Pretérito imperfeito e perífrases imperfectivas em variação na codificação da função narrativa em contos escritos em espanhol

Abstract

This paper aims at discussing the phenomenon of variation in the use of the Spanish imperfect past tense and imperfect periphrases in the expression of the narrative function. The corpus consisted of twenty-four short stories written in that language, selected in accordance with their cultural region of origin: the Caribbean; Mexico and Central America; the Andes; the River Plate; Chile; and Spain. A total of 671 occurrences were registered, of which 644 were imperfect past tense forms, corresponding to 96 % of the total, and 27 imperfect periphrases forms, corresponding to 4% of the total. It can therefore be concluded that the imperfect past tense is more frequently used in the expression of the narrative function, conditioned by irrealis modality, in the figurative discourse level, as an object unaffected by verbal action, dynamic verbs and negative sentences.