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标题：Dialectal variation of the preterit and imperfect
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作者：Delgado-Diaz, Gibran
期刊名称：Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics
印刷版ISSN：1524-2110
出版年度：2013
卷号：13
页码：13-2
出版社：Indiana University Linguistics Club
摘要：This investigation studies the use of the preterit and imperfect in Puerto Rican and Buenos Aires Spanish. These dialects were chosen because they had different linguistic influence; Puerto Rico had more African influence while Argentina had more Italian influence. This research has three main goals: first, determine which linguistic factors condition the use of these forms in both dialects. Second, contrast the linguistic predictors in both dialects in order to determine if there are dialectal differences. Finally, identify if these differences are explained by synchronic variation between the same forms with different meanings (polysemy) (Torres-Cacoullos, 2001). The results indicate some differences between Puerto Rican Spanish and Buenos Aires Spanish. The significant predictors in Puerto Rican Spanish were the lexical semantics, the specificity of the event, and the use of the adverbs. On the other hand, the specificity of the event, the lexical semantics, and the type of information were significant in Buenos Aires Spanish. The only factors that these dialects had in common were the specificity of the event and the lexical semantics. This evidence indicates that there is dialectal variation regarding the preterit and imperfect. It is suggested that these structures are not as stable as previously thought. It is hypothesized that these differences are the result of the different linguistic influence between Puerto Rican and Buenos Aires Spanish. However, this study did not find that the preterit and imperfect are used with different functions, thus this not provides evidence for polysemy. Furthermore, these findings might indicate that there is variation within a single dialect. However, further research is needed to support this hypothesis.