It is a well-known fact that the area of the present perfect has always been a hotly contested
ground but recent corpus analyses have shown that grammatical variation in this realm in
English is far more pervasive than previously assumed. This volume is the first ever
book-length treatment dedicated to corpus-based work on the present perfect. It offers fresh
theoretical insights resting on a solid empirical footing and investigates central aspects of
language contact and change grammaticalization typology and dialect formation. It sheds
light on this morphosyntactic area from different angles as it comprises both diachronic and
synchronic viewpoints. Contributions explore variation in the expression of perfect meaning and
the multifunctionality of perfect forms in a number of native and non-native varieties thus
going beyond the traditional British American English paradigm while a second focus lies on
cross-variety comparisons. Bringing together the knowledge of leading experts in the field
this book represents the state of the art in data-driven research on the present perfect and
will be of interest for those working in the fields of language variation and change corpus
linguistics sociolinguistics and typology.
