The Grammaticalization of an Anterior IN Progress

This paper investigates the current grammaticalization of the Spanish Present Perfect, an anterior grammaticalizing to perfective, in the dialect of Alicante, Spain. The evidence offered provides insight into this grammaticalization process, and into the development of hodiernal tenses (cf. Dahl 1984). This change results from inferences which extend the functions of the anterior, and also from the gram's absorption of the temporal context with which it normally occurs. Furthermore, the grammaticalization process under study does not involve metaphorical change; it extends the meaning of the anterior form from the speaker's subjective inner state to the external described situation. Such a change thus challenges the views of both Heine et al. (1991a; 1991b), and also Traugott and König (1991).