perceived as being currently relevant any longer. Thus, in / broke my arm yesterday the adverbial yesterday refers to a specific past moment during which a singular event (one's breaking his arm) occurred rather than to the results of that event in the present (one's broken arm).
4.4. Limitations of the semantic analysis of the perfect and preterite
69
By contrast, it seems that time adverbials of the -THEN group in McCoard's classification contribute to conveying the meaning of current relevance in a sentence since their inherent meaning is to link some past situation to the moment of utterance. The results of some prior action are perceivable in the present because time adverbials of the type these five years, so far, up to now, etc. make the connection between some prior event and its result in the present palpable, as in / have run seven miles up till now. Here is another example to substantiate this view: (44)
Standard English a. I learned a poem yesterday. b. I have learned five poems so far.
In the second sentence, it is the adverbial so far that links a situation that happened in the past (the act of learning the poems) to the time of utterance and, hence, makes the whole event relevant to the present. The results of the event are still tangible at the moment of speaking (one has learned five poems and can tell them by heart, for example). It is therefore suggested that time adverbials should be classified according to the parameter of '± current relevance': Table 4.3. Semantic classification of time adverbials (adapted from McCoard 1978)" -current relevance
± current relevance
+ current relevance
long ago five years ago once yesterday the other day those days last night in 1900 at 3:00 after the war no longer in the past
never ever always just (now) today in my life recently lately often before before now
at present (now) up till now so far as yet not yet already during these five years past herewith since (the war) for (three years) long since
11 Similar to adverbs yet and so far, the adverb already is semantically compatible with the resultative meaning (cf. Fenn 1987: 127) and therefore with the notion of current relevance. It is thus classified as an adverb of the '+current relevance' group. The adverbial long since is compatible with the extended-now meaning and is assigned to the '+ current relevance' group. Finally, time adverbials before and before now are amenable to the interpretation in terms of the experiential meaning and are classified as belonging to the '± current relevance' group.
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4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
What is important for the present discussion is the observation that Standard English does not allow the present perfect to collocate with adverbials of definite past time (or of the ' - current relevance' group in our interpretation). One cannot say: (45) Standard English */ have arrived in Hamburg five years ago/ in 2001. Current relevance interpretation, typically associated with the perfect, seems to lose its validity with indicators of definite past time reference, at least in Standard English. Results of the previous research suggest that time adverbials of the ' - current relevance' group do not collocate with the perfect, whereas time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group do not go with the preterite (McCoard 1978; Elsness 1997). There are, however, a number of time adverbials for which it has turned out difficult to decide to which of the above-mentioned groups they should be assigned since such adverbials generally collocate with both forms, although speakers of a certain variety may have strong intuitions favouring the choice of just one verb form. Such time indicators have been labelled as the '± current relevance' group here. At the moment, it is not quite clear how these adverbials contribute to the overall meaning of a sentence. What is, however, obvious is that the time adverbials of the '± current relevance' group are less explicit with respect to the expression of the component of current relevance when compared to the time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group. This issue will be elaborated on in the subsequent analyses of the distribution of the perfect and preterite across varieties of English. Summing up, we have seen that the perfect and preterite are distinguishable as far as their semantic composition is concerned. Furthermore, we have hypothesised that the occurrence of both verb forms may depend on the elements constituting the sentence. In particular, time adverbials were assumed to play a significant role in determining the choice in favour of a specific verb form in a given sentence.
4.4.2. Pragmatic analysis of the perfect and preterite The preceding analysis has been trying to pinpoint the differences between the perfect and preterite relying on their semantic properties as well as their co-occurrence capacities with other elements in a sentence. However, it is
4.4. Limitations of the semantic analysts ofthe perfect and preterite
71
by no means sufficient to define the nature of interaction between the perfect and preterite in those terms only. Many researchers (Inoue 1979; McCoard 1978; Elsness 1997; Dahl and Hedin 2000) have acknowledged the importance of pragmatic discourse in reconstructing the meaning of both verb forms. In sentences with an overt time specification, the hearer relies on the time adverbial for the interpretation of an event as either being currently relevant or not. The fact is, however, that both perfect and preterite often appear without any time anchors in a sentence. (46) Standard English (from Dahl and Hedin 2000: 387, 390) The Prime Minister has been killed. Did John wink? It is at this point that the hearer has to make inferences about the propositions relying on a context wider than a sentence. The following sections demonstrate how one can interpret a proposition as either being referred to a particular moment in the past or as being currently relevant relying on pragmatic knowledge only.
4.4.2.1. The preterite and pragmatic discourse If you live in a house where the door is locked at bedtime, then the sentence Did you lock the door? pronounced after everyone has gone to bed would be an equivalent to Did you lock the door at bedtime? (cf Quirk et al. 1985: 184). It is obvious that the knowledge about the semantics ofthe preterite is not enough to reconstruct the meaning ofthe sentence. One needs pragmatic knowledge about the house, its inhabitants and their habits in order to grasp the meaning ofthe sentence. A conclusion at this point is that "a full account ofthe meaning ofthe preterite, and ofthe tense as such is not to be confined to semantics but has to bring elements from pragmatics, as the line of division between the two disciplines is often drawn" (Elsness 1997: 7). We may take this idea one step further, arguing that pragmatic factors play a crucial role as well in defining the meaning ofthe perfect.
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4. Explaining variation between the present perfect and preterite
4.4.2.2. The perfect and pragmatic discourse To be able to understand how pragmatic discourse contributes to our understanding of the meaning of the perfect, let us consider the following example from Dahl and Hedin (2000: 391-392): (47) Standard English A bank has been robbed. Dahl and Hedin (2000) claim that this sentence sounds perfectly natural if uttered by the sheriff of Tomstone, Arizona, who is trying to make his subordinates leave the room where they are playing cards. Evidently, the sheriff is not simply informing his deputies about some event that is still valid with regard to the moment of utterance, but he is also urging them to do something about the situation, i.e. he tries to make them draw a conclusion that they have to get to the scene of the crime. Therefore, current relevance is understood here in terms of repercussions that the event has for the participants of the discourse: In contrast to the prototypical cases of.. .perfects, these repercussions are not directly derivable from the meaning of the verb. In many cases, one has to rely on specific knowledge about the situation or about some convention. Dahl and Hedin (2000: 392) Current relevance in this sense is thus regarded not only as "a condition on the world", i.e. the continuance of a result that is still tangible at the moment of utterance, but also as "a condition on the discourse" in that the speaker portrays the consequences of an event as somehow essential to the point of what she is saying (Dahl and Hedin 2000: 392). In the study, the notion of current relevance will be operationalised in terms of the inherent meaning pertaining to the verb form (quantitative, i.e. distributional and multivariate, analyses) as well as in terms of conditions (or constraints) which current relevance can impose on the pragmatic discourse and, hence, determine the choice of the perfect (qualitative analyses). The findings of preceding two sections can be summed up as follows: the interpretation of the perfect and preterite often depends on the speaker's view of the event (cf McCoard 1978: 47). The choice in favour of either the perfect or preterite often reflects the speaker's perspective on the identification of the situation as either being relevant to the moment of utterance or not.
4.5. Summary 73 In view of the evidence presented above, we can assume that variation between the perfect and preterite may be motivated by the constraints that speakers impose on the pragmatic discourse. We therefore postulate a connection between the perfect and pragmatic discourse.
4.5. Summary This chapter has demonstrated that the perfect is semantically more complex than the preterite as it can be used in four major readings, whereas the major use of the preterite is to express a reference to an event, or a string of events, that took place at some definite time in the past not connected to the moment of utterance. Furthermore, the perfect and preterite show considerable differences with respect to their distribution with time adverbial specification as well as pragmatic inferences that they invoke. Thus, the perfect and preterite collocate with different types of time adverbials, the latter being primarily used with adverbials of definite past time. The former, on the other hand, combines with adverbials whose inherent semantic meaning can be defined in terms of the '+ current relevance' feature. Furthermore, extra-linguistic discourse, too, exerts a persistent influence on the choice of the present perfect. The preceding analysis has revealed that the principal contrast between the perfect and its major competitor seems to be the one of current relevance, a feature whose range of application transcends semantic frontiers and finds its pragmatic manifestation in an English utterance as well. Furthermore, various form elements (mainly time adverbials) enhance our understanding of the notion of current relevance. Current relevance can thus be defined as a three-dimensional theoretical concept which plays a decisive role for the choice between the perfect and preterite in Standard English. Table 4.4. The concept of current relevance Semantics
Semantic property inherent in all use types of the perfect, rendering the perfect a semantically more complex member of the opposition 'perfect:preterite'.
Form elements
Linking of a past event to the moment of utterance by means of time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group.
Pragmatics The condition on the discourse which reflects the speaker's perspective on the utterance as being relevant with regard to speech time.
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4. Explainingvanation between the present perfect and preterite
Even though the boundaries between these linguistic domains are not always clear-cut and it is sometimes difficult to determine one single factor (semantic, formal or pragmatic) accounting for the notion of current relevance in a sentence, such a concept of current relevance seems nevertheless to be a rewarding approach since it comprises various aspects of language and aims at a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon under investigation. Given the role current relevance plays for the choice between the perfect and preterite in Standard English, it seems reasonable to suggest that in other (standard conformant) varieties of the language, the patterns of use of these verb forms could be described in terms of this notion as well. This premise goes back to the universale idea of all languages exploiting common principles of language architecture and language acquisition.12 Having taken that idea one step further, we assume that a language and its varieties must share some common mechanism underlying the occurrence of functionally equivalent linguistic forms.
12 In dialectology, a similar idea became known under the label of panlectal identity hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, dialects of a single language "share a common grammatical 'core' and differ only in matters of low-level realisations" (cf Harris 1984b: 303).
5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
Up until now we have been mostly concerned with the semantic/pragmatic properties of the English present perfect, which make it stand out in the cohort of temporal markers. It is these semantic/pragmatic intricacies that have been argued to present learners of English with enormous difficulties (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 212). However, to be able to give a comprehensive account of this category, we need to consider it from different angles, thus enlarging the scope of our investigation. In his functional-typological introduction to syntax Givon (1984) observes that of all tense-aspects in human language, the so-called perfect is by far the most complex (Givon 1984: 269). This observation may be used as a starting point of the discussion of the English present perfect in the light of the notion of complexity. First and foremost, definitions of complexity differ according to the framework or the perspective adopted in the study (cf. McWhorter 2001: 133; Miestamo, Sinnemaki, and Karlsson 2008). It is, however, possible to conceive of complexity in two major ways: (i) by providing a list of criteria for classifying language categories into the classes of linguistically complex or linguistically simple phenomena and (h) by developing a metric according to which not only one specific language form but also clusters of forms in a particular language domain can be assessed and measured. In other words, complexity is a notion that can be applied in relation to (i) language categories and (n) language domains (or systems). In this study, the notion of complexity is operationalised both as a reference to a language category (Chapter 5), and as a reference to a language subsystem (Chapter 6). In doing so, we draw a distinction between an absolute and a relative approach to measuring complexity. Such a distinction is particularly important in view of the fact that complexity has frequently been criticized as "an ambiguous and malleable concept" (McWhorter 2001: 133). The purpose of the following two chapters is, hence, twofold. Chapter 5 gives an account of the English perfect as a linguistically complex category, presenting a list of criteria suitable for classifying a category into the class of linguistically complex phenomena. Chapter 6 presents metrics of complexity which provides a useful theoretical framework for studying language-internal variation across non-native varieties of a language. In doing
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so, we rely and elaborate on the existing models for measuring complexity frequently discussed in the current theoretical literature. But before that we need to be clear about in what terms complexity has been defined in the previous research. Let us, therefore, start this chapter by providing an historical overview of the notions of complexity.
5.1. Complexity in the history of linguistics The notion of complexity can be traced back to the works of the German thinkers of the first half of the 19th century. Linguistic complexity of many Indo-European languages was assumed to be related to highly sophisticated European culture. Language was therefore believed to be a direct manifestation of the character of a people or a nation. Particular emphasis was placed on inflectional morphology to the effect that typologies were established to explain the differences between isolating, agglutinative, inflexional and incorporating languages. The unanimous linguistic consensus of the time was that languages possessing elaborate inflectional systems were superior to other languages. In fact, some authors considered inflectional languages to be more "organic" (cf Schlegel 1808, cited in Kusters 2003) in contrast to agglutinative counterparts, whereas others (cf. von Humboldt 1836, cited in Kusters 2003) assumed that inflectional rather that agglutinative or incorporating word formation was better suited for the expression of complex thoughts and ideas. As is clear, these authors implicitly assumed that all languages of the world form an ascending continuum, on which they could be contrasted to one another in terms of increasing morphological complexity. The position advocated by Schlegel and von Humboldt is that Indo-European languages are clearly more complex in terms of morphological structure. However, structurally complex languages were not always considered to be the most optimal vehicles of communication. In fact, French Enlightenment thinkers argued that languages abounding in various morpho-syntactic embellishments were less suited for efficient communication what could impede social and cultural progress (cf. Kusters 2003: 4). The idea of language complexity was, therefore, frequently employed in discussions about the relationship between language and culture. With the advance of structuralism, language complexity was rarely discussed since its proponents (for example, Sapir, Boas and de Saussure) believed that each language should be defined in its own terms. Since comparison of languages was no longer the focus of linguistic inquiry, the notion of complexity was by and large avoided in linguistic debates for a long
5.1. Complexity in the history of linguistics
11
period of time. It is, however, noteworthy to mention one exception: Otto Jespersen (1922) was probably the first professionally trained linguist to postulate a connection between inflectional complexity and communicative efficiency (cf Kusters 2003). In his view, the language in which the greatest amount of meaning can be expressed with the simplest linguistic mechanisms should be ranked higher. Thus complexity was defined in terms of relationships that hold between form and function in a particular language. Indeed, many so-called communicatively efficient and therefore structurally simple languages in which one form has several meanings were seen as more complex from the perspective of language processing (but not from language production) because of the lack of transparency between form and meaning. On the other hand, we have languages in which the relationship between form and meaning is more straightforward. Such languages, however, frequently possess a considerable amount of morpho-syntactic inventory (that is forms), thus making their speakers put more effort into language production. In other words, languages in which the relationship between form and meaning is transparent but which contain more morpho-syntactic forms are more complex for the speaker, whereas structurally simple languages with one form mapping onto a number of different meanings are expected to be more complex (i.e. difficult) for the hearer but probably less so for the speaker.1 Complexity was thus also defined in terms of speaker/ hearer difficulty in the history of linguistics. The second half of the 20th century is probably best described in terms of the Chomskyan revolution and a gradual shift of focus towards cognitive mechanisms that individuals employ while reconstructing the relationship between form and meaning in language. Furthermore, the advent of cont r a s t s linguistics, applied linguistics and Creole and typological studies meant a revival of interest in the issues of language complexity. Complexity has proven to be a useful explicatory tool in various domains of linguistics. It is thus an established notion in dialectology (especially in works by Peter Trudgill, perhaps, one of the most ardent advocates of the theoretical concept), contact linguistics (cf. Kusters 2003, 2008), typological studies (cf. Bisang 2009; Dahl 2004, 2009; Miestamo 2009; Nichols 2009; Sinnemaki 2009) and - to some extent - in studies on varieties of English (cf. Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann 2009). Furthermore, complexity is a viable notion in cognitive linguistics. The principle developed by Rohdenburg (1996) predicts that "in the case of 1 AsimilarstanceistakeninMcWhorter(2001: 135).
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5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
more or less explicit grammatical options the more explicit ones will tend to be favoured in cogmtively more complex environments" (Rohdenburg 1996: 151). Rohdenburg (1996) points out that there is a morpho-syntactic contrast between the more and less explicit variant: the more explicit form contains an additional bound or free morpheme (Rohdenburg 1996: 173). This approach to complexity was successfully implemented in studies dealing with language processing.
5.1.1. Absolute approach vs. relative approach to measuring complexity The most recent research on complexity has it that complexity can generally be approached from two different - albeit not at all incompatible - perspectives: the absolute (objective) approach, which views complexity as "an objective property of the system", defining it in terms of the number of the parts of the system, and the so-called relative (user-oriented, subjective) approach, which defines complexity in terms of cost and difficulty to language user (Miestamo 2008: 24). Both approaches are of great relevance to the present study and will be discussed in some detail here. An absolute approach to complexity is defended in McWhorter (2001, 2007, 2008), Dahl (2004, 2009), Miestamo (2008, 2009) and Nichols (2009). The basic idea behind this approach is that the more parts a system has, the more complex it is (cf Miestamo 2008: 24). By this definition, a language that has 34 phonemes has a more complex phoneme inventory than the one that has only 18 (cf. Miestamo 2008: 24). Relying on the complexity measure known as Kolmogorov complexity (see Miestamo 2008: 24), Dahl (2004: 21-24) argues that complexity of a linguistic phenomenon may be measured in terms of the length of the description of that phenomenon; the longer a description a phenomenon requires, the more complex it is. The past time reference system of Kokongo, in which four past tense distinctions are attested, requires a longer description than the past time reference system of Japanese, which has only one overt past tense marker (example cited in McWhorter 2001). McWhorter (2001) understands complexity as a "degree of overt signalling of various phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic distinctions beyond communicative necessity" (McWhorter 2001: 125). From this perspective, languages that have more alternatives to express a semantic distinction are considered to be more complex. Older languages are believed to be more complex because of the natural course of history, which inevitably leads to languages accumulating random (and often unnecessary or redun-
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dant) overt markers of semantic distinctions as they grow older. By contrast, new languages, i.e. Creoles, are conceived of as structurally more simple. This does not mean to say that Creoles exhibit no complexity whatsoever. In fact, some Creoles make distinctions that analytic older languages do not. For instance, defimteness is distinguished in Saramaccan Creole but not in Laku, an older analytic language of Burmu-Tibetian group (cf McWhorter 2001). The crucial point is, however, that Creoles do not exhibit as much overall complexity as other grammars do. In other words, they do not make more overall overt distinctions than older languages. Miestamo's (2008) approach to complexity combines those proposed in McWhorter (2001, 2007, 2008) and Dahl (2004). This researcher suggests two principles that can be used in an absolute approach to complexity: the principle of Fewer Distinctions and One-Meaning-One-Form principle. The former states that language A which requires a longer description of a functional domain because more distinctions are grammaticalised within this domain is more complex than language B that makes fewer distinctions and consequently requires a shorter description. The latter principle implies that a linguistic domain in which one form is preserved for one meaning is less complex than a domain in which the form-function correspondences are not one-to-one since the description of the latter domain requires additional specification concerning these form-function relationships (cf. Miestamo 2008: 34). A relative approach to measuring complexity is provided in Kusters (2003) and more recently in Kusters (2008), who following Trudgill (2001) argues that complexity should allow examining "how the forms in questions are processed by different kind of users like foreigners or children" (Kusters 2003: 6). Kuster thus defines complexity as an amount of effort a non-native speaker (an 'outsider' in his terminology) has to make in order to learn the language in question. From this perspective, linguistic phenomena that are more difficult for a non-native speaker to learn are consequently more complex. The principal advantage of the approaches to complexity discussed here is that they are not embedded in a particular linguistic theory. Their modus operandi is thus very similar in spirit to the approach advocated in this study, whose major aim is to contribute to the building of linguistic theory, while relying on empirical facts. More importantly, both approaches can and actually will - be applied to assessing complexity of a language category and a language domain in the ensuing discussion.
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5.2.
5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
Complexity in language
Like any linguistic term, the notion of complexity needs to be defined in a precise manner while being supported by empirical evidence (cf Kusters 2003: 2). Before providing definitions of complexity in this study, let us take a closer look at the existing definitions of linguistic complexity and discuss the suitability of this term to different components of language: phonology, syntax and morphology. Since it has been argued that some language phenomena are more complex than others, we explain which language features can be regarded as more complex in which language domains and why.
5.2.1. Phonology In no other area of linguistics has complexity been discussed so widely and intensively as in phonology. More often than not, complex phonological systems are described as possessing cross-linguistically unusual, i.e. marked, sounds such as click sounds (Kusters 2003: 13). Such a classification is based on empirical facts in the Greenbergian sense: languages with typologically rare sounds (for instance, click sounds) always have typologically usual sounds since a language cannot consist of marked sounds only. The reverse relationship, however, does not apply. Phonological complexity has thus been defined in linguistics in terms of typological frequency. The question as to whether a phonologically complex sound requires maximum articulatory effort on the part of the speaker on the one hand and hearer's mastery of processing a larger set of contrasts on the other has so far been regarded as difficult to tackle and, therefore, very much neglected. However, the notion of phonological complexity should be considered in the light of the evidence from studies on language acquisition and language processing. For instance, the order of acquisition of phonemes by LI and L2 learners should provide clues to their complexity status (cf. Kusters 2003: 13).
5.2.2. Grammar The general stance is that a grammar is more complex if it has a greater number of grammaticahsed expressions to convey fine-grained semantic and pragmatic distinctions (cf. McWhorter 2001; Kusters 2003; Szmrecsanyi
5.2. Complexity in language
81
and Kortmann 2009). The following sections explain what this somewhat general statement entails for specific areas of grammar: syntax and inflectional morphology.
5.2.2.1. Syntax It has been argued that in syntax some word orders are more natural (or unmarked) and hence better suited for communicative purposes than others. Thus, the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order has been claimed to be more natural (cf Croft 1990). This assumption has been corroborated by the fact that most Creoles have an SVO word order. In addition, when languages come into contact and influence each other, the direction of change seems to be towards the SVO order (cf. Kusters 2003: 13). Furthermore, languages allowing for more word order options can be regarded as more complex for L2 processing and production since a learner has to be aware of a number of semantic-pragmatic distinctions conveyed by various word order strategies to be able to interpret (or produce) the meaning of the sentence correctly. Although syntax does not fall within the scope of this investigation it is rather worth mentioning as this area of grammar captures an important insight that certain linguistic rules (and linguistic forms for that matter) are more difficult to produce and process in a specific context such as L2 acquisition. Moreover, the number of rules a language employs in a particular area seems to be have repercussions for the development of the L2 grammar. By this logic, languages with fewer rules (for instance, word order options) are easier to master.
5.2.2.2. Inflectional Morphology Languages differ from one another with respect to inflectional morphology. Thus, there are languages with reduced inflectional systems, English being a case in point, whereas others tend to exhibit overwhelmingly extensive inflectional systems. This circumstance in its turn offers an excellent opportunity for measuring complexity across languages and its varieties: languages with more extensive inflectional systems should be considered to be more complex when compared to languages with reduced inflectional systems. Inflection is generally considered to be a complexifying factor because it (i) exerts a load upon processing (cf. McWhorter 2001: 137) by (n) introducing irregularity into language (cf. Kusters 2003: 18).
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5.3.
5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
Definitions of complexity adopted in this study for evaluating the linguistic status of the English present perfect
To be able to account for the present perfect as a linguistically and cogmtively complex category, we define complexity with respect to various aspects of language: its surface structures, their semantics, their acquisition, their frequency as well as temporal relations these structures are used to express.
5.3.1. Complexity in morphology Some authors have argued that derivational rules regularise the lexicon, reducing the amount of information needed to learn a language and, therefore, minimising complexity, whereas inflectional morphology may have a complicating effect because inflections extend the number of words (cf Kusters 2003). Let us notice here that not all strategies employed in inflectional morphology necessarily increase complexity. Let us consider a hypothetical example in a language X which has a suffix -y as a past tense marker which is equally attached to all verb stems. The language X thus has an inflectional rule regularising the whole past tense paradigm. Now consider a language Z which has a regular suffix -x as a past tense marker. In addition, this language Z has a number of other strategies to express the simple past tense such as umlaut or ablaut. In this language, the past tense paradigm emerges as a result of two irreconcilable forces - regular suffix adding, which aims at introducing more transparency into the language, thus simplifying it, on the one hand, and various ablaut strategies, resulting in opacity of the past tense paradigm, therefore contributing to ultimate language complexity since irregular verb forms (i.e. verbs formed via ablaut) are presumably stored in the lexicon separately. The morale of this story is that inflectional morphology cannot be defined in absolute terms (as, for instance, complexity increasing). Instead, we should take a closer look at the inflectional rules, trying to distinguish regularising strategies from those introducing irregularities. Regular inflectional suffixes (for instance, suffix -ed in English) are therefore considered morphologically less complex word formation strategies when compared to irregular (ablauting) strategies of word formation. If word formation strategies employed in inflectional morphology were to be understood as a continuum of the type "simplex strategies vs. complex strategies", then zero morpheme strategy would occupy the leftmost place on that continuum, thus representing the
5.3. Definitions oficomplexity adopted in Ms study
83
least complex morphological process, followed by regular inflection strategies and finally, by irregular (or ablaut) strategies. This observation is important for the ensuing discussion of the present perfect as a linguistically complex category and the way it contrasts to other verb forms (for instance, the preterite). Let it suffice to mention here that both regular and irregular strategies are involved in the formation of both present perfect and preterite. To sum up the preceding discussion, the processes involved in inflectional morphology vary from each other with respect to the amount of complexity they can add to the structure of a particular language. Regularising strategies (such as suffix -ed) can thus be viewed as complexity reducing since they require that the learner masters only one rule (i.e. adding suffix -ed to the stem of the verb). By contrast inflectional irregularities (ablaut) can be argued to be complexity enhancing since they seem to present a non-native learner with enormous difficulties, demanding that each separate (ablauted) verb form should be stored separately in the speaker's mind.
5.3.2. Complexity as a function of strategies employed in structure formation If a language requires an explicit expression of a particular category, this can be achieved in two ways: We can either build an analytic structure or express the meaning through various synthetic means (such as inflections). It has been argued that analytic strategies are simpler because they are, for instance, easier to process (cf Kusters 2003). From this perspective, an analytic structure is less complex than a synthetic structure. However, what we also need to take into consideration while evaluating the complexity status of a particular linguistic category is the number of strategies involved in the formation of a language structure. The general rule of thumb is that the more strategies a category involves in its formation the more complex it is. By this definition, a category involving both analytic and synthetic strategies is more complex than a category built up through synthetic means only. Summing up this short discussion, with respect to strategies involved in structure formation, complexity is a function of strategies employed in a particular language to build a linguistic structure.
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5.3.3. Complexity of temporal relations As elaborated on in the preceding discussion, we can generally distinguish between simple tenses and complex tenses (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 204). Simple tenses express deictic times which relate an event to the moment of utterance. By contrast, complex tenses express complex times, which involve two kinds of temporal relations: a relation between speech time and a deictic time, and a relation between the deictic time as a reference time and the time of an anterior or posterior event. 5.3.4. Complexity in semantics Semantic complexity is best understood in the light of the principle of compositionality which claims that "the meaning of a grammatically complex form is a compositional function of the meanings of its grammatical constituents" (Cruse 2000: 68).2 The definition implies that meanings can be combined together to yield more complex meanings and that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituents, every (grammatical) constituent possessing a meaning which contributes to the meaning of the whole expression. The principle of compositionality thus predicts that the more semantic constituents a particular category or expression contains, the more complex it is. This semantic complexity must be, however, consistently reflected by the structural complexity of the expression, according to the principle.3 5.3.5. Learners' complexity Complexity of a linguistic form is a relation between this form and the one who evaluates it (cf. Kusters 2003). With respect to non-native speakers, complexity can be defined as the amount of effort a learner has to invest in order to master a particular category of the target language. In other words, learners' complexity is the amount of difficulty involved in the acquisition 2 See also Cruse (2000: 239-242) for a detailed argumentation in favour of the componential analysis. 3 The principle of compositionality does not give an account of the linguistic elements that are structurally simple but semantically complex (for instance, inflections in Latin). Since such elements do not fall within the scope of this study, the topic is not pursued here any further.
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category 85 of the target category in question. Under this definition, structures whose acquisition is delayed are more complex, i.e. difficult to acquire, than structures whose acquisition is not postponed.
5.3.6. Complexity and frequency It has been noted in, for instance, Mayerthaler (1981), Croft (1990) and more recently in McWhorter (2001) that unusual, i.e. marked, linguistic phenomena (for instance, click sounds) are crosslinguistically less frequent than more natural categories (such as vowels), which tend to be pervasive. This general observation has one important implication: unusual (i.e. marked) categories tend to add to the overall complexity of a particular language domain. For instance, languages containing unusual sounds (such as ejectives, clicks, rounded back vowels, etc.) will also contain natural (i.e. unmarked) sounds. McWhorter writes in this connection: ...an inventory with a great many marked sounds (e.g., a click language) is more complex than one with all or almost all unmarked sounds (e.g., a Polynesian language) because the former type of inventory has marked members in addition to unmarked ones. The marked sounds IMPLY the concurrent existence of unmarked ones (there exist no phonemic inventories with only crosslinguistically marked phonemes). McWhorter (2001: 135-136) It is in this sense that unusual (or marked) categories can be considered to be complexity enhancing when contrasted with unmarked categories. Since it has been noticed that unusual categories are less frequent than natural categories, we can use frequency as a criterion for diagnosing complexity of a particular language category provided we agree to view marked features as complexity-enhancing features. To put it differently, frequency can be used for diagnosing both markedness and complexity of a linguistic feature: less frequent features will tend to be both marked (i.e. in some way linguistically unusual) and overall language complexity increasing (i.e. linguistically weird features will exist side by side with linguistically normal features, thus expanding the paradigm of a particular language domain).
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category In order to evaluate the overall complexity of the English present perfect, we provide a list of criteria suitable for classifying language categories into
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the classes of complex and simple phenomena. The criteria proposed here are consonant with the definitions of complexity elaborated on in the foregoing sections. 1. Structural (morpho-syntactic) make-up of the linguistic form. First, structures represented by multiple morphemes and compound expressions are more complex than grammatical structures consisting of single morphemes and single words (Croft 1990: 173). Furthermore, structures involving more strategies for their formation are considered to be more complex. 2. Temporal relations. Tenses expressing two kinds of temporal relations are more complex than tenses expressing one kind of temporal relation (cf.Radden and Dirven 2007: 204). 3. Semantic composition. The more semantic components a particular language category possesses, the more complex it is. 4. Polysemy. Polysemous categories are more complex than monosemic categories as they possess more meanings. 5. Order of acquisition. First-language acquisition. Second-language acquisition. More complex categories are acquired after less complex categories have been mastered. 6. Frequency. More natural categories have been postulated to be more pervasive (therefore more frequent) in a language (cf Mayerthaler 1981; Croft 1990). A less frequent category is linguistically more unusual, adding to the overall language complexity. It is clear that the criteria listed here draw a strict line between the meaning and form of a linguistic structure. The first four criteria are compatible with the absolute approach to complexity, according to which a more complex system or entity consists of more parts or elements. The fifth criterion is in accordance with the relative approach to complexity, which states that complex language forms are more difficult from the perspective of language user than simple language forms. The last criterion does not seem to fall under either definition of complexity. However, it appears to be a suitable parameter for diagnosing the status of a language category and will be applied here. The final observation is that all the claims made in the ensuing sections are made with respect to the English present perfect only. In other words, it is not our aim to argue here that the cross-linguistic category of PERFECT (cf. Dahl 1985: 129) is a complex category.
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category
87
5.4.1. Structural make-up of the English present perfect Table 5.1 provides a schematic overview of the structural composition of the present perfect and other related categories: the simple past tense and the preterite. Table 5.1. Present perfect as a structurally complex category Present perfect
Preterite
Present
HAVE + V(2) ablaut HAVE + V(ed)
V(2) ablaut V(ed)
V©
The first observation is that both regular and irregular strategies are involved in the formation of both present perfect and preterite. The present perfect thus cannot be argued to be more complex than, for instance, the preterite on the ground that it involves irregular inflectional strategies (such as ablaut) in its formation, which have previously been argued to be more complex (because more difficult) from the perspective of an L2 learner. Both verb forms are formed with the help of regular suffixes and irregular stem vowel alternations in English. The present perfect is nevertheless a compound category consisting of an auxiliary (or a periphrastic marker) and a past participle of the main (lexical) verb (cf Quirk et al. 1985: 151). Clearly, this form possesses much more weight' in terms of syllabic structure when compared to the simple present tense and preterite, i.e. forms that frequently surface in present perfect contexts in non-standard varieties of English. The present perfect is thus a complex structure provided that complex structures are compound expressions as opposed to single words (cf. Croft 1990: 173). This type of evidence is, however, not entirely sufficient to make a claim concerning the morpho-syntactically complex status of the present perfect. To be able to understand why the present perfect is structurally more complex when compared to, for instance, the simple present tense, we also need to consider the strategies involved in its construction and compare these strategies with those employed in the construction of other verb forms. To start with, the formation of the present tense in English does not involve any change of verb structure (with the exception of the 3d.pers.sg.): nothing is added to the verb stem; the stem vowel remains intact. This type of coding is iconic (see, for instance, Mayerthaler 1981: 14, 25) with the semantics of this verb structure since the present time reference seems to be more central to human organisation of the concept of time (as we all live in
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the present). The semantic basicness of the category of the present tense is vividly manifested on the structural level in English. By contrast, the category of the preterite can be said to be semantical^ more marked as it involves reference to the past and is thus cogmtively more complex. The increase of semantic (cognitive) complexity is mirrored in the structural composition of this verb form: in English, the simple past tense is synthetically marked. Two basic strategies are involved in this process. The first one can be described as a segment additive change represented in this case by the regular suffix -ed (e.g., ask-ed). The second strategy became known under the label of modulatory processes (cf Mayerthaler 1981, "modulatonsche Prozesse") and is manifested by various irregular ablaut-mechanisms (e.g., find-found, write-wrote, etc.). Being semantical^ more loaded than the preterite, the English present perfect boasts an even more complex surface structure. This interrelation between meaning and form is nicely captured by the principle of constructional icomcity (cf. Mayerthaler 1981: 25, konstruktioneller Ikonismus): "Was semantisch mehr ist, sollte auch konstruktionell mehr sein" [Semantic complexity is reflected in structural complexity]. Similar to the preterite, the present perfect employs synthetic strategies for its construction - the regular suffix -ed and ablaut (e.g., ring- past participle rung). Additionally, it employs an analytic marker have/has for its formation. The foregoing analysis thus makes it clear that the English present perfect is structurally more complex than the preterite not only because of the greater number of morphosyllabic strings it provides for online processing but also because of the greater number of linguistic strategies it employs for its formation. It is quite true to say that an analytic strategy is to a large extent simpler than a synthetic one. However, when combined with synthetic ones it seems to contribute to the structural weight of a linguistic form what the example of the English present perfect demonstrates quite clearly. Summing up, employing a greater number of strategies (analytic + synthetic) for its surface formation, the English present perfect constitutes a case of a structurally more complex category when compared to either the present or the simple past.
5.4.2. Expression of temporal relations by the English present perfect The ensuing analysis is consistent with that proposed in Radden and Dirven (2007: 202-208). The English present perfect is a complex tense in terms of temporal relations that it is used to express. Whereas the simple past and
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category 89 present locate the situation before or at (or around) speech time respectively, the perfect expresses more complex temporal relations. Not only does the perfect locate a situation before speech time; it also expresses a relation between a reference time, which is the present tense in this case, and the time of an anterior event. In other words, the present perfect involves "a background looking stance from a viewpoint at a reference time" (Radden and Dirven 2007: 204). It follows that the simple past and present express a relation between two types of times: speech time (S) and deictic time, which is also known as event time (E) in the relevant literature. By contrast, the English present perfect expresses more complex relations that hold among speech time (S), event time (E) and reference time (R). These fundamental differences between these categories are represented in Figure 5.1 below. Speech time (S)
, speech time
Event time (E)
past time
preslnttime
Simple Tenses:
past tense
present tense
Speech time (S)
speech time
Reference time (R)
present time
Event time (E) Complex Tense:
anterior present perfect
Figure 5.1. Simple English tenses vs. complex English tenses (adapted from Radden andDirven2007:204,205)
5.4.3. Semantic composition and polysemy of the English present perfect In the preceding chapter, a detailed account of the semantics of the present perfect was presented. It was mentioned among other things that in terms of its semantic composition, the English present perfect has elaborate semantic structure, the component of current relevance representing a complicating effect in the semantics of this verb form in contrast to the simple past tense, which lacks this semantic component. Another observation is that the formal
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5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
structure of the perfect consistently reflects its rich semantic nature: the past participle denotes its relation to the past, whereas the auxiliary HAVE signals reference to the moment of utterance (cf Elsness 1997: 67). We can thus conclude that the complex semantics of the English present perfect is predicted by the principle of compositionahty spelled out in, for instance Cruse (2000: 68), according to which a meaning of a morpho-syntactically complex form is a sum of the meanings of its constituents. In other words, the meanings of the auxiliary HAVE and the past participle can be said to combine together to give rise to a complex meaning expressed by the present perfect in English. Furthermore, as has been explained in the preceding discussion, the English present perfect is a polysemous category, exhibiting as many as four principal meanings (cf. Comne 1976). By contrast, the preterite distinguishes at best between two functions (see section 4.1.), whereas the major function of the present tense is to locate a situation at (or around) the present moment (Comne 1976: 36; Quirk etal. 1985: 175).
5.4.4. The order of acquisition of the English present perfect It has been pointed out in the literature that ontogenetic order of acquisition can be regarded as an index of cognitive complexity of a linguistic category (cf. Slobin 1977: 206). The English present perfect can thus be argued to be a complex category from the perspective of language acquisition, both firstand second-language acquisition. In this sense, complex would mean "difficult to acquire". To start with, some authors noticed that the full use of the present perfect develops at later stages of LI acquisition (cf. Van Herk 2008). In addition, problems that the English present perfect causes secondlanguage learners have been described in the literature on second-language acquisition (cf. Felix 1978; Housen 2002). The following section presents data on acquisition of the English present perfect. The major purpose is show that the acquisition of the present perfect is delayed in both first- and second-language acquisition. In addition, it demonstrates what patterns of the ontogenetic development of the form are consonant with synchronic variation of the present perfect across non-native varieties of English and along what dimensions the developmental patterns differ from the kind of variation attested in synchrony. The first study to be mentioned here is that of Nussbaum and Naremore (1975), who demonstrated that the present perfect is indeed one of the last features to be acquired by native children of English. The major finding of
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the study is that the use of have is not stabilised by the age of six even though the form begins to appear around age four (cf Nussbaum and Naremore 1975: 219). As Nussbaum and Naremore point out, their result nicely dovetails with that of Carol Chomsky (1969), who showed that certain syntactic structures including the perfect tend to be acquired by some children later on in life, in some cases past the age of nine. Furthermore, the results of this study are very much in line with reports by Cromer (1968, 1971), Brown (1973), de Vilher and de Villier (1973), which indicated that children learning English acquire the perfect relatively late. Thus, Nussbaum and Naremore (1975) report that the perfect begins to surface in an overwhelming majority (99%) of all possible cases (i.e. cases in which an adult speaker of English would have used the perfect) only at the age of six, i.e. at the age when the present tense and the preterite have long been acquired. Richard Cromer (1969) provides similar evidence demonstrating that the present perfect appears only after the simple present and the preterite have been acquired. Interestingly enough, our synchronic data obtained from pools of informants with various linguistic backgrounds (i.e. Russian, German, Hindi) shows that only and only acrolectal second-language speakers, i.e. speakers that have been exposed to the medium of English for a considerable period of time (i.e. more than 15 years), demonstrate the use of the present perfect consistent with descriptions found in traditional grammars of Standard English. Second, Nussbaum and Naremore report a variety of substitutions for the present perfect at the stages where the form is not fully mastered by the informants, i.e. around the age of four and five. The following substitutions for the present perfect have been attested in the individual LI acquisition of the present perfect: He already was finished, He been in the house, She is already washed the dishes. In addition, Gatherole (1986) reports the use of the present tense in present perfect contexts, as in Now she gots a new baby (cf. Gathercole 1986: 551). Synchronic variation between the perfect and other forms in non-native varieties of English demonstrates striking similarities: lone past participle, BE-perfect, the present tense and preterite are all attested in the upper-mesolect varieties of English (IndEng, SingEng and EAfEng) as well as in the mesolectal grammars of Russian, German and Hindi speakers of English. Finally, basilectal Hindi speakers of English demonstrate a cohort of variants in present perfect contexts used in place of the present perfect. Third, Nussbaum and Naremore (1975) report that the only form most frequently substituted for the perfect is the preterite. This finding is again
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consistent with the analysis of present perfect contexts across non-native varieties of English. Data from both second-language (e.g., IndEng, SingEng, EAfEng) and foreign-speaker (e.g., RusEng, GerEng) varieties of English confirms that the preterite is the only form frequently distributed across all perfect contexts in all varieties of English under investigation, namely IndEng, SingEng, EAfEng as well as RusEng and GerEng. This finding suggests that the preterite seems to be one of the most readily available alternatives to the perfect in naturalistic discourse. This assumption can be corroborated by historical data: The perfect and preterite were mutually interchangeable for a long period of time in the history of the English language and it was only in Early Modern English period (cf Elsness 1997; Taghamonte 2000) that the perfect gradually started to oust the preterite from its hitherto traditional environments. While looking for a functional explanation of this phenomenon, one might add that the perfect and the preterite differ from each other with respect to one semantic feature only (current relevance). Thus, this apparent similarity of function (i.e. reference to the past) may account for the fluidity between the two forms in both LI and L2 discourse. The next two studies (Felix 1978 and Housen 2002) deal with the L2 development of morpho-syntactic structures. To start with, Linguistische Untersuchungen zum naturhchen Zweitsprachenenverb by Felix (1978) is a qualitative study investigating acquisition of linguistic forms by children between the age of five and seven. Felix demonstrates that 'Aux + V structure is the last one to be acquired by children learning a second language (either German or English). More specifically, Felix (1978) refers to the work by Huang (1971) demonstrating that the 'Aux + V pattern presents a five-year-old Chinese learner of English with extreme difficulties. In fact, the structure was not fully acquired by the end of the investigation period (19 months). Furthermore, Housen (2002) shows that the emergence of morphology and meaning of the English present perfect are deferred in classroom second-language acquisition. Housen (2002) draws an important distinction between the formal and functional development of tense and aspect morphology, showing that the English present perfect develops late on both levels in a non-native grammar. Table 5.2 demonstrates the order of emergence of the tense and aspect markers in an L2 English grammar.
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category 93 Table 5.2. Order of emergence of morphological categories (from Housen 2002: 158, Table I) 4 Stage Category
Comment
Example
0
Invariant V
esp. base form V
«^/qy
1
Present Participle Ving
intitially without Aux.fe
Irregular Past of be
was
2
Irregular Past (other verbs)
had, got
3
Regular Past Ved Future be going + Vinf
4
Perfects+F Presents Future will + V
allomotphs: without Aux. be, to,-ing; gonna allomotphs: Aux. be and have; initially V=V0
played, worked is going married; are go dancing; am going to take, is gonna happen have see,is fall, is fallen, has fall, have fallen goes, comes, does will make, will see
Housen's analysis of the data from 46 Dutch-speaking and French-speaking L2 learners of English (ages 9,11,13,15,17) suggests that the present perfect morphology appears at the final stage of the L2 development of the English tense and aspect system. This finding is consonant with that of Dietrich, Klein, and Noyau (1995) and Giacalone-Ramat (1995) who observed naturalistic adult L2 learners from a variety of first-language backgrounds (cf Housen 2002: 157). Relying on previous empirical research, Housen (2002) also contends that the meaning of the present perfect is one of the last tense-aspect meanings to be acquired by a non-native learner of English (cf. Housen 2002: 162). Table 5.3 below shows the order in which TA meanings emerge and become grammatically marked in his data.
4 Housen (2002) uses traditional terminology here for the interlanguage verb forms, without implying that the forms in question are fully targetlike or that they are used with their standard meanings.
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Table 5.3. Order of functional marking of tense-aspect meanings and their respective markers (from Housen 2002: 162, Table 2) Meaning
Form
0
Pre-functional stage
random and complementary distribution
1
anteriority (past and perfect) 1. Past of Be (was) 2. Irreg. Past (other verbs) 3. PerfectTWife + K 4. Reg. Past Kerf
Stage
imperfectivity/progressivity 1. Aux. Be + Ving 2
3
futurity
l.Aux.Be + Going+Vinf 2. Aux. Be + Ving 3. Aux. Will+V 4. P r e s e n t ^
habituality
I. Aux. Be + Ving
present
1. P r e s e n t ^
simple past
l.Pastof2fe( w a s , w e «0 2. Irreg. Past 3. Reg. Past Kerf
present perfect past perfect
l.iWffos+K^/reg 2.^+^/F/rreg
Housen furthermore emphasises that the distinction between present perfect and simple past meanings is mastered only by the most advanced learners of English (cf Housen 2002: 163). The results presented in Housen (2002) are in line with those provided in Agmhotn, Khanna, and Mukherjee (1998), who show that the English present perfect together with the past perfect and the future perfect appears to be an area of difficulty to first year undergraduates at the University of Delhi. Summing up, the evidence presented so far points to the correctness of the general thrust of our argumentation that the English present perfect is a complex category from the perspective of language development resulting in acquisition difficulties and subsequently in acquisition delay. But how can we account for this relatively late acquisition of the present perfect? It has sometimes been argued in studies on first-language acquisition that the reason for the prolonged development of the perfect can be attributed to the cognitive complexity of the form under study. Thus, Cromer (1968,1971) and Kuczaj and Daly (1979) pointed out that the present perfect
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category
95
requires an "ability to consider the relevance of one timed sequence to another" (Cromer 1976: 301, cited in Gathercole 1986: 538). In other words, children seem to fail to appreciate the relation between past events and present consequences (cf Gathercole 1986: 538). It is exactly this inability "to decentre in time" (Cromer 1976) that leads to acquisition difficulties. A similar explanation is provided in Slobin (1973: 186) who states that the acquisition of the present perfect in English is initiated by cognitive development which gives rise to semantic intentions for which new means of expression must be forged (Slobin 1973: 186). As is obvious, children seem to need a long time to come to terms with the semantic feature labelled as "current relevance" in this study in that they learn first of all to refer to simple past events and only after that do they learn to refer to past events obtaining relevance at the moment of utterance. We should, however, bear in mind that all these suggestions have only a limited explanatory power as they cannot explain why adolescent and adult learners of English experience a delay in the acquisition of the English present perfect. Their cognitive structures are fully developed; yet many L2 speakers have difficulty in using the HAVE-perfect in accordance with the native-speaker patterns5 Whereas cognitive complexity was suggested as one possible explanation for the delayed acquisition of the present perfect in a child's language, morphosyntactic and semantic complexity of this periphrastic structure appears to be responsible for its relatively late emergence in an L2 grammar (cf. Housen 2002: 164; Winford, Donald December 2008: personal communication).6 The study earned out by Gathercole (1986) adds a new dimension to the issue of the cognitive complexity of the present perfect. While examining the acquisition of the perfect in 3- to 5-year-old monolingual children of Scottish English, Gathercole (1986) establishes the ranking order of the major uses of the perfect in present perfect contexts. Her finding is that children employ the perfect in the contexts of recent past and experiential contexts more frequently than in resultative and extended-now contexts. As is clear, the order of acquisition of the present perfect by children is the reverse image of the hierarchy of present perfect uses postulated in the previous chapter, the hierarchy that reflects the system of uses of the verb form by adult speakers of English whose grammar has been fully developed. 5 See also Fletcher (1981), Weist (1986) and Gathercole (1986) for other arguments against a cognitive developmental factor in language acquisition. 6 Prof. Donald Winford, Ohio State University.
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To be more specific, the child appears to start using the perfect in contexts which are semantical^ closer to the simple past time reference (i.e. recent past time and indefinite past time). Following Fletcher (1981), Gathercole (1986) observes in this connection that "the child may use the present perfect without recognising that the present perfect entails present relevance, in that the use of the present perfect requires that the state be repeatable" (Gathercole 1986: 555). In other words, while using the perfect in such contexts a child may not recognise that the HAVE-perfect involves relevance to the time of utterance. Why do children use the perfect in contexts of recent past and experiential contexts more frequently than in resultative and extended-now contexts? It seems that children start learning a new form (i.e. the present perfect) in the contexts that resemble the context they are already familiar with - past time reference contexts. Indeed, indefinite and recent past time reference is the closest option of past time expression on the continuum "past time reference - past time reference with current relevance". Having thus acquired the perfect as an alternative to the preterite in the contexts of recent and indefinite past time (i.e. contexts of recent past and experiential contexts), a child might proceed to more complex environments (i.e. contexts where current relevance has been postulated to be more vividly manifested). She thus elaborates on the ever more subtle differences between the present perfect and preterite, while acquiring a better understanding of the major function of the present perfect: reference to the past with current relevance. It follows that children may start acquiring the perfect as an alternative to the preterite without really recognising the meaning of the former (that is, the one of current relevance) and may do so in contexts which are functionally fairly close to the simple past time reference. Only after they have matured for the concept of current relevance, do they start using the perfect massively in contexts closely associated with this notion: resultative contexts. In fact, that the acquisition of the present perfect meaning begins with resultative contexts has been convincingly argued for in Slobin (1994). Although Gathercole (1986) does not address the question of "when the child begins to appreciate that the present perfect, in contrast to the simple past tense, entails relevance to the time of utterance", the scenario outlined in the foregoing paragraphs may provide a sound hypothesis for future research. To sum up, studies discussed above demonstrate that the acquisition of the English present perfect is delayed in both first- and second-language acquisition. This is viewed as an additional piece of evidence that the English present perfect is a (cogmtively) complex phenomenon.
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category 97 5.4.5. The English present perfect and frequency Since the perfect is crosslingmstically less frequent than the past tense (cf Dahl 1985 115-190),7 the original hypothesis was that the present perfect with the functions similar to those found in English will always exist side by side with another category expressing simple past time reference (for instance, the simple past tense). To put it slightly differently, the initial assumption was that languages whose entire past tense paradigm would consist of the present perfect with functions similar to those of the English perfect should in principle not be attested. Notice that this assumption provides a nice parallel to McWhorter's (2001) observation that there exist no phonemic inventories with only linguistically marked phonemes (cf. McWhorter 2001: 136). We could view a language containing the perfect of the type attested in English and a simple past tense marker as more complex than a language containing only one simple past tense. However, it turns out that it is possible to find languages which have grammaticalised resultative and/or experiential meanings without having developed a general past marker (cf. Dahl 1985). In fact, general pasts often arise from perfect-like constructions; so if a language could not have a perfect without having a past, it would be rather tricky for pasts to arise in the first place (Dahl, Osten 9 January 2009: personal communication). To sum up, it seems that the present perfect cannot be regarded as a complexityenhancing feature from a crosslinguistic perspective. Although our hypothesis could not be substantiated by typological observations, some empirical facts obtained from different varieties of English suggest that the English perfect can be viewed as a complexity increasing feature at least from a crossvanetal perspective. Relevant evidence shows that there exist no forms of English in which the verb form with the functions of the Standard English present perfect would constitute the entire past tense paradigm. The present perfect typically alternates with the preterite in all vaneties of English known to the author8 By contrast, it is possible to
7 In Dahl's (1985) analysis, the past tense is twice as frequent as the perfect (cf. Dahl 1985: 183). Furthermore, Haspelmath et al. (2005) observe that the past tense marking is found in 134 cases in a sample comprising 222 languages, whereas the perfect is found in only 108 cases (Haspelmath et al. 2005: 269, 271). 8 This includes English-based Creoles, which seem to be in accordance with this statement. The analysis of 44 Creoles provided in Holm (1989: 405-551) suggests
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5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
find varieties of English in which the present perfect is not attested but the simple past tense is. The most prominent examples are basilectal varieties of English. It follows that the perfect is less frequent across varieties of English than the preterite: the appearance of the perfect suggests the presence of the other less marked member of the paradigm in a given variety. This observation implies that the present perfect can and should be viewed as a complexity-enhancing verb form, at least in English. Furthermore, vanatiomst studies have provided ample empirical evidence that when encountered, the English present perfect is generally less robust in the data than, for instance, the preterite. To start with, Elsness (1997), and more recently Elsness (2009) reports the fairly infrequent percentage of use of the present perfect across genres and discourse types in contemporary varieties of British and American English (cf Elsness 1997: 107). Text categories studied by Elsness include science, drama, business correspondence, magazines, newspapers, radio news, telephone dialogues and face-to-face conversations. The author shows that the preterite outnumbers the present perfect by a wide margin in most kinds of texts in both varieties (Elsness 2009: 229). Second, results of the study on past time reference system in Samana English reported in Tagliamonte (1997) provide an even more clear-cut picture: out of the total of 7878 past time reference tokens attested in Samana English, only 86 tokens were found to have the 'HAVE + past participle' surface realisation.9 This forms a striking contrast to the number of preterite forms (the total of 4997) manifested by the -eJ/suppletion surface morphology. Results of this study are in accordance with those reported in Tagliamonte (1996) for Early Black English: 1162 tokens were found to be the preterite and only 18 tokens assumed the form 'HAVE + past participle'. Yet another piece of evidence is provided in Lawrence (2000) who similarly demonstrates a scarce percentage (only up to 4%) of the present perfect forms in her sociolinguistic interviews of York English. Further-
that whereas an anterior tense (which is analysed as a past tense marker) is found in all English-based Creoles, a completive marker (which has been argued to semantically overlap with the English perfects, cf. Holm 1989: 161-162) has been attested to be absent in, for instance, Barbados creole in the Caribbean (Holm 1989: 407). 9 This included have/has/'s as well as a following verb form which could include unmarked weak verbs and strong verbs with preterite morphology in addition to Standard English past participle (cf. Tagliamonte 1996: 369).
5.4. The English present perfect as a complex category
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more, Van Herk (2008) reports 1337 forms of the present perfect and 2131 surface realisations of the pretente for African American Vernacular. Finally, Davydova (2007) analysed the distribution of the present perfect and pretente in a corpus consisting of letters of Irish emigrants and their families back in Ireland, the analysis resulting in a finding confirming the infrequent status of the present perfect. Thus, in her corpus of an overall of 7466 tokens, only 1467 had present perfect morphology. Summing up, the cross-varietal evidence presented in this section suggests that the fairly infrequent present perfect can generally be viewed as complexity enhancing in English.
5.4.6. The English present perfect as a complex category: Some additional arguments Following are some additional arguments substantiating the assumption that the English present perfect is a complex category. To start with, the discussion in the preceding chapter made clear that certain forms are cross-linguistically more salient in some functions rendered by the English present perfect. To provide an example, the present perfect required in extendednow contexts in Standard English is, in fact, cross-linguistically very unusual since most languages feature the present tense in this context (Dahl, Osten 20 October 2007: personal communication). We could therefore argue that the use of the present perfect in this context requires more attention, mental effort or processing time on the part of the non-native learner of English whose native language employs the present tense in extendednow contexts. Third, natural categories are believed to be resistant to the effects of language contact (cf Mayerthaler 1981: 4), whereas unnatural categories are assumed not to survive in a language-contact situation. Remarkably, empirical evidence suggests that the English present perfect gets easily lost in a contact situation, thus reducing the complexity of the language emerging in a contact situation. In fact, the present perfect has been claimed to be either nearly non-existent in English-based Creoles or so alien that the constraints on its use are not fully controlled, even by near-acrolectal speakers (cf. Bickerton 1975: 122-130, cited in Van Herk 2008). Finally, studies in psycholinguists (cf. Slobin 1973: 200, Slobin 1977: 195) have demonstrated that from the point of view of the perceptual strategies it is continuous structures that are easier to process. Being discontinuous in nature, the English present perfect could be argued to be more
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5. The notion of complexity and the English present perfect
complex in terms of language perception and processing in contrast to the simple present and past tense which are continuous.10 Having presented the major arguments that the English present perfect is a linguistically and cogmtively complex category, we are now in a position to ask the following question: what repercussions does the alleged complexity of the present perfect have for the occurrence of this verb form across non-native varieties of English? We will address this issue in Chapter 17. Let us, however, now turn to elaborating on the perspective from which language-internal variation attested in non-native Englishes could be explained in terms of varying complexity levels (cf Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann2009).
10 The term 'continuous structure' refers to a structure that resists intervention of any linguistic material between its parts, whereas the term 'discontinuous structure' signifies a linguistic item that allows for the insertion of language elements between its parts, as in / have already read this paper (cf. Slobin 1973, 1977).
6. Metrics of complexity
Not only can the notion of complexity be employed to describe the status of a particular language category; more importantly, it has been implemented in linguistics in order to provide generalisations across languages and its varieties. To be able to account for the distribution of competing constructions surfacing in present perfect contexts across varieties of English in terms of differences in complexity levels, we need to consider the ways in which the notion has been operationalised and implemented in previous studies. There is to date no "conventionally agreed-upon" metric for measuring complexity in grammar (cf McWhorter 2001; Sampson, Gill, and Trudgill 2009). We saw earlier that that the two basic approaches to measuring complexity comprise an absolute approach and a relative approach. These general ways of viewing complexity have given rise to two principle methods of defining complexity levels in language. They are summed up for convenience here. 1. Ornamental rule or feature complexity traditionally refers to a number of "ornamentally complex" (cf. McWhorter 2001) features or accretions attested in a language domain. Representing an absolute approach to measuring complexity, this metric has been defined and operationalised in different research domains such as typology (e.g., McWhorter 2001, 2007, 2008, 2009) and vanatiomst studies (e.g., Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann 2009). McWhorter (2007, 2008) proposes three criteria for measuring ornamental complexity: (i) overspecification, which designates that a language A is more complex than a language B to the extent that it makes more (unnecessary) overt distinctions in its grammar, (n) structural elaboration which refers to a "number of rules mediating between underlying forms and surface forms", the complexity of a language increasing with the number of rules in its grammar (cf. Miestamo 2008: 30) and (in) irregularity, according to which the more irregularities a grammar contains the more complex it is. 2. L2 acquisition difficulty, also known as 'outsider complexity' (cf. Kusters 2003, 2008), is equated with difficulties of learning for adults, thus representing the relative approach to assessing complexity (cf. Trudgill 2001: 371). From this perspective, some language features are L2 learner friendly, whereas others are not. We can thus distinguish between the L2
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6.
Melricsofcomplexity
easy and L2 difficult features that tend to recur in interlanguage varieties. Complexity of linguistic features or feature clusters is understood in relation to the one who evaluates them: the language user. This metric of complexity has been successfully implemented in Kusters (2003, 2008), and Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2009). When combined, both methods of studying complexity capture a very useful insight that the metric of complexity should be defined both in relation to language form and in relation to language use. Such a strict dichotomy is particularly important for studying non-native variation because linguistic variants surfacing in a particular variable context in a learner's grammar may not necessarily represent the respective L2 category (cf Winford, Donald December 2008: personal communication). For instance, a German learner of English using the present tense in a sentence He studies here for five years signals that the category of the present perfect has not been completely acquired because the speaker does not use the form of the present tense to express the category of the English present perfect. She most probably uses the present tense to express the meaning of the present tense (i.e. present tense with extended-now meaning) attested in her native language: German. Therefore, a strict distinction between a linguistic form and a meaning that non-native speakers attach to this form in their language use is crucial for understanding variation in a non-native grammar. Being in line with the major concepts of vanatiomst linguistics and with SLA accounts of tense and aspect development, a method has been developed in this study that comprises the level of the variable context in which language forms co-occur and the level of language use. The ensuing sections elaborate on this method of measuring complexity, while drawing on the existing tools known as ornamental complexity and outsider complexity.
6.1. Complexity as a degree of language-internal variation The definition of ornamental complexity implies that some languages have more formal means to refer to the same linguistic meaning (e.g., plurality, gender, etc.) than others. For instance, Kikongo has developed four formal markers to express the idea of pastness, whereas Japanese has only one overt marker to express the meaning of the past tense (cf. McWhorter 2001: 127). Taking this idea one step further, one could consider complexity to be a function of the number of alternating linguistic variants (or surface forms) used to express a linguistic meaning in a given variety. A variety in which
6.1. Complexity as a degree ojlanguage-internal variation
103
two or three formal means are used to render a particular meaning is more complex than a variety exploiting only one form for exactly the same purpose. To give an example, Irish English, in which progressive meaning can be rendered through the means of a special prepositional construction (e.g., He is at the milking of the cow) in addition to the more usual 'BE + V/«g' construction, is more complex than Standard English, where only the latter is attested. Despite its indisputable merits, this metric of complexity cannot be applied to studying non-native variation because, as mentioned above, not all forms within a circumscribed context are used by a non-native speaker to convey the meaning of the category in the target language. It is for this reason that we need to modify the existing definition of ornamental complexity in order to be able to operate with this term in relation to surface forms, while projecting it onto studying a non-native grammar of a language. It is therefore proposed that complexity should be defined as a degree of language-internal variation attested within a circumscribed variable context. This type of complexity can also be referred to as complexity of the variable context. It is manifested through (i) the number of variants surfacing in a variable context and (11) the number of language-internal factors (or rules) constraining the occurrence of a linguistic variant in a variable context. Notice that this definition of complexity is consistent with the notion of absolute complexity (cf Miestamo 2006, 2008), which broadly defines complexity "in terms of the number of parts in a system" (Miestamo 2008: 24), thus viewing the language as an autonomous entity, not related to the experiences of a particular kind of language user (cf. Kusters 2008). In other words, the more parts a system has, the more complex it is. Furthermore, this definition is compatible with McWhorter's approach to measuring complexity of language systems, who views complexity not only in terms of the number of linguistic elements (accretions) a particular language domain has; he also considers complexity to be a function of the number of rules involved in the occurrence of surface forms in a given language domain. Let us first of all consider complexity as a varying number of linguistic items surfacing within a defined variable context in an interlanguage system. A variable context (VC) of the variety A (VarA) can be considered to be more complex than the same variable context of the variety B (VarB) if and only if it contains more surface variants that are frequent enough to be included into a description of this variety. Consider Figure 6.1.
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6. Metrics of complexity
Variety A: variable context X
variant A - frequent variant variant B - frequent variant variant C-infrequent variant variant D-infrequent variant
°£
Variety B: variable context X
°A
variant A - frequent variant variant B - frequent variant
=>VC(VarA) = VC(VarB) Figure 6.1. Infrequent variants in a variable context
This example illustrates the case where a variable context X of a variety A contains two more elements C and D when contrasted with the same context in a variety B. These elements, however, account for less than 1% of the entire data and need not be included in the description of the variable context of the variety A because (i) they arguably lie outside the core variable context and do not participate in the variation of linguistic items that constitute it, (ii) they do not provide any robust generalisations about variation of linguistic items on a global, i e. cross-varietal, scale and, consequently, (Hi) they do not necessarily enhance our understanding of variation at large in any insightful way. This means that the description of the variable context X in the variety A is in principle as long as the description of the variable context X in the variety B: both descriptions will include elements A and B only. A conclusion is then that the variable context of the variety A is not more complex than the variable context of the variety B in terms of surface variants alternating within a variable context. Consider now a different case illustrated in Figure 6.2.
6.1. Complexity as a degree of language-internal variation Variety A: variable context X
variant A-frequent variant B - frequent variant C-frequent variant D-frequent
105
Variety B: variable context X
variant variant variant variant
variant A-frequent variant variant B-frequent variant
=)• VC (VarA) > VC (VarB), where > stands for 'more complex' Figure 6.2. Frequent variants in a variable context
Now the variable context of variety A can be considered to be more complex than that of variety B because elements C and D are essential parts of that variable context. The description of the variable context X in a variety A comprises four elements, whereas its description in a variety B contains only two elements. The former description is longer than the latter and is in this sense more complex. Let us now consider complexity as a number of (language-internal) factors constraining variation of a linguistic variant in a variable context. Generally there are two types of variation: (a) non-systematic, i.e. random or free, and (b) systematic variation. Non-systematic variation is always more complex than systematic variation because it is irregular, and irregularity always involves more complexity than regularity (cf. Mainzer 2008: 48; Miestamo 2009: 81).1 In a linguistic system exhibiting free variation, elements alternate with each other in unpredictable patterns not constrained by any independent factors. Hence, free, non-systematic variation is more complex than systematic variation. Systematic variation on the other hand is always constrained by a number of independent factors. Since constraints should be regarded as increasing complexity (cf. Nichols 2009: 112), a variable context X of a variety A can be considered to be more complex than the same variable context X of 1 In Kolmogorov complexity, the highest complexity is attributed to random order (see also Fenk-Oczlon and Fenk 2008: 44).
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6. Metrics of complexity
a variety B if and only if the linguistic variants surfacing in the variable context are constrained by more independent factors. Consider Figure 6.3. Variety A
Variety B
Variable context X
Variable context X
Variant Y
Variant Y
-
T "
1
Factor 1
F^toTT] Factor 2 Factors
Figure 6.3. Factors constraining variation in a variable context Variant Y in the variable context X of the variety B is constrained by more independent factors which build up hierarchies, some factors exerting more influence on the occurrence of the linguistic variant than others. In our example, independent factors build up constraint ranking in the variety B, with Factor 1 producing the strongest effect on the occurrence of the linguistic variant followed by Factor 2 and, finally, by Factor 3, whose influence is the least. We are now in a position to spell out the hierarchy of linguistic subsystems (i.e. variable contexts) in terms of varying complexity levels, illustrated in Figure 6.4.
Free variation
>
Regularvariation constrained by 3 factors
Regularvariation constrained by 2 factors
>
Regularvariation constrained by 1 factor
>
where > stands for 'more complex than' Figure 6.4. Hierarchy of linguistic subsystems in terms of varying complexity levels
6.2. Complexity as L2 acquisition difficulty 107 Linguistic subsystems with free variation are more complex than linguistic subsystems exhibiting systematic variation because the description of the former requires the listing of potentially infinite possibilities of language patterns. Regular linguistic subsystems in which the occurrence of a linguistic variant is constrained by two, three and more independent factors (or rules) are more complex than regular linguistic subsystems in which the occurrence of the same linguistic variant is constrained by only one factor as the former require a longer description than the latter. Let us, for instance, consider a hypothetical variety in which the occurrence of the linguistic variant going to is constrained by the point of reference and compare it to the variety in which going to is constrained not only by the point of reference but also by the type of clause and the ammacy of subject. It is the latter variety that is more complex when compared to the former since in the latter, more rules operate on the linguistic variant, thus enhancing the complexity of the variable context in question. In other words, the description of rules operating on the linguistic item is longer in the latter variety than in the former. It is in this sense that the latter variety can be considered to be more complex than the former. Under this metric, complexity is thus operationalised as (i) a number of verb forms surfacing in present perfect contexts in a given variety and (11) a number of independent language-internal factors triggering the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in a given variety. The greater the number, the more complex variation in a given variety is. Having provided a definition of complexity on the level of variable context, we will explain how complexity can be defined with regard to language use.
6.2. Complexity as L2 acquisition difficulty As has been noted in the relevant literature (cf Kusters 2003, 2008), complexity can be defined in relation to the one who evaluates it (i.e. language user). Thus, L2 acquisition research has shown that some language features are more difficult for an L2 learner to master than others. It is for this reason that a distinction between L2 easy and L2 difficult features has been drawn in, for instance, Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2009). L2 difficult features are considered to be more complex than L2 easy features under this definition, which represents a relative approach to measuring complexity. Furthermore, not always can a feature be described as either L2 difficult or L2 easy; more often than not the target language's features form a continuum from very/rather easy to rather/very difficult. Let us now arrange the major
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English verb forms on the continuum of L2 easy/difficult features. We could come up with the following diagram.
I fj
• complexity as L2 acquisition difficulty
Figure 6.5. Continuum of L2 easy/difficult features (adapted from Housen 2002)2 The continuum mirrors the major stages of development of the English tense and aspect system in a non-native English grammar irrespective of LI, as elaborated on in, for instance, Housen (2002).3 Unmflected (or bare) verb stems used to express present, past and future time reference are the easiest forms from the learner perspective, followed by the present participles (e.g., going, coming, etc.) initially used to express both progressivity and present time reference, and the simple past tense used to express first anteriority and then simple past time reference. According to this metric, the English present perfect is a very difficult (and - therefore - complex) category requiring a lot of time and effort on the part of the L2 learner. As elaborated on in the previous chapter, the reason for that is not only the morphologically complex make-up of the HAVE-perfect but also - more importantly - the elaborate system of its uses and its rich semantic meaning. Under this metric, complexity is operationahsed as the extent to which a given variety of English attests one of the L2 most difficult features in the area of tense marking - the present perfect. The greater the percentage of the correct uses of the HAVE-perfect is, the more complex a given variety is. It can therefore be expected that only the most advanced learners of English will use it consistently, i.e. in accordance with native-speaker patterns. This hypothesis is in keeping with an observation provided in Kusters (2003), 2 Note that the present participle does not include the progressive form, which according to Housen (2002) is acquired after the regular past. 3 Note that this continuum does not account for some individual differences inherent in L2 acquisition.
6.3. Summary
109
who states that "the upper regions of complexity are populated by language users that have invested extra amounts of energy in learning and adapting their mind to highly complex structures" (Kusters 2003: 12). Less advanced speakers on the other hand can be expected to use L2 easy forms in place of the HAVE-perfect. The metrics of complexity as a degree of language-internal variation and complexity as an L2 acquisition difficulty have been formulated as logically independent and must be kept apart; their relationship is, however, worth examining. The former type of complexity does not have to entail the latter; but to which extent they correlate in language is an interesting question (cf Miestamo 2008: 29). After having examined complexity of the variable context, we might be able to explain our findings in terms of secondlanguage acquisition difficulty. Examining possible trade-offs between two types of complexity may provide evidence for (or against) the general cognitive mechanisms responsible for such trade-offs.
6.3. Summary Summing up, the discussion of the preceding two chapters has made clear that despite controversies surrounding this notion in linguistics, complexity can be conceived of in two major ways: (i) by providing a list of criteria suitable for classifying language categories into the classes of linguistically complex or linguistically simple phenomena and (n) by developing metrics according to which not only one specific language form but also clusters of forms in a particular language domain can be assessed and measured. Under the former definition, complexity presents an important explicatory tool for elucidating the origin of patterns of use of the perfect in a non-native grammar. Under the latter definition, complexity aims at providing generalisations across languages or varieties thereof, which in its turn may help to understand the nature of variation of the present perfect and other forms in present perfect contexts across non-native Englishes.
7. Empirical design of the study and methodology
The present study is earned out within the methodological framework of variations studies (as elaborated on in Tagliamonte 2006), thus aiming at determining language-internal as well as extra-linguistic factors underlying the occurrence of the present perfect. Moreover, the study was inspired by the ongoing research on second-language acquisition in the area of tense and aspect. Being not longitudinal in nature, it considers synchronic pools of data allowing a researcher to discover how the category of the present perfect develops in a non-native English grammar as we move from one speaker group to another speaker group.
7.1. Data: Some general comments The data for analyses consist of large-scale and small-scale corpora that are assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively (see the section on methods in this chapter). The major focus is on (non-)native vernaculars, i.e. "the style in which the minimum attention is given to the monitoring of speech" (Labov 1972c: 208, cited in Tagliamonte 2006). In other words, we study "every day speech", "real language in use", "spontaneous speech reserved for intimate or casual situations" or "informal speech" (cf Tagliamonte 2006: 8). Studying vernacular data has its own indisputable merits. First, vernacular is assumed to be a variety most free from hypercorrections and styleshifting, which are considered to be overlays of the original linguistic system (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 8). Second, vernacular is the style from which all other styles must be calibrated (Labov 1984: 29, cited in Tagliamonte 2006). Third, the vernacular is positioned maximally distant from the idealized norm (Poplack 1993: 252, cited in Tagliamonte 2006), which means that "once the vernacular baseline has been established, the multidimensional nature of speech behaviour can be revealed" (Tagliamonte 2006: 8). In sum, observing the most "relaxed" type of L2 speech will enable us to tap into those forms of non-native English in which the specific L2 morpho-syntactic properties are presumably the most abundant.
7.1. Data: Some general comments 111 7.1.1. Large-scale corpora Large-scale non-native corpora compnse informal vernaculars as represented in the International Corpus of English (ICE) including IndEng, EAfEng (Kenya and Tanzania), SingEng (see Greenbaum 1996 for further details on the sample design of ICE). These corpora were supplemented with the data obtained from the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) of Spoken Enghsh (cf. Svartvik 1990), which represents the standard variety of native English spoken by educated speakers in England. In addition, we take recourse to the Hamburg Corpus oflrtsh English (HCIE), which is used for illustrative purposes in this chapter and for contrastive purposes in the discussion of SingEng. Analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively, the large-scale corpora were primarily used to elicit linguistic factors underlying the occurrence of the present perfect. In other words, extra-linguistic independent variables were not controlled for in either ICE or LLC because it was unreasonable to expect the compilers of the corpora to match speakers exactly in biographical features such as sex, educational level, occupation, etc. (cf. Greenbaum 1996: 5). However, the corpora yield global comparisons in terms of language-internal variation. Furthermore, checking for the respective substrate language was a methodological challenge in large-scale corpora due to the fact that conversations frequently took place among speakers with various mother tongues. Furthermore, the information on substrate languages was frequently not available in various corpora (see, for instance, Hudson-Ettle and Schmied 1999 for their discussion of EAfEng). We thus need to be aware of the limitations of the analyses of the possible origin of verb forms in present perfect contexts in these corpora. Because the sample design of the large-scale corpora did not allow a researcher to assess the role of the social factors or to study the exact effects of a particular native language, a number of supplementary (small-scale) corpora were built into the study in order to test the significance of some (extra)-linguistic variables on the use of the present perfect by non-native peak rs of English.1
1 In the ICE corpora speakers are generally not coded for either sex or their respective substratum language. In the LLC corpus, the information on the speaker's sex is available. However, female speakers are slightly overrepresented (207 male vs. 241 female speakers) in this corpus. The role of sex was therefore not investigated in the distribution of the present perfect in large-scale corpora data.
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7.1.2.
7. Empirical design of the study and methodology
Small-scale corpora
Small-scale corpora form a part of the Hamburg Corpus of Non-Native Varieties of English (HCNVE), which is a collection of interviews earned out within the framework of a transfer project at the collaborative research centre (SFB 538) on multilingualism in Hamburg. The interviews were obtained through the 'fnend-of-a-fnend' technique (Taghamonte 2006: 21-33). An informed consent comprising (i) consent for the interview, (n) guaranteed anonymity and (m) access to the researcher was obtained for each informant of the study (cf Taghamonte 2006: 33). One of the biggest advantages offered by these databases is that they allow a researcher to investigate the role of sex and the length of exposure to the target language. Moreover, they help to assess the influence exerted by respective native languages on the occurrence of the present perfect. The following section elaborates on the sampling strategies used in collecting the corpora and the major (socio)-linguistic hypotheses underlying these sampling strategies.
7.1.2.1. Small-scale corpora: sample design andsociolinguistic hypotheses To start with, it has become a widely recognised fact in studies on LI vaneties of English that speech of female speakers differs from that of male speakers. Numerous sociolinguistic studies carried out in Western societies have come to the conclusion that women tend to employ prestigious language more often than men (cf. Romaine 2004; Cheshire 2007). To give an example, one of the findings of the study on Reading English was that female teenagers used standard variants more frequently and consistently than their male companions (cf. Cheshire 1978). Similar results were obtained in Trudgill (1974), and Nordberg and Sundgren (1999), to mention just a few. If extended to second-language acquisition, this hypothesis should claim that women tend to acquire standard forms in other languages much more quickly than the opposite sex because of their general orientation towards the linguistic norm. Indeed, some researchers acknowledge that females are "better learners" of foreign languages than males (Trudgill, Peter December 2007: personal communication).2 For instance, studies on foreign-language acquisition confirm that women generally do better in achieving a native2 Prof. (Emeritus) Peter Trudgill, Universite de Fribourg.
7.1. Data: Some general comments 113 like accent in the target language (cf. AH 1999: 14). An explanation to this sociolingmstic pattern was proposed by AH (1999), who claims that women have to try harder to be accepted by society which leads to a higher degree of proficiency in their target language (cf. Ah 1999: 15). Moreover, that gender (or sex) might be implicated in second-language acquisition is explicit in Leather and James (1996):3 The gender (and presumably also sociosexual disposition) of the learner may indirectly constitute a constraint on the variety of L2 speech learned. A survey among Dutch students of English (Broders, 1982) revealed that female learners were significantly more favourably disposed towards a "prestige accent" of L2 - British "Received Pronunciation" - than male: the stronger orientation of women towards prestige speech in LI (see, e.g., Hudson, 1980) would seem to carry over to the learning of other languages. Leather and James (1996: 272) Therefore, the principal sociolingmstic hypothesis underlying the study reads as follows: L2 female speakers tend to use the prestige variant, i.e. the present perfect, in present perfect contexts much more consistently than L2 male speakers as the present perfect is a verb category strongly associated with StEngEng. In other words, we should expect female speakers to produce more target-like uses of the perfect from the point of view of the prescriptive grammar. By contrast, male speakers are expected to use more different variants (preterites, bare verb stems, present tense, three verb clusters, etc.) in their speech because they are less oriented towards linguistic norms as learners, placing more emphasis on communicating their message regardless of the correctness of its form. The following sample design should help to explore this sociolingmstic issue.
3 In contrast to gender studies, the terms sex and gender are used synonymously here to refer to males and females considered as a group (cf. LDCE 2003: 669). No strict distinction is drawn between the terms because gender differences are based on sex differences (cf. Chambers 1995: 103) so that the former is frequently the corollary of the latter. In fact, sex and gender have not been distinguished consistently in most variationist studies because information about the individual's sex is easily accessible (cf. Eckert 1989: 246-247) and male-female differences evidently persist even in the absence of well-defined gender roles (cf. Chambers 1995: 104).
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Table 7.1. Sample design of the small-scale corpora Community (Native language)
Male (between 15 and 25 years of age)
Female (between 15 and 25 years of age)
Total
Russian (Russian) German (German) Indian (Hindi) Grand Total
6 6 6 18
6 6 6 18
12 12 12 36
The second issue addressed in the sample is a speaker's native language background. For instance, German native speakers are generally expected to use the perfect frequently in contexts where it should not occur (for instance, in definite past time reference contexts) as a result of substratal influence from German. Hindi speakers of English on the other hand are expected to use the perfect in their speech consistently as Hindi has a verb form which has traditionally been described as the present perfect tense (cf Kachru 2006: 151; Jain 1995: 185), whose functions roughly correspond to those of the standard English perfect. We could thus expect a greater amount of standard-conformant patterns from Hindi speakers than from German speakers of English. Finally, Russian speakers represent an interesting study case since the Russian language lacks the category of the present perfect. These speakers of English are therefore expected to exhibit the greatest difficulties with the HAVE-perfect when compared to other groups since neither the perfect morphology nor its meanings form a part of the linguistic knowledge of a Russian speaker. Summing up, the study starts with the assumption that the native language must exert a persistent influence on the occurrence of the category of the present perfect. This is expected to be especially true of those speakers that have not considerably advanced along the acrolect/basilect continuum (e.g., basilectal and mesolectal speakers). This hypothesis can be traced back to Slobin (1996: 89-91), who argued that tense and aspect categories are particularly susceptible to transfer during second-language acquisition. Finally, some informants were stratified according to the length of exposure to the medium of English. Thus, in IndEng corpus all informants were stratified according to the following sample.
7.1. Data: Some general comments 115 Table 7.2. Sample design of the small-scale corpora of IndEng Less than 5 years More than 10 years but less than 15 years More than 15 years
4 informants (two males and two females) 4 informants (two males and two females)
Total:
12 informants (six males and six females)
4 informants (two males and two females)
By contrast, informants on both RusEng and GerEng are represented by relatively homogeneous groups of speakers that have been exposed to English for more than 5 but less than 10 years. Generally, it was hypothesised that the longer non-native speakers are exposed to English, the less learning difficulties they are expected to experience with the category of the English present perfect and the more standard conformant patterns of use of the present perfect they are likely to exhibit. This assumption thus implies that the length and (the quality) of exposure to the medium of English is important for establishing a native-speaker command of the verb form under study because the English present perfect is a cogmtively complex phenomenon taking a considerable amount of time and learning effort to master. It follows that examining synchronic patterns reflecting different stages of L2 acquisition of this verb form should allow the analyst to reveal various insights about the development of the present perfect in a non-native grammar.
7.1.3. Large-scale and small-scale corpora: hypotheses concerning language-internal variation Quantitative analysis of data implies investigation of internal factors underlying variation in present perfect contexts. Previous research has illuminated a number of linguistic variables conditioning the occurrence of the present perfect morphology. These variables are semantic contexts (or uses) of the present perfect (cf Elsness 1997; Winford 1993; Tagliamonte 2000), time adverbials (cf. Elsness 1997; Fenn 1987; Tagliamonte 2000; Van Herk 2008), polarity (cf. Elsness 1997; Mazzon 2004; Van Herk 2008), Aktionsart (cf. Bybee, Perkins, and Paghuca 1994; Shirai and Andersen 1995; Housen 2002; Odlin and Alonso-Vazquez 2006; Van Herk 2008) and transitivity (cf. Davydova 2008). Our task is therefore to put all these variables to the test, elucidating the factors that play a significant role in the appearance of the morpho-syntactic form of the present perfect in non-native
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varieties of English. In what follows, we will elaborate on the set of hypotheses, thus highlighting the expected patterns of variation. To start with, resultative and extended-now contexts are generally expected to be more favoured by the perfect since the notion of current relevance is more vividly manifested in these contexts, as has been suggested in the theoretical part of the study. By contrast, experiential and recent past time contexts are expected to be either less favoured or disfavoured by the present perfect morphology in StEngEng and in non-native varieties of English oriented towards the British Standard. Formulated as a hierarchy of uses of the present perfect, this trend is expected to become particularly obvious with respect to the distributional patterning of the surface realisations of the present perfect and preterite, as these verb forms are (i) the two most robust variants across non-native Englishes studied here and (n) alternate with each other in all present perfect contexts, in contrast to, for instance, present tense, past perfect and medialobject perfect, which tend to be circumscribed to just one of these contexts. The preterite can thus be expected to favour experiential and recent past environments. It has been noticed in earlier studies on, for instance, American English (cf Vanneck 1958 and Duskova 1976, cited in Fenn 1987) that there is a certain amount of free variation between the perfect and preterite as regards their distribution with time adverbials ever, never, always, before, etc. Furthermore, Davydova (2008) showed that that the preterite rather than the present perfect surfaces with the time adverbials of the '± current relevance' group in Irish English. Therefore, adverbials of the type ever, never, always, etc. can be expected to pattern with the preterite rather than the perfect because (as could be argued) the component of current relevance is not vividly manifested in the semantics of the time adverbials of this type. By contrast, time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group are expected to show a strong favouring effect for the perfect as they are very explicit with respect to the expression of current relevance. Furthermore, functioning as an indefinite past time reference marker (cf. Leech 1971a; Quirk et al. 1985; Radden and Dirven 2007), the English present perfect is assumed to be preferred in contexts without any time adverbial specification. By contrast, with the simple past tense greater importance is attached to temporal adjuncts in interpreting its meaning (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 137). We can therefore hypothesise that with the exception of several time adverbials strongly associated with the present perfect (those of the '+ current relevance' group), the preterite attracts temporal specification in contrast to the present perfect.
7.1. Data: Some general comments
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The factor group 'polarity' (or 'negation') tests the claim that there is a close association between negation (both ^-negation and ^-negation, or constituent negation) and the English present perfect (Elsness 1997; Van Herk 2008). However, constituent negators such no, none, nothing may also be expected to disfavour the perfect since they were demonstrated to favour the preterite in some varieties such as Irish English (cf Davydova 2008). Furthermore, some studies demonstrated a favouring effect of the affirmative contexts on the occurrence of the preterite (Van Herk 2008). The next factor group to be discussed here is that of transitivity. As is well known, the origin of the perfect can be traced back to constructions of the type HABBAN/WESAN (BEON) + past participle. At the incipient stages of grammaticahsation of the perfect, the auxiliary HABBAN was used with transitive verbs, whereas WESAN/BEON occurred with intransitive and mutative verbs. As the category of the present perfect advanced along its grammaticalisation path in the standard variety of English, the auxiliary HAVE gradually replaced the auxiliary BE, which was constantly losing ground as a 'perfect' auxiliary. Thus, "throughout the ME period a steady increase is noticeable in the use of HAVE as an auxiliary for the perfect" (Mustanoja 1960: 501). However, it was not until 1900 that the change was complete (cf. Demson 1998: 136). As a result of this historical development, the present perfect is hypothesised to favour both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) verbs in StEngEng. Acrolectal/upper-mesolectal non-native varieties of English oriented towards the educated native-speaker Standard English are expected to reflect this tendency showing a preponderance of the HAVE-perfect in both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) environments. This in its turn could be interpreted as a sign that this verb form is a well-established (or even fully-fledged) grammatical category in these varieties. In less standard-conformant (i.e. mesolectal and basilectal) varieties, on the other hand, the HAVE-perfect is not expected to be particularly robust in either transitive or intransitive contexts as the perfect is hypothesized to be used in a reduced number of environments in these varieties of English. Finally, it was demonstrated in, for instance, Davydova (2008: 7) that there is a fairly close association between transitive verbs and the preterite. We can therefore assume that the preterite favours transitive contexts and put the hypothesis to the test in the basilectal variety of IndEng, where the preterite is the most frequent form in present perfect contexts. The final language-internal variable expected to be implicated in the occurrence of the present perfect is Aktionsart. To be able to understand what factors within this factor group might govern variability of the present
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perfect in our data, we need to take a closer look at the history of this verb form in Standard English. To start with, the English perfect can be traced back to the so-called "statal resultative" constructions (Hams 1984b) which denote "a state that was brought about by some action in the past" (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 63) and are originally associated with and applied to telic verbs, i.e. verbs which describe events with inherent end points (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 54). As the process of grammaticalisation proceeds and resultatives develop into the perfect proper, perfect constructions gradually expand their use from telic to dynamic verbs and finally to strive verbs (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 68). Semantically, the change from resultative to perfect means the generalisation of meaning from "current result" to "current relevance" (cf Lindstedt 2000: 368). The present perfect can be expected to favour the verbs of all four lexical types in StEngEng as well as the acrolectal and upper-mesolectal corpora as this would suggest a complete development of the HAVE-perfect meaning (i.e. the one of current relevance) in those varieties of English. By the same token, if the perfect extends its meaning to all lexical verbs, it can be said to be a fully-fledged (grammatical) category in a given variety. Second, in the basilectal and mesolectal varieties, both the perfect and preterite morphology is expected to favour verbs of accomplishment and achievement while at the same time shunning stative verbs and dynamic verbs, or verbs of activity. This assumption can be traced back to the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (cf. Andersen 1991), which claims that the morphological development of tense and aspect system in a learner's grammar starts with learners assigning the past and perfective morphology to punctual-tehc verbs, gradually extending these uses to other lexical predicates (such as stative and dynamic) (compare the section on Aktionsart in Chapter 3). Indeed, research on second-language acquisition has provided evidence demonstrating that non-native speakers of English tend to associate past forms with telic and punctual verbs at the initial stages of language acquisition (cf. Shirai and Andersen 1995; Housen 2002; Odlin and Alonso-Vazquez 2006).
7.2. Collecting data The data for the small-scale corpora were collected by means of a sociolmguistic interview, one of the most widely employed methods in sociolinguistics (cf. Tagliamonte 2006). This method of data collection was particularly
7.3. Identifying the variable context and coding the data
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well suited for the present study because it represents a well-developed strategy aimed at eliciting the vernacular, i.e. a relaxed type of speech. In order to conduct a sociolinguistic interview, a questionnaire was developed (see Appendix 2). It consisted of a series of hierarchically structured sets of questions all of which were specifically designed to elicit the use of the present perfect in a non-native speaker's speech production. The interview was constructed in such a way that half of the questions featured the present perfect form (e.g., Have you ever been to an English speaking country?, What have you been doing recently? etc.). Yet in other questions the present perfect did not surface; rather a present perfect context was suggested. For instance, informants were asked to describe the results of environmental pollution or globalisation. Other questions not featuring the perfect were 'Is this week different from other weeks?' or 'Is the education system in India (Russia, etc.) different now from what it used to be?' etc. The major goal of this technique was to find out whether or not semantic contexts of the English present perfect presented non-native speakers of English with difficulties. It was assumed that only speakers with native-like competence in English would freely use the present perfect in both types of questions, whereas other (less advanced) speakers would have difficulties in identifying the uses of the present perfect in contexts not featuring this form. Finally, speakers with very limited access to the target language were hypothesised to have problems with both morphology and semantics of the present perfect.
7.3. Identifying the variable context and coding the data Since the present perfect is a morpho-syntactic form demonstrating astonishing semantic complexity in Standard English, it should not come out as a surprise that its variable context could be defined in semantic-pragmatic terms only (cf Winford 1993). This procedure, in turn, imposes an enormous methodological challenge on a researcher working on this linguistic variable (cf. Hams 1984b: 316). A particular problem, as it has been described in the literature, arises when one tries to establish an equivalence of meaning at the morphological level. Thus, Lavandera (1978), Romaine (1980) and Milroy (1987) argue that the notion of the sociolinguistic variable cannot be extended beyond the levels of phonology because of the problem of establishing semantic equivalence at the syntactic level of linguistic structure. This theoretical controversy notwithstanding, quite a few researchers (Wolfram 1969; Fasold
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1972; Trudgill 1974) convincingly demonstrated how the scope and relevant contexts of morpho-syntactic variables can be defined. Following the Labovian definition of the linguistic variable, i.e. a set of variants sharing the "sameness of cognitive meaning" (cf Winford 1993: 142), studies carried out by Cheshire (1982), Hams (1984b), Taghamonte and Poplack (1988), Winford (1993), Taghamonte (1996, 1997, 2000), and Van Herk (2008) refined the notion of the linguistic variable, thus providing further insights into the nature of morpho-syntactic variation. In particular, it has been observed, for instance, in Hams (1984b: 316) that in order to determine the semantic equivalence of different morphosyntactic forms, a wider perspective including semantic, discourse and pragmatic considerations is required. In the following, we describe the specific techniques and methods employed to identify the variable context and extract the data from the corpora, thus providing a comprehensive account of the criteria used to determine the linguistic variable under study. Yet another purpose of this procedure is to ensure that the present study can be replicated (cf Taghamonte, Sail 18 July 2007: personal communication)4 First and foremost, transcribed texts were read one by one in search of contexts that have been traditionally described as present perfect contexts (cf. Jespersen 1924; Zandvoort 1932; Bauer 1970; Leech 1971a; McCawley 1971; Comne 1976; Fenn 1987; Bnnton 1988; Tagliamonte 1996, 1997, 2000; Siemund 2004), automatic extraction of data being virtually impossible in this case. Essentially, the focus was on verb forms that surfaced in contexts in which Standard English allows the present perfect. But how are these contexts to be identified in the corpus? In order to answer that question, we once again need to consider very briefly the general meaning of the contexts in which the verb form under study occurs. To start with, what all present perfect contexts have in common is that they refer to some state at speech time which arises from some past situation (cf. Fenn 1987; Winford 1993). In other words, a present perfect context always implies that a past situation (or an event) is oriented towards the moment of utterance. In order to identify such a context in the discourse, we need to single out (i) events that are absolutely past in relation to speech time, (ii) events that occur at the moment of utterance (i.e. neither prior nor posterior to speech time), and (in) past events that are in some way linked to the moment of utterance (cf. Winford 1993: 155). Our concern here is with events of the third type since the Standard English present perfect is associated with the meaning described in (m). The meaning of the type (i) 4 Prof. Sail Tagliamonte, University of Toronto.
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is typically expressed by the preterite in this variety (cf. Elsness 1997), whereas the meaning of the type (n) is rendered by the present tense. It is therefore crucial for our analysis to identify those temporal instantiations in the discourse that occurred (or began to occur) in the past but are intrinsically oriented towards the moment of utterance. This can be best achieved by working out strategies allowing the analyst to differentiate between definite and indefinite past time reference. Whereas indefinite past time events (i.e. events not modified by adjuncts specifying a definite setting, cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 213) are to a considerable extent linked to speech time, definite past time events always draw a distinct line between a moment in the past and the moment of utterance. First, in order to distinguish between past events that are oriented towards speech time and those that have definite past time reference, a method of elimination was employed (cf. Winford 1993). As the name suggests, this method aims at excluding all contexts that are clearly marked as definite past time reference contexts. In fact, it has been observed in the literature that time adverbials play a decisive role in determining the meaning of the entire proposition as either having relevance with respect to the moment of utterance or referring to a specific moment in the past (cf. Crystal 1966; Quirk et al. 1985; Winford 1993). As Crystal (1966) suggests, "time relations in English are handled more by the careful use of adverbials... than by any other means" (Crystal 1966: 7). It is therefore time adverbials that make temporal distinctions of the types discussed above clear. Following this logic, there are certain time adverbials in English that are inherently associated with definite past time reference contexts as opposed to present perfect contexts and require the preterite in Standard English. In his useful account, McCoard (1978: 135) singles out time adverbials that belong to former contexts. These time adverbials are long ago, five years ago, once, yesterday, the other day, those days, last night, in 1900, at three o'clock, after the war. As is clear, these time adverbials are incompatible with the moment of utterance. Hence, all utterances featuring these explicit definite past time indicators were excluded from the analysis. (48) Indian English (ICE: Sla-052) See no, the scene exactly happened you know the other day. In addition, sentences containing subordinate clauses specifying the exact time when the event took place were excluded from the analysis. To illustrate this point, sentences of the type / never ate sweets when I was a child were not extracted since the subordinate clause provides a clear definite
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past time reference. The following example provides an unambiguous definite past time reference (49) Indian English (ICE: Sla-031) Because that was in the tenth standard when my parents stop fed J me. Similarly, some adverbials of place (e.g., in Bangalore, in the restaurant, etc.) refer an event or a situation to a particular moment in the past and therefore require the preterite in Standard English. Hence, it was necessary to exclude from the analysis sentences featuring explicit reference to a place where the event occurred. (50) Indian English (ICE: Sla-049) A: Where you have fallen down? B: / fell down at my native place. In the foregoing example, the answer contains a reference to the moment in the past which is not oriented towards speech time. More specifically, it features the adverbial of place at my native place referring the event of falling down to a particular moment in the past. The answer can thus be interpreted as Ifell down when I was at my native place. Furthermore, the preterite is required in English to describe a string of events that occurred one after another in the past and are not connected to the moment of utterance. In such narrative contexts the speaker relates a series of real or Active events in the order they took place (cf Dahl 1984: 116). This temporal domain of the preterite has no overlap with present perfect contexts in Standard English. In fact, Dahl (1985) argues that "one salient property of PFCT [perfect] in general is the fact that it is not used in narrative contexts" (Dahl 1985: 113). As a result, all past narrative contexts were excluded from the analysis, as in (51) Indian English (ICE: Sla-004) Panduranga once visitedPundah, Pundalika's house, you know, and Pundalika was so engrossed and busy serving Ms parents, you know, and Panduranga. As he went there, you know, Panduranga wanted Pundalika to pay attention to htm but Pundalika, being a very obedient son and very again we can say devoted to his, uh parents you know, he had no time to pay attention to Vithal. So he threw a piece of brick you know and made him stand or made him wait there until he finishes his service to his parents.
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Whereas adverbials indicating definite past time reference can be clearly differentiated as definite past time markers, adverbials now, at present, at the moment are on the other hand compatible with both the present tense and the present perfect. Sometimes these adverbials are used by the speaker to reinforce the orientation of the past bounded event towards the moment of utterance (cf Winford 1993: 156). In such cases, lexical characteristics of the verb play an important role in determining whether the meaning of these time adverbials is compatible with the meaning conveyed by the present perfect. A second strategy consisted in identifying contexts through time adverbials whose semantics are compatible with the meaning of the present perfect (cf. Fenn 1987: 209). As explained in the theoretical part of this book, a considerable number of adverbials are unambiguously associated with the meaning rendered by the present perfect in Standard English. These adverbials include since last year, for the last two days, for two weeks, up till now, so far, as yet, not yet. Some authors (for instance, Quirk et al. 1985; McCoard 1978) are very likely to add the adverb lately to the paradigm. Thus, propositions featuring these time adverbials presented no difficulty for token extraction. However, some adverbials are neutral with respect to the orientation towards the moment of utterance and are for this reason associated with both definite past time reference and present perfect contexts, adverbials before, often, always, ever, never representing a case in point. In order to identify the cases where propositions featuring the abovementioned time adverbials are linked to speech time, larger discoursepragmatic context needed to be taken into consideration (cf. Winford 1993: 157). Yet another (additional) technique used to identify the variable context and extract the data can be described as analysis of the sequences of syntactic structures preceding and following present perfect contexts. The basic empirical observation here is that present perfect contexts are generally either preceded or followed by the speech chunks featuring the present tense, asm (52) Indian English (ICE: Sla-022, Sla-029, Sla-033, Sla-039) a. / think yeah we have passed a very good way. b.It's something that we have not experienced before. c. Because all the while I was in the company of very nice people educated, again refined, those who have very nice ideas to vrovazate. d. And now the Kukis they refused to pay any more and so they are moving azainst them.
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The general idea behind this technique is that since the major function of the present perfect is to relate a past event to the present, a present perfect context is often surrounded by speech chunks featuring the present tense which helps the speaker to convey the idea that a past event is intrinsically linked to the moment of utterance. Having outlined the major strategies employed for identifying the vanable context in the corpora, we turn to a description of the criteria used to classify the data after respective tokens have been extracted.
7.3.1. Classifying tokens according to semantic context The extracted tokens were first of all coded for semantic context. To start with, each token was analysed step by step according to the event schema presented below. Past event (or state) persisting into the moment of utterance?
JO extended-now context
*, change of state at speech time due to some previous action?
resultative context
repeatability reading?
experiental context
unique event in recent past?
context of recent past
context discarded from the analysis
Figure 7.1. Event schema for the categorisation of present perfect contexts First, it was ascertained if the extracted token represented a past event or situation persisting into the moment of utterance. If this was the case, the token was coded as an extended-now context. If it was not the case, it was necessary to pose a question as to whether or not the event implied a change of state at speech time. If the question was answered positively, the sentence was coded as a resultative context. If not, the analyst proceeded
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with the question of whether an event could be described in terms of repeatability. If the context suggested that an event has occurred several times during the time span leading up to the present and could be repeated, the token was coded as an experiential context. Finally, if the event did not obey the repeatability constraint but rather referred to a unique event that occurred in recent past, the token was classified as the context of recent past. Having described the most general procedure of distinguishing between various types of semantic contexts, we will now turn to describing more specific techniques involved in the process, providing concrete examples from the data. 7.3.1.1. Identifying extended-now contexts As noted in the theoretical part of the study, extended-now contexts frequently collocate with adverbials such as for X time or since X time since the extended-now perfect always refers to a situation that stared in the past and continues or persists into the moment of utterance. As a result, these contexts are relatively easy to identify. (53) Indian English (ICE: Sla-016; Sla-009; Sla-004) a. / have been staying for thirteen years only in hostel. b. What have you been doim since then? c. Yes, in my house she stayed with us for five months [and she is still staying with us]. As can be seen, the predicates involved in extended-now contexts are fairly frequently dynamic in nature. Such predicates help to convey the sense of a past action persisting into speech time. Moreover, extended-now contexts are more often than not associated with the "progressive form" have been +ing (cf. Bauer 1970: 193). This form was, therefore, a good indicator of an extended-now context. However, not all cases were clear cut. First, time adverbials featuring since were sometimes used with verbs expressing punctual events such as get (a letter), receive (a letter), etc. In cases like that the entire proposition can be said to acquire an experiential reading, as in (54) Irish English (HCIE: Sproul04) / received your letter on the second of December and one from D Herr and I send one to him with this one I want you to write several letters than I do for I have only got 3 [letters] from you since I left home.
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Second, some verbs describing momentary actions (for instance, forget) acquired a strive meaning when used in negative clauses. Thus, a sentence like / hope you have not forgot the last words I ever spoke to you to meet me in heaven. (IrE: Fife 09) can be said to convey the following meaning 'I hope you have been keeping in your memory the last words that I spoke to you all the time up till now'. Such cases were therefore treated as instantiations of extended-now contexts. By contrast, when used in a declarative sentence, forget tends to assume a resultative meaning. Hence, / suppose you almost forgot me. (IrE: Wyly 04) can be interpreted as 'You don't think of me anymore', a proposition that implies a change of state at the moment of utterance. These tokens were coded as resultative contexts. Finally, although the use of the present tense copula BE is often intended to refer to the activity continuing into the present (e.g., Since morning there is no hot water, IndEng ICE: Sla-054), there were some examples featuring copula BE that were difficult to classify as extended-now contexts. (55) Indian English (ICE: Sla-030; Sla-018) a. No initially it didn't affect me but I think now my resistance is much less and I have got sore throat, cold. '...my resistance has decreased...' b. But now this is connected with STD facility so that people ofKhadaklat need not depend upon Nipani telephone exchange. '...now this has been connected...' Both contexts strongly suggest the use of the present perfect as the speakers clearly refer to changes obtaining at the moment of utterance. Such cases were therefore coded as resultative contexts.
7.3.1.2. Identifying resultative contexts It was stated elsewhere that resultative contexts always suggest a change of state incurred by some past action at the moment of utterance. In other words, resultative contexts typically describe a past event as bringing about some current state (cf Winford 1993: 167). Since a change of state is inherent in the semantics of some verbs, tokens featuring such verbs were relatively easy to categorise as resultatives. In fact, sentences containing die, get married, improve can be rightly described as prototypical resultative contexts.
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(56) Irish English (HCIE: DunneJO; ForreEOl; Dunne_09) a. But he is much improvefdj now thank God he is able to go out now. b. To the Estate Commissioners, I regret to inform you that my Mother (M=rs = Hannah Forrest) has died. c. Pers. Brady that is James Bradys youngest son got married to his first cousin a Miss O Farrellfrom Melbourne with thirty Thousand pounds fortune. A discourse marker frequently featuring in resultative contexts and giving some 'resultative' force to the entire proposition is the adverb already. (57) Indian English (ICE: Sla-035) Now we 've already, actually, we've turned it to rubber. Similarly, the use of adverbial now seems to orientate a past bounded event to the present, as in (58) Indian English (ICE: Sla-057; Sla-086) a. Now we have reduced the reservation from sixty-nine percent to fifty percent. b. My daughter's name is Aloka, she is in Holy Cross. She got now ninety-five marks in the unit test. Cases involving the adverb yet posed a special methodological problem (cf Winford 1993). The reason for this is tint yet has two meanings. According to Fenn (1987), yet has basically two interpretations, i.e. it can be construed as either "a point in time (in a sense a 'modal' variant otnow), or as a timespan in the sense up to now^ (Fenn 1987: 126). The former has a more resultative sense, while the latter is more experiential (cf. Winford 1993: 171). Hence, the following sentences seem to be resultative. (59) Indian English (ICE: Sla-035; Sla-095) a. Yeah they call me every night and they say the rains have not yet started. b.Uhl don % we haven >t decided anything yet_actually. It's a little too early for us. In both cases the speakers seem to be concerned with the present state, focusing their attention on the absence of the result at the moment of utterance.
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Accordingly, such cases were interpreted as resultatives. In some cases, however, yet seems to have a time span reading, as in (60) Indian English (ICE: Sla-057) Those people have notyetbeen given a chance to [get a job]. In this case, the speaker seems to be concerned with the non-occurrence of a series of events up to the moment of utterance. Following Winford (1993), such contexts were interpreted as experiential. It is important to mention here that yet with a resultative reading is generally much more frequent in the data than yet with an experiential reading. This observation suggests that s e m a n t i c a l ^ is still strongly associated with speech time. Finally, most resultatives do not require any adverbial specification because this present perfect context involves no time span as a rule (cf Winford 1993), as in (61) Indian English (ICE: Sla-051) A: Uhwhere have you kept your account? B: Which account? A: Money account... Uh you have opened it? B: YeahinChandargilput... A: Which bank? B.Uhl have put in bank Tokyo. Here only there is a new bank man and that he has uh kept it a nick name.
7.3.1.3. Identifying experiential contexts Since the experiential perfect indicates a situation or an event that has taken place once or several times during a period of time leading up to the present, adverbials referring to a general time span such as always, in my whole life or adverbials indicating activity within a time span such as often, sometimes, many times are good signals of an experiential context (Fenn 1987: 78; Winford 1993: 147). Furthermore, never and ever are frequently used to render an experiential reading, as in (62) Indian English (ICE: Sla-034; Sla-014; Sla-014) a. Mysore is a beautiful city. I never imagined that it's a beautiful city. b. Have you ever been to Ooty? c. Did you ever had paper on Telugu?
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In other cases, however, no explicit reference to the time span was made, but the discourse context made it clear that the speaker was referring to her experience up to the present (cf Winford 1993: 140) (63) Indian English (ICE: Sla-014; Sla-095; Sla-014) a. / have been to a few places and the remaining few I plan to see later. b. A: Hello, I hear that you had gone to Baroda. '...you have been to...' B: Haan/Yes. A: For some symposium or conference? B: Seminar. CBSC seminar. c. A: He has not seen any ofthe important places. Have you not seen? B: Yeah I visited this Palace. In the latter example, even though no explicit time reference is given in response, the temporal frame of the question suggests an experiential context and the ensuing answer implies that a past action can be described in terms of repeatability. Thus, the speaker in (63c) suggests that a past event (i.e. visiting the Palace) applies to a time span (i.e. her entire life) which is not over yet and can therefore be repeated. Such cases were therefore included into the analysis and coded as experiential contexts. Notice also that most of the examples in (63) feature stative and dynamic verbs. As is clear, atelic verbs without adverbial specification often give rise to an experiential reading, as in / have lived in London (cf. Bauer 1970; Crystal 1966). Such cases were also coded as experiential contexts.
7.3.1.4. Identifying contexts of recent past First and foremost, just, lately, recently are the time adverbials associated with recent past and with the HAVE-perfect in, at least, Standard English (Quirk etal. 1985; Klein 1994). (64) Indian English (ICE: Sla-001; Sla-005) a. I'm justcome here on a holiday. b. Israel has got a government recently and that government and that government is formed by three parties.
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Other discourse markers used to identify the context of recent past are adverbials this year {month, week) and today since the major function of these adverbials is to signal recency. (65) Indian English (ICE: Sla -097; Sla-009; Sla-073) a. Today I heard that you plan going to Mysore. b. What has happened this year is really a political disaster. c. So this vear also I saw after my diploma also, many of the guys like, my classmates they got job. However, in some cases semantic contexts featuring the time adverbial today were interpreted as resultative, as in (66) Indian English (ICE: Sla-100) A: Ramakrishna has come today? B: No, hers on leave today. A: Ahha, Ramakrishna is on leave. B: / think so because he has not applied; he may apply tomorrow. In this case, the speaker's focus appears to be on the repercussions that a past event has for the moment of utterance. In other words, it is not a recent event as such that is at issue here; what seems to be important to the speaker is Ramaknshna's presence in the office because his assistance appears to be needed at speech time. This is how a past event (i.e. Ramaknshna's not coming to the office) seems to result in some current state (i.e. Ramaknshna's not being at the office when his presence seems to be required). Therefore, it could be argued that the whole context in (66) has some resultative force. In some contexts of recent past no time adverbial specification is found, asm (67) Indian English (ICE: Sla-100) A' Sir about that Chcivci I received a letter fvoYH the director of ' school education that Chaya Katti. Could you tell me something about it sir? B: Even I don't know anything about it.
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(68) Irish English (HCIE: CarroJll) Dear Brother William, I have received your letter of the i t November with great pleasure to hear you and your family are all well as these few lines leaves me andfamily at present, thank Godfor his goodness. Contexts of this type were nevertheless included into the analysis since the discourse context unambiguously implies that the event occurred fairly recently and the event as such is of a certain relevance for the speakers at the moment of utterance. Because contexts in (67) and in (68) do not necessarily imply any change of state at the moment of utterance, they were treated as contexts of recent past in the data. Finally, since the main point of a discourse opening is frequently to report some recent event (cf Dahl and Hedin 2000: 385), the verb forms used to introduce a new topic can be described as pertaining to recent past contexts. (69) Indian English (ICE: Sla-050) A: So what do you think about the disaster happened, Dakshin Maharashtra about earthquake? B: Actually Umesh, as we have seen, there are a lot of people died. So according to scientists they are expecting more but this is a very serious disaster happened last month. The foregoing example contains the perfect referring to a recent event (i.e. the act of seeing the consequences of a disaster). The act of seeing as such does not necessarily incur a change of state at the moment of utterance. As a result, the present relevance of the past situation referred to is simply the one of temporal closeness (Comne 1976: 60) and the context under study is best described as a context of recent past.
7.3.2. Classifying tokens according to Aktionsart As mentioned earlier, Aktionsart is assumed to be highly implicated in the distribution of the verb forms under analysis in present perfect contexts across non-native varieties of English. This section elaborates on the major techniques used to classify the verbs in the data according to their semantics. Because there is a substantial interaction between the semantics of present perfect contexts and the meaning that a lexical verb acquires in an
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utterance (as explained in, for instance Tagliamonte 2000: 350),5 that is to say that their semantics are often conflated, the verbs were categorised according to the kinds of situations they initially describe to avoid interactions between the factor groups 'Aktionsart' and 'semantic context' in the upcoming multivariate analyses. To give a preliminary example, the inherent meaning of the verb discuss is a process; however, in a sentence We have discussed that several times, the verb discuss can be treated as an accomplishment because of the semantics of the context it occurs in, which refers to an action completed in the past. In order to avoid that kind of interdependences that exist between the Aktionsart of the verb and the semantics of the context it occurs in, the verb discuss was classified as a dynamic verb or a verb of activity irrespective of the utterance it occurred in. Similarly, to write a letter was coded consistently as an accomplishment irrespective of whether it occurred in a sentence like / have been writing this letter for two hours or in a sentence like I have written letters but not very often. Hence, all relevant lexical verbs were classified according to the typology of verbs proposed by Vendler (1967), who distinguished between states, activities, accomplishments and achievements. Because Vendler (1967) does not provide an exhaustive account of all verbs and verb groups, his methodology was expanded by the accounts of verb semantics available in the relevant literature. To start with, stative verbs generally denote emotional states {love, like, hate, feel, etc.), attitudes {believe, want, wonder, be bothered etc.), mental states {know, think (that), understand, consider, remember etc.) and sensory perception {see, hear, smell, etc.). In addition, stativity is inherent in the meaning of the verbs such as remain and contain, which basically express a "potential for permanence" (cf Mufwene 1984). As is evident, stative verbs describe situations that occur for an indefinite period of time and have no inherent end point (cf. Bnnton 1988: 28). Furthermore, states can be regarded as qualities. Thus, hearing and seeing are abilities inherent in any human being and are, therefore, states (cf. Vendler 1967: 108). Here are some examples demonstrating stative verbs in the corpora. (70) Indian English (ICE: Sla-009; Sla-007) a. Now, I've understood much from you... b. I've never seen anybody taking that in my family. 5 In her account of Samana English, Sail A. Tagliamonte (2000) points out that continuative perfects tend to be stative, resultative perfects tend to punctual.
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(71) Irish English (HCIE: Johnst03) Dear Brother, as I have not heard from you for Some Years, I concluded you ware Either dead or left the Country whar you was farmarly settled. Stative verbs are, however, to be distinguished from the verbs denoting activities (cf. Vendler 1967), sometimes referred to as dynamic verbs (cf Comne 1976: 25, 49). In the following, we will use the terms "verbs of activities" and "dynamic verbs" synonymously. Dynamic verbs describe processes and activities that can last for an indefinite period of time with no inherent goal (cf. Bnnton 1988: 28). Stative verbs and verbs of activities demonstrate, however, two principal contrasts. First, activities involve some change, whereas states do not (Bnnton 1988: 28). Second, verbs of activities can be used in the progressive, whereas stative verbs cannot be used with the progressive, as a rule (cf. Vendler 1967: 99). Relying on these distinctions, we can thus single out the following verbs of activities: walk, go, flow, travel, stay, visit {stay at someone 's place), wait, listen, keep, fight, look, watch, read, learn, discuss, study, etc. (72) Indian English (ICE: Sla-016) I have been staying for thirteen years only in hostel. (73) Irish English (HCIE: GibsonOl) He thinks it very strange that he gets no letters from his brother James. He has wrote to him often and received no answers. Similarly, verbs of reporting (answer, ask, tell, say, etc.) were classified as activities because reporting is a process that involve some change and can be both voluntary (e.g., [a person] talk) and involuntary (e.g., [an article] report) (cf. Bnnton 1988: 29). In other words, the one who reports is engaged in a verbal activity just as the one who runs is engaged in a physical one. Moreover, activities are relatively homogeneous processes, i.e. "they consist of successive phases following one another in time" (cf. Vendler 1967: 99). Yet another observation is that the verbs of activities possess no inherent end points in contrast to other verbs whose semantics sets a terminal point. However, as Bnnton (1988: 26) points out, we must distinguish between verbs denoting an arbitrary terminal point and verbs descnbing a necessary goal. The verbs of the latter type are refened to as verbs of accomplishment. As the name suggests, verbs of accomplishment presuppose that the
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situation they describe has a necessary goal and are thus tehc. In contrast to verbs describing punctual events, verbs of accomplishment refer to durative situations. Vendler (1967) provides examples of accomplishments consisting of a verb and an object (e.g., paint a picture, write a letter, play a game of chess, deliver a sermon, etc.). Likewise, most of our examples for this category are represented by complex verb phrases, i.e. V + Object: choose a pair of shoes, form a party, fill petrol (into the car), complete (write) a thesis, acquire significance. Furthermore, some intransitive verbs were treated as accomplishments, for instance, come (to a place), update, or bring back. For instance, come just like go describes a process of walking; however, in contrast to go, the semantics of the verb come always presupposes a final destination (since we usually come to a place) and is telic in this respect. Finally, expressions of the type 'get + past participle', i.e. get used to, get accustomed to, get adjusted were regarded as accomplishments. Verbs of accomplishment were identified according to the test proposed in Vendler (1967: 104). The test can be described as follows: if I do A in a period of time T, then I can say that I am doing A at any moment during that period of time T. For instance, the proposition It took me three hours to come to Peter's house implies that I was in the process of approaching Peter's house at any moment of the three hours. The following examples feature the verbs of accomplishment attested in the data. (74) Indian English (ICE: Sla-002) This is first time flood came in Raelsima district. (75) Irish English (HCIE: Fife_02) We have everything about the house as neat as usual. I have run a wall across the pig trow and broke out a door opposite to the road and built a wall from the stabling hedge to the corner of the pig trow. Finally, punctual situations that take place at a specific (i.e. definite) point in time were singled out (cf Bnnton 1988: 28). Verbs describing momentary actions (cf. Leech 1971a: 18) with no inherent goal {drop, fall, snatch, die, be born, etc.) were coded as achievements. The following test was applied to differentiate between achievements and accomplishments: if I am doing A and get interrupted, can I still declare that I have been doing A? For example, if I am writing a letter and get interrupted, I can still argue a certain accomplishment of an action. Even though I may not have completed writing
7.3. Identifying the variable context and coding the data the whole letter, I can still claim that I have written at least a part of it. By contrast, if I am getting ready to get married but get prevented due to some circumstances I cannot claim to have got married because one cannot get married in a partial way. These examples illustrate verbs of achievement: break, get divorced, give, lose, pick up, submit, open, shut, cancel, leave, go abroad, etc. In addition, the verbs notice and mention were classified as achievements (cf Bnnton 1988: 33). This decision is due to the following reason: a momentary change of state implied in both notice and mention cannot express either state or activity. Of the remaining two possibilities, i.e. achievement and accomplishment, achievement seems to be a better choice because spontaneous and abrupt changes cannot in principle be durative. The following examples feature some verbs of achievement attested in the data. (76) Indian English (ICE: Sla-020) That's one of the reasons why these uhyou know schemes have failed. (77) Irish English (HCIE: Carsen02) James has finished his apprenticeship and is engaged at Ten Dollars per week without Board. The last general technique used for classifying verbs according to their Aktionsart is trying to use them in the progressive. Thus, strive verbs as well as verbs of achievement are usually incompatible with the progressive, whereas verbs of activities and accomplishments can be used as a continuous form (cf. Bnnton 1988: 39). This technique is visualised in Table 7.3. Table 7.3. Lexical verbs in the progressive accomplishment and/or activity = progressive 'states m d / o r a c h i e ; e m e r t s
-
progressh;e
It is true that stative verbs do occur occasionally in the progressive (e.g., She is smelling the roses) and in this case states can be said to denote a 'contingent activity' (cf. Hirtle 1967). However, following Bnnton (1988: 40), it is argued that states cannot be normally viewed progressively since their semantics does not presuppose any development or change. Moreover, Hirtle (1975) notices that a state "exists as a whole during each and every instance of its duration" (Hirtle 1975: 27-28, cited in Bnnton 1988: 40). A state is then to be regarded as a monolithic, unfractionable entity and its dynamic reading can be ascnbed to the context.
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Similarly, achievements sometimes occur in the progressive. For instance, we can say She is recognising a lot effaces here. In this case, the punctual verb recognise acquires an iterative meaning. It could, however, be quite plausibly argued that the meaning of repeatability is inherent in the context (for example, due to the interaction of the progressive form and the verb) rather than in the meaning of the lexical verb itself. We can thus conclude that verbs describing momentary actions cannot generally be viewed as durative despite the fact that there are certain contexts that allow their use in the progressive form. Finally, it must be mentioned that not all verbs presented a clear-cut case for the classification: some verbs tend to change the aspectual schema inherent in their meaning according to whether they are used transitively or intransitively, the verb to write representing a case in point. Thus, when used intransitively (e.g., to write from France) this verb can be viewed as an activity, however the transitive reading (e.g., to write a letter) gives rise to the accomplishment meaning. Thus, transitive and intransitive uses of the verb write were kept distinct during the coding. A similar (although not entirely identical) problem was caused by the verb to make: the semantics of the verb to make is not entirely immune to the semantics of the direct object following it. It is probably for this reason that the verb to make has various meanings such as create, cause to happen, reach, etc. registered in the dictionary (cf OALD 2000: 775), all of which depend on respective nouns that the verb is used with. To illustrate this point, make noise, make use (of) or make friends are activities, whereas make a cake, make a selection, make preparations are accomplishments. Finally, make a mistake and make a choice can be (and actually were) treated as achievements. Thus, while coding the verb to make for Aktionsart, special attention was paid to the semantics of the argument following it. The verb to have demonstrates a similar behaviour. Table 7.4 summarises major collocations with have. Table 7.4. Collocations with have Verb to have
used in the progressive
state (possessing) activity (experiencing) achievement (receiving)
not (usually) used in the progressive have a car, have a business, etc.
have a cold, have a warm summer, have troubles, etc. have a letter (i.e. get or receive a letter)
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To bring the whole discussion to a common denominator, the influence of the present perfect context on the lexical meaning of the verb was largely ignored in the process of coding verbs for Aktionsart. Close attention was, however, paid to semantics of the arguments accompanying verbs. The major lexical verbs analysed in the study are listed for convenience below. Aktionsart Stative verbs (states): be; be bothered; be exposed; be married; believe; benefit (to be useful to someone); consider; desire; dislike; dominate; feel; hate; have (in the sense of possess); hear; imagine (that); know; like; live (i.e. be alive); love; possess; preserve (retain in a particular way); remain; remember; represent; rule; see; think that; understand; want; wonder. Dynamic verbs (processes and activities): accompany; affront; answer; apply; ask; assault; associate; attack; attempt; attract; beat; blame (also charge or accuse) (a person); change; connect; comment; deal (with a problem); decline; describe; develop; discuss; do; dream; educate; expect; experience; explain; fight; flourish; follow; go; increase; inform; improve; keep; last; learn; listen; live (i.e. spend your life in a particular way); look (at); maintain; make (noise); miss (be longing for someone); paint; participate; pass (about time); phone; plan (i.e. make arrangements); practise; postpone (i.e. keep something from happening); pull; push; read; reply; ring; run; say; seek; show (demonstrate); sow; stay; study; support (someone); swim; talk; teach; tell; think (about, of); travel; try; visit (stay at someone's house); use; wait; watch; work; write. Verbs of accomplishment (processes with an inherent goal that end up in a change of state): acquire; alter (make something become different); arrive (in a place); be brought up (in the atmosphere of freedom); become (a writer); be (get) extended; bring (a chair); choose (a pair of shoes); come (to a place); complete a thesis; construct (homes); convey (a message); convince (a person); diagnose (a disease); divide (work); disintegrate into different segments; destroy (a place); establish a proximity; evolve (a formula); fill petrol (into the car); fill up (a form); form (a party); get accustomed with (a place); get adjusted (to a new life); get excelled (in education); get settled; get standardised; get used to something; grow up; impose a concept (force people to accept it); make (a pie); move (into another place); prepare (lunch, a document); put on (weight); remove (something from one place into another); set everything (into place); transfer to (one place); transform (something into something); turn to rubber; return (to a place); write a book; undergo some changes; update.
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7. Empirical design of the study and methodology
Verbs of achievement (momentary actions): accept; achieve; allow; arrest; be born; begin; be (or get) selected; break; buy; cancel; close; decide; declare; die; disappear; donate (money); encounter; expire; fail; find; finish; fix; forget; get; get admission; get (take up) a job; get divorced; get drowned; get married; give; go abroad; happen; have (children); hire; identify; include; introduce; invite; invest; join or unite (a group); knock (on the door); lock (a house); leave; lose; make (an observation); make up one's mind; mention; meet; miss (the bus); notice; offer (a job, a party); open; pass (an examination); pick up; receive (a letter); recognise; refuse; register; retire; select (a member); sell; send (a letter, a message); shut; spare; start doing something; stop doing something; submit; take (the subject); turn up; vanish. Having examined the major techniques used to classify all the verbs attested in the data into four major categories (states, activities, accomplishments and achievements), let us now consider methods employed for coding the data according to the parameter of transitivity.
7.3.3. Classifying tokens according to transitivity Since transitivity is believed to underlie the choice of the present perfect in the data, all verbs were also coded with respect to their ability to take arguments in a sentence. Thus, verbs that take a direct object were coded as transitive, as in (78) Irish English (HCIE: McCanc02) / have seen nobees as yet either tame or wild although I beheve that there is some in this colony. Verbs taking both direct and indirect objects were coded as transitive. (79) Irish English (HCIE: CrockeOl) Ourpubhc prints has given us several accounts of the French making a descent upon England and Ireland but that they were in every attempt disappointed. Verbs that do not take an object were coded as intransitive, as in (80) Irish English (HCIE: McCanc02) Our great railway is now all the talk but is not begun yet.
7.3. Identifying the variable context and coding the data
139
Intransitive verbs denoting motion and a change of state were coded as mutative. The following verbs attested in the corpora were coded as mutative: change, leave, go, come, vanish, die, recover, become, marry, move out (into), turn out, grow up, fail, settle (down), improve, return, breake up (down), decline, arrive, fall, increase, get thin (bolder). Special attention was paid to the verbs that can be used both transitively and intransitively. Let us consider, for instance, the verb to write. (81) Irish English (HCIE: Brenna02; Madill02) a. / rejoice to let you know that on the day I got your letter I got one from Thomas. He is in good health and he informs me that he has had letters from you frequently though you say you have wrote often toMm and got no answer. b. My Dear Margretl lift my pen to write you these few lines hopping it will find you in good health as it leaves us all at present. ...I wrote twice or three times and I got no answer. In the foregoing examples, the verb to write is used intransitively and was therefore coded as such. In other cases, the verb was used with a direct object and hence was classified as a transitive verb. See an example below. (82) Irish English (HCIE: Wyly_07) I have written three letters for the one you wrote. Similar to the verb to write, the verbs to change, to improve and to marry can be used both transitively and intransitively. Therefore, a distinction needed to be drawn between transitive and intransitive uses of these verbs. (83) Irish English (HCIE: Wyly_03; QuinnW06) a. Dear Sister I must tell you a little about work. lam still in the same place only in a different name, I told you {of}. The times have changed. Now it is the firm ofGault & Scott. b. Address Kalgoorhe Hannans Western Australia. They have changed the name you need not vut Perth on it. Whenever to change, to improve and to marry were used intransitively, they were coded as mutatives. In other cases, they were assigned a transitive label.
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7.4. Methods As mentioned above, the data is analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively in this study. Those variants used in place of the HAVE-perfect in non-native Englishes are analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. These forms include the preterite, the present tense, the BE-perfect, bare verb stems, lone past participles, etc. Careful analysis of the use of these verb forms in the interlanguage, in the respective native language as well as in contact dialects of English (such as various settlers' dialects) can help to detect the source of the non-standard verb form in a given non-native variety. This procedure allows the analyst to determine what verb forms are amenable to an explanation in terms of substratum/superstratum influence and what variants are better analysed as a result of substrate/superstrate-independent acquisition manifested through various learner strategies. Moreover, qualitative analysis is provided for the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts because the HAVE-perfect is scarce in these linguistic environments and thus cannot be analysed with the help of the multivariate techniques.6 The major purpose of the quantitative analysis is to evaluate the role of internal and external factors underlying the occurrence of the present perfect. Both distributional and multivariate evidence is employed to that effect. The distributional analysis provides a general understanding of patterns attested in the data, whereas the multivariate analysis helps to elucidate factors that exert a persistent and statistically significant influence on the occurrence of the present perfect in a given set of data when all the factors are considered simultaneously. Hence, the multivariate analysis, or variable rule analysis (cf Tagliamonte 2006), is "the probabilistic modelling and the statistical treatment of discrete choices and their conditioning" in language (Sankoff 1988: 984). Developed by Cedergren and Sankoff (1974) and elaborated on by Rand and Sankoff (1990), Robinson, Lawrence, and Tagliamonte (2001), Sankoff, Tagliamonte, and Smith (2005), the variable rule analysis allows the analyst to model a grammar that has heterogeneity with contextual^ conditioned 'order' (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 130) in contrast to other statistical procedures such as analysis of variance, or ANOVA, which turned out to be unsuitable for language data (cf. Rousseau and Sankoff 1978; Tagliamonte 2006). 6 In fact, definite past time reference contexts tend to be near-categorical in different Englishes (e.g., StEngEng, EAfEng, etc.). This makes the variable rule analysis impossible in such data sets.
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141
The multivariate procedure is in fact the most appropriate tool for the statistical analysis of linguistic data. Because the distribution of the data among the cells cannot be controlled when a natural speech sample is used and because many different factors may influence the probability of the linguistic variant, the final configuration of data represents "high-dimensional array" where many or even most of the possible cells are empty (Sankoff 1985: 76). Estimation methods based on sum-of-squares approximations are therefore inappropriate for handling such data and the parameters of the model must be assessed with the exact maximum likelihood methods (cf Sankoff 1985). Although many statistical computing packages can carry out this type of analysis, most of the linguistic research has made use of one or the other version of the variable rule programme. Thus, Winford (1993), Tagliamonte (2000), Pietsch (2005a), Levey (2006), Szmrecsanyi (2006), Tagliamonte and D'Arcy (2007), Walker (2007), Van Herk (2008), Elsig (2009), to mention a few, are the studies employing the Goldvarb method in assessing language data. In this study, the multivariate analyses were carried out by the Goldvarb 2001, which provides users with the Windows version of the original Macintosh application (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 158). The programme performs a multiple regression procedure (binominal step-up/step-down), determining the influence of each independent variable (or factor group) such as Aktionsart, transitivity, negation, etc. on the dependent variant (e.g., a verb form). Since the multivariate methodology requires that variants must surface frequently enough in all the contexts under study in order to be amenable to the statistical analysis, rare verb forms were excluded from the analysis (cf. Elsig, Martin 2008: personal communication).7 Thus, various sporadic items such as BE-perfects, lone past participles, lone present participles, three verb clusters, bare verb stems, etc. were banned from the variable rule analysis. Variants restricted in their distribution were likewise excluded from the analysis (cf. Winford 1993: 178). For instance, the present tense occurs predominantly in extended-now contexts across different varieties, whereas the past perfect tends to favour experiential contexts in the uppermesolectal IndEng. Because these variants showed very bad distribution (empty cells and poorly distributed cells) in the first step of the Goldvarb 2001 analysis when cross-tabulated with other factors, they were removed from the analyses (Winford 1993: 178; Tagliamonte 2006: 183). The procedures described above ultimately lead to the configurations of data featuring 7 Dr. MartinElsig, University of Hamburg.
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two dependent variants: the present perfect and pretente. These were tested in the ensuing multivariate analyses across varieties.8 Another issue that often needs to be handled during the binominal stepup/step-down analysis concerns interactions in the data. An interaction can be regarded as "an interplay of three variables: two independent variables and one dependent variable" (Elsig 2009: 37). For instance, it turned out that semantic context (i.e. the first independent variable) often interacts with time adverbial specification (i.e. the second independent variable) with respect to the choice of the HAVE-perfect. Such interaction could be resolved by merging factors within the factor group of time adverbial specification. Yet other ways of resolving interaction include removing one of the factor groups from the variable rule analysis and creating a cross-product of the two factor groups (cf Taghamonte 2006: 151-153, 185-187; Elsig 2009: 37). Interpreting results of the multivariate analysis generally involves three "lines of evidence": 1) statistical significance, i.e. factors that are selected as statistically significant by the step-up/step-down method of multiple regression 2) relative strength, i.e. factor groups that exhibit the biggest/smallest range and are thus the most/least significant and 3) constraint hierarchy, i.e. the arrangement of factors within the same group (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 235). Decimal numbers are the so-called factor weights which "provide a numerical measure of the strength or influence of each factor relative to other factors in the same group, on the linguistic variable under investigation" (Bayley 2002: 126). The general rule of thumb for assessing the factor weights can be summarised as follows: the closer the decimal number is to 1, the more favourable the effect is. By contrast, the closer the decimal number is to 0, the more disfavouring the effect is (cf. Levey 2006: 62). The measure range indicates a relative strength of each factor group, i.e. the contribution of each factor group to the "probability of occurrence of the linguistic variable in question" (Levey 2006: 62). The total number of contexts that are considered in each step of the analysis is recorded under N, which stands for a 'total number'. Results for the factor groups that were not selected as statistically significant are presented in square brackets in the multivariate analyses of data.
8 The basilectal variety of IndEng, where the HAVE-perfect is very rare, is the only exception to that rule (see the chapter on basilectal IndEng for further details).
7.5. Summary
143
7.5. Summary The purpose of this chapter was to elaborate on the general sample design of the study and to provide an overview of the major methodological issues involved in identifying the linguistic variable and extracting the data. First, we elaborated on the principal techniques used for circumscribing the variable context. Moreover, we have given a comprehensive account of the strategies used to classify the data according to semantic context, Aktionsart and transitivity. Finally, we have accounted for the major methods employed in the study, while explaining their appropriateness for this investigation.
8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
8.1. Data In order to understand the mechanism that triggers the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in various non-native Englishes, we need to single out constraints that underlie the use of this verb form in the variety of StEngEng. This variety will serve as a yardstick against which we can study nonnative varieties in order to detect and explain the similarities and differences in the patterns of use of the present perfect. The decision to explore StEngEng rather than American English is due to three major reasons. First, the present perfect is much more frequently attested in the former rather than in the latter (cf Elsness 1997). Second, most of the non-native varieties under study are oriented towards the standard spoken in England rather than in the United States. For instance, it is the standard variety of English English which enjoys a prestigious status in India and in many parts of Africa (cf. Schneider 2007: 171, 194, 198, 202, 207, 216). Additionally, the foreign-speaker varieties of English studied here are also oriented towards StEngEng. More importantly, theoretical descriptions of the present perfect provided in previous chapters draw on evidence obtained from descriptive grammars of StEngEng such as Quirk et al. (1985), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), etc. The authors of such grammars often use the norms of the educated native speakers in England as a reference point for their discussions of the Standard English dialect. It is such grammars that shape the acquisitional context of English (at least in a classroom setting) in many countries where the language is spoken non-natively. Analysis of StEngEng draws on data obtained from the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) of Spoken English (cf. Svartvik 1990), collected and transcribed in London. Informants selected for this corpus therefore represent educated native speakers of English. The analysed corpus material encompasses spontaneous surreptitiously recorded (telephone) conversations between intimates and "distants" and non-surreptitious private and public conversations. Excluded from the analysis were the texts containing monitored speech (sports and radio commentaries, demonstrations of experiments, speeches in parliamentary debates, sermons, political speeches, etc.) because this type of data exhibits less robust variation of verb forms in the
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contexts under analysis. The analysed corpus contains a total of 76 texts (some 400,000) words. This chapter focuses on the distributional and multivariate analyses of factors constraining variation of the present perfect (i.e. auxiliary HAVE + past participle) in present perfect contexts and then proceeds to presenting the results of the qualitative analysis dealing with the use of HAVE-perfects in definite past time reference contexts in StEngEng. 8.2.
Quantitative analysis
8.2.1.
Distributional analysis
8.2.1.1. Variation m present perfect contexts Following is the distributional analysis of the linguistic items in present perfect contexts in StEngEng. Table 8.1. The overall distribution of variants in StEngEng HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect reduced perfect
1812 197 4 2 1
Total N
2016
(90%) (9%) (0%) (0%) (0%)
As is clear, the HAVE-perfect is the predominant verb form in the data, which is not surprising given the descriptions of this verb form in traditional grammars and empirical studies. The second most frequent variant is the preterite. This is again not surprising; the simple past tense has been frequently described as the major rival of the perfect across varieties of English (cf. Elsness 1997, 2009; Van Herk 2008). In more general terms, the overall distributional analysis corroborates some important findings of the previous research. First, it nicely tallies with the claim that the present perfect is a fairly frequent item in British English (cf. Elsness 1997: 83-84; Gathercole 1986: 540).1 Indeed, the perfect is preferred over the preterite in 1 By contrast, in American English the preterite is in many cases preferred over the present perfect and is therefore more robust in this variety.
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8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
many cases in this variety of English, a tendency that is reflected in the results of the overall distributional analysis. Second, the preterite is somewhat infrequent in present perfect contexts what empirically confirms an assumption often expressed in traditional grammars of English that the chief function of this verb form is that of the narrative tense (cf Quirk et al. 1985:185; Elsness 1997: 81; Biber, Conrad, and Leech 2002: 151). To provide an example, Elsness (1997: 84) reports a higher proportion of the preterites in the fictional text categories, typically associated with narration. He furthermore observes that the higher (relative) frequency of the preterite in fictional texts corresponds to a higher frequency of the present perfect in the informational prose (e.g., articles in newspapers), which is typically more oriented towards the present (cf. Elsness 1997: 86). Rare forms are the present tense, the BE-perfect and the so-called reduced perfect represented by construction of the type been + present participle (e.g., been going). (84) Standard English English (LLC_08) Tell me about yourself. What you been doing? The use of the present tense in StEngEng is restricted to the copula BE in extended-now contexts. In other words, in StEngEng the present tense is only attested in sentences of the type It's ages since I have seen you (LLC 01) and It's a long time since you read any Chaucer (LLC 03). The attested two tokens of the BE-perfect surface with the lexical verb go. Thus, once robust competitors of the present perfect (Mustanoja 1960; Siemund 2004), the present tense and the BE-perfect have become rudimentary elements in the temporal domain of the present perfect marking in contemporary StEngEng, surfacing only very infrequently in highly (lexically) restricted contexts. In what follows, we will therefore focus on the examination of the distributional mechanism of the HAVE-perfect and preterite. As elaborated on in the preceding chapters, several factors have been identified as affecting the choice of the present perfect: semantic contexts, Aktionsart, polarity (i.e. negation), transitivity and time adverbial specification. Preliminary (distributional) analysis reveals some important trends emerging in the data, showing how the verb forms under study pattern with the independent features of the linguistic environment.
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8.2.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts The first important observation arises out of the examination of the distribution of the present perfect and preterite across semantic contexts, as Figure 8.1 shows. 100% • perfect • preterite 80%
60%
I
40%
I
I
20%
0% resultative
-
extended-now
•
experiential
•
recent past
Figure 8.1. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in StEngEng As one can see, the present perfect is robust in all present perfect contexts. Yet the most preferred contexts are resultative and extended-now contexts. In experiential and recent past time contexts the perfect is less robust, constituting only 81% and 76% of the data respectively. These results are by and large compatible with those provided in Gathercole (1986), who studied the use of the present perfect in speech of four native-born Scottish women. Gathercole's finding is that the perfect is used in resultative and extended-now contexts almost exclusively, whereas it is used interchangeably with the preterite in contexts of recent past, although the perfect is preferred in these environments (cf Gathercole 1986: 549). From a wider (historical) perspective, our results tally quite nicely with the finding provided in Elsness (2009), who showed that the present perfect slowly loses its ground against the preterite in British English as exemplified by the Freiburg LOB corpus of British English (FLOB) * Yet another factor which is presumably implicated in the choice of the perfect is time adverbials. As suggested in the theoretical part of the study, these form elements differ from each other with respect to the expression of 2 See Elsness (2009) for further details.
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8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
current relevance: thus current relevance was postulated to be inherent in the meaning of the time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group, whereas it was claimed to be less vividly manifested with other time adverbials which have been labelled as '± current relevance' group. The following figure demonstrates the distribution of the perfect and preterite with various time adverbials. perfect
1
11
1
preterite
11 1 1
y*/
Figure 8.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification inStEngEng Notice that the preterite occurs fairly frequently with time adverbials never (30%), ever (20%), always (26%), before (31%), recently (17%) and just (17%). Interestingly, all these time adverbials belong to the '± current relevance' group for which current relevance have been postulated to be less vividly manifested. The meaning of the adverbs ever, never, always and before can be described as the one of iterativity which lends the idea of recurrence or "repeatability" (Fenn 1987) to the predication. In other words, semantically these time adverbials refer to a time span which is not yet over, thus suggesting that the event can be repeated. We can conclude that semantically ever, never, always and before are compatible with the meaning of an experiential context, which also tends to pattern with the preterite. Consider now the meaning of the adverbial so far, which gives a resultative force to the entire proposition, suggesting that a past event has led to a current result or state (Fenn 1987). The adverbs already, yet and now seem to convey a similar meaning orienting the past event towards the present. The distribution of these time adverbials (which have been classified as '+ current relevance' group in the theoretical discussion) suggests that the
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preterite is almost non-existent in these linguistic environments because its semantics (i.e. definite past time reference) clashes with the explicit orientation towards the moment of utterance inherent in the semantics of the time adverbials so far, already, yet and now. Another important observation is that the HAVE-perfect is more frequent in contexts without any time adverbial specification (e.g., I have broken my leg). The hypothesis that temporally unspecified contexts should be preferred by the perfect has been borne out by this data set. Furthermore, this finding is very much in line with that provided Hundt and Smith (2009), who report in their survey of the present perfect and preterite in British and American English that the HAVE-perfect is used without time adverbial specification much more frequently in both varieties of English. Table 8.2. Co-occurrences of the present perfect and temporal specification, adapted from Hundt and Smith (2009: 63) LOB
FLOB
Brown
Frown
with temporal spec. without temporal spec.
275(33.4%) 548(66.6%)
248(31.7%) 535(68.3%)
240(34%) 466(66%)
211(31.5%) 459(68.5%)
^tam
8^
7^
m
6^
As is obvious, semantic contexts and semantics of time adverbials seem to be highly implicated in the distribution of the present perfect in StEngEng. Yet the present perfect patterning with Aktionsart and transitivity offers further insights into the nature of the variability of the linguistic variable under study. The distributional analysis of the present perfect and preterite by Aktionsart shows that the present perfect is very frequent with both stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of achievement and accomplishment on the other. Table 8.3.
Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in StEngEng HAVE-perfect
stative dynamic accomplishment achievement Total N (2009)
578(87%) 645(91%) 130(92%) 459(90%) 1812
preterite 81(12%) 57(8%) 10(7%) 49(9%) 197
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8. The reference variety ofStandardEnglish English (LLC)
Note also individual distributions of the HAVE-perfect and the preterite across lexical verbs of various types, which reveal that both verb forms exhibit a similar distribution - albeit at different rates - with various semantic predicates.3 • HAVE-perfect • preterite 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200
L stative
dynamic
accomplishment
achievement
Total N
Figure 8.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across lexical verbs in StEngEng4 These results can be nicely tailored with the findings of the LSWE corpus (cf Biber, Conrad, and Leech 2002) which also demonstrate that the English present perfect generally collocates very well with the verbs of all types in Vendler's classification. What this kind of distribution seems to suggest is that the StEngEng present perfect, which is historically associated with telic verbs, has become extended to atelic verbs (i.e. stative and dynamic verbs), having thus generalised its meaning from "current result" to "current relevance" in StEngEng (Lindstedt 2000: 368). Yet, on taking a closer look at the distributional patterns, we might notice that the present perfect is a little bit less robust in stative contexts, constituting only 87% of the data in contrast to achievements and accomplishments (90% and 92% respectively). This difference is not dramatic but one might still wonder why it is so. A more careful observation of patterns in the data reveals that 3 The lower rates of the verbs of accomplishment in Figure 8.3 can be related to verb frequency: whereas the classes of stative and dynamic verbs as well as verbs of achievement contain some highly frequent lexical items (e.g., go, see, hear, etc.), the class of verbs of accomplishment is composed of predicates that are much less frequent (e.g., write a letter, chose a pair of shoes, etc.). 4 This figure contains raw token counts.
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there are two lexical verbs that show a propensity to surface with the preterite rather than the perfect in the data: (85) Standard English English (LLC_02) ci I YIQVQY heard from her since b. The best thing I saw ever like that was Rosemary Baby. The tendency exhibited by some stative verbs to resist the present perfect is therefore still existent in the standard dialect of English but seems to be restricted to certain lexical verbs such as see and hear. Notice also that both see and hear are high frequency verbs in English what might account for their reluctance to adjust to new patterns since high frequency items tend to be more "entrenched" in the human mind and thus could plausibly be argued to be less prone to processes triggering changes in language (cf Croft and Cruse 2004). Finally, co-occurrence patterns of the present perfect with the verbs of the factor group 'transitivity' reveal the highly grammaticalised status of the HAVE-perfect in StEngEng which has expanded its functions from transitive to intransitive (including mutative) verbs and is highly frequent in both environments. Table 8.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in StEngEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
transitive intransitive Copula BE (HAVE BEEN vs. WAS)
1153(90%) 397(89%) 262(90%)
124 (9%) 47(10%) 26 (9%)
Total N (2009)
1812
197
Yet another observation is that the copula HAVE BEEN is much more frequent in the data than the copula WAS. Not only has the perfect expanded its functions to virtually all lexical verbs; it is also very robust with function words such as copulas (what can be viewed as an additional indication of its advanced position along the grammaticalisation path in StEngEng). Our last observation in this section concerns the factor group of negation. The claim that negation is associated with the present perfect (cf. Elsness 1997) is not borne out here, as the present perfect is as frequent in affirmative contexts as in negation environments including constituent negation
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8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
(no, none, nothing, etc.). More importantly, this factor group was not selected as statistically significant in the upcoming multivariate analysis. Table 8.5.
Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in StEngEng HAVE-perfeet
preterite
affirmative negation
1520(90%) 292(89%)
161 (9%) 36(10%)
Total N (2009)
1812
197
The preliminary analysis thus reveals that the distributional patterns of the present perfect across semantic contexts and time adverbials are consistent with the notion of current relevance, which has been postulated to underlie the choice of the perfect in StEngEng in the theoretical discussion. In particular, semantic contexts and time adverbials for which current relevance has been argued to be more vividly manifested appear almost exclusively with the perfect. By contrast, semantic contexts and time adverbials that have been claimed to be less explicit with respect to the expression of current relevance demonstrate a noticeable occurrence with the preterite. Furthermore, distribution of the present perfect by Aktionsart and transitivity has corroborated the initial assumption that the present perfect is a fullyfledged (grammatical) category in StEngEng as it is used in an overwhelming majority of present perfect contexts.
8.2.2. Multivariate analysis We have seen so far in which linguistic environments the StEngEng present perfect tends to surface in spontaneous speech. What still needs to be uncovered is which language-internal categories actually trigger the occurrence of the linguistic form under study, in which order and to which extent. To be able to provide a definite answer to this question, we need to carry out an analysis that would consider all factors simultaneously, thus revealing the underlying system that produces the variation in the body of material. Let us therefore consider the results of the multivariate analysis, a research method specifically designed to deal with the issue.
8.2. Quantitative analysis
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Table 8.6. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in StEngEng (LLC) Perfect Input value
Factor weight
% 90%
N 1812/2009
1. Semantic context resultative extended-now experiential recent past
.69 .63 .27 .19
96% 95% 81% 76%
788/813 394/411 430/525 200/260
range
50
2. Time adverbial specification unspecified time adverbial
.54 .39
92% 83%
1340/1446 472/563
range
15 [-51] [-47]
90% 90%
1153/1277 659/732
[-54] [-49]
89% 90%
292/328 1520/1681
[-53] [-48] [-48]
91% 90% 87%
645/702 589/648 578/659
3. Transitivity transitive intransitive range 4. Negation negation affirmative range 5.Aktionsart dynamic change-of-state verbs5 stative range
Two factor groups were selected as statistically significant - time adverbial specification and semantic context. However, the most important factor group underlying the use of the present perfect in StEngEng is that of 5 Henceforth, we use the term "change-of-state verbs" to refer collectively to verbs of achievement and verbs of accomplishment. A linguistic justification for merging verbs of both types into one group runs as follows: verbs of accomplishment and verbs of achievement always express a change of state. It is on this ground that we can combine both to create a new linguistic factor.
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8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
semantic context exhibiting the range of 50. This finding is consistent with the initial theoretical assumption that the use of the present perfect in StEngEng impinges to a large extent on its semantic/pragmatic realisations. More important, however, is the order in which these semantic contexts are arranged within the factor group. A closer observation of the constraint hierarchy of this independent variable reveals that in fact, there are two contexts favouring the use of the present perfect in StEngEng - resultative and extended-now contexts. As expected, resultative and extended-now contexts occupy the first two positions in the ranking followed by experiential and recent past use types. The order of constraint ranking (i.e. from resultative through extended-now contexts to experiential and recent past time contexts) has confirmed the initial hypothesis formulated as a hierarchy of uses of the present perfect in Chapter 4. Yet another factor group implicated in the distribution of the perfect and preterite in StEngEng is that of time adverbial specification. Although the effect demonstrated by this independent variable is fairly slight (range 15), results of the analysis vividly indicate that the StEngEng perfect tends to surface in sentences not featuring any time adverbial specification, favouring temporally unspecified contexts at .54. Furthermore, cross-tabulating factor groups of semantic context and adverbial specification revealed that a relatively large proportion of all unspecified contexts (slightly less than 50%) are represented by resultative uses. This finding is consistent with the description of resultatives provided in Winford (1993), who observes that we often find no time adverbial specification in resultative contexts because "the resultative perfect does not crucially require adverbial specification for its meaning to obtain" (Winford 1993: 148). It is interesting to observe how semantic context patterns with adverbial specification triggering the occurrence of the present perfect in our data. We could now formulate the linguistic environment in which the appearance of the present perfect in StEngEng is the most probable - a resultative context that is temporally unspecified. This linguistic environment is a logical configuration substantiated by theoretical and empirical research on the present perfect. First, it corroborates the theoretical insight that resultativeness is the most vivid manifestation of the present perfect in StEngEng (cf Comne 1976; Siemund 2004). Second, the pattern of unspecified contexts favouring the perfect suggests that indefimteness is one of the major properties of the English perfect as opposed to the defimteness of the simple past tense (cf. Radden and Dirven 2007: 213, 219).
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8.2.3. Discussion of findings How can we account for the fact that resultative and extended-now contexts are favoured by the present perfect more than experiential and recent past time contexts in StEngEng? Relying on the line of argumentation defended in the theoretical part of the study, we suggest that the key to an explanation of this particular pattern lies in the semantics of present perfect contexts which were claimed to differ from one another with respect to their orientation towards speech time. In Chapter 4, it was argued that semantically both resultative and extended-now contexts are intrinsically linked with the moment of utterance what explains the frequent occurrence of the perfect rather than the preterite in these contexts. By contrast, the orientation towards speech time is less explicit in the semantics of experiential and recent past time contexts which is why the use of the past tense is more expected in these semantic environments. It seems that the notion of current relevance (i.e. "the linking of a past situation towards the moment of utterance" (Siemund 2004: 414), which implies a direct orientation towards the moment of utterance) underlies the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in StEngEng. The second issue that needs to be addressed here is why neither Aktionsart nor transitivity was selected as statistically significant for the use of the present perfect in StEngEng. The non-significance of both factor groups can be explained by the fully developed grammatical status of the present perfect in native English. As the perfect starts its long way along the grammaticalisation path its occurrence can be triggered by certain verbs (for instance, transitive verbs denoting a completed action) and less so by others (for example, intransitive verbs denoting mental activity, visual perception, etc.). At this stage both Aktionsart and transitivity can be said to be highly implicated in the occurrence of the linguistic form under study (cf Carey 1990, cited in Slobin 1994; Mustanoja 1960). However, as soon as the perfect has overgenerahsed its meaning from current result to current relevance, the distinction between lexical verbs (both transitive and intransitive) does not seem to be relevant any longer: semantic context becomes more decisive for the use of the present perfect. At more advanced stages of the grammaticalisation of the perfect, current relevance is no longer an imp l i c a t e that a hearer can infer relying on the meaning of the entire proposition; it is an essential part of the semantic meaning of the present perfect underlying its appearance. Summing up, one might say that linguistic factors underlying the use of the present perfect in StEngEng is a logical synchronic reflex of its diachromc development.6
156
8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
Finally, why should the present perfect be favoured in temporally unspecified contexts? The answer can be once again related to the semantics of the present perfect. To start with, one of the functions of the present perfect has been described as that of indefinite past time reference (cf Leech 1971a) or indefimteness (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Radden and Dirven 2007) in the relevant literature. While using the perfect, one often makes a statement concerning an event in the past without making explicit when this event occurred. According to Leech (1971a), "it is natural to start a conversation indefinitely, and then to progress to definite reference (past tense, definite article, personal pronouns) once a frame of reference has been established" (Leech 1971a: 37). Typically, indefinite past time reference does not call for time adverbials, which explains why the perfect is frequently used without temporal specification. To sum up, the indefinite past time theory, which assumes that the major function of the perfect is that of indefinite past time reference, nicely explains the frequent occurrence of the HAVEperfect without any time adverbial specification in our data.
8.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts Up until now we have been concerned with cases in which the present perfect occurs in contexts described as regular present perfect contexts in traditional grammars of English. The LLC corpus, however, contains 17 cases where the perfect surfaces with definite past time adverbials, as in (86) StEngEng (LLC_02) a. Charlie Wilson's just been here - he's been here two or three weeks ago. I left on July the twenty-eighth. b. It is a community where people seem to be seriously influenced by all these things which have happened so long ago but those things are so much more intense over there. Notice that the use of the perfect in this type of contexts is not in accordance with the descriptions provided in grammars on Standard English. Although rather infrequent, these instantiations of the present perfect are nevertheless 6 It must be mentioned in brackets that supportive diachronic evidence in other research is hard to obtain as most historical studies on the present perfect do not employ variationist methodology.
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157
attested in spontaneous speech of adult educated native speakers of English and require an explanation concerning their occurrence. To start with, constructions of the type They have done a course two years ago are attested across regional varieties fairly frequently and have traditionally been analysed as overgenerahsations of the present perfect to simple past contexts. (87) New Zealand English (from Bauer 1989: 71) Sanctions have been imposed by the UN thirteen years ago. (88) South British English (from Trudgill 1984: 42) I've seen him last year. However, considered within a context of a native variety of English such an explanation can hardly be regarded as a satisfactory one since overgeneralisation is a term traditionally employed to refer to context involving nonnative acquisition of language. Yet another possible scenario is that the perfect with definite past time reference is a residue of a historical pattern, once well and alive in English (cf. Gorlach 1991: 111; Elsness 1997: 248). Dating back as early as 1920, the following example demonstrates the occurrence of the perfect with definite past time adverbials, a trend which is still extant in StEngEng vernacular: (89) Modern English (from Galsworthy, In Chancery, 1920, cited in Elsness 1997: 250) I have been to Richmond last Sunday. At first glance, such constructions attested in our data might indeed look like a reflex of an earlier development in the distribution between the perfect and preterite. However, on closer observation of the LLC corpus it becomes clear that the HAVE-perfects forms are often triggered by certain environments. To start with, some of the perfects featuring definite past time specification appear immediately after another perfect or a present tense form in the discourse. Second, many HAVE-perfects are punctualtelic predicates (for instance, send, meet, occur, happen, etc.). Consider, for instance,
158
8. The reference variety of Standard English English (LLC)
(90) StEngEng (LLC_09)
a. / have had no reply. I mean, I have sent the first letter two or three months ago and the last one about a month ago. b. A: Well, I don't know that I'd go as far as to say that I was fairly well equipped. I mean I've read generally. B: What is your favourite reading novel? A: Any purpose in mind, you know. B:No. A: But this has only occurred to me during the last year. It seems that / have had no reply takes the scope over the entire proposition so that the event of sending a letter anchored in the definite past is still perceived as currently relevant. Furthermore, semantics of the verb of achievement send contributes to the speaker's viewing results of a past action as completed at the moment of utterance and still valid to the point she is making. Similarly, the sentence I've read generally establishes the temporal framework for the following discourse. The effect is that the speaker regards the event as being connected to speech time despite definite past time adverbial specification. Following the logic provided in Dahl and Hedin (2000), one could argue the speaker imposes constraints on the pragmatic discourse by viewing an event that indeed occurred at some definite time in the past as being somehow relevant to her claims made at the moment of utterance; the notion of current relevance is arguably contained in the speaker's attitude towards contents of utterance. For instance, in (90a) above, the speaker's focus is on the entire proposition rather than single events (i.e. sending letters) which she wants to portray as being valid with regard to speech time, thus using the present perfect in contexts that would be unacceptable under normal conditions. The speaker's attitude towards the proposition^ content of utterance, i.e. her regarding the situation as related to the moment of utterance, can be analysed as a constraint conditioning the use of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts in StEngEng. Contextual clues such as verb semantics and the HAVE-perfect introducing the discourse topic play a vital role in reconstructing the speaker's viewpoint on the entire proposition.
8.4. Summary
159
8.4. Summary The major purpose of this chapter was to take a closer look at the variation of the present perfect and other verb forms in the educated native vanety of English spoken in England. First and foremost, the overall distributional analysis revealed an extremely high overall rate of the HAVE-perfect. Furthermore, we saw that the only other variant competing with the present perfect in present perfect contexts is the preterite. Second, the factor-by-factor analysis demonstrated that the present perfect virtually dominates all inherent lexical contexts (state, activity, accomplishment and achievement) on the one hand and transitive and intransitive environments on the other. We interpreted this type of distribution as a sign of a fully grammaticalised status of the present perfect in StEngEng. Third, multivariate procedure revealed that there are two independent factors underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in StEngEng: semantic context and time adverbial specification. As far as semantic contexts are concerned, the order of constraint ranking (i.e. from resultative through extended-now contexts to experiential and recent past time contexts) corroborates the initial theoretical assumption that the resultative and extended-now contexts are most closely associated with the category of the English present perfect. Being manifested with various degrees of intensity in different use types, the semantic component of current relevance thus underlies the occurrence of the present perfect in StEngEng. Moreover, that the StEngEng present perfect is preferred in temporally unspecified contexts nicely tallies with the theoretical observation concerning the major function of the present perfect as indefinite past time marker. Finally, the qualitative analysis revealed that the occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts may be pragmatically constrained by the speaker's attitude towards the proposition^ content of the utterance, which she might view as relevant to (and still obtaining at) speech time.
9. Acrolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
9.1. Sociolinguistic history of Indian English The sociolinguistic history of IndEng has been properly dealt with elsewhere (see the chapter on non-native speaker varieties of English). Hence, we will not consider this topic in any close detail here. One remark is, however, in order. The previous discussion has revealed that IndEng is a highly heterogeneous variety that can be subdivided into various lects the speakers of which exhibit varying degrees of proficiency in the target language. Competence or proficiency in IndEng can thus be ranked on a "cline of bilingualism" (Kachru 1965: 393, cited in Gargesh 2006: 92), "an ascending scale that begins with the most pidgimsed variety and ends with an educated variety, with intermediate points with more or less language mixing" (Gargesh 2006: 92). In the following chapters, we will describe, analyse and discuss variation in present perfect contexts in different types of IndEng, representing various stages on the scale of proficiency in English.
9.2. Data The data for this variety of English was elicited through interviews with 4 informants (two males and two females) from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. All interviewees claimed to have been in contact with the medium of English for more than 15 years. All informants referred to Hindi as their native language.1 English, on the other hand, was referred to as a second language which had never been used as a (predominant) means of communication within the family. However, English existed in the linguistic repertoire of all informants at least since primary school. Since all the informants representing this group went to prestigious public schools, they received instruction in English in all subjects from very early on. In general, public schools ensured close and continuing access to the Standard 1 It must be mentioned here that two informants described Punjabi as one of their substrate languages and one informant referred to Sindi as one of his native languages besides Hindi. In view of the fact that all of them showed extremely high proficiency in English so that substrate influence effects were minimal, these informants were included in the sample.
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(British) English model. More specifically, all informants admitted that they aspired to Standard English as their target. Last but not least, English was used as a means of communication with friends and outsiders. Given such an intense contact with the language, this group of informants was classified as acrolectal speakers of IndEng 2 Each informant was interviewed in a separate session, each session lasting for about an hour. The material collected for this case study is represented by approximately 4 hours of recorded and transcribed spontaneous speech data yielding 26,350 words. In the following sections we will put the hypothesis that female speakers use the HAVE-perfect much more frequently to the test. Furthermore, we will elaborate on the major verb forms used in present perfect contexts in the acrolectal variety of IndEng and the mechanism underlying their occurrence. In doing so, we will present patterns accounting for the close affinity between acrolectal IndEng and StEngEng. The final section deals with the qualitative analysis of the present perfect in definite past time contexts.
9.3.
Quantitative analysis
9.3.1.
Distributional analysis
9.3.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors Figure 9.1 demonstrates that males use the present perfect more frequently than females. Female speakers, on the other hand, use the simple past tense more often.
2 Although acrolectal speakers of IndEng came into contact with English fairly early in life, they never really used the language in the most private spheres of their lives (such as family and close relatives). Furthermore, their exposure to English was by and large limited to the input from advanced second-language learners of English. It is in this sense that the English spoken by the acrolectal IndEng speakers can be characterised as non-native (see also discussion in Mesthrie and Bhatt 2008: 36-37).
162
9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
100% I male
• female
80%
60%
40%
20%
0% HAVE-perfect
J
preterite
present tense
BE-perfect
three verb clusters
Figure 9.1. Percentage distribution of variants by sex in acrolectal IndEng The hypothesis that female learners should use the HAVE-perfect more frequently because of its association with prestige and Standard English is not corroborated by this data.
9.3.1.2. Language-internal factors 9.3.1.2.1. Variation in presentperfect contexts Table 9.1 illustrates the major verb forms used in present perfect contexts in the acrolectal variety of IndEng. Table 9.1.
Overall distribution of variants in acrolectal IndEng N
%
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect three verb cluster
182 54 3 2 2
74% 22% 1% 0% 0%
Total N
243
Notice first of all the robust occurrence of the HAVE-perfect (74%) in the data. Indeed, all informants on the acrolectal variety of IndEng used the perfect consistently in their answers to questions that both featured and lacked the perfect.
9.3. Quantitative analysts
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The only other verb form regularly surfacing in present perfect contexts is that of the simple past tense. Notice also a proportional correlation between these two forms that is close to the standard. Thus, in the IndEng acrolect we attest the present perfect (74%) vs. the preterite (22%), whereas in StEngEng this correlation is as follows: the present perfect (90%) vs. the preterite (9%). Similar to StEngEng, the use of the present tense is limited to contexts featuring the copula BE. (91) Acrolectal Indian English (HCNVE: IE01; IE03) a. It is a culture which is alive for three to five thousand years with such a rich history of art and dance and music and language. b. Since then, anybody who comes from that political section, he's called Naxal. The BE-perfect and three verb clusters are also sporadic and will not be treated here in close detail. In what follows, we will focus on the two most frequent items in our data - the present perfect and the preterite.
9.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite m present perfect contexts As noted above, the HAVE-perfect is the most frequent form in the corpus what provides a nice parallel to StEngEng, where this surface variant is also very robust. The mere existence of a form is, however, not sufficient to identify the underlying grammatical mechanism that produced it. We will therefore present a detailed analysis of factors conditioning variation in present perfect contexts in acrolectal IndEng below. Consider, first of all, distribution of the present perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in the acrolectal variety of IndEng (Figure 9.2). Clearly, there are two contexts in this set of data in which the present perfect is the most frequent - resultative and extended-now contexts. By contrast, the preterite is more robust in experiential and recent past time contexts. Another factor group which might be implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in this variety of English is that of time adverbial specification. Figure 9.3 demonstrates the overall distribution of the present perfect and the preterite in temporally (un)specified contexts.3 3 More differentiated analysis featuring single time adverbials (ever, never, etc.) was not possible due to low token counts.
164
9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
100%
•
perfect preterite
80%
60%
40%
20%
0% resultative
extended-now
experiential
recent past
Figure 9.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in acrolectal IndEng 100% • perfect 80%
60%
1
^m
40%
20%
0% ,
^H time adverbial
^ | unspecified
Figure 9.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in acrolectal IndEng Similar to StEngEng, the present perfect is more frequent than the preterite in temporally unspecified contexts. This finding substantiates the claim that being closely associated with the meaning of indefimteness, the present perfect is preferred in contexts without any time specification (cf Leech 1971a; Radden and Dirven 2007). The perfect is, however, also preferred in contexts featuring time adverbials. The factor group 'Aktionsart' shows further insights into the nature of variability of the present perfect in the variety of English under study.
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Table 9.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in acrolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
^twe
Ju^%)
1502%)
dynamic accomplishment achievement
66(75%) 32(84%) 33 (73%)
21(24%) 6(15%) 12(26%)
Total N (236)
M
54
Table 9.2 shows that the HAVE-perfect is fairly well established with the lexical verbs of all types in Vendler's typology. Similar to StEngEng, the perfect shows a preponderance of stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of accomplishment and achievement on the other. A nearly complete generalisation of meaning of the HAVE-perfect is thus confirmed for this standard-conformant non-native variety of English. It means that the meaning of current relevance is associated with (and applied to) not only punctual-telic but also atelic verbs in acrolectal IndEng, thus encompassing a wide range of contexts. A similar picture emerges from the observations of the distributional patterns by transitivity. Table 9.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in acrolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
transitive
95(75%)
31 (24%)
intransitive
87(79%)
23 (20%)
Total N (236)
M
54
The HAVE-perfect is highly frequent with both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) contexts. This distributional pattern suggests a highly developed grammatical status of the HAVE-perfect in the IndEng acrolect. Note that this pattern also exhibits a striking parallel to StEngEng, where the HAVE-perfect was shown to be highly frequent with both transitive and intransitive environments at the overall rate of 90%.
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9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
Finally, the factor-by-factor analysis of the factor group 'negation' reveals a positive correlation between the HAVE-perfect and contexts featuring negation (both ^-negation and ^-negation). Table 9.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in acrolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
affirmative negation
164(76%) 18(85%)
51 (23%) 3 (14%)
Total N (236)
M
54
As can be seen, the perfect is used with negative statements (85%) more frequently than with affirmative ones (76%). The claim that the present perfect should attract negation environments (Elsness 1997) is borne out by this set of data. Recall that in StEngEng the perfect was used in both negative and affirmative environments equally frequently. Summing up, co-occurrence patterns have revealed close parallels between the acrolectal variety of IndEng and StEngEng. We saw that with the exception of the factor group of negation, the HAVE-perfect patterns with independent linguistic variables of semantic context, time adverbial specification, Aktionsart and transitivity in a fashion very similar to that attested in the native standard variety of English. Our task now is to identify those factors (both extra-linguistic and language-internal) that actually trigger the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the IndEng acrolect, demonstrating the relative strength of each group and constraint ranking within each independent variable. We will perform a multivariate analysis of factors in order to assess the contribution of each variable to the probability of the present perfect in this variety of English. This procedure will enable us to pronounce final judgements as to in how far the grammar of the acrolectal variety of IndEng and that of StEngEng are related to each other.
9.3. Quantitative analysis
167
9.3.2. Multivariate analysis Table 9.5. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in acrolectal IndEng (HCNVE) Perfect Input value l.Sematic context extended-now resultative experiential recent past range 2. Sex male female range S.Aktionsart4 change-of-state verbs stative and dynamic range 4. Negation negation affirmative range 5. Transitivity intransitive transitive range 6. Time adverbial specification time adverbial unspecified range
o/o
77%
N 182/236
.70 .69 .43 .06 64
88% 89% 75% 34%
32/36 74/83 66/88 10/29
.74 .35 39
85% 72%
72/84 110/152
[-55] [-47]
78% 76%
65/83 117/153
[-62] [-48]
85% 76%
18/21 164/215
[-52] [-47]
79% 75%
87/110 95/126
[.63] [.47]
87% 75%
28/32 154/204
Factor weight .77
4 For this analysis to work out it was necessary to merge stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of achievement and accomplishment on the other. Here is a linguistic explanation for this slight rearrangement of factors. Stative and dynamic verbs generally describe events as lacking change. By contrast, verbs of achievement and accomplishment always imply a change of state. Similar to this distinction is the distinction made between telic and non-telic verbs because telicity, i.e. goal-orientedness, always involves a change of state (cf.Brintonl988:26).
168
9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
Table 9.5 shows that only one linguistic factor actually conditions the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in acrolectal IndEng: semantic context. With the relative strength of 64, this factor group represents the strongest constraint conditioning the variation of the HAVE-perfect in this variety of English. Recall that in StEngEng semantic context was also selected as the most important factor group underlying the use of the present perfect. This finding provides a clear indication that both varieties are closely related to each other. Notice also that semantic context exhibits a constraint hierarchy in acrolectal IndEng very similar to that of StEngEng. Similar to StEngEng, extended-now and resultative contexts are favoured by the perfect at .70 and .69, whereas experiential and recent past time contexts are disfavoured at .43 and .06 respectively. The hypothesis formulated as a hierarchy of uses of the present perfect has thus been borne out by this data set, revealing that the underlying grammatical mechanism that produces the HAVE-perfect in the acrolectal variety of IndEng is very similar to that of StEngEng. Furthermore, results of the multivariate analysis show that the extralinguistic variable of sex is implicated in the distribution of the present perfect. Contrary to the initial hypothesis that the present perfect should be favoured by female speakers, our results demonstrate unambiguously a strong favouring effect of the HAVE-perfect for male speakers. 9.3.3. Discussion of findings Results of the foregoing multivariate analysis show that similar to StEngEng, neither Aktionsart nor transitivity was selected as statistically significant in the acrolectal variety of IndEng. In the chapter on StEngEng, we interpreted the non-significance of both factor groups as an indication of the fully developed grammatical status of the present perfect in this native variety of English. Along these lines, we interpret the statistical non-significance of both Aktionsart and transitivity as a sign of the complete development of the HAVE-perfect in acrolectal IndEng because - as will become clear in the ensuing chapters - it is precisely these factors that play a significant role in the distribution of the present perfect in less advanced viz. mesolectal varieties of English. The final issue that needs to be addressed here concerns the extra-linguistic factor group of sex, which has been shown to underlie the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in the variety of English under study. We have a clear pattern indicating that the linguistic variable under study is dependent on the sex of the speaker who uses it. Contrary to the intuitive assumption
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that females rather than males should be using the prescnptively correct HAVE-perfect more frequently, results of the multivariate analysis show a close association between male speakers and the standard conformant verb form. This finding is in sharp contrast with those on native languages spoken in Western societies (cf Trudgill 1974; Nordberg 1997). Various sociolinguistic studies revealed a close association between women and standard speech or more prestigious language in countries such as England, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria (cf. Romaine 2004: 100-102). At the same time it has been noted in, for instance, Chambers (1995: 140-142) and Romaine (2004: 109) that in many contemporary nonWestern cultures women are further away from the prestige norms of the society. For instance, in many parts of the Middle East and Africa women normally do not have as much education as men, thus lacking access to the norms of written language (cf. Romaine 2004: 109). This contention can hardly be regarded as a satisfactory explanation in our case since all informants on the acrolectal IndEng received a similar amount of formal education in English (i.e. private school and two or three years at the university). Why is it then that acrolectal IndEng male speakers use the perfect more consistently than their female counterparts? It is suggested by way of an explanation that men in India are by and large perceived as a socially dominant and upwardly mobile group. This group is in turn expected to speak English conforming to the norms of Standard (British) English as closely as possible because this variety of English is very prestigious in India. The high degree of conformance to its patterns is, therefore, a good indicator of a high social status and good breeding. By this token, male speakers use the HAVE-perfect to mark their orientation towards prestigious norms, which are directly linked to success and prosperity. In other words, identifying themselves with the Standard (British) English, Indian men may want to claim their socially and economically superior status. It follows then that the social and cultural structure of the Indian society is reflected in the patterns of linguistic variation attested in this data. This explanation is in principle compatible with that of Bakir (1986: 6, cited in Chambers 1995: 140), who studied gender variation in Basrah, Iraq. Bakir (1986) shows that men use standard forms of Arabic much more often than women. The author believes that an explanation to this pattern is to be found in the social structure of the Arab communities, which are segregative in essence. Bakir (1986: 6) says Although there are many types of institutions where men and women meet and work together, the men's society and the women's society are still separate,
170
9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
and women are expected not to trespass on men's grounds by doing men's work or assuming roles and participating in functions that men are expected to perform. More generally, Labov (1982: 79, cited in Chambers 1995: 141) asserts that "where women have not traditionally played a major role in public life, cultural expectations will lead them to react less strongly to the linguistic norms of the dominant culture". Summing up, the IndEng male speakers favouring the standard variant seem to represent a pattern characteristic of "a Nearand South-Asian Sprachbund, a linguistic area that has developed a distinct pattern of sexual differentiation" (Labov 1983: 7, cited in Chambers 1995: 141-142).
9.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts Similar to StEngEng, acrolectal IndEng contains cases featuring the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts. Their occurrence is, however, not very frequent: in fact, the entire corpus attests only 11 tokens. Here are some examples. (92) Acrolectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE03; IE04; IE02) a. Once you have fingers raised onyourcharacter, this girl is like that, I have seen her at two in the mornim and sort of all places, it's a problem. Problem for you to get married. b. Even as a child, I've never paid too much attention to what my grandmother would tell me. In India it's more than... if I think how it was when I have been learning languages in another country, when I was learning Spanish or French or even German. c. Well, because I wanted to go on with something and JNU itself is such a prestigious university, the name speaks for itself, and then when I knew that I have been taken for the French course in JNU, that's something simply awesome. Something unbelievable as such. But what is the possible source of these variants? Is it the result of learner strategies, substrate influence from Hindi or other phenomena similar to those attested in the native variety of English? Let us consider the latter possibility first.
9.4. Qualitative analysis 111 In the chapter on StEngEng, the HAVE-perfect in definite past time reference contexts was analysed as being arguably conditioned by the speaker's attitude towards the entire proposition. More specifically, we saw that the speaker's regarding the situation as related to the moment of utterance could be analysed as a constraint underlying the use of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts. Two contextual hints turned out to be particularly useful for this pragmatic-discourse analysis: the present perfect introducing a discourse and verbs denoting a change of state, i.e. telic and punctual verbs. If the occurrence of the present perfect in acrolectal IndEng is constrained by the speaker's attitude towards her utterance in analogy to StEngEng, then we should in principle be able to find similar patterns in this set of data. A closer examination of the acrolectal IndEng corpus reveals that this is not the case. First, the HAVE-perfect appears with both telic and atelic verbs. For instance, as the examples above demonstrate, the HAVE-perfect appears with both telic (pay, take) and atelic (learn, see) verbs in our data. These co-occurrence patterns contrast with those attested in StEngEng, where the HAVE-perfect tends to surface with verbs denoting a change of state in definite past time reference contexts. Second, the patterns featuring the perfect opening a discourse and taking a scope over the following discourse, in which another perfect appears (this time modified by a definite past time adverbial) were not attested in the data on acrolectal IndEng. Another possible scenario is that the present perfect in definite past time contexts is a result of processes involving mother-tongue influence, as suggested in Sanyal (2007). The [...] example [I have bought the book yesterday] (use of the present perfect where the simple past is idiomatic) is [...] intriguing. All Indian languages have the simple past. Why then this confusion? The simple Hindi version of the correct form would be main nay woh kitaab kal kharidi. But confusion begins when one mentally adds the unnecessary thalthi at the end (to say main nay who kitaab kal kharidi thi) in the belief that it serves more emphatically to convey completion of the action. One then mentally translates that unnecessary thalthi into the present perfect. That's how the unidiomatic have intrudes where the simple past suffices. Sanyal (2007: 182-183) There is, however, one major problem with the analysis proposed in Sanyal (2007). What is of crucial importance here is that the auxiliary thi is a past tense (not a present tense) marker in Hindi. The sentence main nay who kitaab kal kharidi thi is therefore better translated as / had bought the book
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9. Acrolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
yesterday. If we assume that Hindi speakers "mentally translate" the Hindi sentence of the type presented above into English, the outcome of this translation should be a sentence featuring the past perfect rather than the present perfect. (93) Hindi (from Agmhorti 2007: 22) Ham kal baazaar gaye the. we yesterday market gone BE-PAST * 'We had gone to the market yesterday.' This is, however, not the case. We can therefore conclude that mental projection of the mother-tongue forms onto English sentences, i.e. substrate influence, is not the most convincing scenario is this case. It seems that a different process underlies this structural realignment of the past time reference system in Hindi IndEng. Apparently, the Hindi speaker of English reanalyses the English auxiliary have as a definite past time reference marker relying on the Hindi auxiliary thalthi as a model for the re-analysis. The present perfect in definite past time contexts is thus better explained in terms of learner strategies manifested in this case by the process of reanalysis. More importantly, similar to Standard English, Hindi does not allow the present perfect, which is formed with the help of the auxiliary BE (Hindi honaa) in the present tense and a perfect participle (cf Montaut 2004: 102; Agmhotn 2007: 78), in definite past time contexts (cf. Sharma, Devyam 24 November 2008: personal communication).5 Consider, for instance, a sentence (94) Hindi *Vah kal cinema gayaa hai. he yesterday cinema gone is *'He has gone to the cinema yesterday.' Since the present perfect cannot be used in definite past time contexts in Hindi, the analysis of the present perfect structures with simple past time reference in IndEng in terms of language transfer from Hindi seems to be highly implausible. Taking all the above-presented facts into account, we can conclude that acrolectal Hindi speakers of English seem to have re-analysed the meaning 5 Dr. Devyani Sharma, QueenMary University of London.
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173
of the HAVE-perfect occasionally extending its uses to definite past time contexts in analogy to the model (perfective participle + auxiliary marker) available in their mother tongue.
9.5. Summary The major highlights of this chapter can be summed up as follows. The distributional analysis revealed that the present perfect is used in a wide range of contexts in the acrolectal variety of IndEng. Not only is it robust with both telic and atehc predicates; it is also highly preferred in transitive and intransitive contexts alike. These patterns are an indication of a highly developed grammatical status of the HAVE-perfect in the IndEng acrolect. Moreover, the close association between the present perfect and temporally unspecified contexts have been confirmed for this variety of English in analogy to StEngEng. The multivariate analysis further demonstrated that similar to StEngEng, semantic contexts are highly implicated in the occurrence of the present perfect in acrolectal IndEng. More importantly, constraints within this factor group are arranged in the order very similar to that attested in StEngEng. Hence, there is a major dividing line between resultative and extended-now contexts on the one hand and experiential and recent past time contexts on the other in both StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng. The underlying grammatical mechanism producing the HAVE-perfect has thus been argued to be identical in both varieties. Qualitative analysis showed that similar to StEngEng, acrolectal IndEng exhibits the occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts. In contrast to the native variety of English, in which the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in contexts normally rendered by the simple past tense was argued to be pragmatically constrained by the speaker's attitude towards the entire proposition, such structures were shown to be better analysed in terms of re-analysis strategies in the acrolectal variety of IndEng. Finally, the statistically significant pattern of male speakers using the perfect more consistently than female speakers has been argued to mirror the social and cultural structure of the Indian society.
10. Upper-mesolectal variety of Indian English (ICE)
10.1. Data This analysis is based on the data drawn from 100 texts of the Indian component of the International Corpus of English (ICE), which is regarded as the upper-mesolectal variety ofIndEng in this study.1 The subcorpus contains a total of 200,000 words. The focus is on the informal spoken register represented by direct conversations (S1A-001 to S1A-090) and telephone calls (S1A-091 to S1A-100). Most of the texts are drawn from the trained ELT teachers, who received varying degrees of instruction in English. The corpus ICE-India studied here comprises both private conversations and discussions, which are frequently mixed. Although a strict distinction between the two categories was not drawn by the authors of the corpus, it was noted in, for instance, Shastn (2002: 2) that many genuinely private conversations constitute a bulk of the private-spoken data of ICE-India. The ICE-corpus studied here is therefore by and large compatible with the standard vernacular represented by the LLC. Of particular importance for the description of this data set is the fact that IndEng has generally been described as a variety marked for its desire for greater approximation to Standard [British] English (Snvastava and Sharma 1991: 192). At the same time it was noticed in, for instance, Sharma (2001) that many Indians ceased to aspire to a British acrolectal standard in their English. As a result, the range in bilingual competence increased (Sharma 2001: 345). Both tendencies are crucial for understanding the type of variation attested in this set of data, which presumably draws on both standard-conformant and standard deviant speakers of English. Moreover, this corpus contains speakers of the major Indian languages included in the Indian constitution. Additionally, some minor languages such as Konkam and Tulu were included in the sample (cf Shastn 2002: 2). 1 Several researchers (for instance, Peter Siemund and Michaela Hilbert June 2008: personal communication) have acknowledged that IndEng (ICE) is a variety well advanced on the acrolectaVbasilectal continuum. However, this variety differs in many important ways from the truly acrolectal variety of IndEng represented in this study by a small-scale corpus (HCNVE). It is for this reason that the Indian component of ICE is referred to as the upper-mesolectal variety in this study.
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The main objectives of this chapter are as follows. First, it aims at portraying the overall distribution of data, while trying to assess the possible origin of non-standard variants. Second, this chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the HAVE-perfect and the mechanism underlying its occurrence in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. StEngEng provides a descriptive point of comparison which allows us to reveal standardconformant patterns in the data. In addition, patterns attested in this body of material are contrasted with those obtained for acrolectal IndEng and mesolectal varieties of English including learner Englishes, i.e. RusEng and GerEng. The aim of this procedure is to show what patterns of variability account for the close affinity obtaining between upper-mesolectal IndEng and the standard grammar of English, and what patterns make this variety similar to other non-native Englishes. The final section depicts the results of the qualitative analysis of data, which deals with those uses of the present perfect that are not in accordance with the descriptions of the present perfect provided in traditional grammars.
10.2.
Quantitative analysis
10.2.1.
Distributional analysis
10.2.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts Let me first of all consider all the verb forms that have been found in present perfect contexts in upper-mesolectal IndEng. Table 10.1 represents the overall distribution of variants in present perfect contexts in the variety under study. Table 10.1. Overall distribution ofvariants in upper-mesolectal IndEng %
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect bare verb stem lone past participle lone present participle three verb cluster ToM^
715 471 60 16 40 9 7 6 1 1325
53% 35% 4% 1% 3% 0% 0% 0% 0%
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10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
First, variability between the present perfect and preterite is robust. Second, two other forms surfacing in the data rather frequently are the present tense and the past perfect. Furthermore, forms such as BE-perfects, bare verb stems, lone past participles, lone present participles, three verb clusters are also attested in the data. As is clear, this variety of IndEng exhibits a system of present perfect contexts in which there is an alternation among many competing forms. The overall rate of forms attested in this variety is in contrast with that observed in StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng. This finding is somewhat surprising given the fact that we deal with the upper-mesolectal variety of English for which a considerable number of similarities with the Standard have been attested, as we shall see in a moment. The fairly robust variation of surface forms can partially be explained by the sample design of the ICE-India, whose creators aimed at compiling a corpus comprising speakers with various regional, ethnical and - to some extent - educational backgrounds. However, this type of variation may also be indicative of the gradual restructuring processes within the present perfect system that are under way in the IndEng upper-mesolect, a variety representing a step by step transition from the mesolect to the acrolect. The second issue that needs to be addressed here is the origin of nonstandard forms. Are they a result of a substrate/superstrate influence or have they emerged due to some general mechanisms (or strategies) involved in L2 acquisition? Obviously, these non-standard verb forms cannot be equated with the English present perfect and therefore cannot be attributed to an English-like grammar. But do they have essentially the same functions as those attested in other non-standard varieties of English or can they perform other functions as well? Let us start the analysis by considering the present tense first.2 Present tense Similar to other varieties of non-native English (for instance, mesolectal varieties of RusEng and GerEng represented by HCNVE), the present tense is attested in extended-now contexts in the upper-mesolectal IndEng, as in (95) Indian English (ICE: S la-052; S la-040) a. They 've advantage because they are practising since May. b. He's explaining the difference between charming graceful and beautiful for half an hour. 2 Neither preterites nor BE-perfects or bare verb stems will be considered in this section as they are analysed elsewhere (see the chapter on basilectal IndEng).
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Furthermore, the use of the copula BE in the present tense is occasionally attested in the corpus which provides a nice parallel to the type of variation attested in Indian South African English (InSAfEng) and South African English (SAfEng) more generally, where the use of the present BE for ext e n d e d ™ contexts have been reported (cf Mesthne 2004b: 1134). (96) Indian English (ICE: Sla-054) Since morning there is no hot water. In contrast to InSAfEng and SAfEng, however, the present tense has also been attested in resultative and recent past time contexts in IndEng, as in (97) Indian English (ICE: Sla-018; Sla-26; Sla-008; Sla-030) a. Now this Khadaklat exchange is recently connected. '...has been recently connected.' b. Smce the autormzatton before a year the staff is reduced by ten people. '...has been reduced...' c. Recently she is appointed as a tutor. '...has been appointed...' d. Recently we do have one snake project. '...have had...' e. No initially U didn't affect me butlthmknow my resistance is much less. '...has decreased' Figure 10.1 illustrates the distribution of the present tense across semantic contexts in ICE-IndEng. I present tense 40%
20%
0% extended-now
1 resultative
recent past
experiential
Figure 10.1. Distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts in uppermesolectal IndEng
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10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
As is clear, the present tense has expanded its functions to contexts other than continuative contexts in IndEng, although it is the most frequent variant in extended-now contexts. The present tense in extended-now contexts has been analysed as a substrate influence in some accounts on, for instance, Irish English (cf Filppula 1999). Abbi (November 2007: personal communication) proposes analysis of these forms in much the same vein for IndEng. Her contention is that since most wide-spread languages of India (for instance, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Malayalam) employ the present tense in extended-now contexts Indian speakers simply map the mother-tongue form, i.e. the present tense, on extended-now contexts while speaking English. If this hypothesis were right, we should have expected the occurrence of the present tense in extended-now contexts only. The analysis presented above reveals, however, that an explanation in terms of substrate influence alone is somewhat problematic with this set of data because the present tense is fairly robust in other present perfect contexts and thus does not replicate the pattern attested in respective substrate languages (i.e. present tense in extended-now contexts). Hence, distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts cannot be entirely explained in terms of direct form-meaning mappings from mother tongue onto the target language. It seems that substrate influence effects closely interact with other more general (or universal) phenomena (such as learners replacing the HAVEperfect with the less complex present tense form) in this variety of English. The analysis of origin of the present tense thus yields both interpretations depending on the context in which the verb form appears. The appearance of the present tense in extended-now contexts is amenable to an explanation in terms of substrate influence, whereas its occurrence in resultative and recent past contexts is better understood in terms of substrate-independent learner strategies. Past perfect Another form surfacing rather frequently in present perfect contexts in IndEng is the past perfect, as in (98) Indian English (ICE: Sla-041; Sla-052) a. Recently Raj had called me up. (context of recent past) b. Even I had heard about it but even I've not seen this girl but many of my friends you know heard, (experiential context)
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This finding is consonant with that of Sharma (2001) who discovered that IndEng differs from native usage by associating had + V-ed with present perfect meaning (Sharma 2001: 343). What is again at issue here is the origin of the past perfect in present perfect contexts in IndEng. To start with, the past perfect has been attested in present perfect contexts in some native varieties of English (for instance, Samana English) (cf Tagliamonte 1997: 47). Moreover, the past perfect apparently used to surface in present perfect contexts at earlier stages of English (cf. Mustanoja 1960: 497). In the light of this evidence one would assume that the superstate influence scenario cannot be entirely excluded in this case. However, in native varieties the past perfect in present perfect contexts is generally extremely rare. Thus, in her corpus on Samana English consisting of more than 7,000 tokens Tagliamonte (1997) reports only 4 past perfect tokens (<0%) in present perfect contexts what forms a noticeable contrast to 41 past perfects (3%) attested in our corpus. Hence, contact with white vernaculars of English does not seem to have played any considerable role for this verb form, a different explanation being required. One possible scenario is that the past perfect has been re-analysed by non-native speakers of IndEng and then extended to present perfect contexts. The re-analysis might have followed the following scenario: the major function of the category of the past perfect is generally to express completion on the one hand and pastness on the other. The speaker re-analyses the past participle as a completion marker, while assigning the function of a pastness marker to the auxiliary had, thus extending the use of the past perfect to present perfect contexts. Since the past perfect for the present perfect has been reported for other non-native varieties of English such as Ghanaian English (GhEng) (cf. Mesthne 2004b: 1133) and is attested (albeit sporadically) in our data from SingEng, RusEng and GerEng, one is tempted to suggest that non-native speakers of English seem to use similar learner strategies (re-analysis of the English past perfect), while acquiring a new linguistic system. However, in the case of IndEng, substrate influence is not to be entirely excluded as in Hindi-Urdu and Bengali, the pluperfect has developed a use to express the remote past in addition to the traditional use of the past perfect (cf. Dahl 1984: 115). We should therefore bear in mind that in the case of the past perfect in IndEng as represented by the ICE-corpus, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to analyse the origin of this form conclusively, disentangling the mother tongue and learner strategies effects. Another issue that needs to be addressed here is why speakers use this "past in the past" form in contexts typically associated with the moment of
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10. Upper-mesolectalvanety ofIndian English (ICE)
utterance. It is interesting to note in this connection that past perfects are frequently used in experiential contexts (as demonstrated in Figure 10.2) for which current relevance has been claimed to be less prominently manifested. 60% I past perfect 40%
20%
0% resultative
extended-now
experiential
recent past
Figure 10.2. Distribution of the past perfect across present perfect contexts in uppermesolectallndEng The speaker of IndEng uses the past perfect to refer to a fairly remote event while speaking English, thus mapping the linguistic form readily available in the repertoire of her native language onto the semantic domain delineated by the English present perfect. As one can see, an interesting pattern arises: verb forms that are associated with the moment of utterance (i.e. the present tense) tend to surface in contexts in which current relevance has been claimed to be more vividly manifested such as resultative and extended-now contexts. By contrast, forms associated with remote past (i.e. the past perfect) tend to appear in contexts that have been claimed to be less explicit as regards the expression of current relevance, i.e. experiential contexts. One is thus tempted to interpret this finding as an additional bit of evidence pointing to the existence of a general mechanism of current relevance governing the distribution of forms across present perfect contexts in different varieties of English. Lone Past Participle The last verb form to be discussed here is the so-called lone past participle represented by constructions of the type / seen it/ I done it. Here is an example from the IndEng corpus (ICE): (99) Indian English (ICE: Sla-026; Sla-038) a. The wrong turnings I have taken in life... That's why I never looked back and had any regrets for whatever I myself done or decided upon with my eyes open. b. How are you? Long time not seen. Where'dyou been?
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Though these forms are fairly infrequent in our corpus data, they nevertheless appear to be an interesting case for the investigation for the following reason. At first glance these forms seem to be constructions in which the auxiliary have has undergone deletion as a result of imperfect L2 acquisition (for instance, speakers trying to get rid of the "weighty" auxiliary have, thus simplifying the originally complex construction). This analysis is, however, not entirely unproblematic since lone past participles are attested in native non-standard varieties of English, both contemporary and historical (cf Tagliamonte 1997: 38), thus suggesting once again a language-contact scenario, i.e. contact with white vernaculars such as northern British dialects (Schneider 2007: 163). A closer examination of these forms reveals that whereas lone past participles appear in both present perfect contexts as well as definite past time reference contexts in native varieties of non-standard British English (cf. Hughes and Trudgill 1979; Cheshire 1982), they are restricted to the former in IndEng. This empirical finding therefore strengthens the deletion hypothesis: if the occurrence of the lone past participle in our IndEng corpus were due to the contact with white vernaculars of English, then we would expect these forms to appear in definite past time reference contexts in IndEng as well. However, this is not the case. In fact, the patterns of occurrence of the lone past participle found in IndEng are different to those found in native non-standard Englishes. We thus conclude that construction of the type / seen it, I done it are reduced variants of the present perfect in IndEng that have emerged due to imperfect L2 acquisition. It seems that universal mechanisms of simplification underlie the use of the lone past participle in this variety of English. Summing up, the preceding discussion has revealed that variation between the perfect and other verb forms surfacing in present perfect contexts observed in IndEng shows striking similarities with native (and non-native) non-standard varieties of English. However, we have argued that these apparent similarities are not to be ascribed to the contact with white vernaculars of English. With the exception of lone past participles, the non-standard forms attested in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng are in principle analysable both in terms of the learner strategies employed by non-native speakers in an attempt to come to terms with a new linguistic system and in terms of substrate influence. This conclusion is in accordance with an observation provided in Winford (2009). In principle, the role of universals [learner strategies] and LI influence are not at all incompatible. In fact, the sharp divide created between the two by
182
10. Upper-mesolectalvanety ofIndian English (ICE)
some scholars is an artificial one because universal principles guide all aspects of the acquisition process, including LI influence and internal developments in the interlanguage system. Winford (2009: 208) From this perspective, the future research must aim at reconciling both explanations by recognising the "competing and complementary roles" (Winford 2006: 106) of substrate influence and language-internal innovations, both phenomena being presumably governed by universal principles of language acquisition. Having discussed the major non-standard linguistic items surfacing in present perfect contexts in our data, we now turn to the description of the distributional mechanism of the forms that surface interchangeably in all present perfect contexts - the present perfect and preterite.
10.2.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts To start with, semantic contexts have traditionally been analysed as decisive factors conditioning the usage of the perfect (cf Fenn 1987; Winford 1993). We hypothesised in the theoretical part that the perfect should appear in resultative and extended-now contexts more frequently. Figure 10.3 presents the distribution of the present perfect and preterite across present perfect contexts in IndEng. • perfect
• preterite
80% 60% 40%
20%
I
J resultative
J
extended-now
experiential
recent past
Figure 10.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in upper-mesolectal IndEng Resultative and extended-now contexts are the two contexts in which the perfect is highly robust. This finding is very much in line with the evidence provided for StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng.
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The second factor conditioning the use of the HAVE-perfect is time adverbial specification. In particular, time adverbials of the so-called '± current relevance' group, i.e. ever, never, just, lately, recently, always, etc., are expected to show a tendency to collocate with the preterite. Generally confirmed by the data on StEngEng, this assumption could also be conclusively substantiated by the data from the IndEng corpus. Figure 10.4 demonstrates the distribution of the perfect and preterite with time adverbials in IndEng. perfect
Ill,
preterite
, ll
Figure 10.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in upper-mesolectal IndEng The adverbials just, recently and today are used more often with the preterite. Second, the adverbs never and always are used interchangeably with both perfect and preterite. These findings corroborate the initial assumption that adverbials of the '± current relevance' group readily pattern with the preterite. The collocation ofjust with the preterite in spoken IndEng is consonant with the data from spontaneous spoken and non-standard varieties of British English. For instance, Miller (2004) describes the simple past with just for recent past time as one of the very frequent features attested in spoken and non-standard British English (Miller 2004: 310). These findings form a sharp contrast to those on written Standard English. In his study of written British English Elsness (1997: 115) reports that the overwhelming majority of just (20 out of 29) are used with the present perfect. We can conclude relying on this evidence that spoken and written varieties of one and the same language tend to exhibit different patterns of variation.
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10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
By contrast, adverbials of such as now, yet, already and so far are used more often with the perfect in upper-mesolectal IndEng, the initial hypothesis that the perfect should be preferred with time adverbials of the '+ current relevance group' being borne out by this data set. Surface forms exhibit co-occurrence patterns similar to those found in StEngEng. The preterite occurs with time adverbials of the '± current relevance' group more frequently than with time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group (the same is true of StEngEng). By contrast, time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group show a strong preponderance of the HAVE-perfect, this bit of evidence being in line with that obtained for the standard variety of English. Finally, what seems to be of interest here is the finding that the perfect is a preferred form in contexts lacking an explicit time reference. Strikingly, StEngEng exhibits precisely the same pattern - the perfect being used more often in temporally unspecified contexts. Further insights into the nature of the variability of the linguistic variable under study are offered by the distribution of the verb forms across inherent lexical aspect or Aktionsart. Table 10.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in upper-mesolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
stative dynamic accomplishment achievement
158(59%) 232(60%) 128(66%) 197(57%)
108(40%) 152(39%) 64(33%) 147(42%)
Total N (1186)
Til
4^
Table 10.2 shows that the present perfect is fairly evenly distributed across verbs of all types at the rate hovering around 60%. This finding suggests that the meaning of current relevance has been to a large extent generalised to the verbs of all lexical types in this variety of English. The distributional analysis of the factor group 'transitivity' yields similar results.
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Table 10.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in upper-mesolectallndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
^dtwe intransitive
404(61%) 311(59%)
256(38%) 213 (40%)
Total N (1184)
TYS
4^
The HAVE-perfect is used fairly frequently (full 60%) in both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) environments. We interpret this piece of evidence as an indication of the comparatively well-established grammatical status of the present perfect in this upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. The last factor group to be considered here is the one of negation. Table 10.4 shows the results of the distributional analysis of the present perfect and preterite by negation in IndEng. Table 10.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in upper-mesolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
affirmative negation
624(59%) 91 (65%)
423 (40%) 48(34%)
Total N (1186)
TYS
4^1
Notice that the hypothesis that the HAVE-perfect should favour negation has been corroborated by these findings: the HAVE-perfect surfaces in 65% of all negation contexts including constituent negation but only in 59% of the affirmative contexts. This provides a contrast to StEngEng, where positive correlations between the HAVE-perfect and negative markers could not be attested. However, the factor group 'negation' was not selected as statistically significant in both varieties (compare results of the multivariate analyses for StEngEng and ICE-IndEng). 10.2.2. Multivariate analysis In order to find out what, if any, linguistic factors underlie the occurrence of the present perfect in IndEng (ICE) and in what order, the binominal step-up/step-down procedure was employed. Table 10.5 presents the results of the multivariate analysis.
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10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
Table 10.5. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in IndEng (ICE) Perfect Factor weight
o/o
N
.60
60,00%
715/1186
1. Semantic context resultative extended-now experiential recent past
.69 .49 .37 .32
76% 60% 51% 42%
335/440 103/169 182/354 95/223
range
37
2.AktionSart stative dynamic change-of-state verbs
.57 .53 .44
59% 60% 60%
158/266 232/384 325/536
range
13
3. Time adverbial specification unspecified time adverbial
.51 .39
62% 49%
574/918 42/85
range
12 [-52] [-47]
61% 59%
404/660 311/524
[-56] [-49]
65% 59%
91/139 624/1047
Input value
4. Transitivity transitive intransitive range 5. Negation negation affirmative range
Our results reveal that with the range of 37, semantic context is the most significant factor group conditioning the occurrence of the present perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. This behaviour parallels that of StEngEng, where the present perfect has been shown to be conditioned by semantic context. Claims with respect to constraint ranking for this linguistic factor group have been borne out for this variety of English: the two contexts favouring the HAVE-perfect are resultative (.69) and extended-now
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(.49). Similar to StEng-Eng and acrolectal IndEng, resultative and continuative contexts are the two environments exerting the biggest influence on the use of the linguistic variant under study. The hierarchy of uses of the present perfect has thus been confirmed for IndEng (ICE). Another factor group implicated in the distribution of the present perfect is Aktionsart. This finding provides a sharp contrast to StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, where the inherent lexical aspect of verbs does not trigger the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect. The fact that the factor group 'Aktionsart' is statistically significant in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng makes this variety similar to the mesolectal learner varieties (e.g., RusEng or GerEng), in which Aktionsart also underlies the occurrence of the HAVEperfect, as will be shown in the ensuing chapters. Notice, however, that with the range of 13, this independent linguistic variable does not condition the occurrence of the present perfect as strongly as semantic context. This in turn forms a sharp contrast to the learner varieties, where, as will be demonstrated later on, inherent lexical aspect also plays a role in the use of the present perfect but has a much stronger conditioning effect (range 19 for GerEng and 26 for RusEng). Additionally, Aktionsart is highly implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE), where it triggers the linguistic variants at the relative strength of 32. It follows that the influence of the independent linguistic variable of Aktionsart diminishes as we move from mesolect through upper-mesolect to acrolect, where it is not implicated in the appearance of the HAVE-perfect any longer. Second, with the factor weights of .57 and .53 respectively, stative and dynamic verbs clearly favour the perfect. Verbs denoting a change of state show a weaker favouring effect; yet with the factor weight of .44 verbs of achievement and accomplishment can still be argued to be preferred by the perfect, as the .44 value is pretty close to the value of .50 indicating a favouring effect. If this interpretation is correct, then the finding is congruous with the results of the distributional analysis in the foregoing section enhancing the hypothesis concerning the fairly advanced grammatical status of the present perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. This again provides a contrast to the learner varieties, which tend to favour dynamic and - to some extent stative - verbs rather than verbs of accomplishment and achievement with the HAVE-perfect. The last factor group exerting statistically significant influence on the variable of the English present perfect is time adverbial specification. Recall that in StEngEng time adverbial specification was also selected as a statistically significant factor. Similar to the native variety of English studied here,
188
10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
the claim (cf. Leech 1971a) that the present perfect should favour temporally unspecified contexts has been borne out by this set of data.
10.2.3. Discussion of findings Results of the multivariate analysis imply that current relevance might indeed lie at the heart of the mechanism triggering the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng since (i) semantic contexts produce the strongest effect on the appearance of the linguistic variant and (n) semantic contexts that were argued to be most associated with the notion of current relevance are also most favoured by the present perfect. The second observation is that the factor group 'Aktionsart' is implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in this data set. Indeed, we saw that the HAVE-perfect is favoured with lexical verbs of all types at the general rate of 60%. Recall that this rate hovers around 90% in StEngEng and around 75% in acrolectal IndEng. It is clear then that despite its fairly well advanced status, the HAVE-perfect has not fully developed in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng as it has not as yet extended its meaning to all relevant predicates. This means that Aktionsart presumably underlies the use of the HAVE-perfect in those varieties of English whose speakers have not developed a full command of the category.
10.3.
Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts
The Indian component of ICE is the only variety of English studied here demonstrating a fairly regular occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference system. The India-ICE sub-corpus studied here attests approximately 50 tokens featuring the HAVE-perfect in contexts relating to a finished segment of time. This upper-mesolectal variety thus provides an obvious contrast to the standard variety of English studied here, where only 17 instantiations of the HAVE-perfect with definite past time adverbials were attested. (100) Indian English (ICE: Sla-92) A: She has passed out MBBS, you know that, last year. B: Yeah, yeah. You have mentioned it last time.
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Such cases have been analysed as a result of language transfer in the relevant literature (cf Sndhar 1990; Sanyal 2007). For example, some Dravidlan languages show an extension of the perfect construction to past meaning. Thus, the present perfect is used in Kannada in those contexts where the simple past tense would be appropriate in languages such as English. As a result, Kannada speakers of English often produce sentences such as 'I have bought the book yesterday' meaning 'I bought the book yesterday'" (Sndhar 1990: 229, cited in Sharma 2001: 348). Language transfer, however, cannot account for the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect construction in definite past time reference contexts in the speech of Hindi speakers of English. As argued in Chapter 9, re-analysis seems to be the best explanation for such cases. In contrast to StEngEng, where the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect with definite past time specification was argued to be constrained by the speaker's establishing a temporal framework with the help of a present perfect construction and regarding the following discourse (containing the HAVE-perfect with definite past time reference) as relevant to the moment of utterance, the HAVE-perfects with definite past time adverbial are rarely preceded by another HAVE-perfect construction in upper-mesolectal IndEng. Moreover, these constructions occur after verbs in the past tense, as in (101) Indian English (ICE: S1A-029; S1A-035; S1A-035; S1A-060; S1A-082) a. Incidentally, you know later on from the photograph I discovered that we have missed out on two very important paints. b. Then I registered my name in the ministry of external affairs, forergn assignment section, and when there was a chance for teachers m Nigeria, the ministry supplied the names of teachers who have registered therr names wrth the mmrstry. c. It was a pleasant experience because that there have been an opportunity to get exposed to people from Afferent parts of the country. d. I did teaching French, then I have come back to... I have gone to literature. e. Chomsky on the other hand drd not do that, when he realized that it has become very complex. In the examples presented above, none of the present perfects is preceded by another construction relevant to the moment of utterance. Nor do they
190
10. Upper-mesolectal variety ofIndian English (ICE)
open a discourse, imparting a piece of information which might be regarded by the speaker as relevant to the point she is trying to make at speech time. Such examples are, therefore, hard to explain in terms of the conditions imposed by the speaker on the pragmatic discourse allowing her to regard the entire proposition as valid at the moment of utterance. It seems that pragmatic constraints of current relevance do not operate in this variety of English despite its pretty advanced status on the acrolect/basilect continuum. It is hence suggested by way of concluding this section that the present perfect has extended its functions to definite past time reference contexts in the upper-mesolectal variety of English, most likely due to both substrate influence in case of Dravidian mother-tongue speakers and re-analysis in case of Hindi native speakers.
10.4. Summary First, the purpose of the foregoing analysis was to present the overall distribution of linguistic variants attested in present perfect contexts in the uppermesolectal variety of IndEng, while assessing their possible origin. Second, the analysis aimed at portraying language-internal factors implicated in the appearance of the HAVE-perfect and revealing their strength relative to each other. Relying on analysis of the distributional patterns of the non-standard variants, we have argued that the lone past participle is better analysed in terms of substrate-independent strategies underlying second-language acquisition. We have furthermore suggested that in the case of the past perfect, learner strategies and substrate influence effects cannot be entirely disentangled. Yet analysis of the origin of the present tense yields both substratedependent and substrate-independent interpretations depending on the context in which the verb form appears. The factor-by-factor analysis has revealed that the distribution of the HAVE-perfect demonstrates many similarities to the standard variety of English and acrolectal IndEng. As in StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, it is preferred (although at a lower rate) by stative, dynamic verbs as well as verbs of achievement and accomplishment and is favoured in both transitive and intransitive environments. This finding has been interpreted as an indication of a fairly developed grammatical status of the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. Moreover, the distributional analysis by time adverbial specification showed that time adverbials of the <± current relevance' group show a pre-
10.4. Summary
191
ponderance of the preterite. By contrast, time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group tend to surface with the perfect more often. Semantics of the time adverbials of both groups was argued to condition these distributional patterns. Furthermore, multivariate analysis has shown that semantic context is the most decisive factor conditioning the occurrence of the present perfect. The claim that it is exactly those contexts in which current relevance is most vividly manifested that are most favoured by the perfect has been borne out by the data from the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. We can safely conclude that similar to StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, the mechanism underlying the use of the perfect across present perfect contexts can by and large be described in terms of the notion of current relevance in uppermesolectal IndEng. In addition, the binominal procedure revealed trends accounting for fairly close similarities between upper-mesolectal IndEng and learner varieties studied here. Similar to RusEng and GermEng, Aktionsart has been selected as a statistically significant factor group underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in this body of material. However, Aktionsart has a much stronger conditioning effect in the learner varieties than in the IndEng uppermesolect. Finally, the qualitative analysis suggested that the appearance of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts is most probably due to both substrate influence and re-analysis, i.e. processes underlying secondlanguage acquisition.
11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
11.1. Data Our next case study focuses on the mesolectal variety of IndEng. The analysis is based on data obtained from four Hindi speakers of English (one female and three males) that were selected from the New Delhi community ofJawaharlal Nehru University. All students were interviewed in a separate session, each session lasting about one hour, yielding a corpus of some 26,095 words. The informants had been in contact with English for more than 10 but less than 15 years by the time the interview took place. Similar to the acrolectal speakers, English was never used as a primary means of communication in the family. Moreover, the mesolectal speakers studied here came into semi-regular contact with English when they started their secondary school education. Three of them visited the so-called government schools where instruction was primarily in Hindi, English being taught as one of the subjects. (One informant received his secondary education in a private (English-medium) school in Bihar.) It was only at the tertiary level that these speakers were exposed to English intensively. Given the fact that these informants are characterised by a much more limited exposure to the target language when compared to acrolectal IndEng, the variety of English spoken by this group was classified as IndEng mesolect. This chapter will present the results of the sociolinguistic and languageinternal analyses focusing on the factors that account for both similarities and differences that exist between mesolectal IndEng and StEngEng. Furthermore, mesolectal IndEng is contrasted with acrolectal IndEng, uppermesolectal IndEng and learner Englishes studied here. Results of the qualitative analysis dealing with the occurrences of the HAVE-perfect in definite past time reference contexts constitute the final section of this chapter. 11.2.
Quantitative analysis
11.2.1.
Distributional analysis
11.2.1.1.
Extra-lmgmsncfactors
As in other small-scale corpora data, the hypothesis that female speakers use the standard variant, i.e. the present perfect, more frequently is put to
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193
the test. Figure 11.1 depicts percentage distribution of variants by sex in mesolectal IndEng. 50% • male • female
^^ 40%
30%
20%
10% 0%
II..
Figure 11.1. Percentage distribution of variants by sex in mesolectal IndEng AVE-perfect preterite tense BE-perfect verb stema bit past perfectfreThe HAVE-perfect occurs inpresent the speech of male speakers more quently. Female speakers on the other hand use non-standard variants i.e. the preterite and the present tense, more often. There is no indication in this set of data that female speakers use the present perfect more consistently than male speakers.
11.2.1.2. Language-internal factors 11.2.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts Table 11.1 demonstrates the overall distribution of variants in mesolectal IndEng. Table 11.1. Overall distribution of variants in mesolectal IndEng N HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect bare verb stem
Total N
95 88 13 2 9 2
209
% 45% 42% 6% 0% 4% 0%
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11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
Notice that the overall rate of the HAVE-perfect decreases dramatically in this variety. (Recall that in acrolectal IndEng the HAVE-perfect occurs in 74% of all cases.) However, the perfect appeared consistently in the respondents' answers (albeit at a lower rate than in the acrolect) irrespective of whether the HAVE-perfect surfaced in the immediate input provided by the interviewer. Thus, 47% of all tokens featuring the present perfect were obtained through responses to questions containing the perfect, whereas 52% of the tokens were elicited through tasks that did not feature the verb form but rather insinuated a present perfect context. By contrast, the overall rate of the simple past tense increases in mesolectal IndEng. Whereas the preterite appears only in the 22% of all cases in the IndEng acrolect, its usage increases up to 42% in the mesolect. Moreover, the overall use of the present tense increases too. In contrast to the acrolectal IndEng, where it was attested in only 1% of all cases, the present tense surfaces in 6% of all contexts in the mesolectal variety of IndEng. Another important observation is that another substandard variant, i.e. the past perfect, starts surfacing in the data although - similar to the uppermesolectal variety of IndEng - its appearance is fairly marginal accounting for 4% of all data. Having obtained a broad understanding of how the linguistic variable under study operates in this set of data, we are now going to assess the overall distribution of the non-standard variants by individual factors coded in the data. The purpose of this procedure is to establish the possible provenance of these forms.1 Present tense The present tense is used exclusively in extended-now contexts in this set of data, as Figure 11.2 demonstrates. 100%
50%
0%
1
extended-now
I present tense
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 11.2. Distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts in mesolectal IndEng 1 The origin of the preterite is not included into the discussion as it is analysed elsewhere (see the chapter on basilectal IndEng).
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This distributional pattern strongly suggests substrate influence from Hindi: the present tense is used in continuative contexts in Hindi. Yet in other contexts the present perfect is required. Consider, for instance, the following examples from Hindi. (102) Hindi (examples b and c are taken from Montaut 2004: 104) a. Vah yahan ek ghante se ha, He here one hour for/from BE-3PSG 'He has been here for one hour.' - extended-now b. Vah bazaar gayaa ha, He market gone BE-3PSG 'He has gone to the market.' - resultative c. Vah kaii baar amrukaa gayaa ha, He several times America gone BE-3PSG 'He has been to America several times.' - experiential d. Pradhanmantrinehaalmein hi tyagpatr diyaha, PM ERG recently-in FOC resignation given BE-3PSG 'The Prime Minister has recently given in his resignation.' -recent past Given the Hindi patterns presented above coupled with the distributional patterns of the present tense in IndEng, the appearance of the present tense in mesolectal IndEng can conclusively be analysed as a result of transfer influence. Hindi speakers of English project form-meaning correspondences (i.e. the present tense in extended-now contexts) available in their native tongue onto the corresponding semantic domain (i.e. extended-now context) of their second language. Past perfect In Hindi, the past perfect is used in three major contexts (cf Jain 1995: 190). Its first use roughly corresponds to the use of the English past perfect and is not of interest here. The other two uses of the Hindi past perfect are more important. To start with, the past perfect can be used to convey remoteness of a past event (cf. Dahl 1984: 115; Jain 1995: 190). This use is in principle compatible with time adverbials such as lately and recently typically employed in the contexts of recent past in English. More importantly, the third use of the past perfect in Hindi is compatible with the experiential use of the English present perfect. Thus, in Hindi the past perfect can be used to refer to an event that occurred once or several times before
196
11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
the moment of utterance (cf. Jain 1995: 190). As is clear, this use corresponds to the experiential use of the English present perfect. Interestingly enough, the past perfect alternates with the present perfect and preterite in experiential contexts in Hindi, as in (103) Hindi (from Jain 1995: 190) a. Vahvahd rahaa - the simple past form He there lived 'He lived there.' b. Vah vahd rahaa hoi - the present perfect form He there lived BE-3PSG 'He has lived there.' c. Vah vahd rahaa thaa - the past perfect form he there lived BE-PAST *'He had lived there.' If the past perfect in mesolectal IndEng is due to the direct influence from Hindi, it is not unreasonable to expect the past perfect to pattern with experiential and recent past time contexts in our data rather than with resultative and extended-now contexts. The distributional analysis of the past perfect across semantic contexts in the variety under study shows that the past perfect is preferred with resultative contexts in our data. Table 11.2. Distribution of the past perfect by semantic context in mesolectal IndEng past perfect
N
%
extended-now resultative experiential recent past
0 7 2 0
77% 22%
T^am
9
It follows that substrate influence does not seem to have played any significant role in the emergence of the past perfect in the mesolectal variety of IndEng under study. It appears that Hindi speakers of English re-analysed the past perfect, extending it to present perfect contexts. A word of caution is necessary here because the token counts of the past perfect are fairly low for us to draw any robust generalisations from this set of data.
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197
Having considered the possible source of origin of the present tense and the past perfect, we will now turn to the description of the verb forms most often encountered in the data - the present perfect and the simple past tense. In doing so, we focus on assessing the role of independent factors operating on the linguistic variable under study in the IndEng mesolect. The purpose of this procedure is to uncover the grammatical system underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in this variety of English.
11.2.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts Figure 11.3 illustrates the distribution of the present perfect and preterite across semantic contexts. perfect
• preterite
80% i
60%
40%
20%
0%
^J
resultative
extended-now
experiential
recent past
Figure 11.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in mesolectal IndEng Notice that the present perfect is more frequent in resultative and extendednow contexts than in experiential and recent past time contexts. Similar patterns were attested for StEngEng and acrolectal and upper-mesolectal varieties of IndEng. The hypothesis that the present perfect should be more robust in resultative and extended-now contexts when compared to experiential and recent past time contexts is substantiated by this data. With respect to the time adverbial specification, the HAVE-perfect shows a preponderance of temporally unspecified contexts, as Figure 11.4 demonstrates.2 2 A more refined analysis featuring single time adverbials (e.g., ever, never, etc.) is lacking due to low token counts.
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11. Mesolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
80% • perfect • preterite 60%
40%
20%
0 % -\
^
1
time adverbial
^
^
1
unspecified
Figure 11.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in mesolectal IndEng Similar to StEngEng as well as acrolectal and upper-mesolectal IndEng, the present perfect is preferred without any time adverbials. The claim that the present perfect should be preferred in sentences without any time adverbial specification has been borne out by this data set. In the previous chapters, a strong association between the present perfect and preterite morphology and punctual-telic events expressed by verbs of accomplishment and achievement, was hypothesised (cf Shirai and Andersen 1995; Housen 2002; Odhn and Alonso-Vazquez 2006). Table 11.3 depicts results of the distributional analysis of the HAVE-perfect and the preterite byAktionsart. Table 11.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in mesolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
stative dynamic accomplishment achievement
23 (54%) 39(51%) 16(76%) 17(38%)
19(45%) 37(48%) 5(23%) 27(61%)
Total N (183) -
95
88
Whereas the present perfect is used most often with the verbs of accomplishment, it is somewhat infrequent with verbs referring to momentary actions involving a change of state. It is remarkable, however, that the variation between the present perfect and the preterite is still fairly robust in stative and dynamic environments. Apparently, the present perfect has not extended its inherent meaning (i.e. the one of current relevance) to all lexical verbs in the mesolectal variety of IndEng.
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199
The next factor group to be considered here is that of transitivity. The hypothesis developed in the previous chapters predicts that the present perfect occurs in a reduced number of transitive and intransitive (including mutative) environments. Table 11.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in mesolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
^dtwe intransitive
56(51%) 39(52%)
53^48%) 35 (47%)
Total N (183)
Vs
88
Table 11.4 shows that the HAVE-perfect generally alternates with the preterite in both transitive and intransitive contexts. This patterning is interpreted as a sign that the category of the present perfect has not been completely developed in the mesolectal variety of IndEng. The last factor group to be discussed here is that of negation. Table 11.5 demonstrates distribution of the present perfect and preterite by negation. Table 11.5. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in mesolectal IndEng HAVE-perfect affirmative negation3
8 4 ^ 11(64%)
Total N (183)
Vs
preterite 8 2 ^ 6(35%) 88
The claim that the perfect should attract negative environments (cf Elsness 1997; Van Herk 2008) has been corroborated by this data. This finding nicely tallies with those obtained for the acrolectal and upper-mesolectal varieties of IndEng. Similar to acrolectal and upper-mesolectal IndEng, this factor group was not selected as statistically significant for this variety of English, as the upcoming multivariate analysis will demonstrate.
3 In this data set, the "not-negation" and "no-negation" were merged due to low token counts.
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11. Mesolectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
11.2.2. Multivariate analysis As with the previous data sets, the major purpose of the multivariate procedure is to establish which constellation of factors constrain variation of the present perfect, in what order and with what effects. Table 11.6 presents the results of the binominal step-up/step-down analysis. Table 11.6. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE) Perfect Input value l.Semantic context resultative extended-now experiential recent past range 2.AktionSart accomplishment stative dynamic achievement range 3. Negation negation affirmative range 4. Transitivity transitive intransitive range 5. Time adverbial specification unspecified time adverbial range 6. Sex male female range
o/o
51%
N 95/183
.69 .53 .38 .19 50
68% 57% 44% 20%
51/75 15/26 23/52 6/30
.63 .61 .51 .31 32
76% 54% 51% 38%
16/21 23/42 39/76 17/44
[-56] [-49]
64% 50%
11/17 84/166
[-53] [-45]
51% 52%
56/109 39/74
[-52] [-39]
55% 38%
81/147 14/36
[-48] [-59]
52% 48%
80/152 15/31
Factor weight .51
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201
As is clear, two factor groups were selected as statistically significant in this body of material: semantic context and Aktionsart. With the relative strength of 50, semantic context is the strongest factor group exerting a persistent influence on the occurrence of the present perfect. It is, hence, the most significant independent linguistic variable in this set of data. Furthermore, constraint ranking for this factor group is very similar to those attested for StEngEng, acrolectal IndEng and upper-mesolectal IndEng. To be more precise, resultative and extended-now contexts, i.e. contexts for which current relevance was hypothesised to be most vividly manifested, show a favouring effect for the HAVE-perfect, whereas experiential and recent past time contexts show a disfavouring one. The second linguistic environment triggering the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in this data set is Aktionsart. With the relative strength of 32, this is the second factor conditioning variation of the HAVE-perfect in the mesolectal variety of IndEng. Recall that in StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, Aktionsart was not selected as a statistically significant factor group. By contrast, the inherent lexical aspect was shown to trigger the occurrence of the present perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng. Similar to the IndEng upper-mesolect, Aktionsart is the second significant factor underlying the choice of the perfect in the mesolectal IndEng. In the following chapters, we shall see that Aktionsart is highly implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the mesolectal learner Englishes such as RusEngandGerEng. Moreover, the HAVE-perfect is favoured with stative, dynamic verbs and verbs of accomplishment in the IndEng mesolect. By contrast, the verbs of achievement are disfavoured by the perfect in this variety. In the data set representing IndEng upper-mesolect, we saw that the perfect is basically favoured with the verbs of all lexical types, which is indicative of its rather advanced grammatical status in this variety of English. By contrast, the HAVE-perfect has not extended its meaning to all lexical verbs in the mesolectal variety of IndEng as the verbs of achievement are still disfavoured here. The meaning of current relevance has not been completely generalised in the IndEng mesolect, i.e. its speakers have not yet learnt to associate the HAVE-perfect with predicates of all lexical types. 11.2.3. Discussion of findings Similar relative strength effects and identical constraint ranking of semantic contexts account for a close association between mesolectal IndEng and StEngEng as well as acrolectal IndEng and upper-mesolectal IndEng. The
202
11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
grammatical mechanism producing the HAVE-perfect in the body of material studied here can be described in terms of the notion of current relevance, an explanation suggested for StEngEng and other related varieties. In contrast to StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng but similar to the uppermesolectal IndEng, Aktionsart was shown to be implicated in the choice of the present perfect in the IndEng mesolect. This finding corroborates the very broad postulate of the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis frequently discussed in second-language acquisition studies that inherent semantic properties of the verb predicate underlie the use of a non-native tense and aspect system at earlier stages of second-language development (cf Andersen 1991; Housen 2002). Aktionsart is, however, not the strongest factor triggering the present perfect in this set of data. Indeed, the underlying grammatical mechanism producing the HAVE-perfect in mesolectal IndEng is a result of Aktionsart and semantic context simultaneously operating on the linguistic variant of the HAVE-perfect in mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE). This evidence suggests that Aktionsart triggers the HAVE-perfect in those varieties of non-native English whose speakers have not completely mastered the category under study. Apparently, less proficient speakers rely on additional clues from the linguistic environment such as verb semantics (in addition to pragmatic/semantic context, which is a much more abstract language construct) in order to analyse a given environment as appropriate for the use of the present perfect.
11.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts The overgenerahsation of the present prefect to definite past time reference contexts is very infrequent in mesolectal IndEng especially when compared to acrolectal IndEng and upper-mesolectal IndEng. Thus, only two cases featuring the present perfect referring to a specific moment in the past were attested for this variety of IndEng. (104) Mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE06) a. That was many funny from now. Because in our school we ve enjoyed a lot. Schools and in home, with the parents, whenever we wanted, we watched TV... b. And this all has not happened in the vast and nowadays it's happening more and more. People are getting more closer...
11.4. Summary
203
This infrequency can be partially explained by the fact that Hindi does not allow for the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts (see the chapter on acrolectal IndEng). In other words, since Hindi imposes constraints on the distribution of the present perfect, prohibiting this verb form in contexts focusing on definite past time, we could assume that these constraints also operate in L2, accounting for the relatively rare occurrence of the present perfect with definite past time reference in mesolectal IndEng. At the same time, avoidance strategies may also account for the rare occurrence of the English HAVE-perfect in the mesolectal variety of IndEng. Being not entirely familiar with the category, the speakers may simply try to avoid using it. This assumption is substantiated by the empirical fact that the HAVE-perfect is indeed underrepresented in this variety of English, surfacing in only 45% of all target uses.
11.4. Summary Summing up, the sociolinguistic hypothesis that females should use the target-like present perfect more frequently than males has not been substantiated by this set of data. In fact, it was shown that male speakers use the HAVE-perfect more frequently. Furthermore, this factor group was not selected as statistically significant in the binominal analysis. Analysis of the origin of non-standard variants in the data reveals that whereas the present tense is better analysed in terms of substrate influence from Hindi, the past perfect is more amenable to the scenario where reanalysis must have played a decisive role. Distributional analysis revealed that the mesolectal IndEng HAVEperfect is preferred in temporally unspecified contexts, a very similar pattern being attested for the StEngEng perfect. Moreover, distribution of the present perfect by transitivity showed patterns suggesting that the HAVEperfect is not a fully-fledged grammatical category in mesolectal IndEng. Further evidence has been adduced to this extent by the multivariate analysis, which demonstrated that although the HAVE-perfect is favoured by stative and dynamic verbs as well as by verbs of accomplishment, it is still very unusual in contexts featuring verbs of achievement. We suggested by way of an explanation that the present perfect has not extended its inherent meaning (i.e. the one of current relevance) to all lexical verbs in the mesolectal variety of IndEng. Another important observation is that in contrast to StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, mesolectal IndEng exhibits a system of uses of the present perfect constrained by the linguistic variable of
204
11. Mesolectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
Aktionsart. That inherent lexical aspect is highly implicated in the distribution of the HAVE-perfect in mesolectal IndEng is an important piece of evidence suggesting a close association between the latter and the learner varieties studied here, in which verb semantics underlies the use of the present perfect, as will be demonstrated in the following chapters. Moreover, we saw that the strongest factor group conditioning the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in the data is that of semantic context. The mechanism producing the constraint ranking for this factor group in mesolectal IndEng on the one hand and StEngEng, acrolectal IndEng and uppermesolectal IndEng on the other was shown to be identical. We therefore conclude that the semantic component of current relevance ultimately constrains the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in mesolectal IndEng, very similar to StEngEng and acrolectal/upper-mesolectal Indian Englishes. Finally, it was argued that the rare occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in definite past time reference contexts can be explained in terms of the constraints that speakers impose on this verb form in analogy to their native language, i.e. Hindi. At the same time it was suggested that the general infrequency of this form in both present perfect and definite past time reference contexts may also be a result of avoidance strategies, which L2 speakers often employ in order to deal with a complex category.
12. Basilectal variety of Indian English (HCNVE)
12.1. Data The data for this corpus was obtained from the sociolinguistic interviews with 4 informants (three males and one female) of the Jawaharlal Nehru University community in New Delhi. All informants came from villages in Rajasthan, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. All of them referred to Hindi as their native language. One informant had Bhojpuri, a variety of Hindi spoken in different parts of Bihar (Agmhotn 2007: 5), as an additional substrate language. Given the fact that all the speakers grew up in economically and socially deprived areas, it should not come as a surprise that they had very little or no access to the target language (either in a classroom or in the surrounding environment) during their school time. Only after the beginning of their tertiary education did they come into regular contact with English. Their exposure to English on a regular basis did not exceed a five-year period. It follows that these speakers represent a group with the least amount of contact to the target language. They were hence classified as basilectal speakers of IndEng. Each informant was interviewed in a separate session, each session lasting for about one hour. The corpus on basilectal IndEng is hence represented by 4 hours of recorded and transcribed spontaneous speech data. Together, the material used for studying this variety amounts to some 13,895 words. In the following sections we shall take a closer look at the patterns of use of the linguistic variable in this data set, the major hypothesis being that speakers with the least amount of contact should demonstrate patterns of use of the present perfect that would strongly deviate from StEngEng.
12.2.
Quantitative analysis
12.2.1.
Distributional analysis
12.2.1.1. Variation m present perfect contexts Table 12.1 depicts the overall distribution of variants in the basilectal variety oflndEng.
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12. Basilectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
Table 12.1. Overall distribution of variants in basilectal IndEng
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect bare verb stem lone present participle modal verb + infinitive Total N
N 4 35 5 10 16 2 1 73
% 5% 47% 6% 13% 21% 2% 1%
Notice the rare occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the data, which made the investigation of the sociolinguistic claim that female learners use the perfect more frequently as well as the analysis of the language-internal factors for this linguistic variant virtually impossible. Indeed, informants on this data set had enormous difficulties in using the present perfect irrespective of whether or not the HAVE-perfect surfaced in the question posed by the interviewer. In other words, basilectal speakers experienced problems with both morphology and semantics of the present perfect. Note on the other hand the robust occurrence of non-standard variants. The simple past tense is the most frequent verb form in the data followed by bare verb stems, the BE-perfect and the present tense. The frequency rates thus suggest a real difference from StEngEng. In the following, we shall consider the possible source of these non-standard forms attested in present perfect contexts in basilectal IndEng. In doing so, we shall take a closer look at the distributional patterns of these forms across semantic contexts and contrast them with those of the substrate language. If the factorby-factor analysis of a surface variant attested in IndEng reduplicates the distributional patterns of this form in the mother tongue, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the speaker produces L2 utterances based on the patterns available in her LI, i.e. a substrate influence scenario. If on the other hand the distributional patterns of a verb form observed in the variety of English under study radically diverge from those attested in the mother tongue, a different explanation is required. BE-perfect The BE-perfect is a surface variant that is attested in the data on basilectal IndEng fairly frequently. Similar to other non-standard varieties of English
12.2. Quantitative analysts 207 (for instance, Irish English, cf. Hams 1984b; Filppula 1999; Siemund 2004), this item is frequently used with the verbs of motion and change-of-state verbs, as in (105) Basilectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE05) a. ... and lam come from KarsM Vetale, it is a so of good university b.I'ma Hindi medium student and in JNUevery student talk in English, so I'm improve my English. c. ... and my English is not so well, so in class, in my class, it is become very bad impression. d. Western culture, dress, some educations also because English is come from West, Western culture. In contrast to other non-standard varieties, the BE-perfect occurs with lexical verbs different from those traditionally mentioned in dialectal literature on varieties of English. These verbs are give, get and define, as in (106) Basilectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE05; IE10) a. I find that JNU is give me a good background in my education; in JNU, every student is free, they do many work. b. In my family, very nice and say my father is always get to us and therefore my brother is always get to me too much. [A male informant talks about influence exerted by his family on his life.] c. After 1947 we do everything, we are free, we are defined our liberty and equality, so it's different [now].' How can we account for this interesting pattern? Note that in Hindi the present perfect is formed with the help of the auxiliary honaa, which is literally translated as 'be' into English (cf. Agmhotn 2007: 78). Being a major tense marker in Hindi, honaa generally patterns with all lexical verbs without any restrictions. It can thus be used in transitive and intransitive environments with verbs denoting a state, an activity or a change of state (cf. Jain 1995: 185-189; Montaut 2004: 103). As a result, the BE-perfect appears in a wide spectrum of contexts in basilectal IndEng. This spectrum is much broader when compared to that attested in, for instance Irish English, where it is 1 Notice also that the copula BE tends to appear with the uninflected verb stem in basilectal IndEng. This pattern suggests another striking difference from other non-standard varieties of English.
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12. Basilectal variety ofIndian English (HCNVE)
restricted to mutative verbs (cf. Filppula 1999: 117). The pieces of evidence presented so far point to the Hindi substratum as a possible explanation of the BE-perfect in basilectal IndEng. Bare verb stems Another verb form frequently surfacing in the data is the bare verb stem. These constructions represent uninflected (or bare) verb forms, as in (107) Basilectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE10) a. Do you think that the Internet has changed our lives? - Yeah, Internet change our lives. b. Bit m this time, my father talked to me and always give an example to other as me. c. Yeah, because my uncle live their and I got a chance to visit. But other state 0 never visit. Because I didn 't get a chance to visit the rest. Since Hindi is a language with a fairly extensive verbal morphology, i.e. the main verbal element captures the distinctions in person, gender, number, aspect and mood (cf. Agmhotn 2007: 85), we can safely assume that bare verb stems are not the result of direct influence from Hindi. Indeed, bare verb stems make a convincing case for the learner strategy of simplification in this variety of English. The phenomenon of simplification can be expected in those varieties whose speakers exhibit a fairly low level of proficiency in the target language. By this token, basilectal speakers of IndEng most probably replace the inflected verb forms with the reduced uninflected variants as a result of very limited knowledge of English. It is therefore no surprise that the abundant occurrence of uninflected verbs makes basilectal IndEng very similar to what has become termed as a "basic variety" in studies on second-language acquisition: a simple form of language that adult second-language learners develop outside the classroom (cf. Klein and Perdue 1997). Indeed, the use of bare stems has been described as a universal feature of early interlanguage systems (cf. Winford 2009: 223). Present tense The next verb form requiring a word of explanation is the present tense. We saw in the previous chapter that Hindi requires the use of the present tense in extended-now contexts. If the use of the present tense in basilectal IndEng
12.2. Quantitative analysis 209 is due to the transfer from Hindi, we should expect the present tense in ext e n d e d ™ contexts only. Although the present tense is not very robust in this set of data, it is restricted to extended-now contexts and its occurrence is thus best analysed in terms of substrate influence from Hindi. 100 % 50%
0%
1
extended-now
I present tense
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 12.1. Distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts in basilectallndEng Preterite The last verb form to be considered in this section is that of the simple past tense. It is the most frequent variant accounting for as much as 47% of the overall data. Basilectal speakers of IndEng often use this form to refer to events resulting in some kind of change at the moment of utterance, as in (108a) to (108c). Additionally, they use it in contexts that can be described in terms of repeatability, i.e. experiential contexts, as in (108d) and (108e). (108) Basilectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE05; IE10) a. That's why broke the family in pieces. The sons are living alone and the fathers and parents are living alone. b. And they divide into - there's different, they adopted Sikh culture. c. He is also doing M.A. in JNU, and my sister istopped visiting istudying and now she married. d. Have you travelled in India? - No, not. Only in Bihar and JNU. Not so travelled. e. Like America give India economic help, and they also help Pakistan, and Britain also helped, so globalisation is good. In order to assess the origin of this verb form in the data, we need to take a closer look at the tense and aspect system of Hindi. More specifically, we are going to consider the distribution of the past tense in Hindi. If the distribution of the simple past tense in Hindi is similar to the distribution of this verb form attested in basilectal IndEng, it is not unreasonable to suggest substrate influence as a possible explanation of the preterite in present
210
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perfect contexts for this variety of English. If, on the other hand, the distributional patterns in two languages do not coincide, a different explanation is required. In Hindi, the simple past tense expresses "a bound compact interval with no relation to the present time of speech" (Montaut 2004: 104), as in (109) Hindi (from Montaut 2004: 104) Uskn pustak kab niklii? His book when appeared 'When did his book appear?' This use of the simple past tense is in stark contrast to the Hindi present perfect tense, which is used to "express an action that is completed by the present time, and that completed action has some link, effect, or relevance in the present" (Jain 1995: 185). Additionally, the Hindi simple past tense is used to render a narration of events or a sequence of occurrences pertaining to the past (cf Montaut 2004: 105). (110) Hindi (from Montaut 2004: 104) Bahut har liyaa hai aapne; gaav mar kya kuch kam hiyaa hai? Bhandaanyo ko raavto se bhirva diyaa; khandhunyo aur josiyo mar pustainn- dusmann harvaa dii, aur kuch na banaa, to 'kha-ba'kaa Mi cakkar calaa diyaa. 'You have done (present perfect) quite a lot indeed; have you neglected anything (present perfect) in the village? You set (simple past) the Bhandan to fight against the Ravats; you started off (simple past) quarrels between the Khandunya and the Joshi, and (as) nothing worked (simple past), then you played the trick (simple past) of inner rivalries...' As is clear, the use of the Hindi simple past is similar to the use of the English preterite. In addition, this verb form is not preferred in either resultative or experiential contexts in Hindi. For instance, the Hindi simple past tense is not allowed in the sentences of the type Have you had your lunch (already)?, which is a prototypical example of the resultative context. Moreover, the present perfect is strongly associated with the contexts of the type Have you ever been to America?, which is clearly an experiential context (cf. Sharma, Devyam 24 November 2008: personal communication). Finally, contexts of recent past require the use of the perfect and sometimes the past perfect in Hindi.
12.2. Quantitative analysis
211
These distributional patterns suggests that the high frequency of the simple past tense in present perfect contexts attested in the basilectal variety of IndEng is not due to substrate influence from Hindi as the preterite is not a preferred variant in the respective contexts in Hindi. Consequently, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that basilectal speakers of IndEng use the morphosyntactically simpler forms {asked, helped, jumped, explained, etc.), avoiding the more complex present perfect, as a result of their limited proficiency in the target language. The universal learner strategies of simplification and avoidance seem to lie at the heart of such robust occurrence of the preterite in the IndEng basiled. 12.2.1.2. The simple past tense in present perfect contexts Having considered the question of the origin of the simple past tense, we shall now take a closer look at its co-occurrence patterns with other language-internal factors, starting with semantic context. Figure 12.2 illustrates distribution of the preterite across various semantic environments in basilectal IndEng. 100% • preterite • other variants 80%
60%
40%
20%
0% extended-now
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 12.2. Distribution of the simple past tense across present perfect contexts in basilectal IndEng Notice that the preterite occurs most frequently in experiential and recent past time contexts. It is less robust in extended-now and resultative environments. This finding is in accordance with the initial hypothesis that the simple past tense can be expected to be robust in environments not intrinsically associated with the moment of utterance, i.e. experiential and recent past time contexts.
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12. Basilectal variety ojIndian English (HCNVE)
Figure 12.3 presents the percentage distribution of the simple past tense by time adverbial specification. It was hypothesised that the preterite should be generally associated with time adverbial specifiers. 80% • preterite • other variants
0% -I
^
1 time adverbial
^
1 unspecified
Figure 12.3. Distribution of the simple past tense by time adverbial specification in basilectal IndEng Figure 12.3 demonstrates that this assumption is not substantiated by this data set. The preterite is fairly robust in temporally unspecified contexts. By contrast, it is somewhat infrequent with various time adverbials. The next factor group to be considered here is that of Aktionsart. Table 12.2 illustrates the results of the distributional analysis of the preterite with the lexical verbs of four major types: stative, dynamic, accomplishment and achievement. Table 12.2. Distribution of the simple past tense by Aktionsart in basilectal IndEng preterite
other variants
stative dynamic accomplishment achievement
8(72%) 14(38%) 4(40%) 9(56%)
3 (27%) 22(61%) 6(60%) 7(43%)
Total N (73)
35
38
The hypothesis that verbs of accomplishment and verbs of achievement should be used with the past tense morphology more frequently is not borne out by this data. Indeed, the preterite seems to be fairly evenly distributed with verbs of all lexical types. Stative environments highly favour the preterite although raw token counts are too low to draw any robust generalisations.
12.2. Quantitative analysts
213
The next table shows the distribution of the preterite by negation in basilectal IndEng. We test the claim that the preterite is associated with affirmative contexts, as demonstrated in, for instance, Van Herk (2008). Table 12.3. Distribution of the simple past tense by negation inbasilectal IndEng preterite
other variants
affirmative negation2
33 (50%) 2(28%)
33 (50%) 5 (71%)
Total N (73)
Ts
38
It follows that the preterite is preferred in affirmative contexts, whereas it is dispreferred in linguistic environment featuring negation. The token counts for negation are, however, too low for us to draw any robust generalisation here. The final factor group examined here is transitivity, the claim that the preterite tends to favour transitive verbs, as shown in Davydova (2008: 7), being put to the test. Table 12.4. Distribution of the simple past tense by transitivity in basilectal IndEng preterite
other variants
transitive intransitive
23(58%) 12(37%)
16(41%) 20(62%)
Total N (71)
3l
3^
Table 12.4 shows that the simple past tense is more frequent in transitive environments, the relevant hypothesis being confirmed. Note that the distributional profiles depicted in this section tend to remain more or less stable across individual speakers. Our next step is to reveal the combined impact of all factor groups considered so far on the occurrence of the past tense in the basilectal variety of IndEng.
2 In this data set, the "not-negation" and "no-negation" were merged due to low token counts.
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12. Basilectal variety ojIndian English (HCNVE)
12.2.2. Multivariate analysis Table 12.5 presents the results of the logistical regression analysis earned out by the Goldvarb 2001 programme, which calculated the probability of occurrence of the simple past tense in the body of material 3 Table 12.5. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the preterite in basilectal IndEng (HCNVE) Preterite Input value l.Aktionsart change-of-state verbs stative and dynamic
o/o
Factor weight .47
47%
N 35/73
[-50] [-49]
50% 46%
13/26 22/47
[-59] [.38]
58% 37%
23/39 12/32
range 2. Transitivity transitive intransitive range
3 For this analysis to work out, various modifications had to be introduced into the data. First, stative and dynamic verbs were merged into one factor and so were verbs of achievement and accomplishment due to poor distribution cells in the first step of the multivariate procedure (see Chapters 8 and 9 forthe linguistic explanation of this rearrangement of factors). Second, factor group "negation" had to be removed from the analysis as it was badly distributed across various factor groups. Finally, semantic context and Aktionsart showed interactions. We therefore did separate runs for each factor group and then compared them in order to find out what analysis was more suitable for the data. Both analyses were contrasted according to the following criteria: 1) convergence achieved for each run of the analysis, 2) identical constraint ranking for each factor at each level of the analysis, 3) identical step-up and step-down analyses, 4) log likelihood (cf Taghamonte 2006: 229). Taking all these points of comparison into consideration, it could be shown that the run from which semantic context and negation were removed was the best analysis of the data set. This run is therefore represented in the table. No data (ad.) is provided for semantic context and negation. It must also be mentioned that results of this analysis must be treated with some caution due to low token numbers.
12.2. Quantitative analysts 215 Input value 3. Time adverbial specification unspecified time adverbial
Factor weight
%
N
[-53] [-41]
52% 39%
26/50 9/23
range 4. Semantic context resultative extended-now experiential recent past
ad. ad. ad. ad.
range 5. Negation affirmative negation
ad. ad.
range
The results of the multivariate analysis demonstrate that none of the factor groups was selected as statistically significant for the occurrence of the simple past tense in the basilectal variety of IndEng.4 In other words, none of the factors considered so far has an appreciable effect on the appearance of the linguistic variant under study in this variety of English. It follows that none of the linguistic factors that were shown to constrain variation in present perfect contexts in acrolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng appears relevant to the discussion of the IndEng basiled. To be able to account for this result, we need to take a closer look at the general stages of the formal and functional development of tense-aspect morphology within an L2 learner of English.
12.2.2.1. Stages in the formal and functional development of the English tense-aspect morphology First of all, the formal development of the L2 verb system can be subdivided into four main stages.5 In a first stage, verbs are either missing or appear in the form of formulaic expressions. In a second stage, morpho4 Semantic context, which was handled in a separate analysis, did not produce a significant effect on the occurrence of the simple past tense either. 5 This section is largely based on discussion provided in Housen (2002: 157-165).
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12. Basilectal variety ojIndian English (HCNVE)
logically invariant forms start surfacing in L2 speech. For the most part they are unmarked stem forms (e.g., want, eat, etc.), or bare verb stems in our terminology. According to Housen (2002), these invariant verb forms function as default forms in all grammatical, semantic and discourse contexts, irrespective of the temporal, aspectual or agreement values of the target language (Housen 2002: 158). The third stage is best described as the stage of formal diversification, in which previously invariant forms finally appear in morphologically specified environments. Hence, we can observe eating along eat, and said along say at this stage. In the final stage, the third person -, marker of the present tense appears, followed by the analytic perfect
12.2. Quantitative analysts
217
12.2.3. Discussion of findings What can be inferred about variation of forms in present perfect contexts in basilectal IndEng relying on the evidence obtained from studies on secondlanguage acquisition? On the level of formal development, this system corresponds to stage 3 in Housen's classification, accounting for the robust variation of structural variants in the data. For instance, we observe an abundance of invariant forms such as bare verb stems accounting for 21% of data. On the other hand, we attest frequent use of the morphological variants (the BE-perfect, the simple past tense, etc.) of the previously invariant verbs. Thus, the verb form travel appears along travelled, say along said in this data set. On the functional level, the notion of anteriority seems to have started emerging in the system. The notion of anteriority is closely associated with and (projected onto) the simple past tense morphology and the BE-perfect, both of which account for 60% of the data. However, they are used interchangeably with invariant free morphemes (i.e. bare verb stems), which are initially used by language users to express the idea of pastness. Bare verb stems appear to be in a random distribution with the preterite and the BEperfect. It seems that the past time reference system has started to develop but has not been fully established in the IndEng basiled As a result, the verb forms exhibit a fairly free variation in present perfect contexts, not conditioned by language-internal factors. This is not to say that the simple past tense, the major element of the system, exhibits no patterns at all. Indeed, the distributional analysis demonstrated that there is a positive association between the preterite and expenential/recent past time contexts. Furthermore, there is a correlation between the preterite and transitive verbs. However, it seems that these distributional profiles have not as yet developed into regular patterns of use that would constrain variation in the basilectal variety of IndEng as systematically as they do in other varieties studied here. Summing up, neither morphology nor semantics of the HAVE-perfect has been developed in IndEng basiled. The forms surfacing in present perfect contexts tend to occur in fairly irregular patterns (with an exception of some distributional profiles) and are not constrained by any factors predicted to determine variation in present perfect contexts. This conclusion is consistent with that of Ellis (1985a), who argues that non-systematic variation is an integral part of second-language acquisition. At the point where new forms have been assimilated but have not been completely integrated into the 'form-function' system, non-systematic or free
218
12. Basilectal variety ojIndian English (HCNVE)
variation in the use of two or more forms for the same function is to be expected (cf Ellis 1985a, cited in Tarone 1988: 111). 12.3. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts Similar to the mesolectal variety of IndEng, the instances of the present perfect in definite past time contexts are very rare in the data. In fact, the HAVE-perfect appears in this linguistic environment only on two occasions. ( I l l ) Basilectal IndEng (HCNVE: IE05; IE09) a. (referring to a legend) Sita [Hindu Goddess] has been crowned, so people pray Ram, Sita, Lakshmi, Garesh. b. Up to seventh class, lam in English medium school, after that I have taken my admission in Hindi medium government school. First, this finding is not surprising given the fact that the present perfect accounts for only 5% of the entire data. Basilectal speakers of IndEng generally underuse the HAVE-perfect most probably due to the fact that they had very limited access to the target language and are therefore not familiar with this linguistic category. As a result, they do not overgenerahse this category to the inappropriate semantic environments. Another explanation is provided by the fact that Hindi prohibits the use of the present perfect in contexts focusing on definite past time. It appears that learners' avoiding the use of the perfect coupled with the constraints imposed on this verb form in the Hindi substrate give rise to the very rare occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in definite past time reference contexts in this data set. Avoidance strategies and positive transfer, two wide-spread processes underlying second-language acquisition, can thus be said to reinforce each other, accounting for the rare occurrence of the present perfect in definite pasttime reference contexts.6 12.4. Summary To summarise, the overall distribution of variants revealed that the HAVEperfect demonstrates a real difference from StEngEng. Surfacing in only 5% 6 "Positive transfer" means here a positive transfer of constraints on the use of the verb form from an LI onto an L2.
12.4. Summary
219
of all cases, it is rare in this database. By contrast, various non-standard variants, i.e. the simple past tense, bare verb stems, the present tense and the BE-perfect, are abundant in this data. Analysis of the source of non-standard variants revealed that the BEperfect and the present tense are clear-cut cases demonstrating substrate influence from Hindi, whereas bare verb stems and the preterite are better explained in terms of substrate-independent language learning strategies such as simplification and avoidance. The distributional analysis of the preterite (the most frequent variant in the data) across various factor groups revealed a positive association between the preterite and expenential/recent past time contexts on the one hand, and transitive verbs on the other. However, the ensuing multivariate analysis demonstrated that these distributional profiles have not developed into systematic patterns of use as none of the factor groups was selected as statistically significant for this analysis. Speakers with the least amount of contact with the target language exhibit a system in which the simple past tense alternates with other variants (mainly bare verb stems) fairly freely, not being constrained by any language-internal factors predicted to underlie variation in present perfect contexts. Relying on the results of the distributional analysis of all variants as well as on the results of the multivariate analysis, we can conclude that the patterns of use of the linguistic variable under study in the basilectal variety of IndEng are in stark contrast to those attested for StEngEng. Finally, the rare occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts can be accounted for in terms of avoidance strategies and a positive transfer of constraints imposed on a similar linguistic form in the Hindi substrate.
13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
13.1. Sociolinguistic history of East African English EAfEng is frequently treated as one topic because of the colonial history shared by the countries in the region and some language features (cf Schneider 2007: 189). Three countries in particular are mentioned in the descriptions of this variety of English: Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Very little documentation is available on the English spoken in Uganda as a military dictatorship disrupted the country's evolution in the 1980s (cf. Schneider 2007). This country will therefore not be considered in any closer detail here. The major focus of this section is on the sociolinguistic history of the English spoken in Kenya and Tanzania. To start with, English came to East Africa fairly late - in the second half of the 19th century. It was at that time that the British became increasingly interested in the Kenyan coastal towns, which they primarily regarded as "stepping stones" to India (cf. Schmied 2006; Schneider 2007). In the 19th century contact with English was, however, very limited. The impact of explorers (for instance, Livingstone and Stanley) on the spread of English in Kenya was restricted. Moreover, the missionaries, who followed the explorers, frequently used Kiswahili (or Swahih), the local lingua franca, for evangelisation. After Kenya was pronounced a British colony in 1920, British settlers began arriving in substantial numbers. Very soon English became firmly established as the language of administration, business, law, and other higher domains in society (cf. Schneider 2007). In education, the British standard was the major reference variety. This development notwithstanding, the knowledge of English remained restricted to a very small group representing the upper social class of the society (both black and white) as the British refrained from socialising with the black population and were not, as it were, interested in spreading the English language around. In 1972, Kiswahili was proclaimed the national language of Kenya beside English. However, the status of English as a strong second language was never officially threatened in this country (cf. Schneider 2007: 193). Ever since Kenya obtained its independence in 1963, the role of English has been increasing in the Kenyan society. The country adopted a capitalist
13.1. Sociolinguisttc history ofEast African English
221
economic system and has thus remained open to Western influence, which has had a strong impact on the local customs and culture (cf. Schneider 2007: 193). The sociolinguistic history of English in Tanzania is very similar to that of Kenya in many respects: introduction of English in the mid-19th century, very limited contact to the British settlers and a fairly intensive exposure to English after the Second World War. There is, however, one major difference. In 1967 Tanzania adopted an African version of socialism, promoting Kiswahih (with enormous success) to the status of a "truly national language" (cf. Schneider 2007: 198). This historical circumstance accounts for the fact that English is not as widely accepted in Tanzania as it is in Kenya. English has established itself as a prestigious language in both countries. It is an indicator of good education and the "entry gate to desirable professions and white-collar jobs" (Schneider 2007: 193). Furthermore, "its use is tied up with upper- and middle-class status and with urban rather than rural contexts" (Schneider 2007: 192). However, English enjoys more popularity and more prestige in Kenya than in Tanzania as speaker proportions of English are higher in Kenya, where English has been spreading beyond the middle and upper classes. To provide a few examples, it is the language of secondary and tertiary education, and the High Court in both Kenya and Tanzania. Kiswahih is, however, the language used in Parliament and government institutions in Tanzania (cf. Hundson-Ettle and Schmied 1999: 4). Moreover, English is a major lingua franca and a primary means of communication in bigger towns and cities in Kenya, whereas Swahili performs this function in Tanzania (cf. Hundson-Ettle and Schmied 1999: 4). These obvious differences notwithstanding, attempts have been made to single out the English spoken in Kenya and Tanzania into an independent variety of EAfEng by providing a systematic description of its major features in the area of phonology, lexis, morphology, syntax and even discourse (cf. Schmied 2004: 929, 2006: 192-201). Perhaps one of the most important characteristics of acrolectal EAfEng in the domain of morpho-syntax is its orientation towards Standard English as international intelligibility is deemed as absolutely essential (cf. Schmied 2006: 192). It is most probably for this reason that British English standard is regarded as an adequate description of English in most grammar books used as teaching manuals in East Africa. Thus, at least theoretically, British English is upheld as the target form of language education (cf. Schneider 2007: 194). The acceptance of local forms as a norm or standard has been described as a slow and painful process at least in Schneider (2007: 194).
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13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
13.2. Data
The data for EAfEng was obtained from the East Afncan component of The International Corpus of English (ICE-EA). It comprises 30 texts (S1A001KS1A030K and S1A018T-S1A020T, a total of 93,936 words) representing classroom discussions amongst Kenyan and Tanzaman students. All informants were aged 18 or over, and were all educated through the medium of English. Given this fairly intensive contact with English, it is not unreasonable to classify the speakers as belonging to the upper-mesolect on the acrolect/basilect continuum. According to Hundson-Ettle and Schmied (1999: 7), the conversation took place in a private rather than a public setting; they were casual and spontaneous, not scripted or pre-mediated. In addition, order, length, aim and topic were not determined in advance (cf Hundson-Ettle and Schmied 1999: 7). Moreover, "the informal atmosphere and the readiness on the part of the Afncan participants to talk about their situations with little regard for the microphone provided a speech situation where freely flowing natural speech could be recorded" (Hundson-Ettle and Schmied 1999: 7). Taking all these pieces of evidence into account, we can conclude that this spoken data set is by and large compatible with the type of vernacular obtained for StEngEng and Indian Englishes. It must be noted that the information on the respective substrate language could not be retrieved from the EAfEng corpus for the text categories considered here. However, the authors of the corpus acknowledge that Swahili is a major means of communication in private life in both countries (cf. Hundson-Ettle and Schmied 1999: 4). We can thus assume that Swahili was the substrate language (or at least one of substrate languages) for a vast majority of informants. However, describing the linguistic situation of multilingual countries such as Kenya and Tanzania in terms of one substrate language carries the danger of simplification. We should rather bear in mind that the assessment of the exact role that the respective substrate languages might have played in the emergence of the HAVE-perfect in EAfEng is very difficult in this data set. This chapter focuses on the analysis of the language-internal factors that constrain variation of the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of EAfEng. In doing so, we establish the degree of affinity between StEngEng and EAfEng. Moreover, this variety is contrasted with acrolectal, uppermesolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng, all of which are related to EAfEng in the area of the HAVE-perfect marking, as we shall see. The
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223
qualitative analysis of the non-target uses of the perfect is presented in the final section. 13.3.
Quantitative analysis
13.3.1.
Distributional analysis
13.3.1.1. Variation in presentperfect contexts Let us first of all consider the variants which are used to serve the function of the English present perfect in the EAfEng upper-mesolect. Table 13.1 shows the overall distribution of surface forms across present perfect contexts. Table 13.1. The overall distribution of variants in upper-mesolectal EAffing N
%
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect bare verb stem lone past participle
247 159 4 2 4 5 1
58% 37% 0% 0% 0% 1% 0%
Total N
422
Notice that the vast majority of contexts have the HAVE-perfect morphology - a full 58%. The only other robust variant is the preterite, representing 37% of the data. The present tense occurs very infrequently (2%) as do the past perfect, the BE-perfect and the lone past participle. All four items are outside the core of present perfect contexts in upper-mesolectal EAfEng and will therefore not be considered here any further. Before presenting the results of the distributional analysis of the HAVE-perfect and preterite, we need to consider the origin of the latter in EAfEng. To start with, the simple past tense is used in resultative, extended-now, experiential and recent past time contexts in EAfEng, as in (112) East African English (ICE: S1A026K; S1A029K; S1A001K) a. So they became so fresh to me like my own, they became like my own experiences, (resultative)
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13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
b. I never experienced poverty, I never experienced any difficulties. (experiential) c. Yeah I don >t know what happened but that is how it went. (recent past) d. But I was wondering who is in GPA who is in SOC. (extended-now) The analysis of these forms in terms of the Swahili substratum is not convincing because in Swahili, the simple past tense is not used in these semantic environments, the present perfect being required. Compare: (113) Swahili1 a. John a -me -ku -la pizza. John s/he -PFC -VerbSBJ -eat pizza 'John has eaten pizza.' b. Si ja - wahi kuzuru Canada. NEG INCOMPLPAST never it visit Canada 'I have never visited Canada.' c. WazinMkuu a -me -jiuzulu hivi kanbuni. PM s/he PFC -dethrone this way recently 'The Prime Minister has resigned recently.' d. John a -me -ku wa a - ki mngoja Mary John s/he-PFC-VerbSBJ exist s/he VerbSBJ waiter Mary tangu asubuhi from morning 'John has been waiting for Mary since morning.' It seems that speakers of EAfEng employ the simple past tense in present perfect contexts as it is morphologically and semantically less complex when compared to the HAVE-perfect. The use of the preterite in EAfEng can thus be accounted for in terms of the universal learner strategies of avoidance and simplification. Having said that, we must add that contact with white vernaculars may also have been responsible for the occurrence of this vanant in EAfEng since the preterite is attested in present perfect contexts in both historical and contemporary white vernaculars (see the chapter on StEngEng and Davydova 2008 for the historical variety of Irish English). 1 All these sentences were obtained through a translation test with a native speaker of Swahili.
13.3. Quantitative analysis 225 Having considered the possible origin of the simple past tense in this database, let me now turn to presenting the distributional analyses of the HAVEperfect and the simple past tense.
13.3.1.2. The present perfect and preterite m present perfect contexts Figure 13.1 illustrates the distribution of the present perfect and preterite among present perfect contexts in EAffing. 100% | present perfect | preterite 80%
60%
•
40%
20%
0% extended-now
I
resultative
i
I
experiential
recent past
Figure 13.1. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in EAffing The extended-now context occurs with the HAVE-perfect in 82% of all cases, followed by resultative contexts, which is also frequent with the perfect at 65%. Experiential contexts are similarly preferred with the perfect but to a slightly lesser extent, when compared to resultative and extendednow contexts. Finally, recent past time contexts show a preponderance of the preterite. The claim that the HAVE-perfect should surface in resultative and extended-now contexts more frequently is borne out by this data set. Distribution of the perfect with various time adverbials shows further insights into the nature of variability of the linguistic variable under study.
226
13. Upper-mesolectal variety ofEast African English (ICE) • perfect • preterite
1
L Li 1 1 1
•
1I
l_
Figure 13.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in EAfEng The hypothesis that time adverbials of the '± current relevance' group should show a propensity of the preterite has been partially confirmed. Notice, for instance, the fairly high percentage of the preterite with today, never and always. On the other hand, ever surfaces with the perfect only. It must be noted that this distributional pattern shows low token counts (2 tokens only) and should be treated with caution here. Another disturbing fact is that the time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group such as since and now pattern with the preterite.2 Being semantically strongly associated with the notion of current relevance, i.e. "linking of a situation that began in the past to the moment of utterance" (Siemund 2004: 414), these adverbials were hypothesised to be preferred with the perfect rather than the preterite. Yet EAfEng shows a pattern which deviates from that attested for StEngEng and upper-mesolectal IndEng. In general, it seems that the preterite tends to co-occur with time adverbials of all types (both '± current relevance' group and '+ current relevance' group), whereas the HAVE-perfect has a predilection for temporally unspecified contexts in EAfEng: a full 60%. The latter observation is in accordance with the claim that the perfect should be more robust in unspecified contexts. This finding thus suggests a close parallel between EAfEng and StEngEng, in which the HAVE-perfect was shown to be strongly associated 2 It must also be mentioned here that results for today and since are based on low token counts what prevents us from drawing robust generalisations from these specific patterns.
13.3. Quantitative analysts
227
with contexts that do not feature any time adjuncts. Recall also that the HAVE-perfect is a preferred variant in such contexts in the upper-mesolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng. Results for the factor group 'Aktionsart' suggest that the HAVE-perfect has considerably developed its meaning, having extended it to lexical verbs of all types in Vendler' classification. Table 13.2 shows the distribution of the HAVE-perfect and preterite with various lexical verbs. Table 13.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in upper-mesolectal EAfEng HAVE-perfect Native dynamic accomplishment achievement Total N (406)
60(65%) 79(55%) 40(70%) 68(59%) 2^
preterite 3104%) 64(44%) 17(29%) 47(40%) Is9
Notice the fairly robust co-occurrence of the HAVE-perfect with stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of achievement and accomplishment on the other. Similar to upper-mesolectal IndEng, these distributional patterns suggest a fairly advanced grammatical status of the HAVE-perfect in EAfEng and it can thus be argued that the perfect has extended its general meaning to verbs of all lexical types in Vendler's classification. Notice also that the perfect is most frequent with the verbs of accomplishment and less frequent with verbs of achievement in this set of data. Recall that a similar pattern was attested for upper-mesolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng. This finding demonstrates a close affinity between the latter and the variety of EAfEng studied here. Distribution of the HAVE-perfect and preterite by transitivity suggests further similarities between the two varieties. Table 13.3 shows that the HAVE-perfect is used at an equal rate of 60% in both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) environments.
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13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
Table 13.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in upper-mesolectal EAfEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
t^iri^ intransitive
147(60%) 100(60%)
^ W 64(39%)
Total N (406)
2^
1^
Recall that the HAVE-perfect is used at the overall rate of 60% in both transitive and intransitive environments in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng (ICE), whereas in mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE), this figure falls down to 50%. Relying on the results of the distributional analysis presented above we can conclude that the present perfect has not as yet developed into a fully-fledged grammatical category in EAfEng. Its grammatical status is therefore best described as fairly advanced by analogy with uppermesolectal IndEng. The final factor group to be considered in this section is that of negation. Table 13.4 presents the overall percentage of the HAVE-perfect and preterite by negation. Table 13.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in upper-mesolectal EAfEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
affirmative negation
216(61%) 31(59%)
138(38%) 21 (40%)
Total N (406)
2^
1^
There is no conclusive evidence for the claim that the HAVE-perfect should be used more frequently in contexts featuring negation. In fact, the present perfect is just as robust in affirmative contexts (61%) as it is in negation environments including constituent negation (59%). This finding is furthermore substantiated by the results of the upcoming multivariate analysis, although the factor group was not selected as statistically significant to the probability of occurrence of the present perfect in EAfEng. In order to find out what (if any) of the linguistic factors introduced above underlie the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in EAfEng, a multivariate analysis was earned out.
13.3. Quantitative analysts 229 13.3.2. Multivariate analysis Table 13.5 presents the results of the binominal step-up/step-down procedure (Goldvarb 2001). Table 13.5. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in EAffing (ICE) Perfect Input value
o/o
Factor weight .60
60%
N 247/406
1. Semantic context extended-now resultative experiential recent past
.74 .54 .50 .31
82% 65% 62% 42%
43/52 88/134 71/114 45/106
range
43 [-50] [-48]
61% 59%
216/354 31/52
[-52] [-46]
60% 60%
147/242 100/164
[-50] [-49]
62% 60%
56/89 191/317
[-54] [-51] [-44]
62% 65% 55%
108/172 60/91 79/143
2. Negation affirmative negation range 3. Transitivity transitive intransitive range 4. Time adverbial specification time adverbial unspecified range 5.AktionSart change-of-state verbs stative dynamic range
First, only one factor group was selected as statistically significant: semantic context. It triggers the HAVE-perfect with the relative strength of 43. Similar to StEngEng (which shows the relative strength of 50 for this factor group), it is a fairly strong factor underlying the occurrence of the linguistic
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13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
variant in EAfEng. Recall that semantic context was also shown to be the most significant factor group for acrolectal, upper-mesolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng. Second, the hierarchy of uses of the present perfect has been corroborated by this data. To be more exact, both resultative and extended-now contexts are preferred by the perfect over experiential and recent past time contexts in EAfEng. This pattern suggests a further parallel to StEngEng as well as acrolectal, upper-mesolectal and mesolectal varieties of English, in which the hierarchy of uses of the HAVE-perfect also obtains. Both pieces of evidence can be adduced to the interpretation of the similarity between StEngEng and EAfEng. The same pieces of evidence suggest a close affinity between the latter and acrolectal to mesolectal varieties of IndEng. There is, however, a crucial difference between EAfEng and uppermesolectal/mesolectal varieties of IndEng. We saw in the preceding chapters that the factor group 'Aktionsart' plays an important role in the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in both sets of data. Notice that this is not the case in upper-mesolectal EAfEng, where inherent lexical aspect was not selected as a statistically significant independent variable. EAfEng is thus much closer to acrolectal IndEng and StEngEng in this respect as Aktionsart does not exert any influence on the occurrence of the linguistic variant under study in these varieties of English. Summing up, the variety of EAfEng seems to be fairly well advanced on the acrolect/mesolect continuum, exhibiting features accounting for its close relationship to varieties of both types (i.e. acrolect and mesolect). Yet results of the multivariate analysis reveal that upper-mesolectal EAfEng is more standard conformant and thus closer to the acrolect than upper-mesolectal/ mesolectal IndEng.
13.3.3. Discussion of findings The evidence presented above suggests that similar to StEngEng, the mechanism underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in EAfEng can be described in terms of the notion of current relevance, the factor group of semantic context exerting the major influence on the choice of the perfect in the data and resultative and extended-now contexts favouring the HAVEperfect morphology more than any other context. Second, this type of evidence can be adduced to argue that the patterns underlying the EAfEng system of present perfect marking are indeed inherent in the English language.
13.4. Qualitative analysis
231
They are not a result of hypercorrection, incomplete acquisition or even an alternate system (cf. Tagliamonte 1996: 366), as could be expected of a non-native grammar. The present case study has also made clear that both distributional and multivariate analyses implemented here are fine-grained methodological tools, enabling a researcher to pinpoint to the exact position of a given variety on the acrolect/basilect continuum. In other words, both methods allow the analyst to uncover the non-native grammar of the HAVE-perfect, simultaneously contributing to a better understanding of which linguistic patterns make EAffing a mesolect-like variety and which patterns account for its close association with the acrolect and standard-like grammar.
13.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts The present perfect with definite past time reference is rare in the data. The entire corpus contains only 3 linguistic items. (114) East African English (ICE: S1A028K; S1A029K) a. / would not agree, I would not say that women >s issues have just started last year: I would not even say that. b. I wrote quite a lot which has been typed yesterday. c. The police was there and they started chasing the boy and they can 7 catch the little boy an I stopped and I watched and I watched and I just sat there and I was just writing him and the way he was dressing and you know I enjoy doing like that. I feel it can make a very interesting little story and they didn't catch the boy. He went and cut across cars and crossed the road and the police they are waiting for a car to pass and the boy has gone and I found it a very interesting story where I am concerned. In the last sentence, the present perfect is used in the narrative chunk, a context from which it should be barred in Standard English (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Radden and Dirven 2007). In view of the fact that EAfEng demonstrates striking similarities to StEngEng in the area of the present perfect context marking, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the occurrence of the present perfect with definite past time reference is determined by the constraints similar to those attested for StEngEng. Recall that in chapter on StEngEng we argued that
232
13. Upper-mesolectal variety ofEast African English (ICE)
the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in contexts under consideration was conditioned pragmatically by the speaker's attitude towards the entire proposition. More specifically, we saw that such pragmatic constraints manifested themselves in two contextual hints: the HAVE-perfect introducing the discourse topic and taking the scope over the entire proposition (which contains another HAVE-perfect with a definite past time reference specifier) and punctual-telic verbs. None of the tokens presented above reveal any similarities to the StEngEng pattern. Sparse representation of data coupled with the lack of relevant patterns in EAfEng does not lend credence to the analysis of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts in terms of pragmatic constraints that the speaker imposes on the discourse. The analysis of the HAVE-perfect in definite past time contexts thus fails to reveal further parallels between EAfEng and StEngEng. Two remaining possibilities with respect to the source of these structures in our data are substrate influence and universal learner strategies employed in L2 acquisition. It was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that analysis of the origin of the linguistic forms is very difficult for this data set as the substrate languages of the respective speakers remain by and large unknown. It was, however, assumed that Swahili should be the mother tongue (or at least one substrate language) for a large majority of speakers studied here. Hence, we must take a closer look at the relevant aspect of Swahili grammar. The Swahili perfect, which is formed with the help of the affix -me-, is used to express "a natural consequence of an action recently completed" (Loogman 1965: 393) or the notion of current relevance (cf Heine, Bernd 18 December 2008: personal communication).3 For instance, Gobelsmann (1995) gives the following definition of the Swahili perfect: Das Perfekt in Swahili verbindet zwei Zeitpunkte miteinander, in dem es einen Zustand als das Resultat einer vorhergehenden Situation darstellt. Dabei referiert das einfache Perfekt mit dem Prafix -me- auf die Gegenwart, also auf einen Zustand zum Zeitpunkt des Sprechaktes, der aus einer Situation in der Vergangenheit resultiert. Gobelsmann (1995: 116) However, the -me- marker can also occur in the narratives and denotes a completion of action at the time referred to (cf.Steere 1885: 132). This use of the affix -me- must be rendered by the past perfect in English in such contexts.
3 Prof. Bernd Heine, Universitatzu Kola
13.4. Qualitative analysis 233 (115) Swahili (from Loogman 1965: 119) Mkuwako mtu mmoja amepata bahatt ya kusrkia lugha zote za wanyama. there was a man he has got luck to understand all the languages of animals 'Once (upon a time) there was a man who had been favoured with the gift of understanding all the languages of animals.' The Swahili speaker of English can in principle analyse the English HAVEperfect as a verb form that occurs in contexts similar to those of the Swahili -me-. This would explain the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the narrative chunk in (114c). By contrast, the affix -//- is typically used to express definite past time reference in Swahili. (116) Swahili m-n-andika barua jana* I PAST write letter yesterday 'I wrote the letter yesterday.' The facts presented above suggest that the occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts can be only partially explained in terms of the substrate influence from Swahili: whereas the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in (114c) can be analysed as interference from the substrate language, the appearance of the perfect in (114a) and (114b) is better explained as an L2 strategy, which is indicative of the difficulty experienced by a non-native learner of English in acquiring the subtle differences between the simple past time reference and past time reference with current relevance. Summing up, in view of the lack of sufficient evidence demonstrating the relevance of pragmatic constraints it is safe to conclude that EAfEng learners occasionally extend (to use a technical term, overgeneralise) the HAVE-perfect to past time reference contexts as a result of substrate influence coupled with universal strategies of L2 acquisition.
4 This sentence was obtained through a translation test with a native speaker of Swahili.
234
13. Upper-mesolectal variety of East African English (ICE)
13.5. Summary First, the overall distribution of variants revealed that non-standard variants such as the present tense, the past perfect, the BE-perfect and lone past participles are outside the core grammar of the linguistic variable under study in EAfEng. Our discussion of origin of the simple past tense in these environments indicated that this form can be explained both in terms of substrateindependent learner strategies and in terms of contact with white vernaculars, where this form is also attested in corresponding contexts. Co-occurrence patterns of the perfect and preterite across various language-internal factors showed that there are close parallels between uppermesolectal EAfEng on the one hand and upper-mesolectal/mesolectal IndEng on the other. TTie multivariate analysis, however, revealed that the system of uses of the HAVE-perfect is more standard conformant (and thus closer to the acrolect) in upper-mesolectal EAfEng than in upper-mesolectal and mesolectal varieties of IndEng. More importantly, it was shown that the mechanism underlying the occurrence of the present perfect in EAfEng can be described in term of the notion of current relevance. The results of the qualitative analysis suggest that the HAVE-perfect morphology in definite past time reference contexts can be explained in terms of both substrate influence and universal strategies employed in L2 learning.
14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
14.1. Sociolinguistic history of Singapore English The variety of SingEng is by and large a product of a unique policy of "English-based bilingualism" (Tickoo 1996: 438, cited in Schneider 2007: 153). English was introduced on the island in 1819, when the British East India Company established a free port, which very soon attracted Chinese, Malay and Arab traders. Population influx continued throughout the 19th century and consisted predominantly of traders, colonial agents and contract labourers of Chinese and Indian origin. In 1867 Singapore became a crown colony and a home to a small European ruling class, and also a growing Asian elite (cf Schneider 2007). The spread of English was steady and "nothing hindered the exonormative orientation" of the emerging variety (Schneider 2007: 154). English speakers represented a blend of regional and social backgrounds, including Scots, Irish and American Methodists so that there was a certain amount of dialectal contact (cf. Schneider 2007: 155). During the second half of the 19th century English-medium schools were expanding and increased dramatically early in the 20th century (cf. Schneider 2007). Singapore's continuous development was interrupted by the Japanese intervention during the Second World War. This historical event signalled the end of the colonial tradition and was followed by the resistance movement in the course of which Singapore obtained its independence in 1965. The country soon experienced a stunning development; economic growth and prosperity turned Singapore into a highly modern and industrialised nation (cf. Schneider 2007). English has come to play an important role in the process of Singapore's modernisation. Several factors are responsible for the present-day exceptional status of English in the country. First and foremost, English has always been perceived as an ethnically neutral language what promoted its status as a local lingua franca. Secondly, the government imposed a policy of ethmcitybased bilingualism according to which each child was to be educated in her respective ethic tongue and English. The latter thus became the common linguistic denominator shared by every (young) member of the multilingual community. To give an example, about 60% of teaching time is in English,
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
whereas 40% of the entire syllabus is allotted to Mandarin, Tamil or Malay (cf.Gramley and Patzold 2004: 329). This language policy produced a unique situation for acquiring a second language which, in its turn, gave rise to local language forms, spanning from informal varieties to highly formal styles. Despite the remarkable spread of English, its mastery is still closely associated with social class (cf Schneider 2007). In general, SingEng represents a number of sub-varieties which can be stratified according to the domain, situational parameters, the speaker's age, status and background (cf. Gupta 1999, cited in Schneider 2007). More importantly, SingEng has undergone a process of language restructuring or nativisation, more visibly on the basilectal level but also in formal styles (cf. Schneider 2007). Furthermore, SingEng is marked by a high degree of variability between formal and colloquial registers. On the informal level, a distinct local variant, known as Colloquial Singapore English, strongly marked by the Chinese substrate has emerged. This variety of English has been well documented and analysed (see, for instance, Piatt, Weber, and Ho 1983; Bao 1995; Lim 2004; Wee 2004, 2008). Although SingEng is a variety that acquired distinct local norms, "exornomative standards continue to define the study of English in the classroom" (Ooi 2001: x). This observation provides a nice parallel to the acquisition context typical of foreign-speaker varieties of English as well as other secondlanguage varieties (notably EAfEng and, to a large extent, IndEng), where classroom instruction is frequently oriented towards native norms. Despite its increasing spread, English is seldom used as a means of communication amongst family members. The range of social domains associated with English is, however, constantly increasing (cf. Gramley and Patzold 2004).
14.2. Data The data for SingEng was drawn from the Singaporean component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-SIN). The corpus studied here comprises 100 texts containing a total of 200, 000 words. Similar to other nonnative varieties of English studied here, the focus is on informal vernacular represented by direct conversations (S1A-001 to S1A-090) and telephone calls (S1A-091 to S1A-100). All informants are "adults (18 or over) who have received formal education through the medium of English to the completion of secondary school" (Greenbaum 1996: 6). Because of the fairly
14.3. Quantitative analysts
237
intense contact with English, these speakers were classified as belonging to the upper-mesolect on the acrolect/basilect continuum. Similar to ICE-India and ICE-EA, the exact information on substrate languages could not be retrieved from ICE-SIN. Given the fact that ethnic Chinese part of the population of Singapore constitutes 77% (cf Gramley and Patzold 2004: 329), it is not unreasonable to assume that Mandarin Chinese, which is highly promoted through the education system, is a substrate language for a considerable number of informants considered here. We should, however, bear in mind that this is a rather simplified picture of the actual substrate input that can be produced in a multilinguistic setting such as a Singaporean community. Other substrate languages may include Tamil, Malay as well as Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Teochow and Cantonese (cf. Gramley and Patzold 2004). This chapter will present the overall distribution of variants attested in present perfect contexts in the data set studied here. We furthermore elaborate on the putative origin of the non-standard verb forms and then proceed to presenting the analysis of language-internal factors that constrain occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng. The reference variety of StEngEng customarily provides a yardstick against which the patterns attested in a given non-native variety are measured and compared. Moreover, we will contrast SingEng with the varieties of the acrolectal/mesolectal continuum considered so far. Finally, we will qualitatively analyse the non-target uses of the present perfect surfacing in definite past time reference contexts.
14.3.
Quantitative analysis
14.3.1.
Distributional analysis
14.3.1.1. Variation in present perfect contexts What variants appear in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng? What is their overall distribution across the contexts studied here? Table 14.1 sheds some light on these questions.
238
14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
Table 14.1. Overall distribution of variants in upper-mesolectal SingEng N
%
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect medial-object perfect bare verb stem lone past participle lone present participle
532 350 10 8 5 1 26 16 1
56% 36% 1% 0% 0% 0% 2% 1% 0%
Total N
949
Notice first of all that the HAVE-perfect accounts for 56% of the entire data, which is in contrast to the overall distribution of this verb form in the reference variety of StEngEng. This provides a nice parallel to upper-mesolectal IndEng and EAfEng, where the HAVE-perfect has been attested at the overall rate of 53% and 58% respectively. The other frequent variant in the data is the simple past tense. Hence, similar to many other non-native varieties of English studied so far, the alternation between the perfect and preterite is very robust in this data set. Other fairly conspicuous variants are bare verb stems, lone past participles and the present tense. In addition, BEperfects, past perfects, the lone present participle and the medial-object perfect surface in the contexts under study. The issue here is the origin of nonstandard verb forms. Are they a result of mother-tongue interference or learner strategies employed in the course of L2 acquisition? Moreover, is it possible to explain the occurrence of these variants in terms of contact with settlers' dialects? Since the BE-perfect, the past perfect, the lone present participle and the medial-object perfect account for less than 1% of the data, we will not consider them here in any further. Instead we will analyse the origin of the simple past tense, bare verb stems, lone past participles and the present tense, which happen to be more frequent in this database. Preterite The simple past tense is attested in resultative, extended-now, experiential and recent past time contexts in SingEng, as in
14.3. Quantitative analysts
239
(117) Singapore English (ICE: S1A-058; S1A-012; S1A-077; S1A-003) a. In fact I got the tickets already but Chris is getting the tickets for the rest of them. '...Ihavegotthetickets...' - (resultative) b. / wasn >t shopping for the last three months or so. '.. .have not been shopping...' (extended-now) c. The only thing I ever enjoyed was GP. '...Ihave ever enjoyed...'-(experiential) d. / don't want to watch Ten Commandments because I have seen twice and recently I saw it. '...have seen it'-(recent past) To start with, Mandarin Chinese does not possess a grammatical category similar in form and function to the English preterite since "the plotting of action along some sort of time axis, so important in tense languages, is not a feature of Chinese" (Norman 1988: 163). Hence, the appearance of the simple past tense in present perfect contexts in SingEng cannot be explained in terms of the Chinese substratum. In order to assess the origin of the preterite, we thus need to consider two further possibilities: substrateindependent processes informing second-language acquisition and superstratal influence. In principle, the past tense is analysable in terms of contact with white vernaculars (for instance, Irish English), where this form is also attested in respective environments (cf Davydova 2008). Yet another likely scenario is that speakers use the preterite as a default form (i.e. morphologically and semantically simpler form) and thus avoid using the complex present perfect in contexts where traditional Standard English grammar requires the use of the HAVE-perfect. In sum, both hypotheses appear to be highly probable and should be regarded as two competing forces underlying the occurrence of the simple past tense in present perfect contexts in SingEng. Bare verb stems With 26 tokens, bare verb stems represent 2% of the entire data set. One important observation is that they often co-occur with time adverbials such as already, never, before and recently. (118) Singapore English (ICE S1A-006; S1A-062; S1A-085) a. Maybe she increase the vnce already. 'Maybe she has already increased the price.'
240
14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE) b. So they question me recently about you know those thing. 'So they have questioned me recently about those things.' c. Once or twice she use before. 'She has used [this] before once or twice.'
Notice that time adverbials always follow (not precede) the main verb. Similar patterns of use were found for already in Wee (2008: 594) and for before in Tay (1979, cited in Bao 1995: 183), as in (119) Colloquial Singapore English a. They eat already. 'They have already eaten.' b. My son ride bicycle already. 'My son has just started riding bicycle.' c. Everybody down there see me before. 'Everybody down there has seen me before.' Such cases were analysed as a result of substrate influence from Chinese (see, for instance, Bao 1995: 183) and there seems to be a good reason for doing so. In Chinese, two aspectual markers are used in the contexts under study: the perfective marker -le and the experiential marker -guo (cf Li and Thompson 1981). The perfective -le indicates completion if it occurs after the verb. If it is used sentence finally, it acquires an inchoative meaning showing that something has just started to occur (Bao 1995: 184-185). Furthermore, the Mandarin Chinese marker -le occurs in contexts where Standard English requires a resultative perfect or a perfect of recent past, as in (120) Mandarin Chinese (from Li and Thompson 1981: 299) a. Zhdddn bao - le. Bomb explode PFV 'The bomb has exploded.' b.Zuijin zongh li - le zhi} Most close prime minister leave-PFV post 'The Prime Minister has resigned recently.'
1 Zavidovskaja, Ekaterina (18 February 2009: personal communication).
14.3. Quantitative analysts
241
The aspect suffix -guo is used to show that the event has been experienced at least once at some indefinite time, which is usually the indefinite past (cf.Li and Thompson 1981: 226), as in (121) Mandarin Chinese (from Li and Thompson 1981: 226) Wo chi guo Riben fan. I eat EXP Japan food 'I have eaten Japanese food (before).' A similar distinction is found in Cantonese, where the perfective -jo may be used to render a resultative meaning, whereas the particle -gwo corresponds closely to the experiential meaning of the present perfect in English (cf Matthews and Yip 1994). (122) Cantonese (from Matthews and Yip 1994: 206) a. Ngoh yihging saan-jo muhn. I already shut-PFV door 'I have already closed the door and it's still closed' b. Ngoh yihging saan-gwo yat chi muhn. I already shut-EXP one time door 'I've already closed the door once (and it's open again).' What all examples from Chinese and Cantonese have in common is that they unambiguously demonstrate a pattern verb stem + aspectual marker'. It is clear that SingEng sentences such as She increase the price already, etc. were calqued on the aspectual constructions available in the Chinese substratum. Time adverbials already, before and recently were re-analysed as aspectual markers in analogy to the model attested in Chinese and its dialects. It appears that these lexical items have developed grammatical meanings in SingEng, the process being induced by the substrate influence from Chinese. This analysis parallels that of Piatt and Weber (1980: 66) who observe a noticeable similarity between the sentence-final use of already in SingEng and the following Hokkien structure: (123) Hokkien (from Piatt and Weber 1980: 66) Gunthdukethg chu liau. Our boss return home already 'Our boss has returned home.'
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
In Hokkien, liau expresses a past action and its uses correspond to the past tense or the perfective in Standard English (cf. Bao 1995: 183). Piatt and Weber (1980) conclude that already is a "completive aspect marker" in SingEng, which is expressed by the HAVE-perfect in Standard English (cf. PlattandWeberl980:65). Furthermore, our analysis is in line with that of Kwan-Terry (1989), who showed in her study on the acquisition of SingEng tense and aspect system by Chinese children that the use and function of sentence-final already in SingEng come from Chinese, in particular from the aspectual marker -le (cf. Kwan-Terry 1989, cited in Bao 1995: 182). Finally, the analysis proposed here is in accordance with that of Bao (2005), who views already and ever as grammaticalised forms from Chinese to express the perfective aspect. On the whole, the substrate account appears to be a very convincing scenario in the case of bare verb stems. Present tense Similar to other non-native Englishes studied so far, the present tense has been attested in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng. The present tense appears in extended-now contexts, as in (124) Singapore English (ICE: S1A-013; S1A-068; S1A-058) a. I'm eating too much prawns lately. b. No I'm trying to slowly build myself up since like I went into graduate school. c. Paul Ann says he is going with this girl now for the last four months. However, it also occurs in experiential and resultative contexts, as in (125) Singapore English (ICE: S1A-092; S1A-077; S1A-020) a. She's from our year you know but I think she has some teaching experience before. b. Do you watch it before? c. No they already tell you that it is officially selected already. '...has been...' The occurrence of the present tense in continuative contexts is in principle amenable to an explanation in terms of the substrate influence from Tamil, where the present tense is used to express a continuative meaning, as in
14.3. Quantitative analysts 243 (126) Tamil Jan Men k kayak kd lam be rat till ran da John for Mary since morning yedirpdrttukkon dhi ru k ki rd n' expectantly ' is (PRES) there 'John has been waiting for Mary since morning.' The analysis of such cases in terms of Chinese substrate appears to be somewhat inconclusive. To start with, there is no present tense in Chinese in the strict sense. There are two durative aspect markers to signal an ongoing event - the word zdi and the suffix -zhe - whose usage depends on verb semantics. The word zdi typically precedes Chinese verbal stems, whereas the suffix -zhe follows it, as in (127) Mandarin Chinese (from Li and Thompson 1981: 218) a. Zhangsan zdi lidn pdo. Zhangsan DUR practice run 'Zhangsan is practicing running.' b.Yue hancongzao shang yi lai deng zhe Mali' John from morning starting wait -DUR Mary 'John has been waiting for Mary since morning.' The Chinese speaker of English may in principle use the English present progressive (lam eating too much prawns lately) to stress the ongoing (durative) nature of the event in analogy to the pattern observed in her mother tongue. The substrate influence is thus not improbable in the case of Mandarin Chinese speakers. Yet in the case of speakers of other Chinese dialects, substrate analysis encounters problems. Similar to Standard English, some Chinese dialects (for instance, Cantonese) employ a perfective marker to express an extended-now meaning (cf Matthews and Yip 1994: 205) 4 Moreover, the appearance of the present tense in extended-now contexts can also be due to the influence from Irish English, which was in contact 2 This sentence was obtained through a translation test with a native speaker of Tamil. 3 Zavidovskaja, Ekaterina (18 February 2009: personal communication). 4 Sometimes an experiental marker -gwo or a delimitative particle -hah is used in these contexts (cf. Matthews and Yip 1994).
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with modern SingEng (cf. Schneider 2007). A close investigation of the historical texts representing Insh English vernacular dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries reveals That such constructions are indeed attested in the Irish English superstrate: (128) 19th-century Irish English (HCIE: Normil08; KenedE02) a. We are working for the one employer thejmonth. b. He is living between us these two months. Taking such parallelism in the data into account, it is not unreasonable to conclude that mother-tongue interference must have conspired with the superstratal influence from the input varieties of English (such as Irish English) in order to produce the present tense in extended-now contexts in SingEng. The occurrence of the present tense in contexts other than continuative is best explained in terms of the universal strategies that L2 learners employ, replacing the present perfect with the morphosyntactically and semantically simpler form: the present tense. To sum up, different explanations can be provided for similar verb forms depending on the context of their occurrence. Whereas substrate influence is plausible (at least in the case of Dravidian and Mandarin Chinese speakers of English) for the present tense in extended-now contexts, umversals of L2 acquisition is a better explanation for the occurrence of the present tense in resultative and experiential contexts. Furthermore, substrate and superstrate influence effects cannot be entirely disentangled from each other in the former case. Lone Past Participle The last non-standard form to be commented on here is the lone past participle, as in (129) Singapore English (ICE: S1A-086; S1A-096; S1A-099; S1A-058) a. You done homework yet? b. These guys all forgotten already, man. c. Gone gone away so she's there alone nah. d. Not been to that for ages. Similar to upper-mesolectal IndEng (ICE), the lexical verbs frequently assuming the form of a lone past participle are go, do and be, as in examples demonstrated above. This provides a striking parallel to other non-native Englishes. For instance, Mesthne (2008) notices that non-standard seen,
14.3. Quantitative analysts 245 done and been are used in the lower sociolects of Indian South African English. The lone past participle of be was attested for St. Helena English, asm (130) St. Helena English (from Wilson and Mesthne 2008) You ben won lately? Finally, the lone past participles done, gone and seen were attested for early and modern varieties of Butler English, as in (131) Early Butler English (from Schuchardt 1877: 542, cited in Hosali 2008: 565) Yes, save, all done gone finished whole. (132) Modern Butler English (from Hosali 2008: 570) Now children all gone. The parallels attested between historically unrelated varieties of English are indeed striking. Transfer as a possible source of these constructions is highly implausible as speakers of these varieties speak morphologically unaffiliated substrate languages. Yet another possible origin of lone past participles in SingEng is contact with white vernaculars such as, for instance, Irish English (cf Schneider 2007: 154). Indeed, colloquial Irish English attests such forms throughout the entire Ireland (cf. Hickey 2007: 173) as demonstrated in (133).5 (133) Irish English (WER, F55+ from Hickey 2007: 173) z.l done it before the hds come home. b. I seen him yesterday morning. Although examples provided in Hickey (2007) suggest that these Irish English forms are used in definite past time reference contexts and require the preterite in Standard English, our own research demonstrates that lone past 5 It must also be noted that Sabban (1982, 1985, cited in Hickey 2007: 174) has recorded a very similar distribution of past participles for preterites in the contact variety of English spoken in Scotland (recall that there apparently was some contact between SingEng and the dialect of Scottish English, see also Schneider 2007). Sabban's conclusion is that these usages are not attributable to the Gaelic influence (cf. Sabban 1985: 138 cited in Hickey 2007: 174).
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
participles could surface in present perfect contexts in as early as the middle of the V century. One of the examples given below comes from Ulster, the other from Munster. (134) 19th-century Irish English (HCIE: SprouAOl; ForreE02) a. / shall not enter into a history of many things she done and said. b. The Estate I was evicted from viz the Smiddy Estate is bought by the commissioners for the last two years and still nothing done forme. Although the analysis of lone past participles in SingEng in terms of historical superstratal input from Irish English is in principle not implausible, it faces one major problem: it does not explain why so many historically unrelated varieties of English attest these forms despite different superstratal and substratal input. Taking all the evidence and lines of argumentation presented so far into account, it seems that these forms are better understood in terms of universal strategies of simplification frequently employed in second-language development. This analysis is in line with that provided in Hosah (2008) for Butler English. Hosali (2008) implicitly assumes that reduced verb forms are by and large a result of universal strategies informing second-language acquisition. Having described the principal non-standard variants in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng, we will now take a closer look at the co-occurrence patterns of two forms surfacing in present perfect contexts interchangeably: the present perfect and preterite.
14.3.1.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts In the previous chapters, we hypothesised that the HAVE-perfect should be more frequent in resultative and extended-now contexts, whereas in experiential contexts as well as in contexts of recent past it is the simple past tense that can be expected to occur more often. This claim has been corroborated by this data set. Figure 14.1 illustrates the distribution of the present perfect and the simple past across various semantic contexts.
14.3. Quantitative analysis 247 100 % Q perfect • preterite 80%
60%
40%
20%
0% extended-now
I A
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 14.1. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in upper-mesolectalSingEng It follows that extended-now and resultative contexts are strongly preferred with the HAVE-perfect. By contrast, the pretente is very robust in experiential environments and in contexts of recent past. The hypothesis concerning the hierarchy of uses of the English present perfect has been substantiated by the data from SingEng. Distribution of the present perfect and pretente with time adverbial specification reveal further parallels across varieties. Figure 14.2 presents the distribution of both verb forms with different time adverbials. 100% • perfect • preterite 80%
60%
40%
20%
0% ,•&%?
J>
Figure 14.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in upper-mesolectal SingEng
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
Notice, first of all, that the preterite is more frequent with some time adverbials of the '± current relevance' group such a s 7 ^ now, just, never and always6 Recall that never and always show a high percentage of the preterite in EAfEng (ICE). In addition, just and recently are preferred with the preterite in upper-mesolectal IndEng (ICE). All this evidence at least partially confirms the initial assumption that time adverbials which are less explicit with respect to the expression of current relevance tend to be associated with the preterite. By contrast, the perfect is robust with so far, which represents time adverbials of the '+ current relevance' group. The latter finding is consonant with the results on upper-mesolectal IndEng, where so far also occurs with the perfect far more frequently than with the preterite. However, another time adverbial of the '+ current relevance group' (i.e. already) is used more often with the preterite. The overall picture is similar to that demonstrated for EAfEng, where the preterite was shown to pattern with time adverbial of all types (i.e. both '± current relevance' and '+ current relevance' groups). The HAVE-perfect, on the other hand, is dominant in contexts without any time adverbial specification. That the perfect should be more robust in the latter contexts has been confirmed for StEngEng, acrolectal, upper-mesolectal and mesolectal IndEng as well as upper-mesolectal EAfEng. Hence, the initial claim that temporally unspecified contexts are closely associated with the meaning of the present perfect has been corroborated by the data from SingEng. By contrast, the preterite tends to attract various time adjuncts. The next factor group to be considered here is that of Aktionsart. Table 14.2 illustrates the distribution of the perfect and preterite across various types of lexical verbs. Table 14.2. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in uppermesolectal SingEng
stative dynamic accomplishment achievement
HAVE-perfect 147(62%) 197(61%) 37(56%) 151(57%)
preterite 87(37%) 122(38%) 28(43%) 113(42%)
Total N (882)
532
350
6 Note that the results for recently and today, both of which also favour the preterite, are based on low token counts (3 tokens for the perfect vs. 4/5 tokens for the preterite) and are for this reason not included into the discussion.
14.3. Quantitative analysts
249
Notice that the HAVE-perfect is fairly robust with verbs of all lexical types. It frequently occurs with stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of accomplishment and achievement on the other at the general rate hovering around 60%. This provides a striking parallel to the uppermesolectal variety of IndEng (ICE), where the perfect was also shown to pattern with verbs of all types at very much the same rate. Additionally, the upper-mesolectal variety of EAfEng (ICE) demonstrates a positive effect for all lexical verbs. The preliminary conclusion is then that similar to upper-mesolectal varieties of IndEng and EAfEng, the HAVE-perfect boasts a fairly well-established grammatical status in SingEng (ICE), having extended the meaning of current relevance to a considerable number of verb predicates in this variety of English. The factor group 'transitivity' demonstrates further insights into the nature of the distribution between the perfect and preterite in SingEng (ICE). Table 14.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in upper-mesolectal SingEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
transitive intransitive mutative copula BE
307(56%) 124(64%) 34(46%) 67(85%)
232(43%) 67(35%) 39(53%) 11(14%)
Total N (881)
532
349
Similar to the upper-mesolectal varieties of English considered so far, the perfect is preferred in both transitive and intransitive (except for mutative) environments. This evidence can be used in favour of the contention that the HAVE-perfect has a fairly grammaticahsed status in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng. Yet another observation is that the copula BE shows a preponderance of the present perfect in this data set. This pattern is indicative of an amazing parallel to StEngEng, where the copula HAVE BEEN was also shown to be much more frequent in the data than the copula WAS. Finally, the factor group 'negation' provides evidence in favour of the claim that there is a close association between the HAVE-perfect and notnegation as the verb form appears in 88% of the environments featuring Art-negation and in only 57% of all affirmative contexts, as Table 14.4 illustrates.
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
Table 14.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in upper-mesolectal SingEng affirmative «0/-negation constituent negation Total N (882)
HAVE-perfect 411(57%) 113(88%) 8(20%) 5^2
preterite 304(42%) 15(11%) 31 (79%) 3^
Table 14.4 also presents another interesting finding: constituent negation {no, none, nothing, etc.) is closely linked to the preterite. Evidence from this data set confirms the hypothesis that the preterite may be strongly associated with the ^-negators such as no, none, nothing, etc. (cf. Davydova 2008). In order to find out what factor groups presented above trigger the occurrence of the linguistic variants under study, we carry out the multivariate analysis that assess the contribution of the five factors to the probability that the HAVE-perfect will be used in the data. 14.3.2. Multivariate analysis Table 14.5 presents the results of the variable rule analysis in the uppermesolectal variety of SingEng. Table 14.5. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in SingEng (ICE) Perfect Input value
Factor weight .60
% 60%
N 532/882
1. Transitivity copula BE intransitive transitive mutative range
.81 .50 .47 .30 51
85% 64% 56% 46%
67/78 124/191 307/539 34/73
2. Semantic context extended-now resultative experiential recent past range
.71 .70 .36 .26 45
83% 77% 50% 34%
113/135 218/282 129/255 72/210
14.3. Quantitative analysis
251
Input value
Factor weight
%
N
3. Negation negation affirmative range
.64 .46
72% 57%
121/167 411/715
.55 .40 15
65% 51%
367/564 165/318
[-54] [-53] [-45] [-42]
61% 62% 56% 57%
197/319 147/234 37/65 151/264
4. Time adverbial specification unspecified time adverbial range 5.AktionSart dynamic stative accomplishment achievement range
18
The results show that there are staking similarities between SingEng and StEngEng. Similar to StEngEng, semantic context is highly implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng (range 45). Second, similar to StEngEng, resultative and extended-now contexts show a strong favouring effect for the perfect, whereas experiential and recent past time contexts show a disfavouring one. Recall that acrolectal IndEng (HCNVE), upper-mesolectal IndEng (ICE), mesolectal IndEng (HCNVE) and upper-mesolectal EAfEng (ICE) demonstrate a similar pattern: resultative and extended-now contexts are preferred by the HAVEperfect over experiential and recent past time contexts. The hierarchy of uses of the present perfect thus obtains in all varieties of English studied so far including SingEng (ICE). Notice also that similar to StEngEng, time adverbial specification taggers the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in SingEng. The claim that there is a close association between temporally unspecified contexts and the perfect has been corroborated by this data set. This pattern thus suggests further parallels between SingEng and StEngEng, where the HAVE-perfect shows a propensity to surface without any temporal specification. Another factor group highly implicated in the occurrence of the perfect in the data is that of transitivity. With the range of 51, transitivity is a strong factor group conditioning the appearance of the HAVE-perfect. It is important to note that both transitive and intransitive verbs (with the exception of mutative predicates) favour the perfect at .47 and .50 respectively.
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14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
This bit of evidence can be adduced in favour of the contention that the present perfect has a fairly advanced grammatical status in the upper-mesolectal variety of English as it is generally used with both transitive and intransitive predicates. Note also that the copula BE (e.g., I have been there) exerts a highly favouring effect for the perfect. This finding provides a further parallel to StEngEng, where the copula BE was shown to be closely associated with the HAVE-perfect. To sum up, it seems that the present perfect has expanded its functions to a conspicuous proportion of predicates in SingEng (ICE). This can be viewed as a further indication that this verb form has fairly advanced (although not completely developed) in the uppermesolectal variety of SingEng. Finally, factor group 'negation' triggers the occurrence of the present perfect. The close (statistically significant) association between negation and the HAVE-perfect in SingEng further substantiates the hypothesis that ^-negation should favour the perfect in English.
14.3.3. Discussion of findings Results of the multivariate analysis showed that the mechanism that produces the HAVE-perfect in the upper-mesolectal variety of SingEng is similar to that of StEngEng. The fact that the factor group 'semantic context' underlies the occurrence of the verb form under study coupled with the evidence demonstrating that resultative and extended-now contexts are the two semantic environments most favoured by the HAVE-perfect can be adduced in favour of the contention that the component of current relevance is highly implicated in the distribution of the present perfect in the uppermesolectal variety of SingEng. This pattern reveals an amazing parallel existing between SingEng and StEngEng. The same pattern is furthermore indicative of a close association between the former and other non-native Englishes examined so far. The basilectal variety of IndEng is in fact the only exception to this otherwise pervasive pattern. The binomial procedure, however, also showed stark contrasts obtaining between SingEng and StEngEng. We saw, for instance, that transitivity exerts a major influence on the occurrence of the perfect in this data set. Its significance is revealed by the fact that the HAVE-perfect is favoured with transitive, intransitive and copula BE, whereas it is disfavoured with mutative verbs. Thus, a fully developed grammatical status of the perfect has not been attained in this variety of English, which might explain why transitivity is implicated in the choice of the verb form under study in SingEng. Recall
14.4. Qualitative analysis
253
that in StEngEng the HAVE-perfect was shown to be highly favoured by transitive and intransitive (including mutative) verbs as well as the copula BE. Recall also that the HAVE-perfect has not extended to all lexical verbs in the mesolectal variety of IndEng (HCNVE), disfavouring the verbs of achievement. Similarly, the HAVE-perfect has not expanded to all relevant predicates in the upper-mesolectal variety of IndEng (ICE). The preliminary generalisation is then that both transitivity and Aktionsart underlie the occurrence of the present perfect in those varieties of English whose speakers have not developed a full (i.e. native-like) command of this verb form.
14.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts Similar to other non-native varieties of English studied so far, the data from SingEng demonstrates that the present perfect surfaces in definite past time reference contexts, as in (135) Singapore English (ICE: S1A-030; S1A-051; S1A-033; S1A-047) a. Have you watched thatUao Tar show on TV on Saturday? b. But have you seen Ms body when he torn PE college? c. I Mad that fifty-four pomt four percent of women in Pasrr PanjangGRC have had a pep smear. d. Anyway I told Elhce very flatly I have lost the desrre to work. Notice that these patterns bear very little resemblance to those attested for StEngEng. First, similar to upper-mesolectal IndEng, the HAVE-perfect occurs after verbs in the past tense (e.g., I found, I told, etc.). Second, it appears with both telic and atelic verbs in this data set. Third, patterns featuring the perfect opening an utterance and taking a scope over the following discourse in which another perfect appears modified by a definite past time adverbial are not attested in this data set. To sum up, the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in definite past time reference contexts cannot be explained in terms of pragmatic constraints imposed by the speaker on the utterance in analogy to StEngEng. In order to explain the possible source of the structures demonstrated in (135 a-d), we need to consider two further possibilities: substrate influence and universal mechanisms of second-language creation.
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Since it was suggested at the beginning of this chapter that Mandarin Chinese should be a substrate language for a vast majority of the Singaporean community, we shall consider the relevant aspects of its grammar first. To start with, Mandarin Chinese, like many other Asian languages, is an aspect (not a tense) language (cf Norman 1988: 163). In other words, this language is concerned with telling a hearer whether or not the action is completed (or in progress). Mandarin Chinese does not have grammatical categories whose major function is to place an event or a situation on the axis of time. As mentioned earlier, the aspectual distinction of perfectivity is rendered through the verbal aspect suffix -le attached to the verb stem. Le is a true aspectual marker and may appear in definite and indefinite past time reference contexts indicating in both cases that an event is to be viewed in its entirety or as a whole (Li and Thompson 1981: 185)7 Compare: (136) Mandarin Chinese (from Li and Thompson 1981: 187) a . M gao-le yidian. you tall-PFV a:httle 'You've gotten taller.' b . 7 3 zuotian lai de wan-le yidian. 3SG yesterday come NOM late-PFV a:little 'Yesterdays/he came a little late.' This use of le- in Mandarin Chinese parallels the use of the aspectual marker -jo in Cantonese, which is used to refer to events that occurred in the past and have an immediate result or to report events without any such result (cf. Matthews and Yip 1994), as in (137)
Cantonese (from Matthews and Yip 1994: 204, 205) a. Ngoh ga che waaih-jo. I CL car broken-PW 'My car's broken down.'
7 The suffixal -le is to be distinguished from the sentence final -le (cf. Sun 2006: 74), which is used to indicate a change of state or a currently relevant state and is not found in assertions of events that happened some time in the past (cf. Li and Thompson 1981: 293). Hence, the sentence-final -le, whose functions overlap significantly with that of the English present perfect, seem to ensure positive transfer from Chinese in contrast to suffixal -le, whose uses while bearing certain resemblance to the English perfect (i.e. the notion of completion) appear to give rise to interference.
14.5. Summary 255 b. Gungsl gauhlin jaahn-jo msiu chm. company last-year earn-PFV not-little money 'The company made a good deal of money last year.' In general -jo collocates with adverbs of recent past such as ngaam- ngaam 'just' or tduhsm 'just now'. At the same time, it may also co-occur with definite past time adverbials such as kdhmmdahn 'last night' or gauhlin 'last year'in a sentence. Given that cross-linguistic similarity obtains between the perfective Chinese le-(jo-) constructions and the English HAVE-perfect in the speaker's mind,8 the latter may become extended to definite past time contexts in analogy to the structure-context correspondences available for perfective constructions in the Chinese substratum. It means that the nontarget uses of the HAVE-perfect in SingEng are in principle analysable in terms of the substrate influence from Chinese. In these cases the HAVEperfect is arguably used to express the idea of completion (or perfectivity), as this use of the HAVE-perfect in SingEng parallels the corresponding uses of the aspectual verb marker -le in Mandarin Chinese and of the aspect m a r k e r s in Cantonese.
14.5. Summary Summing up, the overall distribution of variants in present perfect contexts showed that non-standard variants occur in SingEng. It was argued that some of these variants (i.e. bare verb stems) are better analysed in terms of influence from Chinese, whereas others (i.e. lone past participles) are a result of general mechanisms underlying second-language acquisition. Yet the analysis of the present tense yields both interpretations depending on the context in which the form appears. It was furthermore suggested that in case of the present tense in extended-now contexts, the substrate influence must have been reinforced by the superstratal input from the 19th-century Irish English. Last but not least, it was concluded that the past tense in pre8 Informants on Mandarin Chinese pointed out that it is in principle possible for a Chinese speaker of English to perceive of the ^-construction as being similar to (although under no circumstances identical with) the English present perfect. The interlingual identification seems to be made by the language learner on the basis of the functional similarity obtaining between the aspectual fe-(/0)-marker and the English present perfect.
256
14. Upper-mesolectal variety of Singapore English (ICE)
sent perfect contexts is most probably the result of the universal strategies of avoidance and simplification reinforced by the input from white vernaculars. Distributional analyses showed that the co-occurrence patterns of the HAVE-perfect and preterite across various language factors exhibit many similarities to StEngEng as well as acrolectal and upper-mesolectal IndEng. As in StEngEng and acrolectal IndEng, it is preferred (albeit at a lower rate) by strive and dynamic verbs as well as verbs of achievement and accomplishment. A similar pattern was demonstrated for the uppermesolectal variety of IndEng. Moreover, it is preferred in both transitive and intransitive (excluding mutative) contexts. Both findings are indicative of a fairly well-established grammatical status of the present perfect in Singling. At the same time, the relative infrequency of this verb form with mutative predicates can be viewed as a sign that the present perfect has not developed into a fully-fledged category in the variety of English studied here. The multivariate analysis has furthermore revealed that semantic context is highly implicated in the appearance of the HAVE-perfect in SingEng. More importantly, the mechanism triggering the occurrence of the HAVEperfect can be described in terms of the notion of current relevance: semantic contexts most closely associated with current relevance also condition the verb form under study. This finding is indicative of a close affiliation obtaining between SingEng and StEngEng. The multivariate procedure showed, however, that the factor group 'transitivity' was selected as statistically significant for this data set. It was suggested that transitivity (as well as Aktionsart) underlies the occurrence of the present perfect in those varieties of English whose speakers have not fully mastered the complex system of its uses. Finally, results of the qualitative analysis demonstrated that non-target uses of the HAVE-perfect in SingEng are in principle analysable in terms of the Chinese substratum.
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
15.1. Sociolinguistic history of English spoken in Russia The major historical, social and cultural aspects related to the emergence of the variety of RusEng have been treated elsewhere (see the chapter on nonnative speaker varieties of English). This issue will therefore not be pursued any further. Let it suffice to mention here that the English spoken in Russia can generally be described as a (prescriptive) norm-oriented variety of English, Standard British English exerting a considerable influence on the interlanguage grammars of a vast majority of speakers of RusEng (cf Ter-Minasova 2005). Similar to other non-native Englishes, RusEng is a highly heterogeneous variety that can be subdivided into various lects, the speakers of which exhibit varying degrees of proficiency in the target language, i.e. English.
15.2. Data In what follows, we will present, analyse and discuss the patterns of use of the present perfect by Russian speakers of English. The data for this corpus was by and large drawn from 12 learners of English (6 males and 6 females) in Russia who were interviewed in order to obtain recordings of spontaneous speech. All learners had had 5 to 10 years of English at school by the time the interview took place. Most of the informants were interviewed in pairs; the conversations varied in length from approximately 30 to 45 minutes, representing 5 hours of collected material. In addition, these interviews were supplemented with recordings of discussions (approximately one hour and a half) in which other male and female speakers of the same age and academic background participated.1 Put together, the corpus comprises approximately 37,710 words. Categorisation of individuals according to their institutional status was important for determining the learners' place along the scale of L2 develop1 Discussions were introduced into data in order to bolster the upcoming multivariate analysis.
258
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
ment (cf. Gass and Selinker 2008: 72). The level of language mastery exhibited by the Russian informants, who had been exposed to the medium of English for more than 5 but less than 10 years by the time of the interview, was assessed as corresponding to an intermediate level of second-language proficiency. These assessments coupled with the scale reflecting the exposure to the target language indicated that the interlanguage systems of the informants should be classified as mesolectal on the acrolect-basilect continuum. Another important observation is that informants described Standard British English as a reference variety that they aspired to acquire. This is, however, not surprising given that British English is a variety arguably most widely propagated in Russia. The major research interests informing this chapter can be summed up as follows. First, we want to find out if non-native female speakers demonstrate stronger orientation towards a prestigious variant (i.e. HAVE-perfect) in their L2 speech. Females are thus expected to use the perfect more frequently and consistently than male speakers. Second, the investigation aims at revealing language-internal factors conditioning the occurrence of the present perfect in the mesolectal variety of RusEng. Language-internal variation attested in StEngEng is used as a descriptive yardstick against which the patterns of the learner variety are compared. Third, we test the hypothesis concerning substrate influence from Russian. The assumption is that the area of present perfect marking of the RusEng mesolect must be considerably influenced by the Russian tense and aspect system since Russian does not possess the linguistic category of the perfect. Finally, we carry out a qualitative analysis of the HAVE-perfect with definite past time adverbial specification in this data set.
15.3.
Quantitative analysis
15.3.1.
Distributional analysis
15.3.1.1.
Extra-lingumcfactors
As for the first hypothesis, no conclusive evidence could be obtained to corroborate the initial assumption that female speakers are "better learners" of foreign languages, showing a close affinity with the prescriptive norm and using the present perfect in their speech more regularly than male learners. In fact, Figure 15.1 demonstrates that the present perfect is used more frequently in the speech of Russian male speakers.
15.3. Quantitative analysis 60%
259 • male • female
50% 40% 30% 20% 10 % 0% HAVE-perfect
preterite
• -
present
lone present participle
BE-perfect
bare verb stem
past perfect
Figure 15.1. Percentage distribution of variants by sex in RusEng The present perfect clearly does not show a preponderance of the female speakers in the RusEng mesolect. The male speakers use this verb form in 35% of all cases, whereas the female speakers do so in 30% of cases. Neither is it the case that the male speakers use non-standard variants more frequently. In fact, the females use the preterite far more often (51%) than the males do (36%). On the other hand, the present tense is clearly preferred by men. As for the less frequent variants (BE-perfect, bare verb stem and past perfect), they are distributed among the males and females rather evenly. In sum, the initial hypothesis that female learners of English should use the HAVE-perfect more frequently than male speakers has not been substantiated by this data set. Let us now turn to the description of the languageinternal variation in our data on RusEng.
15.3.1.2.
Language-internal factors
15.3.1.2.1. Variation m present perfect contexts Table 15.1 demonstrates the overall distribution of variants in the data set. Notice first of all the fairly robust occurrence of the preterite (45%), the HAVE-perfect (32%), the present tense (15%) and bare verb stems (4%). All other variants (i.e. the lone present participle, the BE-perfect and the past perfect) are by contrast infrequent, accounting for less than 1% of the entire data. These forms, as exemplified in (138) below, are therefore not an essential part of the interlanguage grammar of the RusEng mesolect.
260
15 Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
Table 15.1. Overall distribution of variants in mesolectal RusEng
HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect bare verb stem lone present participle
N
%
70 96 32 2 2 9 2
32% 45% 15% 0% 0% 4% 0%
213
Total N
(138) Mesolectal Russian English (HCNVE: RE09; RE27; RE07) a. From that period other countries sometimes are frighten us. (BE-perfect) 'And from that time on, other countries have been frightening us.' b. My hobby had changed and they will change of course. (past perfect) 'My hobby have changed and they will change of course' c. A: What have you been doing recently? B: (after a pause) Playing computer games. The rare occurrence of the past perfect and the BE-perfect in the data can be explained by the fact that Russian lacks the perfect. Being unfamiliar with the category of the perfect, Russian speakers of English tend to avoid these forms in their speech. To be able to understand the source of origin of the frequent variants in the data, let us consider the distribution of the present perfect, preterite and present tense across semantic contexts. Present perfect, preterite and present tense Table 15.2. Distribution of the perfect and other major verb forms across present perfect contexts in mesolectal RusEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
resultative extended-now experiential recent past
22 21 23 4
Q D 8 ( j h QT)
Total N
70
96
present
^
6 ^26} -
75 55 52 16
32
m
15.3. Quantitative analysts
261
The first observation is that the preterite rather than the HAVE-perfect dominates in resultative, experiential and recent past time contexts. The present tense, on the other hand, is predominant in extended-now contexts. The distribution of the morphological variants in present perfect contexts is best analysed as a system reflecting the underlying Russian grammar. To provide an overview, in Russian resultative, existential contexts as well as contexts of recent past are all rendered by the past tense, as in (139) Russian a. X oduu cwn amy numy. I alone eat-PAST this pizza 'I have eaten the pizza (all on my own).' - resultative b. X nuKOsda ne 6un e AMepuKe. I never not BE-PAST in America 'I have never been to America.' - experiential c. Mu nedaeno 6ujm ua Mope. We recently BE-PAST.PL on sea 'We have been to the seaside recently.' - context of recent past In some cases, however, resultative contexts are conveyed by a construction with the past participle, as in (140) Russian nocmpoeu u MU MOOKXM e ueu wumu House.MASC built-PP and we can-PL in him live 'The house has been built and we can live there now.'
JJOM
By contrast, extended-now contexts require the present tense in Russian. (141) Russian Xyny neMeMKUU eom yvce n»mbjiem. I study-PRES German for already five years 'I have been studying German for five years now.' To be able to understand why LI influence may be considered to be the most convincing scenario in most cases of the use of the preterite and present tense in present perfect contexts in RusEng, let us consider some of the patterns in more detail. Table 15.2 demonstrates that the preterite is fairly frequent in experiential contexts (N 29/52). For example, out of 31 instantiations of the experiential
262
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
context of the type 'I have been /was to the Ukraine (Moscow, etc.) twice (three times, etc.)', 23 were realised as the preterite (i.e. 'I was in the Ukraine (Moscow, etc.) twice (three times, etc.)'), whereas only 8 were used with the HAVE-perfect (i.e. 'I have been to the Ukraine (Moscow, etc.) twice (three times, etc.)'). It is necessary to note that it is the preterite that is used in this particular context in Russian, as in (142) Russian X6»n eMocKee deapasa. I BE-PAST.SG in Moscow twice. 'I have been to Moscow twice.' It is exactly this form that the mesolectal informants on RusEng use frequently (i.e. in 23 out of 31 possible cases) in this context, replacing the HAVE/HAS BEEN-form with the more familiar WAS/WERE-form. Similar to experiential contexts, the semantic domain of resultatives covered by the HAVE-perfect in StEngEng is rendered by the simple past tense in Russian, as demonstrated in the examples above. Alternatively, the past participle construction (e.g., 'This house built') can be used in Russian to convey a resultative meaning. Interestingly enough, such lone past participles were not attested in the corpus. There are generally two options in resultative contexts in RusEng - the HAVE-perfect and the preterite. However, the preterite morphology is used much more frequently used to mark resultant states (N 47/69). Here are some examples from our data: (143) Mesolectal Russian English (HCNVE: RE09; RE11) a. I know the good results of globalisation. The Euro became to their political area. Political, economical area. Then, trips opportunities grew up. b. Because English language became the leader through other international languages and now lots of things are in English. The reason for such robust occurrence of the simple past tense in resultative contexts may again lie in the Russian substratum: having not completely mastered the system of use of the English present perfects, Russian learners of English map the verb forms most readily available in their mother tongue onto the respective context in English. Like many other languages, Russian requires the present tense in extende d ™ contexts. This pattern is readily observable in the linguistic output
15.3. Quantitative analysis
263
of the Russian speakers of English, who fairly frequently employ the present tense in contexts describing an event that started in the past and continues or persists into the moment of utterance, as Figure 15.2 demonstrates. 2 100 % | present tense 80%
60%
40%
20%
0% extended-now
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 15.2. Distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts in RusEng Thus, the present tense occurs fairly often in sentences such as (144)
Mesolectal Russian English (HCNVE: RE09; RE18) a. I'm studying Enelish for six years. b. I'm using Internet for two or three years. c. We have fifth forms for two years already.
It is by contrast very infrequent in contexts in which a result of a past action still obtains at the moment of utterance but it does occur occasionally in such semantic environments.
2 It must be mentioned here that the present tense is also attested in resultative contexts in RusEng (HCNVE) what nicely tallies with our results on IndEng (ICE). In contrast to IndEng, the present tense is much less robust in resultative contexts. In addition, it is not attested in the contexts of recent past or experiental contexts in RusEng. Substrate influence scenario is therefore still strongly suggested for this variety.
264
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
(145) Mesolectal Russian English (HCNVE: RE02; RE11) a. Do you think that the Internet has changed our lives? - It changes our lives because we don >t have to use books and don >t have to find out this information for a long time. '...has changed...' b. Could you describe the results of globalisation? - Now... now Europe is united into one. '...has been united...' Taking into account all pieces of evidence presented so far, we interpret the occurrence of the simple past tense in resultative, experiential and recent past time contexts and the use of the present tense in extended-now contexts in the speech of these informants as a result of substrate influence. HAVE-perfect Having described the major distributional patterns of the substandard verb forms in RusEng and compared them to the rates of the present perfect, we will turn to a more detailed description of the latter. When compared to StEngEng, in which the HAVE-perfect has been attested in 90% of all cases, the variety of RusEng studied here is still far from being standard conformant. The perfect is clearly underrepresented in the RusEng data (32%). The relatively infrequent occurrence of the perfect demonstrated above is striking given the fact that its major uses had been studied by the learners in the EFL classroom by the time the interview took place. Why then is it the case that the perfect still poses significant problems for these intermediate nonnative speakers of English? It is argued here that one possible answer is the semantic complexity of the verb form under study, as elaborated on in the theoretical part of the study. To start with, around 64% of all present perfects were obtained as a response to a question featuring the HAVE-perfect, e.g., Do you feel that your parents have influenced your life? How has the Internet changed our lives? What countries have you visited?, etc. Apparently, the morpho-syntax of the perfect as such does not seem to present these speakers with significant problems. Difficulties, however, arise when speakers try to identify a present perfect context. Thus, only 36% of the present perfects were obtained as responses to questions that did not feature the perfect as such but rather implied a present perfect context. For instance, an interviewee was asked to describe the results of environmental pollution or globalisation, or to ex-
15.3. Quantitative analysis 265 plain how this week is different from the previous one, etc. These observations hence demonstrate that the intermediate Russian speaker of English experiences difficulties with the semantics of the context rather than the morpho-syntax of the verb form itself. Since the Russian language does not employ a special verb form to delineate present perfect contexts from other contexts, Russian speakers of English are not used to drawing a distinction between past events with current relevance and those without it. In other words, they do not have any linguistic pre-knowledge that would help them to differentiate present perfect contexts from other semantic environments while learning English. The lack of the category of the English perfect in Russian coupled with complexity of semantic uses demonstrated by this verb form seem to be possible reasons why the category of the English present perfect presents Russian speakers of English with such considerable difficulties.
15.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts The overall distribution of variants in the preceding section has shown that the present perfect and preterite account for almost 80% of the RusEng data. The following sections present the analyses of the distributional patterns of these forms, attempting to describe the general mechanism underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect. Let us first of all consider the distribution of both verb forms across semantic contexts. 100% | perfect | preterite 80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
I
extended-now
resultative
experiential
recent past
Figure 15.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite across semantic contexts in mesolectal RusEng
266
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
Notice infrequent occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in resultative contexts in this variety of English. The claim that resultative contexts should be more frequent with the perfect has not been substantiated by this data. We will take up this issue in the section presenting the discussion of findings on RusEng. The factor group 'time adverbial specification' also shows considerable deviations from the standard pattern. Consider Figure 15.4: 100% • perfect • preterite 80%
60%
40%
20% -
0% time adverbial
unspecified
Figure 15.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in mesolectal RusEng In contrast to StEngEng, where the HAVE-perfect was shown to be more robust in temporally unspecified environments, RusEng demonstrates strong associations between the perfect and time adverbials on the one hand, and the preterite and unspecified contexts on the other. More importantly, in contrast to StEngEng, time adverbial specification does not underlie the choice of the verb form under study in RusEng (see results of the multivariate analysis for RusEng). Another interesting pattern can be observed in the distribution of the present perfect and preterite across lexical verbs of various types. The following table illustrates the frequency of the present perfect and preterite across Aktionsart in RusEng.
15.3. Quantitative analysts
267
Table 15.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in mesolectal RusEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
stative dynamic achievement accomplishment
15(32%) 47(59%) 6(23%) 2(13%)
31(67%) 32(40%) 20(76%) 13 (86%)
Total N (166)
70
96
It follows that the HAVE-perfect has not extended beyond dynamic verbs in the mesolectal learner's grammar. This bit of evidence suggests that the perfect has not been yet fully developed in this variety of English as it has not spread into contexts in which it is attested in the native variety of English. This provides a sharp contrast to the preterite which collocates fairly well with all lexical verbs. This finding implies that the simple past tense is acquired before the HAVE-perfect by non-native speakers of English. Furthermore, the table illustrates quite neatly that the preterite is preferred with punctual-telic verbs. This result is congruent with the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, which claims that during the early stages of morphological development, learners associate and use past tense morphology with prototypical punctual-telic predicates (cf Housen 2002: 166). However, the hypothesis also predicts that verbs of accomplishment and achievement should be more frequent with the perfect morphology. No conclusive evidence was found to substantiate this point as the HAVE-perfect unambiguously demonstrates a preponderance of the dynamic verbs in our data. It remains unclear why the HAVE-perfect is preferred with dynamic verbs, while being used only very infrequently with verbs of achievement and accomplishment. We will return to this issue in our account of GerEng. The analysis of the factor group 'transitivity' unambiguously shows that the preterite is more robust in both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) environments which provides a sharp contrast to the native variety ofEnglish. Table 15.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in mesolectal RusEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
transitive intransitive
37(44%) 33 (40%)
47(55%) 48(59%)
Total N (165)
70
95
268
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
This finding is, however, in accordance with the initial hypothesis that the present perfect is not a preferred variant in (in)transitive contexts in mesolectal varieties of English due to its incomplete acquisition in these Englishes. Transitivity was, however, not selected as a statistically significant factor group, as the multivariate analysis in the following section shows. The last factor group to be considered here is that of negation. In contrast to the initial hypothesis, negative environments do not show a preponderance of the HAVE-perfect, as Table 15.5 demonstrates. Table 15.5. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in mesolectal RusEng
affirmative negation3 Total N (166)
HAVE-perfect 68(42%) 2(40%) 70
preterite 93(57%) 3 (60%) 96
However, these results should be treated with caution due to low token counts across the factor 'negation' (overall N=5). The final observation is that similar to StEngEng, negation was not selected as a statistically significant factor group in this variety of English. We have so far taken a closer look at the distributional patterning of the variants in RusEng. But what factors, both linguistic and extralinguistic, condition their occurrence and in what order? The multivariate analysis will clarify this issue.
15.3.2. Multivariate analysis Table 15.6 depicts the results of the variable rule analysis of the contribution of five linguistic factors and one extra-linguistic factor to the probability of the HAVE-perfect in RusEng.
3 In this data set, the "not-negation" and "no-negation" were merged due to low token counts.
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269
Table 15.6. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in RusEng (HCNVE) Perfect Input value
o/o
Factor weight .42
42%
N 70/166
1. Semantic context extended-now experiential resultative recent past
.75 .47 .43 .36
72% 44% 31% 25%
21/29 23/52 22/69 4/16
range
39
2.AktionSart stative and dynamic4 change-of-state verbs
.56 .30
49% 19%
62/125 8/41
range
26 [-50] [-43]
42% 40%
68/161 2/5
[-50] [-49]
44% 40%
37/84 33/81
[-57] [-48]
60% 37%
21/35 49/131
[-57] [-44]
49% 37%
33/67 37/99
3. Negation affirmative negation range 4. Transitivity transitive intransitive range 5. Time adverbial specification time adverbial unspecified range 6. Sex male female range "
4 Similar to the acrolectal IndEng (HCNVE), we merged stative and dynamic verbs on the one hand and verbs of achievement and accomplishment on the other. See the chapter on acrolectal IndEng (HCNVE) for a linguistic explanation for this rearrangement of factors.
270
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
The results show that two factors tngger the present perfect in this variety: semantic context and Aktionsart, i.e. inherent lexical aspect of verbs. With the range of 39, semantic context is the most decisive factor group contributing to the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in RusEng. This finding is in line with the evidence obtained from other varieties, in which semantic context has been shown to be the strongest factor group favouring the perfect. Astonishing, however, is the fact that constraint hierarchy within semantic context in RusEng is not identical to the order in which semantic contexts are arranged in other varieties of English we have considered so far. Indeed, the only context favouring the perfect is extended-now followed by expenentials, resultatives and, finally, by contexts of recent past. It is interesting to note that resultative contexts are not favoured in RusEng; this finding is in sharp contrast to all other varieties of English studied here. It is obvious that the constraint hierarchy as regards the expression of current relevance does not underlie the occurrence of the present perfect in RusEng. The second factor underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in our data is Aktionsart. The perfect shows strong preponderance of dynamic verbs (i.e. play, run, etc.) and is very weak with the lexical verbs describing some change of state. The preterite, on the other hand, favours verbs of accomplishment and achievement. Thus, it seems that at this stage of L2 development the present perfect is associated with durative and atelic events, whereas the simple past tense morphology is consistently mapped onto punctual-tehc predicates referring to some change of state. Our last remark in this section concerns the factor group of sex which has not been selected as statistically significant for this group of speakers. Although the distributional analysis revealed that the male speakers use the present perfect a bit more often than the female speakers, the sociolmguistic variable of sex does not determine the occurrence of this verb form in our data on RusEng.
15.3.3. Discussion of findings How can we account for the fact that resultative contexts are not favoured in the mesolectal variety of RusEng? In the previous chapters we argued that semantic complexity of the English present perfect is a challenge to any non-native speaker. However, if the category is absent in the respective mother tongue, the task of acquiring this verb form according to the norms of StEngEng grammar becomes exponentially more difficult. It is apparently for this reason that intermediate Russian speakers of English demonstrate a
15.4. Qualitative analysis
271
hierarchy of uses of the present perfect significantly deviating from the native-speaker pattern. The lack of the category of the perfect in the Russian substratum thus seems to have repercussions for the development of the category of the English HAVE-perfect in a non-native grammar.
15.4. Qualitative analysis: The present perfect in definite past time reference contexts The occurrence of the present perfect in definite past time reference contexts is also rare in the corpus. Thus, the HAVE-perfect is represented by 70 instantiations in present perfect contexts. By contrast, it is attested in only 10 cases of all definite past time reference contexts, two of which are exemplified below. (146) Mesolectal Russian English (HCNVE: RE10; RE11) a. / don't think that Europe has done the good thing when they umted in one. b. Maybe yesterday it was some special. Yesterday I've been chosen to their profile. These observations suggest that the present perfect tends to be undergeneralised in present perfect contexts and rarely overgeneralised to definite past time reference contexts in this mesolectal variety of English. In other words, it is relatively infrequent in present perfect contexts, especially when compared to the native variety of StEngEng. Moreover, speakers seem to avoid using the HAVE-perfect in the contexts traditionally associated with the preterite in English. How can we account for this tendency? A possible explanation may be offered by the notion of transfer, more specifically by the model of conceptual transfer proposed by Dan I. Slobin (1996). Slobin argues that the grammatical categories that are most susceptible to influence from the native language are the language-specific categories that constitute the specific mode of thinking for speaking in one's first language. Slobin singles out tense and aspect (TA) as the best examples of such language-specific grammatical categories. According to this model, a speaker's mind is set to a particular mode of thinking for speaking in the course of LI acquisition and it is very difficult to reset it in the course of L2 acquisition. This argument suggests that TA distinctions of one's LI determine the subsequent acquisition of the TA system of one's L2. More specifically, if a particular TA
272
15. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Russia (HCNVE)
category (both form and meaning) of the target language is missing in the native language, its acquisition will become even more challenging, learners replacing this category with the more familiar forms from their native language, simultaneously avoiding those linguistic items which they perceive as more difficult. Relying on this theoretical assumption, it could be suggested for the time being that the HAVE-perfect is generally underrepresented in the L2 output of mesolectal speakers of RusEng because these speakers do not have any linguistic pre-knowledge about this verb form coming from their native language which could possibly guide their L2 acquisition of this category. In other words, the Russian language does not "train" its speakers to draw a distinction between past events with current relevance and the ones without it. Having not completely mastered the major meanings of the English present perfect, the Russian speakers try to avoid the HAVE-perfect by substituting this item with the corresponding mother-tongue forms such as the present tense and preterite in present perfect contexts. Consequently, Russian speakers seldom overgeneralise the present perfect to definite past time reference contexts in English as this type of contexts is the domain of the preterite in Russian.
15.5. Summary In this chapter we have looked at the distribution of the present perfect and other variants in the speech of the mesolectal speakers of RusEng that have been exposed to the medium of English for more than 5 but less than 10 years. The overall distribution of variants shows that the HAVE-perfect is a fairly underrepresented item as it occurs only in 32% of all present perfect contexts attested in the corpus. Furthermore, the distributional analysis of the most frequent non-standard variants suggests a fairly strong influence from the Russian tense and aspect system. More importantly, both distributional and multivariate analyses revealed that as far as present perfect marking is concerned, the mesolectal grammar of RusEng exhibits significant deviations from the native-speaker grammar in the area of transitivity, lexical aspect as well as time adverbial specification. We have found out that the constraint hierarchy for the factor group 'semantic context' deviates from the standard pattern, resultative contexts being slightly dispreferred by the perfect at the weight of .43 in RusEng. This finding implies that these mesolectal speakers of English still have difficulties in understanding the major mechanism that produces the present
15.5. Summary
273
perfect in the native-speaker variety of StEngEng. We have suggested that the delay in the acquisition of the HAVE-perfect morphology and its meanings may be due to the lack of the respective category (on both formal and functional levels) in the substrate language (i.e. Russian). Another factor accounting for the generally infrequent occurrence of the perfect in the data is the semantic complexity of this verb form.
16. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
16.1. Sociolinguistic history of English spoken in Germany There are no detailed in-depth studies of the varieties of English spoken by native Germans, yet some remarks are in order here. The history of English in Germany can probably be traced back to the 18th century when a "threelanguage system was established" in Europe (cf Melchers and Shaw 2003), according to which all educated people were supposed to have a good command of three major European languages: German, French and English. The importance of English increased in Germany (as well as in other European countries) in the second half of the 19th century, at the time when the US started developing into an important industrial power boasting new technologies as well as excellent research and scholarship. Throughout the twentieth century English became more and more widely known as a result of the US military power, the attractiveness of US popular culture, the superiority of US technology, science and scholarship (cf. Melchers and Shaw 2003: 179). Similar to other non-native Englishes, varieties of GerEng can be conceived of as forming a cline of proficiency ranging from fairly inefficient to very advanced forms of English. In Germany, English is used primarily in international communication, research, education (university level and - to some extent - secondary level), publicity, business, popular culture and interaction with foreigners (cf. Melchers and Shaw 2003: 179); it does not serve as a link language among various regions or ethnic groups in Germany. Neither is it used in primary education, religion, courts and the law, national politics, literature, national administration, or home and family life (cf. Melchers and Shaw 2003). Similar to RusEng, GerEng is by and large an outcome of formal teaching. Today English is the most studied foreign language in Germany. Instruction in English normally starts in the third grade (in some cases in the first grade) of the elementary school, and most secondary school students take English to satisfy foreign language requirements. According to Knapp (2007), British English is a dominant model for English as a foreign language in German secondary schools (cf. Knapp 2007: 532). Young people are probably more interested in learning English than the generation of the
16.3. Quantitative analysts
275
middle aged, although a positive correlation between good knowledge of English and a fairly high socio-economic status can be safely assumed.
16.2. Data The corpus data was collected from 12 learners of English from northern Germany. Similar to Russian speakers, all learners had studied English for more than 5 but less than 10 years at school by the time of the interview. Six males and six females were interviewed in pairs, each interview lasting for approximately 45 minutes. The collected material is thus represented by roughly 5 hours of recorded spontaneous speech, amounting to some 26,420 words of text. Since all informants studied here had been exposed to the medium of English for more than 5 but less than 10 years, they were classified (in analogy to the RusEng informants) as mesolectal speakers on the acrolectbasilect continuum. Similar to the mesolectal speakers of RusEng, German speakers of English referred to Standard British English as their reference variety. As with RusEng data, the research focus was on the sociolinguistic patterning of the verb forms by sex as well as on language-internal variation attested in present perfect contexts. Furthermore, the frequent occurrence of the present perfect was hypothesised for GerEng as this verb form is alive and well in German. In particular, it was hypothesised that a considerable amount of overgeneralisations of the present perfect into definite past time reference contexts was to be expected as in German the perfect has overgeneralised its functions to cover the entire past time reference system. Let us first of all consider distributional trends and patterns in the data.
16.3.
Quantitative analysis
16.3.1.
Distributional analysis
16.3.1.1. Extra-linguistic factors Figure 16.1 represents the percentage distribution of all variants by sex. As can be seen, the prestigious HAVE-perfect is used by the males more frequently (34%) than by the females (26%), whereas the less standard preterite is used more often by the females (46%) than the males (41%). As for other substandard variants (i.e. present tense, past perfect, BE-perfect
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and lone past participle), almost all of them are used exclusively by the female speakers. The only exception is bare verb stems, which are used only by the male speakers. No stronger orientation towards the standard norm on the part of the female speakers was thus found. In fact, it turns out that the male speakers use the present perfect in present perfect contexts more frequently, simultaneously showing less preponderance of the non-standard forms. Similar to RusEng, our hypothesis that L2 female speakers should use the prestigious variant; i.e. the HAVE-perfect, in present perfect contexts much more consistently than L2 male speakers has not been confirmed for GerEng. Taking the results of the previous chapters into account, we can at this point conclude with a fair amount of certainty that the women's stronger orientation towards prestigious speech in their LI (cf Lether and James 1996; AH 1999; Romaine 2004) does not carry over to the learning of other languages. 60%
• male • female
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% HAVEperfect
preterite
present tense
past perfect
BE-perfect
lone past participle
lone present participle
verb stem
Figure 16.1. Percentage distribution of variants by sex in GerEng
16.3.1.2.
Language-internal factors
16.3.1.2.1. Variation in present perfect contexts The major purpose of the following sections is to present the overall distribution of variants in the data, showing how the dependent variable (i.e. HAVE-perfect) patterns with other (independent) linguistic factors. Table 16.1 demonstrates the overall distribution of the linguistic variable under study.
16.3. Quantitative analysis 277 Table 16.1. Overall distribution of variants in mesolectal GerEng HAVE-perfect preterite present BE-perfect past perfect bare verb stem lone past participle lone present participle preterite with the present tense inflection Total N
N 67 93 42 2 4 3 2 1 1 215
% 31% 43% 19% 0% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0%
Notice first of all that the overall rate of the HAVE-perfect in GerEng compares positively to that of RusEng. In other words, this verb form is used in the former variety nearly as frequently (31%) as in the latter one (32%). Similar to Russian speakers of English, many German informants appeared to have more problems with those tasks or questions that did not feature the HAVE-perfect but rather insinuated the idea of a present perfect context (e.g., 'Describe results of environmental pollution'). In fact, only 39% of the HAVE-perfects were used in responses to questions that did not contain the verb form but rather suggested a semantic environment typically rendered by the HAVE-perfect in Standard English. By contrast, 61% of all present perfects in the data were obtained as a response to questions featuring the verb form (e.g., Have you ever been abroad?). In short, German speakers of English seem to experience more difficulties with the complexities of the semantics of the English present perfect rather than with the morpho-syntaxofthis verb form. Similar to RusEng, the other two most robust forms encountered in our data on GerEng are the simple past tense and the present tense. Other variants, i.e. the past perfect, the BE-perfect, the lone past participle, etc. are very infrequent. BE-perfect The rare occurrence of the BE-perfect is particularly striking given the fact that a similar verb form is attested in German and one could rightly expect a considerable amount of substrate influence on the interlanguage grammar. Although very infrequent, the BE-perfect occurs precisely in the contexts where one would expect them in German.
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16. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
(147) Mesolectal German English (HCNVE: GE03; GE04) a. But here, what I think is here happened in this last years. German: '...was ich denke ist hier geschehen/passiert...' b. Bad things which are happened and very down and, yes, I'm sad and my mother. German: 'Schlechte Sachen, die geschehen sind...' The verb happen (German geschehen, passieren) requires the auxiliary BE; it is exactly with this verb that the BE-perfect occurs in our data on GerEng. The substrate influence scenario hence seems to be the most straightforward (as well as the most convincing) explanation in this case. HAVE-perfect vs. Preterite Just as striking is the fact that the HAVE-perfect is relatively rare in the data. Given the presence of this verb form in the Germanic substratum one would expect German speakers of English to use this form much more consistently. Indeed, in Northern German the Perfekt is used predominantly in contexts associated with the present perfect in StEngEng, whereas the Prdteritum is frequently restricted to the copula verbs sein and werden (Eng. be and become), modal verbs and the verb haben (Eng. have) (Rodel 2007: 57-63) in these semantic environments.1 This is particularly true of the spoken Northern German dialect as in written speech the Pratentum seems to occur much more frequently than the Perfekt. The following examples demonstrate the most typical patterns of use of the Northern German perfect in the spoken data. (148) German a. Ich habe das Glas zerbrochen. I have the glass broken 'I have broken the glass' - resultative context BUT b. Ihr wurde gerade schlecht Her BECOME-COPULA-PAST right now bad (und sie muss deswegen zu Hause bleiben). and she must because of that at home stay 'She has fallen ill (and has to stay in for this reason).' -resultative context 1 It should be mentioned for the sake of clarity here that in southern varieties of German, the Prateritum has disappeared altogether, being ousted by the form of the Perfekt from virtually all contexts.
16.3. Quantitative analysts
279
c. Ich habe emmal Madonna gesehen. I have once Madonna seen 'I have seen Madonna once.' - experiential context BUT d. Ich hatte sehr viel Freude in meinem Leben. I have-PASTalotof joy in my life 'I have had a lot of joy in my life.' - experiential context e. Ich war zweimal in America. I BE-COPULA-PAST two times in America 'I have been to America twice.' - experiential context As is clear, the present perfect tends to be used with main lexical verbs in spoken Northern German, whereas the use of the preterite seems to be circumscribed to the specific contexts featuring copulas, modal and some lexical verbs. If the use of the perfect and preterite in our corpus of GerEng were due to interference effects, we should expect a high percentage of use of the copula verbs with the preterite on the one hand and high percentage of use of the main verbs with the present perfect on the other. In other words, we should expect that the distribution of the present perfect and preterite in GerEng would replicate the distribution of these forms attested in the native language. Table 16.2. Co-occurrences of the HAVE-perfect and preterite with main and copula verbs in GerEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
main verb copula verbs
^ W 14(20%)
T T ^ 21 (22%)
^tam
67(100%)
93 (100%)
The distributional analysis of the present perfect and preterite with main and copula verbs unambiguously demonstrates that both verb forms are distributed in similar proportions across verbs of both types. This bit of evidence suggests that transfer influence is very unlikely in this particular case. How can we then account for the fact that the preterite is used more often than the perfect with both main and copula verbs? The answer may again lie in the complex semantics of the English present perfect. Because the functions of the German Perfekt considerably overlap but never exactly coincide with those of the English perfect (the German perfect is frequently used to express definite past time reference), the German learners of English
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16 Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
seem to try to avoid using this ambiguous form, substituting it with a semantically more transparent one - the preterite. In other words, mesolectal speakers of English may use the preterite not necessarily as a result of language transfer effects but rather as a default form, shunning the semantically complex present perfect. The universal strategies of simplification and avoidance thus seem to account for the robust occurrence of the preterite in this data set. Present tense The present tense is another robust verb form in GerEng. Similar to RusEng, it occurs almost exclusively in extended-now contexts. Hence, sentences such as Four years I'm working at the computer (German English HCNVE: GE04) is the prototypical environment for the present tense in our data. The resultative context is by contrast a very rare environment for this verb form, asm (149) Mesolectal German English (HCNVE: GE11) And in the last time it [the situation] changes a little bit. '...has changed' Thus, Figure 16.2 demonstrates that the present tense is used almost exclusively in continuous contexts. 100% | present 80%
60%
40%
20%
0% extended-now
resultatives
experientials
recent past
Figure 16.2. Distribution of the present tense across present perfect contexts in mesolectal GerEng
16.3. Quantitative analysis
281
Since German employs the present tense in this type of contexts (e.g., Ich warte hier sett drei Stunden), substrate influence seems to be the most straightforward explanation for this pattern.
16.3.1.2.2. The present perfect and preterite in present perfect contexts As in RusEng, there are two forms exhibiting robust variability, accounting for 74% of the entire data in GerEng - the present perfect and preterite. Both verb forms occur in resultative, extended-now, experiential and recent past time contexts interchangeably. Moreover, the distributional patterning of these variants across semantic contexts represents an important finding. Figure 16.3 shows that the HAVE-perfect is more frequent in extended-now followed by resultative contexts. The contexts that are least preferred by the perfect are recent past time and experiential contexts. 80% HAVE-perfect 60%
40%
20%
0 %
i
i
extended-now
resultatives
i
recent past
experientials
Figure 16.3 Distribution of the present perfect across present perfect contexts in mesolectal GerEng The hierarchy of uses of the present perfect as regards the expression of current relevance has been confirmed for this variety of English: resultative and extended-now contexts, which have been claimed to be more explicit with respect to the expression of current relevance, show a preponderance of the HAVE-perfect. By contrast, distribution of the present perfect and preterite by time adverbials exhibits patterns deviating from the standard.
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16 Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
100% O perfect • preterite 80%
60%
40%
20%
0 % -\
^
—
^
1
time adverbial
^
^
1
unspecified
Figure 16.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by time adverbial specification in mesolectal GerEng In contrast to StEngEng, the HAVE-perfect is clearly less frequent in temporally unspecified contexts and is more robust in temporally specified ones. This group was, however, shown to be statistically non-significant in this variety (see results of the multivariate analysis for GerEng in the ensuing section). Another linguistic variable highly implicated in the distribution of the present perfect is that of Aktionsart. Table 16.3 demonstrates percentage distribution of the perfect by lexical verbs. Table 16.3. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by Aktionsart in mesolectal GerEng HAVE-perfect
preterite
stative dynamic achievement accomplishment
17(36%) 45(50%) 5(25%) 0 (0%)
30 45 15 3
Total N (160) -
67
93
(63%) (50%) (75%) (100%)
Similar to RusEng, the HAVE-perfect collocates with dynamic verbs much more readily than with any other type of verbs. The preterite on the other hand combines fairly well with different lexical verbs. This piece of evidence is consistent with the finding that the acquisition of the preterite precedes the acquisition of the present perfect (cf Housen 2002). Second, the preterite is preferred over the HAVE-perfect with verbs of achievement and accomplishment. This finding is again congruent with that
16.3. Quantitative analysts
283
obtained for RusEng, were punctual-telic verbs were shown to be associated with the preterite. But why would speakers prefer to use punctual-telic verbs with the preterite morphology? An explanation to this trend is provided, for instance, in Housen (2000), who contends that past morphology attaches to punctual predicates first since both pasthood and punctuality imply the notion of completion ( Housen 2002: 187). A similar stance is taken in Shirai and Andersen (1995) and more recently in Odlin and Alonso-Vazquez (2006). What is, however, disturbing is the fact that the HAVE-perfect is robust with dynamic predicates and is used very infrequently with verbs of achievement and accomplishment. According to the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, learners should begin to acquire perfective morphology starting with punctual-telic verbs and gradually spreading this morphology to stative and dynamic environments. Therefore, the pattern presented in Table 16.3 should not be attested in the mesolectal grammar; yet it is attested. More importantly, it is attested in both learner varieties of English studied here and is in need of an explanation. In the section presenting the discussion of findings in this chapter, we account for this distributional trend relying on the account of current relevance developed in the theoretical part of the study. The factor group 'transitivity' also illustrates considerable deviations in the distribution of the present perfect when compared to the standard variety ofEnglish. Table 16.4. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by transitivity in mesolectal GerEng
transitive intransitive Total N (160)
HAVE-perfect 25(32%) 42(50%) 67
preterite 51(67%) 42(50%) 93
Having spread into 50% of all intransitive (including mutative) environments and 32% of all transitive contexts, the present perfect is still very far from being fully developed in the mesolectal grammar of GerEng. Finally, the factor group 'negation' does not confirm the claim that the perfect should be favoured with negative markers, as the table given below shows.
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16 Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
Table 16.5. Distribution of the perfect and preterite by negation in mesolectal GerEng
affirmative negation2 Total N (160)
HAVE-perfect 65 (43%) 2(20%) 67
preterite 85 (56%) 8(80%) 93
A note of caution is due here: the token counts for negation are too low to allow any robust generalisations. It is nevertheless interesting to note that similar to StEngEng and RusEng, this factor group was not selected as statistically significant in the upcoming multivariate analysis. Having considered the variants surfacing in present perfect contexts in GerEng and their overall distributions, let us take a closer look at the factors triggering the occurrence of the major object of this study - the HAVEperfect. 16.3.2. Multivariate analysis In order to detect which, if any, independent linguistic features (semantic context, Aktionsart, negation, transitivity and adverbial specification) as well as an extra-linguistic one (sex of the speaker) contribute statistically significant effects on the presence of the present perfect in GerEng, the multiple regression procedure (Goldvarb 2001) was once again employed. In the configuration of data presented in Table 16.6, we seek to discover what patterns of variability of the present perfect in GerEng can account for its close affinity with the standard grammar of English and what patterns make this variety similar to other learner varieties of English. Table 16.6 displays a strong significant association (range 45) between the use of the HAVE-perfect and semantic context in GerEng. As in StEngEng, it is highly favoured in extended-now and resultative contexts at .80 and .56 respectively. Experiential and recent past time contexts are less associated with the HAVE-perfect in GerEng. Exactly the same pattern has been attested for the reference variety of StEngEng. It follows that similar constraint ranking attested for semantic context in both GerEng and StEngEng accounts for a close affinity between these two varieties of English. 2 In this data set, the "not-negation" and "no-negation" were merged due to low token counts.
16.3. Quantitative analysts 285 Although the overall percentage of the HAVE-perfect in present perfect contexts is far from being standard conformant, the mechanism underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in the mesolectal variety of GerEng conforms to that attested in the native-speaker variety of StEngEng. Table 16.6. Multivariate analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to the probability of the perfect in GerEng (HCNVE) Perfect Input value
Factor weight .41
% 41%
N 67/160
73% 46% 41% 27%
11/15 31/67 10/24 15/54
range
.80 .56 .43 .35 45
2.AktionSart3 dynamic stative range
.56 .37 19
50% 36%
45/90 17/47
3. Transitivity intransitive transitive range
.63 .34 29
50% 32%
42/84 25/76
4. Negation affirmative negation range
[-51] [-24]
43% 20%
65/150 2/10
5. Time adverbial specification time adverbial unspecified range
[.70] [.44]
61% 37%
19/31 48/129
6. Sex male female range
[-57] [-39]
45% 36%
43/95 24/65
1. Semantic context extended-now resultative recent past experiential
3 Verbs of accomplishment and achievement were excluded from this analysis due to their poor distribution across the data. This step considerably improved the multivariate analysis.
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16. Mesolectal variety of English spoken in Germany (HCNVE)
What makes these varieties, however, explicitly different is the fact that factors other than semantic context trigger the appearance of the present perfect in the learner variety of GerEng. Similar to RusEng, the present perfect is favoured by dynamic verbs at .56 in GerEng. It is clear that the use of the perfective morphology is associated with the inherent semantics of the predicate in both mesolectal grammars under study and that lexical aspect is thus implicated in the occurrence of the present perfect at the intermediate stages of L2 acquisition. This finding corroborates the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis to the extent that it confirms its very general postulate that "early use and development of TA [tense and aspect] morphology is influenced by the inherent semantic properties of the verb predicate which the learner uses to refer to a particular situation" (Housen 2002: 165). What still needs to be clarified is why both Russian and German speakers of English prefer dynamic verbs with perfective morphology and not punctual-tehc verbs as predicted by the hypothesis. Furthermore, both RusEng and GerEng highly favour extended-now contexts and dynamic verbs. Both findings seem to suggest that mesolectal learners of English uncover the intricate system of uses of the English present perfect through these linguistic environments. The last factor group underlying the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect in GerEng is transitivity. Table 16.6 reveals a fairly strong favouring effect (.63) of intransitive (including mutative) verbs triggering the perfect. Transitive verbs on the other hand are disfavoured at .34 by this verb form. This bit of evidence suggests a not yet fully developed grammatical status of the present perfect in this set of data. In contrast to StEngEng, in which the HAVE-perfect is robust with both transitive and intransitive (including mutative) verbs, mesolectal GerEng demonstrates a grammar in which the present perfect has not spread to all relevant contexts. It seems that the perfect gains ground over other tense markers (the present tense, the preterite, etc.) only in an advanced learner's grammar by spreading into more and more contexts (stative and punctual, transitive and intransitive), thus obliterating the propensity of one context over the other. Finally, the multivariate analysis reveals that the extralinguistic variable of sex is not implicated in the occurrence of the HAVE-perfect. Taken together with the evidence on RusEng and IndEng, this finding puts to rest the hypothesis that female speakers learn the correct forms of the target language much more readily than male speakers.
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287
16.3.3. Discussion of findings Why is it that the present perfect is favoured in extended-now contexts more than the preterite, simultaneously showing a preponderance of dynamic rather than punctual-telic verbs in the mesolectal grammars of RusEng and GerEng? Some light can be shed on the issue if we consider this trend in the light of the account of current relevance. Since a language-specific category is associated with some semantic environments more closely than with others, the learner can be expected to start acquiring a linguistic category in the semantic contexts most closely associated with the category, gradually proceeding to all other contexts. Similar to resultative contexts, extended-now contexts were assumed to be prominent instantiations of the English HAVE-perfect in the theoretical part of the study as the component of current relevance was claimed to be vividly manifested in these semantic environments as opposed to experiential and recent past time contexts. Moreover, quantitative analyses of our data revealed a positive correlation between extended-now contexts and the HAVE-perfect. Thus, a non-native learner of English associates the continuative context with the category of the present perfect much more closely than with that of the preterite. Since verbs of activity form an essential part of the continuative context, the latter too can be regarded as a part of the salient environment of the English present perfect that the speaker pays close attention to while mastering this grammatical category. Yet another finding that surely merits a word of explanation concerns the factor group 'time adverbial specification'. Contrary to the initial assumption, the perfect was shown to be favoured with adverbs rather than unspecified contexts in both RusEng and GerEng. This result apparently reveals the specific nature of teaching instructions for present perfect contexts. To be more precise, most teaching materials produced in Russia and in Germany focus on word-signals (Ger. Signalworter, Rus. cjiOBa-cnrHajiBi) such as now, so far, ever, never, etc., while providing explanations for the principle uses of the English present perfect. It may therefore be for this reason that learners rely on various adverbs while uncovering the meaning of the HAVE-perfect in the pragmatic discourse. We must, however, bear in mind that the importance of this finding is rather limited: being not selected as statistically significant during the 