@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/dia.28.2.01dea, author = "Acosta, Diego de", title = "Rethinking the genesis of the Romance periphrastic perfect", journal= "Diachronica", year = "2011", volume = "28", number = "2", pages = "143-185", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.28.2.01dea", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/dia.28.2.01dea", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "0176-4225", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "Romance", keywords = "auxiliary", keywords = "perfect", keywords = "Latin", keywords = "possession", keywords = "grammaticalization", abstract = "The Romance languages all display periphrastic perfects that can be traced to Latin [habere “have” + noun + perfect participle]. A new survey of the Latin corpus reveals that this string had three distinct structures and values. I argue that the likeliest source of the perfects is a periphrasis denoting the achievement of a result or a persisting resultant state. This implies that the relationship between possessive and auxiliary habere is more complex than previously supposed. Finally, I examine the range of values that this periphrasis takes across the Romance languages. I maintain that the growth of the perfect at the expense of the preterite followed an orderly pattern, with requirements on the temporal denotation of the perfect successively relaxed.", }