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In:World Englishes: New theoretical and methodological considerations
Edited by Elena Seoane and Cristina Suárez-Gómez
[Varieties of English Around the World G57] 2016
► pp. 113–142

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Overlap and divergence – aspects of the present perfect in World Englishes

Published online: 25 May 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g57.06wer
This study provides an analysis of the Present Perfect (PrPf; have + V-en) in World Englishes. To this end, I extract occurrences of the PrPf from the International Corpus of English and annotate them manually for various factors (such as semantics, Aktionsart, temporal adverbials). I analyze the distributions of these factors and define a central PrPf context, while I also explore a multidimensional aggregative approach as a means to establish measures of similarity between the different varieties. In addition, I present a measure of PrPf-friendliness and examine alternative surface forms appearing in perfect contexts. Eventually I relate the findings to existing models of World Englishes, whose applicability I critically review in the light of the findings for the feature under investigation.
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