El principio de concordantia temporum en las cláusulas nominales del castellano aperuano

Abstract

The Concordantia or Consecutio Temporum rule states that the verb tense in a noun clause agrees with the verb tense in the main clause (Quiero que duerma “I want [present indicative] her to sleep [present subjunctive]” / Quería que durmiera “I wanted [imperfect indicative] her to sleep [imperfect subjunctive]”), but it is possible to find many varieties that do not follow the rule (Quería que duerma “I wanted [imperfect indicative] her to sleep [present subjunctive]”). In Peruvian Spanish, this study aims to find whether this phenomenon is frequent in bilinguals in Ayacucho and in monolinguals in Lima with more migrant contact or less migrant contact. These groups are compared to a Mexican group in order to confirm if the change is more common in Peru. Moreover, linguistic factors (verb type in the main clause and event type) are  included to see if the rule is not followed even within the strictest contexts. Results and statistical analyses show that this is true and more frequent than in Mexican Spanish. Furthermore, between-group comparisons point out that groups in Lima are similar, which supports the intense social contact in the capital. In addition to that, bilinguals tend to produce other grammatical moods, as indicative. A more detailed analysis suggests that these answers are preferred by
speakers that are less dominant in Spanish, since subjunctive is acquired in later stages of the second language acquisition process.