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Cross-Linguistic Variation And The Present Perfect:The Case Of Portuguese

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Abstract

The Present Perfect in Portuguese has the curious property of forcing iteration of the eventuality described. This paper proposes an account of the iterativity in terms of selectional restrictions of the Present Tense and independent properties of the Perfect and argues against the account of Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) in which the Portuguese Present Perfect is treated as a complex of two main verbs.

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Schmit, C. Cross-Linguistic Variation And The Present Perfect:The Case Of Portuguese. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 19, 403–453 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010759911058

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