Actitudes lingüísticas de los hablantes gallegos de español frente a la oposición Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto (PPC) / Pretérito Perfecto Simple (PPS)

Abstract

In this paper we deal with the metalinguistic perception of the Spanish speakers in Galicia regarding the verbal opposition Present Perfect (PP) / Simple Past (SP). By means of an elicitation test we try to verify if the PP is a “normal” form in this complex linguistic environment, what kind of hesitations are linked to its use and what is the speakers’ perception of their individual behavior as well as of the dialectal, sociolinguistic and diaphasic features of the phenomenon. Two main patterns of behavior have been detected: on the one hand, there is a clear rejection of the “standard” subsystem and the consolidation of a subsystem without PP; on the other hand, some speakers make an effort to use a form which they feel “strange” and whose norms they did not assimilate correctly, which leads to an unsystematic behavior. It has been also noticed that speakers with Galician as mother tongue are able to systematize their behavior better than speakers with Spanish as mother tongue.