A perspective-and-aspect-driven system of temporal anchoring in Portuguese: semantic reanalysis of the present perfect (PPC) and other Cross-Romance divergences

This theoretical paper — building on and developing the author's earlier Japanese works (Makino 2010, 2012, 2013) — proposes a feature-based analysis of the indicative and subjunctive tenses in Portuguese, grounded in four primitive anchoring-aspect features and their figurative extensions: [non-assertive], [VP∈past], [finished] and [assumptive]. In contrast to the tense-driven systems typical of other Romance languages, Portuguese is assumed to employ a perspective-and-aspect-driven system. This structural opposition between the two systems accounts for a range of cross-Romance differences, including the functional erosion of the future tense and the associated future-oriented use of the preterite, and the remarkable vitality of the so-called preterite (PPS) in this language, and the uniquely Portuguese reanalysis of the present perfect indicative — PPC:

              [−VP∈past, +finished, [✓initiated, ✓result-stative, −finished]]

                              ↓

              [−VP∈past, +finished, [✓initiated, ✓result-stative, −finished]]

                              ↓

              [−VP∈past, ✓initiated, ✓stative, −finished]

Due to the functional competition with the PPS: [−VP∈past, +finished]

This paper is closely related to another work by the same author, On the Essential Semantic Function of the Preterite Indicative (PPS) in Portuguese (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16185844).