Brief historical reflection on North American usage of the Simple Past.
The use of the Simple Past instead of the Present Perfect that can be found among AmE speakers has a parallel in the substitution of the Simple Past-equivalent for the Present Perfect-equivalent that is common in the dialects of some Italian Southern regions - notably Sicily.
I was thinking about that when it occured to me that most of the Italian immigrants that came to America at the turn of the 20th century - and later - came from the South.
Could this have been one of the causes that has led to the current AmE usage?
What do you think?
H.
Top answer
Henry74 The use of the Simple Past instead of the Present Perfect that can be found among AmE speakers has a parallel in the substitution of the Simple Past-equivalent for the Present Perfect-equivalent that is common in the dialects of some Italian Southern regions - notably Sicily. It also has a parallel in Spanish, and if I'm not mistaken, southern regions of Italy were much more influenced by the Spanish than other parts of Italy, so the ultimate source of this phenomenon may be the Spanish language. We have a lot more Hispanics in the United States than we have Italians, so your hypothesis may actually apply more strongly in the case of a more direct influence of Spanish rather than the indirect influence of Spanish-influenced Italian — if either is true at all.
- Henry74 The use of the Simple Past instead of the Present Perfect that can be found among AmE speakers has a parallel in the substitution of the Simple Past-equivalent for the Present Perfect-equivalent that is common in the dialects of some Italian Southern regions - notably Sicily.
- It also has a parallel in Spanish, and if I'm not mistaken, southern regions of Italy were much more influenced by the Spanish than other parts of Italy, so the ultimate source of this phenomenon may be the Spanish language.
- We have a lot more Hispanics in the United States than we have Italians, so your hypothesis may actually apply more strongly in the case of a more direct influence of Spanish rather than the indirect influence of Spanish-influenced Italian — if either is true at all.
- Henry74 I was thinking about that when it occured to me that most of the Italian immigrants that came to America at the turn of the 20th century - and later - came from the South.
- That may be, but I know a lot of Italians whose families came from northern Italy as well, and their descendants use the past and present perfect of American English the same as everyone else here.
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Henry74The use of the Simple Past instead of the Present Perfect that can be found among AmE speakers has a parallel in the substitution of the Simple Past-equivalent for the Present Perfect-equivalent that is common in the dialects of some Italian Southern regions - notably Sicily.It also has a parallel in Spanish, and if I'm not mistaken, southern regions o
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