This paper investigates the behaviour of the Romanian complex past (perfect compus) in relation to its English counterpart (the Present Perfect) from a Discourse Representation Theory (cf. Kamp & Reyle 1993) perspective. The data we analyse come from a range of Romance and Germanic languages. Our hypothesis is that the Romanian perfect compus (henceforth PC) appears as semantically richer than other ‘perfects’ and is on the verge of becoming a preterite. We conclude by proposing a scale of perfectivity where the Romanian perfect ranks highest in terms of a [+ preterite] dimension.
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Journal “Diacronia” ISSN: 2393-1140 Frequency: 2 issues / year