Simultaneity and “increased present” in the European Spanish perfect

Abstract

This paper deals with the concept of “simultaneity” in relation to the Spanish Present Perfect based on the descriptions made by Rojo (1974) and Rojo & Veiga (1999), and seeks to link it to other similar concepts proposed by other scholars, such as Alarcos’ presente ampliado (“Increased Present” (IP)), McCoard’s Extended Now (XN), and Iatridou et al.’s Perfect Time Span (PTS). Although not all these terms refer to the same concept, as their limits depend on the respective languages they account for, they all share the notion that there is some kind of temporal coincidence between the event and the speech act that informs the Perfect. We posit that the way this temporal coincidence is conceived may explain the temporal and aspectual differences between the Perfect in languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and English.