SUBJECTIVE INVOLVEMENT IN PRESENT PERFECT GRAMMATICALIZATION : EVIDENCE FROM TWO SPANISH VARIETIES

As part of a widespread inclination in languages that draws attention to particular chunks of information over others, the variation of Present Perfect (PP) and Preterit (Pret) in Spanish provides speakers with an effective mechanism that projects one particular past event over others in narrative. In oral data from El Salvador and written data from colonial Mexico, the use of PP in narrative clauses is a practical device that speakers exploit to make certain events stand out to the interlocutor. And just as languages use special components —such as intonation, word order, and morphology— to make chunks of information more prominent, these varieties use PP and Pret variation to make temporal and psychological degrees of proximity and remoteness evident to the interlocutor. The breach of PP into narratives seems to be the product of a stylistic recourse with notable cognitive consequences that enhance the speaker's involvement in discourse. Through a grammaticalization process in which PP acquires readings more reminiscent of the Pret's function as a mark of perfective aspect, the PP form is reinterpreted as a valid form in those contexts previously reserved for Pret. In short, PP draws attention to greater speaker's affective closeness to the event, while Pret enhances detachment and dissociation.


Introduction
Cross-linguistic analyses of past form variation have confirmed that non-related languages worldwide codify relative distances in the past (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994;Comrie 1985;Dahl 1985;Fleischman1989), as in the immediate vs. distant past distinction.Temporal deictic differences, such as the hodiernal (occurred within the last 24 hours) and the prehodiernal (occurred yesterday or before) past, thought of in terms of actual, tangible distances in time, are often proposed as an important mechanism of change in perfect to perfective grammaticalization (Schwenter 1994: 85;Comrie 1985: 85 for Spanish). 1 In the proposed past temporal drift of perfect forms, temporal differences correlate with bona fide, experienced events that are part of the speaker's knowledge about the world at the moment of speech.The claim is that hodiernal events occurred within 24 hours from the moment of speech and that prehodiernal events took place at least 24 hours before.
Other studies throw a strong light on the role that the subjective attitudes and beliefs of the speaker exert on language change (c.f.Company Company 2006Company , 2002;;Silva-Corvalán 2001: 218;Traugott 1989).Traugott (1989: 35), for example, suggests that linguistic meaning becomes more subjective over time, as evidenced in diachronic analyses.From her perspective, linguistic meaning commonly encroaches on the speaker's subjective attitudes toward the proposition.Company Company (2002: 41) proves this qualitatively and quantitatively in her study of four pragmatic markers in Spanish, in which she argues convincingly that linguistic analysis ought to consider speaker appraisals, inferences, and communicative needs in discourse.As a general tendency, in this line of research, scholars have pointed out that deixis is often assessed subjectively, rather than as a tangible, solid notion.
The use of the Present Perfect (PP) and Preterit (Pret) in naturally-occurring data from El Salvador and in extracts from Mexican colonial texts sets the stage for the analysis of the incursion of PP to narrative clauses.In data from these two Spanish varieties, separated in time and space, the PP shows signs of drifting to the sphere of influence of Pret in narratives, as seen in ( 1a) and (1b).
(1) a. Y ansi mesmo dize este declarante que el dicho Andres Saens a hecho una puente de un tablon y dos bigas asentadas en el suelo, que llegan desde la calsada por donde se pasa a rays de las dichas tiendas (DLNE 1629, 94.274) 'And this way this claimant states that the said Andres Saens made [has made] a bridge from a board and two beams posted in the ground that reach the road where one passes close to said stores' b.'tonces vine yo, hablé por radio, agarré el garrote y me he subido a unas cajas y el panameño estaba abajo diciéndome [risas] a saber qué palabrotas veá en su argot [SSC 2000, M, 20] 'so I came, I talked by radio, I grabbed a stick and I climbed [have climbed] some boxes and the Panamanian was down there telling me [laughter] I don't know what words in his slang' The comparison of the oral Salvadoran data to the written Mexican data may seem somewhat arbitrary at first.However, El Salvador maintained strong economic, political, and cultural ties with the rest of New Spain throughout the colonial period.The viceroy in Mexico City had direct jurisdiction of the province of San Salvador, which was governed via way of Guatemala.As a result, El Salvador presented close social and linguistic affinities to other areas of New Spain.In addition, the cultural composition of the San Salvador region, made up of mainly Náhuatl-speaking Pipil communities, closely resembled that of central New Spain (cf.Hernández 2008).The comparison of these two historically related varieties is based on the fact that the two seem to display early phases of PP grammaticalization, stages prone to greater pragmatic strengthening and heightened levels of speaker subjectivity.
The two lines of research referenced above are explored to analyze the variation of PP and Pret in narratives.As a general aim, the present study adds to the discussion on perfect grammaticalization, even though a more particular aim hopes to shed light on the way that PP enters narrative discourse.A qualitative and quantitative methodology is employed to determine the linguistic and pragmatic factors that promote incursion of PP into narrative clauses.The semantic-pragmatic relations are investigated through the temporal-deictic associations that arise between speaker and utterance, in particular by considering a subjective proximity through which the speaker makes use of the PP to underline one of several events within the narrative sequence.It is argued that the PP becomes a mechanism that codifies the subjective proximity of the event that the speaker seeks to highlight.
Just how PP finds its way into narrative discourse is the major question in the present study.The focus lies on the association between the narrator's appraisals and attitudes toward the proposition in order to determine the prominence of PP in narrative clauses.It is claimed here that incurrence of PP into narrative clauses responds to a series of deictic relationships that prescribe the interaction between the narrator and the event and between the narrator and the interlocutor.In the two sets of data analyzed, subjective notions of closeness rather than tangible temporal proximity seem to drive PP incursion into narratives.In conversation, speakers resort to a wide range of linguistic sources that make it possible for specific chunks of information to stand out above others (c.f.Van Dijk 1997: 17).The proposal is that the use of PP in narrative clauses provides speakers the mechanism that curtails the psychological distance of events that merit prominence, from the narrator's point of view.Subjective closeness between narrator and event mimics the otherwise temporal proximity of the event through a metonymic relationship in which form and meaning and deictic relationships in discourse come into play.

Subjectivity
Subjectivity makes reference to an increase in speaker involvement in discourse.It particularly calls attention to the gradual changes whereby "meaning becomes increasingly based in the speaker's subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition", in other words, towards what the speaker is talking about (Traugott 1995: 31;Traugott 1989: 35).A pivotal idea among the numerous studies that highlight the role played by the speaker's subjective appraisals in linguistic change (c.f.Company Company 2006Company , 2002;;Silva-Corvalán 2001: 218;Traugott 1982Traugott , 1988Traugott , 1989Traugott , 1995;;Traugott & König 1991) stresses that linguistic meaning becomes more subjective with time, a fact confirmed by diachronic analyses.The claim, once again, is that meaning often becomes embedded in the speaker's subjective attitudes towards the proposition.Thus, in communicative interaction, the role of speaker appraisals and evaluations becomes crucial in determining the constraints that drive PP change across time.
As an agent of linguistic change, subjectivity attains full-blown expression in grammatical systems, often leading to codified expressions with a highly conventionalized meaning in language (Company Company 2006;Langacker 1985Langacker , 1991Langacker , 1999)).Subjectivity brings about a boost in the extent to which the focused element codifies the speaker's standpoint and judgments towards the situation; the whole process stands in disproportionate correspondence to a paralleled decrease of the relational meaning of the "original" source (Traugott 1988: 408).In subjective analysis, it is best to conceive a gradual reading of subjective expressions, rather than summing up elements within a monolithic subjective-objective dichotomy.Any attempt at determining subjectivity ought to be contingent on the extent of involvement that the speaker has vested on the utterance.Understandably, more objective readings are synonymous of lesser speaker involvement, while intense speaker-based interpretations connote more subjective applications (Company Company 2006: 99).
From a variationist perspective, subjectivity may be explained in terms of speaker's choice of the competing variants.Speaker involvement and contrasting degrees of subjectivity have a lasting effect on variation.As suggested by Silva-Corvalán (1985), a syntactic variant that is "farthest away from the speaker in that it refers to objects or events that are furthest from him in his objective (e.g.actual) or subjective (e.g.possibility of actualization) world" will more than likely succumb to a competing variant that is perceived as psychologically closer.In rationalizing the semantic complexity of the PP in Spanish, researchers have often alluded to the more affective disposition of the PP over the Pret (Alarcos Llorach 1947: 125;Kubarth 1992: 558;Lope Blanch 1991: 141;Spitzová & Bayerová 1987: 38).
In the forthcoming discussion, it will be argued that the variation at the speaker's disposal foregrounds one of several events in the progression of narratives, hence PP turns out to be a useful device in coding the subjective proximity of the more "noteworthy" events.Subjectivity brings about PP change, but just how can subjectivity be measured?A strong attempt is made to quantify subjectivity, deemed here as an efficient way of grasping its effects on discourse.In the case of PP and Pret in narratives, the quantification of contextual constituents (e.g.pronoun expression, use of clitics, word order, reported or quoted speech) and of the formal and semantic properties (e.g.verb semantics, grammatical person) of the forms involved in the change can give us good indication of the degrees of subjectivity involved (c.f.Traugott & König 1991: 192).

Subjectivity and strengthening
Linguistic elements in a grammaticalizing construction undergo semantic reduction or weakening, also referred to as bleaching (Traugott & König 1991: 190).The linguistic constituents that undergo semantic reduction often endure loss of specific referential significance, or as Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca (1994: 6) maintain, "certain components of meaning are lost in this process".More explicitly, Heine and Rech (1984: 15) see this process as an "evolution whereby linguistic units lose in semantic complexity, pragmatic significance, syntactic freedom, and phonetic substance, respectively."As part of a general grammaticalization pathway, semantic reduction happens in tandem with phonological reduction and semantic generalization.Researchers, for example, have claimed that PP experiences semantic reduction as it shakes off all grasp with the moment of speech in the perfect to perfective progression of perfect forms (c.f.Comrie 1976:52).The process is summarized as follows by Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994: 86): "The change from an anterior to a past or perfective is typical of grammaticization changes.On the semantic level, the change is clearly a generalization of meaning: the anterior [perfect] signals past action that is relevant to the current moment, while the past and perfective signal only past action.The specification of current relevance is lost".At this point, as a direct off-shoot of semantic reduction, the construction can potentially permeate new environments (e.g.narrative discourse).
Semantic reduction is a pervasive force in grammaticalization, but one claimed to be present in posterior, rather than in early phases of grammaticalization.As suggested by Traugott (1988: 406-407) and Traugott and König (1991: 190), earlier phases of grammaticalization are prone to pragmatic strengthening, rather than to semantic reduction.It will be argued throughout that PP grammaticalization in the two historically related varieties of Spanish examined here evidence signs of a PP form in the early stages of development.Early phases of PP progression offer the perfect milieu to explore PP incursion into narrative discourse.For Traugott (1988: 407), the process of pragmatic strengthening involves the intensification of the "expression of speaker involvement", which will be measured through the quantification of discursive and "pragmatically-charged cues" accompanying PP in narrative clauses, such as pronoun expression, use of clitics, preference for reported or quoted speech and marked word order, and handling of grammatical person and verb semantics.For example, in a study of overt expression of tú (you) and yo (I) in spoken data from Madrid, Davidson (1996: 544) argues that overt articulation of pronouns is the mechanism used to step up speaker's subjectivity; data analyses suggest that pronoun expression increases "speaker's stake at what is being said".The argument is that all the previously mentioned indicators are good measuring instruments in comparing the degree of subjectivity of PP and Pret in narratives, given that they are the mechanism through which subjectivity, and pragmatic strengthening in particular, finds its expression in narrated speech.

PP deixis
The notion of deixis has received meticulous attention from researchers who have amply considered the semantic and pragmatic components in interpreting PP grammaticalization.The recurrent assertion has been that PP grammaticalization occurs as it strays from the moment of speech (e.g.Dahl 1985).Therefore, differences in usage have been set forth in terms of the gradual distances that distinguish between PP and Pret in discourse: PP has always been understood as the form closest to the here and now in conversation.The thought that PP grammaticalization is due to the steady drift of the temporal frame that goes from that which is closer to that which is farther from the speech moment has been a constant in studies that analyze Peninsular data.Here, studies have presented empirical evidence to illustrate that PP and Pret variation responds to the relative distance between event and moment of speech (Serrano 1994;Schwenter 1994;Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos 2008).The claim is that variation of PP and Pret supposes a referential distinction that finds its codification in grammar (i.e. between that which happened yesterday, today, and now).
In data from Andean Spanish, a contact variety, differences between PP and Pret are also marked in deictic terms.Escobar (1997Escobar ( , 1994) ) makes the compelling argument that in the speech of Peruvian bilinguals these two past forms contrast in terms of the spatial and temporal component in which the event takes place.If the uttered event occurred in a location other than where the conversation unfolds, PP is used with an evidential function to mark the information as witnessed by the speaker.Near or far disparities are determined according to the objective knowledge of the speaker as to the temporal and spatial frame in which the event truly took place.
Other researchers have centered on the speaker's subjective attitudes to interpret past form deixis as a psychological event rather than as a concrete temporal notion.In an early study, Weinrich (1968: 104) proposes that PP / Pret choice in speech reduces to the possibility of communicating different degrees of emotional involvement between the speaker and the event.Greater emotional distance is conveyed through what he calls a "commented past" or non narrative discourse, which makes use of PP, in contrast to a narrated past or narrative discourse, which makes use of Pret. Weinrich (1968: 104), furthermore, notes that many languages have set aside a verb form for commenting on past events: PP in the case of Spanish, or its corresponding forms in other languages.Commented past, from his point of view, entails a more personal option because it alludes to a portion of the speaker's own existence.From this perspective, language discriminates between two types of past: one which the speaker makes his own and is used to deal with issues that closely and directly affect him or her.The other type of past is used by the speaker to create greater [subjective] distance through the filter of narrative (Weinrich 1968: 104).
Adhering to an analogous deictic principle, Company Company (2002: 64) attributes dialectal differences in PP usage to varying degrees of speaker subjectivity.She suggests that Mexican and Peninsular speech differ in their preference for the aspectual and temporal contrasts of the two past forms.Peninsular usage is characterized by the referential distance assigned to each form: PP for events temporally closer and Pret for those farther away.In Mexican Spanish, on the contrary, PP is primarily aspectual and imperfective.Company Company (2002: 64) argues that PP use is, primarily, a pragmatic act ("hecho pragmático") in which the speaker's subjective perspective determines the present, and at times future, relevance of the event.Her stance attributes a much more expressive (or subjective) use which hints at an added meaning able of communicating speaker's attitude towards the propositional load in terms of its importance within the communicative exchange.Her claim is that the Spanish data seem more sensitive to the referential traits of the entities at play, while the Mexican data is more sensitive to speaker appraisals of the same entities.
In a recent study of past form variation in Australian data, Ritz and Engel (2008: 131-132) find that PP incursion to narrative clauses does not seem driven by a drift in the temporal deictic axis of PP.In straightforward contrast to what happens in other varieties, narrative seems to be the locus of change in this Australian variety.The authors propose that in certain narrative clauses PP becomes a mechanism at the speaker's disposal to recreate a "virtual present".The interlocutor in turn becomes a "virtual observant".In these narrative contexts, the virtual effect is possible in part because PP expresses non sequenced events.It turns out that the PP is the perfect device to encode these narrative clauses because of this capacity to communicate the psychological displacement of the deictic axis in discourse.Subjective closeness seems to be a communicative inclination of PP in contrast to the more objective farflung Pret.This brief account suggests that researchers have repeatedly viewed PP over Pret as the more subjective option of the two forms.

Methodology
To carry out the present study, 1,842 tokens (PP and Pret) are analyzed in narratives from an oral corpus of Salvadoran data and a written corpus of Mexican colonial data.The work of Labov (1972) and Labov and Waletzky (1967) is used to identify and extract narratives in the two corpora.From the Documentos Lingüísticos de la Nueva España (DNLE) (Company Company 1994), the first ten narratives in the first half of the following periods are considered: 1525-1543, 1609-1629, 1731-1740 and 1802-1808.In general, each document consists of a single narrative, but in cases of multiple narratives, only the first narrative was considered.The narratives themselves come from letters and excerpts of inquisitional and judicial proceedings.The Colonial data produced 69 tokens of PP and 972 of Pret.
The oral data come from interviews conducted in the town of San Sebastián, El Salvador.The San Sebastián Corpus (SSC) consists of 24 semi-directed interviews, amounting to close to 40 hours of recordings.In the SSC, 19 narratives were found and considered, yielding 79 tokens of PP and 722 of Pret.The data was codified to facilitate the variationist analysis of PP and Pret as they correlate with linguistic and pragmatic factors.The frequencies of pronoun expression, reported or quoted speech, verb class semantics, and grammatical person, as they associate with PP and Pret in the two corpora were quantified.These elements offered the best empirical probability of assessing comparable degrees of PP and Pret subjectivity in narratives.

Analysis
Let us begin by looking at frequencies of PP and Pret in narrative discourse in the two corpora.Table 1 shows that PP frequencies are not remarkably different: 7% for the DNLE and 10% for the SSC.Compared to previous studies that have looked at PP and Pret variation in the same corpora, PP frequencies in narratives, when considered single-handedly, are somewhat lower than frequencies reported for overall PP distributions.In the DLNE, Moreno de Alba ( 2004) found a 43% distribution in nonnarrative and narrative discourse combined, while Hernández (2004) finds a 22% frequency of PP in the SSC.The lower frequency of PP in the oral and written narratives suggests a more conservative PP occurrence in narrative clauses than in non-narrative discourse.For DLNE and SSC groups: X 2 = 6.41, p = 0.0114

Grammatical Person
Studies have claimed a direct link between forms that convey the speaker's commitment to the utterance and the expression of grammatical person.In dealing with dequeísmo (dijo de que ,roughly 'he said that', as in hearsay), Schwenter (1999: 70) finds a strong correlation between the use of third person singular and overt de with verbs such as se acuerda de que 'he/she remembers that', dijo de que 'he/she said that', and piensa de que 'he/she thinks that', which do not take de in more normative registers.Schwenter (1999: 75) argues in favor of an evidential interpretation of de in such constructions, which communicates less speaker commitment to the truth of the propositional content, thus hindering a solid correlation between dequeísmo and the first person singular.The use of de becomes a device that accentuates a figurative distance between speaker and the information in the uttered proposition, communicated in the third person singular as second hand information over which the speaker has diminished manipulative influence.
A contrary interpretation is offered to explain the pragmatic uses of o sea (roughly, 'that is').Schwenter (1996: 864) proposes that epistemic readings of this discourse marker are usually preceded by verbs of belief in the first person singular.In his data, 15 out of 20 propositions that conveyed personal opinions and beliefs were expressed in first person singular in these highly subjective contexts, highlighting the strong correlation between epistemic o sea and first person singular.Speakers are more committed to the truth of the proposition when they are the referent of the verbal subject (first person); meanwhile second and third person forms are less committed (more distant) to the propositional content (1999: 75).The underlying idea is that the degree of vested involvement in the propositional content heightens in first person singular co-referential subjects.Correlation of form and grammatical person, as in dequeísmo and o sea, is highly determined by the speaker's commitment to the propositional load, which hints at shades of modality (epistemic) where the speaker vows to less than one hundred percent of the truth.
In past form variation, the choice of PP over Pret results in higher frequencies of first person singular, where more is at stake for the speaker.Therefore, while the correlation of grammatical person with de and o sea codify speaker's lessened commitment to the propositional load, use of PP over Pret in narratives responds to what's at stake for the speaker in terms of a cognitive connection in the discursive exchange.We find proof of the association between past form variation and grammatical person in the work of Squartini and Bertinetto (2000: 425).These authors report a direct correlation between PP frequency and grammatical subject in Italian data.They found that personal narratives, reported in the first person, showed elevated use of PP when compared to impersonal narratives, reported in the third person, and historical narratives that were more temporally and cognitively distant from the speaker.Overall, personal narratives showed the most elevated use of PP (70% in northern and 53% in southern varieties); impersonal narratives showed a moderate use of PP (55% in northern and 33% in southern varieties); and historical narratives showed the lowest use of PP (24% in northern and 10% in southern varieties).A higher correlation of first person singular and PP in the Italian data clearly suggests a more intimate association between PP form and narrator.The connection cannot be explained in terms of the commitment traditionally encoded in modality, but rather in terms of speaker involvement in the situation being narrated.In another study of the alternation between Passato Prossimo (PP) and Passato Remoto (Pret) in narratives in the variety of Italian spoken in Sicily and in a variety of Sicilian as well, Centineo (1991: 81) assumes that the PP reports events that diverge from the narrative sequence and at the same time that it accentuates the speaker's subjective point of view of an event.In addition to expressing a more personal standpoint of the event, Centineo (1991: 81) argues that "in most cases in which PP occurs as an indicator of external evaluation, the verb form is a first-person singular or plural".The symbiotic relation between PP, the more subjective of the two forms, and the first person is evident.The argument upholds that PP use clearly emerges in proportion to the speaker's subjective involvement or investment in the narrative, as suggested in the following sections.
Further evidence of the intimate connection between first person singular and speaker preference of PP in more intimate narrative contexts is found in written data from French.In eliciting written histoires de vie, Boyer (1985aBoyer ( , 1985b) ) notes that adult speakers of French systematically resort to the Passé Composé when sharing autobiographical narratives reported in the first person singular, while all accounts associated to a more distant third person preferred the Passé Simple.Benveniste (1966) makes clear the indivisible nature of the Passé Compossé and the first person singular in connecting events experienced first-hand, which cannot be accurately distanced from the speaker to be narrated with any objectivity.The written French data suggest that speakers of French are resorting to the variants at their disposal in reporting an affective proximity that reveals their involvement in the narratives and in reporting a more objective distant past.
There are, however, several ways in which speaker involvement is reiterated in speech.In discourse, a PP form often stands out amongst a string of past events; the breach in the succession of Pret stresses PP markedness in discourse.Let us start by considering example (2) from the DLNE below.
(2) Y aquella noche, no estando yo en mj casa, un Jorje, notario, -que va huyendo en estos navios, y el gobernador lo enbja a su costa-con los frayles y en presencia de Valençuela y de García de Villafranca, començo a trastornar mjs escrituras dizienco que buscava un poco de papel blanco, y tomó los capitulos y metyoselos en el seno y llevólos a Hernando Cortés, rresistiéndoselo los que HE DICHO que estavan presentes.Esta es cosa muy grave, que aun los onbres no bjvan seguros escrjviendo es su casa lo que conviene a servjcio de su majestad.(DLNE 1526, 3.56) 'And that night, myself being away from home, a so called Jorge, notary, that was fleeing in these vessels and the governor sent him to his coast, with the friars and in presence of Valençuela and of Garcia de Villafranca, he began to flutter my land deeds around saying he was looking for a piece of white paper, and he took the chapters and he put them in his chest and he took them to Hernando Cortés, those being present resisted as I have said.This is a serious thing, that men writing that which is convenient to serve his majesty cannot live safely even in their own home' Pret is used here for narrative progression in third person singular: començo 'he began', tomó 'he took', metyoselos 'he put them', and llevólos 'he took them'.These events are perhaps more detached from the narrator, who is also one of the affected parties in this chain of events.PP is reserved for the only event expressed in the first person singular: the statement that highlights the narrator's accusation.In example (2), PP also breaks the sequence of events expressed with Pret, thus, drawing attention to the significance of this last event and its implication on the narrator.Notice that in temporal terms he dicho 'I have said' constitutes the event closer to the moment of speech.
The Salvadoran data presents a similar trend to that shown in example (2).
(3) Había un muchacho ahí que... decía él que era el jefe, ¿va?Lo habían nombrado como jefe.Le tocaba turno a él también, ¿va?Pero, en una de esas de que yo estaba haciendo el turno que me tocaba de, de siete de la mañana a las tres de la tarde.Uh, he asked for the soda, I drank it.That's how he started to ask for beer, and I was there with the soda slowly.Not him, he was quick.He had a table full of bottles, right?Uh, from there while he was drinking beer, I drank three sodas.It was later that-two hours we were there.When he tells the lady, he was already tipsy.When he tells the lady, he tells her, uh, the bill please, he said, and the lady told him how much it was, right?Oh well, he said, he's the one that's going to pay, he said.I was!He wanted me to pay the beer, right?Look I said, I did not invite you, I told him.Uh, in fact, I say, you're the one that is inviting me to come here, and the soda you invited it to me, I say.But well, I say to him, I am going to pay for the sodas, I say to him, because I drank them, but not the beer.So I paid for the beer, the sodas and... he got up and he paid the beer, the, the, the beer, he told me.Uh, look, he says to me, there it is, he tells me, uh, tell them to take me, he told me.You have to pay for that, he told me.No I told him, I came here on foot, I will go back on foot, I told him.It's not even far, I told him.' In example (3) above, we see that PP predominates in cases where the narrator seems more involved and directly affected by the narrated events: yo he venido 'I have come', me he tomado 'I have drank', yo no lo he invitado 'I have not invited you', yo me las he tomado 'I have drank them', yo a pie me he venido 'I have come walking'.Pret shows the opposite inclination, predominating with other grammatical subjects, as in nos fuimos 'we left', salimos 'we left' llegó él 'he arrived', and no me quisiste pagar 'you didn't want to pay me'.In coding the psychological differences in the deictic axis of past events, speakers resort to temporal distance and chronological sequence of events, as well as affective closeness.The systematic treatment of the variants accentuates a psychological proximity by resorting to a more personal past communicated with PP or puts the accent on a more distant and impersonal past by resorting to Pret.As a recurring pattern, PP and first person singular occur in cases of greater tension and confrontation, either in direct quotations or reported speech, preceded or followed by decir 'say', as in No le dije si yo a pie me he venido 'No I told him I have come by foot'.In this part of the narrative, phrases uttered by the speaker -and directed at the other interlocutor-are consistently reported in PP.From a psychological point of view, these events are closer to the speaker.Notice the contrast verified by events directed at the listener; these coincide with points in the narrative that present less confrontation, as in Yo llegué 'I arrived', ya entré 'I came in', and cancelé yo 'I payed', often at the beginning or the end of the narrative.In discourse, these events are commonly conferred in a lethargic, paced voice, with each event separated by long, marked pauses.Sheer parallelism between PP and first personal singular brings to light the segments in the narrative that suggest higher speaker involvement.The variation we see here suggests Pret affords the speaker greater detachment from the narrative, while PP heightens that connection.
The qualitative differences discussed above can be confirmed quantitatively in the data.Table 2 shows the distribution of PP and Pret by grammatical subject in the two corpora.First person singular PP forms surpass use of Pret and the same grammatical subject: 17% vs. 5% in the DLNE and 42% vs. 30% in the SSC.Results suggest that PP is in fact the form closest to the speaker, that is, the form used to relate events that have a greater impact on the narrator.For DLNE, 1 st Per.Sing.and Other groups: X 2 = 20.947,p = 0.0000 For SSC, 1 st Per.Sing.and Other groups: X 2 = 4.322, p = 0.0376 Correlation of PP and first person singular in the oral, present-day data reveals a considerable increment in frequency when compared to the written colonial data.It is important to note, however, that differences between the colonial and present-day Spanish data are primarily quantitative; that is, despite the diachronic disparity, there is a 12% difference between PP and Pret in the two corpora.Hierarchies are maintained, and PP is the predominating form in both corpora.In deictic indexicality, as in the case of grammatical person, the order of significance of the referential elements parallels the degree of subjectivity encoded (first, second, and third person, in that order).In discourse, first person is the explicit deictic center in the oral and in the written narratives; this clear association between first person and higher degrees of subjectivity is encoded in the choice of PP over Pret in first person singular reference.This straightforward association between PP and first person singular is one way of showing the highly systematic codification of the speaker's point of view in grammar.As the PP turns out to be the autobiographical form per excellence, it is also the form more suited to codify subjectivity in narrative.The quantitative analysis demonstrates that the symbiosis between these two clearly subjective elements (PP and first person singular) in discourse highlights the high degree of involvement implied in those segments of the narratives that directly affect the speaker.

Subject expression
In this section, the association between pronoun expression and PP and Pret variation is explored.A study carried out by Davidson (1996) evidences the close connection between pronoun expression and speaker involvement.In his analysis of Peninsular and Latin American data, the author argues that expression of first and second person singular pronouns is not merely emphatic or contrastive (c.f.Silva-Corvalán 2001: 154).Instead, expressed first and second person pronouns in his study seem to function as topicalized NPs which have a striking density in the speaker's cognitive processes.Davidson (1996: 551) contends that speakers use subject pronouns "to add 'pragmatic weight' to their utterance, a theoretical label which subsumes the notions of 'emphasis' that other authors have proposed, but which explains more fully how speakers use the SPs to disambiguate possible epistemic parentheticals, trigger speech act readings of certain verbs, and increase their 'stake' in whatever they are saying, either in an argument or in a statement of belief".The data analyzed here, however, show a strong correlation between PP use and subject expression (pronominal and nominal), which is yet another element that assesses the contrasting degrees of speaker involvement codified in PP and Pret variation in speech.
The overt subject expressions analyzed are of the following types: • nominal, as in han hacido el comentario las bichas ' Higher frequencies of PP in correlation with expressed subject in narrative clauses would hint at a process of pragmatic strengthening, common in early phase of PP grammaticalization, as proposed by Traugott (1988: 406-407) and Traugott and König (1991: 190).For Traugott (1988: 407), the process involves the strengthening of the "expression of speaker involvement", measured here through the contrasting quantification of subject expression accompanying PP and Pret in narratives.If subject expression has come to take on the function of adding 'pragmatic weight' to a speaker's utterance, that is to say, they are used to increase the speaker's stake in what is being said, then, we can interpret the quantitative differences in the correlation of subject expression and past form expression as parallel indicators of conflicting degrees of speaker involvement in the propositional load.
A close examination of the data reveals substantial differences in subject expression between PP and Pret, as can be seen in ( 4). ( 4 instead, I told the story when dawn clearly broke, right?and then I sat down and I slept, I had slept, dawn had already broken otherwise I... and then I told my wife, notice that your clothes and...I the casting net left somewhere, I say, look and why she said, don't even mention it something happened to me, I was telling her, I felt something there, a-a person that was there and...I couldn't stand it since I left the casting net there and I came and I left like-but the only thing that, that the clothes were somewhere I say and the casting net was somewhere else and then uh-then uh-yes when dawn broke, right?I say to them-to my friends, go get a... such and such things I say, I left such thing somewhere I say to them, my children were already good-looking they were young, but since they were young, I couldn't send them, right?but I sent some friends, better go do me that favor because, because I am really sick, I indicated where they could find it, but they found a bunch of fish' There is an evident association between Pret use and null subject expression: Ø me vine 'I came', Ø alcancé 'I managed', Ø no conté 'I didn't tell ', Ø llegué 'I arrived', Ø conté 'I told', Ø amaneció 'dawn broke', Ø me senté 'I sat down', Ø dormí 'I slept', and Ø le conté 'I told her'.The long series of Pret and null subjects is interrupted by a PP clause with an overt subject pronoun: yo la tarraya he dejado 'I have left the casting net'.Notice, however, that throughout the rest of the narrative this correlation is maintained almost systematically: he sentido una cosa yo 'I felt something', yo he dejado tal cosa 'I have left something'; and me Ø vine 'I came', Ø amaneció 'dawn broke', Ø salí 'I left', Ø les indiqué 'I indicated to them', and Ø jallaron 'they found'.In this neatly laid out pattern, the use of PP and overt subjects, mostly in the first person singular, strikingly stands out against the evident use of Pret and null subjects.PP and pronoun expression seem to coincide with particular points in the narrative that call to mind greater subjective closeness between the related events and the speaker.Subject expression, in example (4), for instance, is tied to two particular events: the loss of the narrator's casting net, which embodies his only source of work, and his startling brush with the supernatural.The extent of involvement that the speaker has vested in the utterance is rationalized in narrative discourse through the systematized manipulation of subject expression and choice of the past form used.
As the data in Table 3 confirms, the cooccurrence of subject expression and past form use is not arbitrary.There is a solid association between the presence of an overt subject and PP use in the data.For DLNE, Overt and Null groups: X 2 = 5.299, p = 0.0013 For SSC, Overt and Null groups: X 2 = 20.285,p = 0.0000 Nonetheless, correlation of PP and overt subject use in the oral, present-day data reveals a considerable increment in frequency when compared to the written colonial data, 35% and 51% respectively.The analysis of the oral and written narratives shows that the speaker's cognitive input is unmistakably quantifiable in discourse.Our results suggest that the use of subject expression in combination with PP seems to add 'pragmatic weight' to the narrated utterances, thus increasing speaker involvement in particular points of the narrated chain of events: those that are perceived as closer by the speaker.

Reported and quoted speech
Reported and quoted discourses epitomize a somewhat reliable, literal recreation of previous speech segments.The meticulous reconstruction takes aim at the supposed reiteration of the original utterance, maintaining referential and deictic information of the moment of utterance emission (c.f.Portolés 2004: 218).Verschueren (1999: 194) recaps: "This kind of metapragmatic phenomenon is directly related to the wide range of data yielded by practices of direct quotation and reported speech, in which linguistic action verb(ial)s are called upon to frame the communicative status of earlier language use."Pret and PP are common in the expression of reported and quoted speech.In these contexts, Pret and PP materialize in subordinate clauses that carry out a syntactic function, such as object of a direct clause, as seen in ( 5) and ( 6).

I. Reported speech
(5) dixo que viviendo con sus padres en el pueblo de Pirihuan, en casa de un yndio llamado Francisco Torres, que de presente es fiscal de la iglesia, vino un dia de Semana Santa, abra diez años, poco más o menos (DLNE 1621, 86.255) 'he said that upon living with his parents in the town of Pirihuan, in his parent's home an Indian named Francisco Torres, presently the church's attorney, came one day during Easter Week, about ten years ago, more less' II.Quoted speech (6) Habrá dos meses, poco más o menos, que sirviendo a ésta Francisca, muger de Juan Osorio, tavernero, que entonces vibía junto a Santa Cruz y al presente vive junto al conbento de Jesús Maria, en la casa de doña Maria de la Serda, entró a visitarla, por su llamado, Isabel de los Angeles, que por mal nombre la llaman Isabel Guijarro.Y en presencia désta dijo la Francisca Zapata a la dicha Isabel Guijarro estas palabras: "nana mia, ¿qué dia á de ser quando as de benir con las nuebas de que A BENIDO ya aquel hombre que está en el Piru?" (DLNE 1621, 83.250) 'About two months ago, more less, that upon serving the said Francisca, Juan Osorios's woman, bar tender, that at the time lived next to Santa Cruz and today lives next to the convent of Jesús Maria, in the house of doña Maria de la Serda, Francisca Zapata came to visit her, upon her call, the said Isabel de los Angeles, also called Isabel Guijarro.And in her presence Francisca Zapata told the said Isabel Guijarro these words: nanny, when will be the day when you come with the news that the man that is in Peru has come already?' In past form variation, reproduced discourse allows the introduction of events that deviate from the main temporal progression of the narrative.In discussing past form variation, researchers have argued that PP is more inclined to appear in out of sequence contexts within the chronological string of events.In a study that contrasts PP and Pret distribution in Andean Spanish, for example, Howe and Schwenter (2003) establish that Pret is mainly restricted to the narrative's logical progression, which highlights the foregrounded events, while PP marks backgrounded events that are non-sequenced.
In example (6), narrative sequence is situated temporally habrá dos meses 'about two months ago', it begins with entró 'he entered', and continues with dijo 'said'.The event expressed with PP breaks the flow of the narrative and this in itself makes PP stand out from other narrated events.The use of PP in a venido 'he has come', is more subjective than the events in the lineal succession.In this account, there is a clear contrast between entró and dijo, actions that truly occurred, and a venido, an event that has not taken place yet.No doubt, the participant has a vested interest in a venido, which yearns for the return of the man that is stationed in Peru.The event in que a benido ya aquel hombre 'that said man has come already' is felt closer to the participant both temporally and affectively, perhaps due to the repercussions of the event on her mental and emotional well-being.The use of PP, as a linguistic device, clearly curtails the distance between the unfulfilled event and the participant in the narrative, emulating the proximity between the participant's psychological state of mind and the event.
Reported speech and direct quoting are stylistic devices that involve excessive degrees of subjectivity under heightened levels of speaker involvement.Notice in (7) that estuvieron 'they were there' and respondio 'she responded' convey more neutral events that do not seem to impact the participants so straightforwardly, and as such are codified in the Pret. (7) Y le pareçe aver sido esta narraçion a la puerta de su casa désta, porque se acuerda bien que, cabadas de volver de la iglesia, estuvieron alli un ratillo en pie antes de despedirse, diciendo ésta: "buen confesor es el padre Rengel", respondio la dicha mulata: "no lo es porque en la confesión ME HA REQUEBRADO" Y la Joanna dixo: "tambien a ti te requebro?"[DLNE 1621, 86.256] 'And it seems that this narrative occurred at the door of her house, because she remembers well that, after coming back from church, they were there for a while standing before parting, the latter one said: "father Rengel is such a good confessor" the mulatto girl responded: he is not because during confession he took advantage of me" And Joanna said: "Did he also take advantage of you?"' PP use is retained for the climactic punch line in the narrative, me ha requebrado 'he has taken advantage of me' (or literally, 'he has broken me').There are several ways in which the participant's involvement in the event is heightened.Through the use of quoted speech, the narrator resorts to an interpersonal intimacy, which brings the participant and the event closer together: PP stands out from the adjoining Prets, and there is an engaging me 'me', which enhances the participant's plight.Notice also the not so subtle disparity played out between me ha requebrado 'he has taken advantage of me' and tambien a ti te requebro 'did he also take advantage of you?', which in contrast affects a second person.The temporal displacement made possible by the quoted PP concocts a more vivid event in terms of Ritz and Engel (2008), in turn bringing the event closer to the interlocutor (the reader).
The mechanisms used in the DLNE are systematically replicated in the Salvadoran data. (8) En el propio tiempo de la guerra 'taba el toque de queda, que era el toque de queda a las ocho.In example (8), narrative sequence is situated temporally En el propio tiempo de la guerra 'during wartime' and Y ese día 'that day', and continues with me robó 'he stole from me', me la rompieron 'they broke it' and a series of recurring le dije 'I told him'.PP breaks the flow of the storyline by laying emphasis on the physical condition of the speaker.In Me ha dejado fregado y todo morado 'He has left me in bad shape and all bruised up', we finally learn firsthand of the physical and psychological repercussions that the narrated events have on the narrator.The "vivid" effect appears in the narrative's coda because it draws attention to the outcome of the whole account.We see that the narrators make use of PP as a recurring mechanism that heightens their emotional connection to the event.This type of involvement is a clear driving force behind PP penetration to narrative discourse.
In Table 4, quantification confirms the biased predisposition of PP to codify reported and quoted speech in the two corpora.In the DLNE, 19% of all PP occurrences are reportative, compared to only 4% of Pret.Differences in the oral data are accentuated, 66% of all instances of PP are reportative, compared to a scant 1% of Pret.The asymmetrical relation between heightened temporal and subjective proximity, commonly articulated with PP, and blunt physical distance and subjective detachment, inversely articulated with Pret, finds a systematic expression in variation.Differences are of a gradual nature and commonly mark the discriminating degrees of subjectivity: more subjective utterances display sharp degrees of involvement.The extension of the PP from a usage originally grounded in concrete temporal and aspectual meanings to contexts where it codifies greater speaker involvement is symptomatic of its subjectification.
Table 5 shows the distribution of PP and Pret by verb semantic class in the DLNE and the SSC.The data bring to light a close correlation between PP and verbs of pain and feelings in the DLNE and SSC.The association becomes more apparent when a comparison is made with Pret.Verbs of pain and feeling in the DLNE account for 25.9% of all PP occurrences, compared to 74.1% of Pret; in the SSC, verbs of pain and feeling account for 55.6% of all PP occurrences, compared to a 44.4% of Pret.The higher frequencies of verbs of pain and feelings linked to the PP reflect the solid connection that speakers seem to make between PP and the more intimate contexts of the narrative structure, often linked to highly subjective verb types that peak in climactic points in the narrative.The association signals heightened speaker consciousness of the forms at their disposal in generating written or oral styles that best express the affective content.This semantic comparison accounts quantitatively for the more affective disposition of the PP over the Pret alleged in past studies (Alarcos Llorach 1947: 125;Kubarth 1992: 558;Lope Blanch 1991: 141;Spitzová & Bayerová 1987: 38).
Notice the close association between PP expression and main verbs of fear in (9), pain in (10), and death in (11).( 9 It was previously suggested that the use of PP in narrative brings heightened attention to particular points in the narrative.In this sense, PP seems to act as a focalizing device that projects particular components in the conveyed information, making some events more prominent than others for the interlocutor in regards to their assumed level of subjectivity.This focalizing mechanism leans to the more subjective chunks of discourse, where linguistic elements -such as PP, first person, subject expression, and reported and quoted speech-occur in higher frequencies.

Conclusion
In studies about the PP and Pret in discourse, there have been continual assumptions about the degree of subjectivity attached to each one of the two forms.These tend, however, to remain at the level of common generalizations and speculations.In line with other languages that draw attention to particular chunks of information over others in discourse (Van Dijk 1997: 93), the empirical data offered here show that, the variation of PP and Pret in Spanish provides speakers with an effective mechanism that projects one particular past event over others in narratives.The analysis that is undertaken here points to the use of PP as a handy mechanism that can highlight one event over another in narrative.The idea is that the varieties under study make use of the variation of PP and Pret to make temporal and psychological degrees of closeness and distance evident to the interlocutor, just as intonation, word order, and morphology can also perform similar purposes The encroachment of PP into narratives seems to be the product of a stylistic recourse with notable cognitive consequences that enhance the speaker's involvement in discourse.Through a grammaticalization process in which PP acquires readings more reminiscent of a perfective element, the PP form is reinterpreted as a valid form in those contexts previously reserved for Pret.In these narratives, PP draws attention to greater speaker's affective closeness to the event, while Pret enhances detachment and dissociation.
In rationalization of the cognitive component of PP and Pret variation in narratives, It was argued that the quantification of certain linguistic elements in discourse can help us glimpse at the relationship between form and the varying degrees of subjectivity in speech.The straightforward association between PP and first person singular is one way of showing the highly systematic codification of the speaker's point of view in grammar.The PP turned out to be the autobiographical form per excellence, it was also the form more suited to codify subjectivity in narrative.The quantitative analysis demonstrated that these two clearly subjective elements (PP and first person singular) served to highlight the high degree of involvement implied in those segments of the narratives that directly affect the speaker.Our results also suggested that the use of subject expression in combination with PP undeniably seemed to add 'pragmatic weight' to the narrated utterances, thus increasing speaker involvement in particular points of the narrated chain of events: those that are perceived as closer by the speaker.The quantitative analysis also confirmed a clear biased predisposition of PP to codify reported and quoted speech in the two corpora.The asymmetrical relation between heightened temporal and subjective proximity, commonly articulated with PP, and blunt physical distance and subjective detachment, inversely articulated with Pret, found a systematic expression in variation.Finally, the higher frequencies of verbs of pain and feelings linked to the PP reflect the solid connection that speakers seem to make between PP and the more intimate contexts of the narrative structure, often linked to highly subjective verb types that peak in climactic points in the narrative.The association signals heightened speaker consciousness of the two forms at their disposal in generating written or oral styles that best express the affective content.
The importance of subjectivity in PP gramaticalization is evident in our findings.In more general terms, the present results make it evident that narrative can be the locus of change for PP, and that PP grammaticalization is due in part to process of subjectification.As hypothesized previously, subjectivity can be measured quantitatively in discourse.We have seen that the contrast between temporal and subjective proximity (closely tied to PP) and farness (commonly tied to Pret) in narrative finds its codification in variation.This difference is of a gradual nature and functions as a way to mark the degree of speaker involvement in the event: more subjective events communicate a higher level of involvement.We saw that factors, such as subject expression and reported speech serve as effective ways of measuring speaker subjectivity in speech because they convey high degrees of speaker involvement.The variationist paradigm was a practical tool because contrasts in the degrees of subjectivity between PP and Pret were evident quantitatively when we compared correlation of the two forms and the different pragmatic-semantic components, mentioned above.It is thus reasonable to envisage a move from a spatial and temporal proximity to a broader and more abstract concept of affective and cognitive proximity.Temporal distance becomes the metaphor for expressing a highly subjective interpersonal distance.
yo.No me dice, una es para vos, me dijo.No le dije yo, si YO HE VENIDO aquí, le dije yo, pa' chotear, no venir a tomar, le dije yo.0 ¿O cuántas veces me ha visto tomando a mí? No, pero yo quiero estar aquí, me dice, y... y queun par de cervezas, me dijo.Pues no, le dije.ledigo, porque YO ME las HE TOMADO, pero las cervezas no.Así es que cancelé yo, yo las sodas y... ya se levantó él y canceló las sodas él, las, las, las cervezas.Bueno, me dijo de todos modos, me dijo, no me quisiste pagar la, la cerveza, me dijo.Este, mirá, me dice, allá está, me dice, este, andá que me lleve, me dijo.Ese lo tenés que pagar vos, me dijo.No le dije si YO a pie ME HE VENIDO, a pie me voy a ir, le dije yo.No 'ta ni retirado, le dije yo.[SSC 2000, M, 48] 'There was a young man there that... said he was the boss, right?He had been named boss.He worked the same shift, right?But one time when I was carrying on my shift from seven in the morning until three o'clock in the evening, I arrived and he said, Palacios, he said.Let's go out, he said, to the dock.Let's go, I said, since I had completed my shift, right?And... we left together.We went for a walk with him.When we arrived to a prostitution place, to a saloon, come in, he said, I came in, we sat down.When he says, lady, he says, give me two beers, he said.They served him the two beers.And I tell him, and why do you want two, two beers, I tell him.No, he says, one is for you, he said.No, I said, if I came here, I said, to walk around, not to come drink, I told him.Or how many times have you seen me dinking?No, but I want to be here, he tells me, and... and that-a pair of beer, he told me.Well no, I told him.One, I don't like beer, I say to him.And another thing is, I say, I say, that I am at work, I say, I am practically at work, I say.

Table 2 .
Distribution of PP and Pret by grammatical person in the DLNE and San Sebastián Corpus The null subject expressions are of the following types:• pronominal, as in una vez que Ø he pasado allá abajo 'once when I[Ø]passed by there'; y ahí Ø esperé a mi tío Santiago 'and there I [Ø] waited for my uncle Santiago'; en helicóptero Ø nos sacaron para San Carlos 'they got us out by helicopter'.•impersonal,as in Ø se trabajaron mucho los telares '[Ø] telares were worked a lot'; y ya que Ø amaneçio diz que 'when dawn broke apparently'; hasta que ya Ø amaneció bien 'until dawn clearly broke'; Ø jue allí donde mi cuñado 'it[Ø]was there where my brother-in-law'.
the girls have made the commentary'; se le ha muerto un burro 'A donkey has died on him'; La gran patada me ha sampado el caballo 'The horse gave me a big kick'; el dicho Muñoz hurtó otras quatro mulas abrá quatro años 'the said Muñoz stole four other mules about four years ago' • pronominal, as in la soda usté me la ha invitado 'the soda, you have invited it to me'; como me has contado vos 'as you have told me'; 'tonces 'onde vide aquel camión yo 'so when I saw that bus'; y entonces los [nos]juimos va bien contentos lohotros [nosotros] 'and so we went together very happy'.

Table 3 .
Distribution of PP and Pret by subject expression in the DLNE and San Sebastián Corpus Había un señor que se llamaba (...), era mayor del ejército, ya estaba jubilado el señor.Y yo tenía un cuñado que era teniente, vivía con una mi hermana, pues.Y ese día, pues, extorcimiento, ya pues, ya, ya me convenía, pues.Hoy digo yo, sé que, que ya me convenía pues.Me robó quinientos colones, le dije yo, que esos no eran ni míos, le dije yo, eran de mi hermana, le dije yo, me robó.Me rompieron los documentos, le dije yo, todos los documentos, le dije yo, una constancia de baja, le dije yo, que yo había obtenido, le dije yo, ellos me la rompieron, le dije yo.Así es que todo, no tengo ningún con que presentarme le dije yo, algo le dije yo, cuando me pare algún soldado o un guardia, lo que sea, le dije yo, con qué documentos me voy a identificar, le dije yo.ME HA DEJADO FREGADO, le dije yo y (ME HA DEJADO) TODO MORADO, le dije yo... (SSC 2000, M, 38) 'During wartime there was a curfew, the curfew was at eight.There was a man named (...) he was an army major, the man, he was retired.And I had a brother-in-law that was a lieutenant, well, he lived with my sister.And that day, well, extortion, well, it was convenient.Today I say, well, I know it was convenient.He stole five hundred colones from me.They tore my documents, I told him, all the documents, I said, a proof of army discharge, I told him, that I had obtained, I told him, they tore it, I told him.So everything, I have nothing to present myself I told him, something I told him, when a soldier or a guard stops me, whatever, I told him, what documents will I use to identify myself, I told him.He left me in bad shape, I told him and (left me) all bruised up, I told him'

Table 4 .
Distribution of PP and Pret in reportative and non-reportative speech in the DLNE and San Sebastián Corpus

Table 5 .
Distribution of PP and Pret by verb semantic class in the DLNE and San Sebastián Corpus

me vido cuando me monté, ya
) eh, esa era la idea que llevaba, ¿va? porque yo, pos sí ya, ya no, ya no me aguantaba más, pos ya no me quedaba de otra, ¿va? que me iban siguiendo mucho, ¿va? 'tonces ahí quedó tirado la tu-el tablazo ahí, entonces me juí, arriba, allá arriba iba con el corvo así pelado iba yo, entonces me dice, me dice un señor, este, don XXX (...) entonces me dice, y por qué trae el corvo pelado, qué horas voa llegar a la casa, dije yo, veá, y mañana me va a pegar mi papá o mi mamá, dije yo, me vua 'ventar mejor, dije yo, entonces, me vua 'ventar mejor dije yo, que me aviento y entierro la cabeza en el, en el suelo, todito esto ME HE CHOYADO, todito esto...[CSS 2000, M, 44]'...and my uncle did not see me when I climbed on, I was somewhat older, almost as old as that one, as that one over there, so I was old already, and I climbed on and the bus left towards Santa Rosa, no towards where we lived, right?towards my uncle's house-no he left towards Santa Rosa, then I yethey said well then we will come back tomorrow, they said and I got worried, right?shoot!I said tomorrow at what time am I going to get home, I said, right, and tomorrow my dad is going to get after me or my mom, I said, I am going to jump, I said so I am going to jump, I said, I jumped and landed with my head on the, on the ground, on the ground, I scratched all this, all this...' (11) ayer viernes a la media noche, poco más o menos, estando este testigo en el quarto a donde su amo dormia, oyo al dicho Gregorio Basques dar bozes que le abriese la puerta del aposento donde estava.Y este testigo oyo abrir la puerta por el ruido que hiso, y luego oyo disparar un arcabuz o fistolete, y oyo decir a grandes bozes: "¡Ay que ME A MUERTO, confusión!Y en esta ocasión llegó este testigo con el dicho Francisco de Sossa, su amo, y conoció en la boz ser don Diego de Quesada, alcalde mayor de estas provincias.Y después que truxeron luz le conoció más bien y save le mató el dicho Gregorio Basques porque lo halló con su muger en su aposento... [DLNE 1618, 81.244] 'yesterday Friday at midnight, more or less, this witness being in the room where his master used to sleep, he heard the said Gregorio Basques asking him to open the door in the room where he was.And this witness heard the door open because of the noise it made, and then he heard a harquebus or fistolete, and he heard him say loudly: Oh for he has killed me such confusion!And on this occasion this witness arrived with said Francisco de Sossa, his master, and he recognized the voice as that of don Diego de Quesada, mayor of these provinces.And then when light was brought he recognized him and he knows the said Gregorio Basques killed him because he found him in his room with his wife...' es que un bolo aquí que ME HA ASUSTADO le dije yo, ¿vedá?ME HA ASUSTADO un bolo, le digo, ah de veras le dije yo, ah de veras le dije yo, ME HA ASUSTADO le digo, bastante le dije...[CSS 2000, M, 44]'uh, that is the idea that I had, right?because I, well yes, no more, I coud not stand it anymore, I had no other choice, right?they were following me a lot, right?so it was left laying there, the boa-the board there, so I left, up there, I was up there with my machete in hand I was going, then he tells me, a man tells me, uh, don XXX (...) then he tells me, why do you have your machete in hand, it is because a drunkard scared me I said to him, right? a drunkard scared me, I say to him, oh really I said to him, oh really I said to him, he scared me I say to him, a lot I said to him...' (10) ...y mi tío no estaba algo grande ya, ya como ése, como aquél estaba, 'tonces estaba algo grande ya, y me monté y salió pal' la'o de Santa Rosa, no salió pa' 'onde nosotros, va, pal' la'o de 'onde mi tiyono pal la'o de Santa Rosa sale el animal, 'tonces gri-'ijieron a pos 'to's mañana vamos a venir, dijieron y yo me abatí, veá, ¡puya!dije pa'mañana y a