Uso de los tiempos narrativos en la prensa escrita en francés y en español
The Use of Narrative Tenses in the Spanish and French Printed Press

Summary/Abstract: Based on an analysis of written texts from the French and Spanish press narrating current or past events, this paper seeks to determine the extent of the aoristic drift of the present perfect in the standard register of both languages, and the way in which they solve the substitution of the simple past as the prototypical narrative form. It is found that the aoristic drift is very advanced in French and gives rise to texts in which different temporal forms are used (passé composé, narrative imperfect, historic present, participles, etc.) with different temporal approaches. In Spanish, however, there is a tendency to preserve the classic narrative use of the forms expressing temporal anteriority, with the present perfect used as a new narrative form specializing in both current events and events to the foreground of the discourse, but without spurning the use of the simple past in the narration of events further back in time.

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