text_combined: new book english linguistics johan elsness perfect preterite contemporary earlier english 1997 23 x 15 5 cm xvii 432 pages cloth dm 248 approx us 177 00 isbn 311 014686 x topics english linguistics 21 mouton de gruyter berlin new york study author discusses various theories put forward account choice present perfect preterite expressions past time english distribution two verb forms examined varied corpus consisting 13 000 recorded verb forms little half presentday english british american spoken written rest earlier english way back old english analysis contemporary corpus supplemented elicitation tests carried british american informants argued presentday language alternation two verb forms determined presence absence temporal adverbials contextual factors considerations current relevance playing subsidiary part many writers assumed rapid advance present perfect took place earlier english continued present day investigation historical corpus shows advance arrested within modern english period extent present perfect seems losing ground preterite especially american english explanation offered development english radically different observable french german many languages _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mouton de gruyter walter de gruyter inc postfach 30 34 21 200 saw mill river road d10728 berlin hawthorne ny 10532 germany usa fax 49 0 30 26005351 fax 1 914 7471326 email 100064 2307 compuserve com publications de gruyter also ordered via world wide web http www degruyter de