“Hot news” and the grammaticalization of perfects

An examination of the "hot news" function of have + past participle perfect constructions in English & Spanish, observed synchronically to have a discourse function distinct from other perfects in emphasizing the significance & recency of the past event itself (vs its present results), & diachronically to emerge later than other perfect functions, resulting from the gradual loss of perfect constructions' connection to the present. This shift of focus from present to past is argued to render hot news perfects more like perfectives than other perfect functions, & to allow for their further grammaticalization to hodiernal or general past perfective contexts. It is argued that investigation of the previously ignored hot news perfects fills a gap in the attested grammaticalization pattern from perfect to perfective, & provides hypotheses to be tested cross-linguistically. 1 Table, 67 References. Adapted from the source document