A Comparative Study of the Present Perfect Puzzle in SAE and AAVE Seminar paper for: African American Vernacular

English Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Remus Gergel Ferguson, Daniel Scott (1212278) Handed in on 24/02/13 WS 12/13

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical Background 2.1. The Present Perfect Puzzle 2.2. Tense and Viewpoint Aspect 2.3. Labov Dual Components

3 3 5 7

3. The Present Perfect Puzzle and AAVE

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4. Analysis

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5. Conclusions

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6. Bibliography

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1. Introduction African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is one of the most highly stigmatized dialects within the English language. The question, what exactly constitutes as African American English (AAE), remains the center of debate in linguistics, politics, and society. The historically charged controversy exists within a socio-political ideology, which fails to recognize African American English as a legitimate dialect of English. What is AAE? Is it simply Standard English (SE) tainted with ignorant mistakes in grammar and pronunciation and whose vocabulary consists of a repertoire of street slang; or is there more to AAVE phonologically, morphologically, syntactically, semantically, and pragmatically than meets the eye? Amongst others, linguists such as Lisa Green, J. Michael Terry, William Labov, and Elizabeth Dayton have contributed to the growing field of AAE linguistics. In particular, their work and analyses of AAEs linguistic features, components, and patterns and systems, have served to alleviate the tension shrouding AAVEs validity as a genuine dialect of English.Utilizing the works of the above listed linguists, this paper will explore the similarities and differences between African American English and Standard American English. It will attempt to add to the evidence of AAVE as a dialect of SE. And most importantly, a comparative study of the present perfect puzzle in SE and AAVE will be conducted. The research question at the root of this study is whether pieces of the present perfect puzzle in Standard English occur in African American Vernacular English. Although problematic in nature, the specific goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of the present perfect puzzle on African American Vernacular English compared to Standard English. In order to do so, the paper will begin with a discussion of the present perfect puzzle in SE, followed by a discussion of tense and viewpoint aspect and its implications in the English language as well as the dual components model. Together, those three units will form the theoretical background. The third section will examine AAVEs aspectual done and its interaction with the present perfect and meaning. The subsequent sections will provide an analysis of the puzzle in SE and AAVE and all conclusions thereafter. This work hopes to find out whether the present perfect puzzle exists within African American English or if it simply puzzles present perfect structures in Standard American English.
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2. Theoretical Background 2.1. The Present Perfect Puzzle In 1992, Wolfgang Klein investigated what he coined as the present perfect puzzle. Essentially his work explored the interaction of temporal adverbials with the English present perfect tense. Although seemingly simple, the puzzle has proved to be quite deceptive in complexity. In his article, the perplexing nature the perfect, particularly the present perfect in Standard American English (SAE), and its interaction with regard to temporal adverbials, becomes apparent. As addressed below, the problem refers to the semantics of the present perfect when made explicit by a temporal adverbial (Klein 1992: 1): In an utterance such as (1) John has left his wife. The event talked about, John's leaving his wife, is clearly in the past (relative to the time of utterance TU). It may still be particularly relevant to the present in one way or the other, and some authors argue that this is the reason why the present perfect is used here, rather than the simple past. But there is little doubt that the event as such is over at TU. It could have been yesterday, or last fall, or some ten years ago. Why is it impossible, then, to say: (2a) *John has left his wife yesterday. (2b) *Yesterday, John has left his wife. (3a) *John has left his wife last year. (3b) *Last year, John has left his wife. (4a) *John has left his wife some ten years ago. (4b) *Some ten years ago, John has left his wife. As illustrated by Klein (1992), past-time denoting adverbials predominantly pose problems in the interpretation of the present perfect. In the previous examples, he examines the effect that placement has on the meaning of the sentence. He looks at temporal adverbials in a preposed and post-posed position; both of which yield ungrammatical sentences. Regardless of initial or final position, the time of the adverbials appears to interact negatively with the time specified by the present perfect. Yet in related Germanic languages such as German and Dutch, and even the French perfect, he notes that this puzzle is non-existent. For example (Klein 1992: 2): (8a) Hans hat gestern seine Frau verlassen. Hans has yesterday his wife left. *Hans has left his wife yesterday.
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(8b)

Gestern hat Hans seine Frau verlassen. Yesterday has Hans his wife left. *Yesterday, Hans has left his wife. Jean a quitt sa femme hier. Jean has left his wife yesterday. *Jean has left his wife yesterday. Hier, Jean a quitt sa femme. Yesterday, Jean has left his wife. *Yesterday, Jean has left his wife.

(9a)

(9b)

This data set shows how the perfect functions differently in German, Dutch, and French. The interaction of the past-time denoting adverb, yesterday, and the present perfect can indeed produce grammatically correct sentences. Evidently, the meaning assigned to the present perfect auxiliary has in these sentences can remain unaffected regardless of past-time adverbials.The assumption is that the present perfect has both a tense and aspect component. Klein states that the tensing component of the present perfect used in the above languages must not be p-definite (position definite), whereas they are definitely fixed within the English language. Nevertheless, various promising solutions have been proposedeach with their strengths and weaknesses. Within his research, Klein postulates the notion of temporal adverbials scope playing a role in the interpretation of the present perfect. The scope solution states that there are two different types of a temporal adverbial: sentential adverbs and VP-adverbs (Klein 1992: 3). Sentential adverbs take scope over the entire sentence including the present tense morpheme, whereas VP-adverbs can only affect the verb phrase itself. Within SE, a temporal adverbial like, yesterday, would take scope over the entire sentence. Regardless of its position in the sentence, it would inevitably clash with the meaning of the present perfect morpheme / auxiliary have. Moreover, another solution proposed is the current-relevance solution. Klein defines this notion of a past event, state, or process bearing some on-going relevance to the present (Klein 1992: 6). While this concept of the continuing present relevance of a past situation (Comrie 1976: 52) is indeed intuitive, Klein argues that are three inherent problems with it. First, it is not clear how to determine the 'relevance'; second, it cannot explain the following example:
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(18a) John was dead. (18b) John has been dead. arguing that sentence (18a) is possible, while sentence (18b) is impossible; and third, it cannot explain the event (or process or state) - whose consequences are still relevant in the present - cannot be precisely localized in time (Klein 1992: 6). Although a good intuitive starting point at cracking the present perfect puzzle, the data shows that the current relevance analysis needs to be tailored precisely in order to be able to fully explain the present perfect puzzle. Kleins research presented an attempt at demystifying what lies beneath the perfect. As illustrated in his data, this puzzle exists exclusively within the English present perfect and is not characteristic of other Germanic or even Romance languages such as French. Preor post-posing temporal adverbials in the realm of the present perfect will certainly generate ungrammatical English sentences. However, the grammaticality of sentences in the past perfect used with such temporal adverbials remains unaffected, again proving that the problematic exists solely within the present perfect. His study of the perfect endeavored to find the key to unlocking the present perfect puzzle, which would become more apparent in his study of tense and aspect.

2.2. Tense and Viewpoint Aspect In his essay entitled How Time is Encoded, Klein (2009) bases his definitions of tense and aspect largely on the works of Reichenbach (1947), Comrie (1985), Klein (1992, 1994), and Kratzer (1998). Written on the broad nature of how humans conceptualize time, his article provides an in-depth account into the human mind. The experience of time is fundamental to human cognition and action (Klein 2009: 1). However, the way in which different languages perceive and express the concept of time differs widely. While some languages show a relationship to time through their verbal systems, others mark time through the use of temporal adverbials. In discussing the perception of time, this section will explicitly focus on two ways in which time can be encoded into language: tense and aspect. Traditionally, tense is primarily concerned with the grammatical categories of past, present, and future, and must be distinguished from aspect. Specifically, it denotes a temporal relationship between the former classifications and the now or utterance time. As defined
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below by Klein (2009: 2), he explains that the event described by [Eva be cheerful] is a reflection of tense:

Tense is a grammatical category of the verb; in its traditional understanding, it serves to locate the situation in relation to the now of the speech act. Thus, the difference between was, is, and will be in 1 reflects different tenses. Utterance time is generally considered to be the link between the past, present, and future. That is, the meaning of the past is a set of events that took place before the utterance time. Similarly, the present denotes a set of events that takes place more or less simultaneously with the time of utterance, whereas future events will take place at a time after utterance time (Klein 2009: 5). In this classical view, tenses must be looked at as time spans and not specific intervals of time. That is, one event out of a set of events can occur at any specific point in time. Where that point is will depend on the time period of the event, ranging from the past.Present, and future, and its relation to the time that event is uttered. Correspondingly, Klein expands uponhis definition of tense through the works of Hans Reichenbachon tense and aspect (Reichenbach 1947), namely the acceptance of a third relationship to utterance time: topic time. Reichenbach originally stated that a compound relationship exists between utterance time, event time, and point of reference. The difference, however, is that Klein refers to Reichenbachs notion of point of reference as topic time, as Reichenbachs definition of point of reference remained unclear. What tense does, is to express a relation between the time of utterance and the topic time the time about which the speaker wants to say for example to assert something. This topic time in turn is temporally related to the time of the situation: it can be contained in it, it can contain it, it may follow or precede it, it may also be fully simultaneous to it. In this latter case, the classical notion of tense is correct: it marks just a relation between betweenthe time of the situation and the time of utterance (Klein 2009: 8) At the core of his definition, one has to actually account for three time spans in dealing with tense. The key is the idea of topic time and its various options of denoting a temporal relationship between the time of the event. The topic time can be the same as the event time or it can take place before or after the event time. Nevertheless, Klein recants these traditional views of tense for reasons of imprecision and others that are outside of the scope of this
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project. Crucially, a basic understanding of the function of tense as a means to relate spans of time is required for the analysis presented in this paper. On the other hand, aspect is not concerned with establishing a compound temporal relationship between sets of events (Klein 2009: 14). Aspect proper, or viewpoint aspect, approaches an event as either on-going or completed. In essence, the word viewpoint implies that there can be different points of view of how an action is carried out. Typically, the idea of progressive or continuative action in English is called imperfective aspect, whereas a completed action is referred to as perfective aspect. This difference of aspect is illustrated in the example below: (1) John was reading a book before Jane arrived. (2) John read a book before Jane arrived. In sentence (1), the event of [read a book] continued until the arrival of Jane, as opposed to sentence (2), in which the event of [read a book] clearly finished prior to Janes arrival. The former would correspond to imperfective aspect and the latter to perfective aspect.In terms of meaning, both sentence (1) and (2) can only be true if the tense is a member of the aspectual set of times converted by the event [read a book]. Above all, both the conceptualization of tense as a compound relationship of time spans and utterance time and the envisioning of aspect as filling in the gaps between time and a set of situations are the integral to the semantics of tense and aspect. Although different in every language, the role played by tense and aspect within English is largely separate. That is, given a few exceptions the same aspectual contrast can be found in all tenses (Klein 2009: 6). Russian and other Slavic languages exhibit a combined, inflectional tense-aspect system, which has distinctive affixes used to mark aspect. While SE has a straight forward tense and aspect, is this also the case for African American Vernacular English? The latter half of this paper will deal with how tense and aspect interrelate within AAVE, particularly within the context of the SAE present perfect puzzle. 2.3. Duel Components Model of AAVE Labovs duel components model takes into account the features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that diverge from general English (GE) varieties. In doing so, it allows AAVE to be categorized in accordance with both its similarities and differences to GE. In particular, Labov lists features such tense and aspect, intonation, and auxiliary patterns as
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clear isolatable African American differences to general English (Green 2011: 30). Given the listed attributes that color AAE, one is lead to the conclusion that African American Vernacular English could not subsist purely on these features alone. As with all dialects, there has to be a system serving primarily as its foundation. AAVE is essentially GE at its core. First presented in 1998, William Labov proposed a theory of categorizing the differences between AAVE features and MAE. His theory argues that AAVE consists of two components, a general English (GE) component and an African American (AA) component (Green 2011: 29). Together, this representation of AAVE depicts a system in which both parts are in coexistence. In particular, Labov states, The GE component contributes the basic structure and grammar, which AAE shares with other varieties of English. It is the AA component that distinguishes AAE from other varieties and gives it the distinctively African American flavor (Green 2011: 30).This model implies that if AAVE is indeed a two-part system, the individual features or flavors of African American English are in a state of synchronicity. In other words, dialectal features of AAVE cannot exist in isolation of General American English varieties. Labovs view of a duel components system stands in direct opposition to earlier studies of African American English. Traditionally, AAVE was perceived quite negativelymany disregarding it as speaking English with a lot of mistakes. The approach is to list a line of features that are in opposition to what is acceptable in standard American English, and it goes back to early studies in AAE when, in the beginning stages, researchers were trying to explain what actually constitutes AAE (Green 2011: 22). Researchers primarily created lists of AAVE features, which focused on showing extreme differences between mainstream American English (MAE) and AAVE, which, in turn, suggested further the illegitimacy of the dialect. However, the early approach to AAE described by Green has been expanded upon over the years, as other researchers such as Wolfram and Fasold (1974) and Craig and Washington (2006) have begun to show a connection between AAVE and SAE features. Collecting data from African American children, adolescents, and adults indicated links to standard American English.That is, the description of AAVE flavor became characterized as a system of morpho-syntactic features also containing variations from SAE. Specifically, Craig and Washington state that the SAE variation exhibited in AAVE involved free and bound morphemes, and word order, creating a list of 24 isolated in AAVE (Green: 22):
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1. Features Suggested in the Literature (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) Aint Appositive Pronoun Completive Done Double marking Double copula/auxiliary/model Existential it Fitna/sposeta/bouta Preterite had Indefinite article Invariant be Multiple Negation Regularized reflexive pronoun Remote past been Subject-verb agreement variations Undifferentiated pronoun case

(16-24) Zero article, copula, ing, modal auxiliary, past tense, plural, possessive, preposition, to According to Green, outlining such a list of features would have multiple advantages. In particular, the data would be beneficial to AAE comparative researchers, speech pathologists and educators, and those interested in a concise list of morphosyntactic and syntactic differences between AAE and MAE. This list would provide irrefutable evidence that particularly children, for example, as well as adult AAVE speakers speak in accordance to dialectal variation, not as a result of speech impediments. Furthermore, the features listed by Craig and Washington can be organized according to how tense and aspect are distinguished in AAVE. Green groups together certain markers used in AAVE to mark time and describe the way in which events are viewed as on-going or completed compared to SAE (Green: 24): 2. Features Related to the Tense-aspect System (a) Zero Copula (b) Zero Past Tense (c) Preterite had
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(d) Remote past been (e) Completive done (f) Fitna/sposeta/bouta (g) Invariant be The features listed above highlight the rich aspectual system integral to AAVE that sprinkles its flavor onto SAE. There are virtually seven different ways in which tense and aspect can be marked that vary from its SAE grammatical counterparts. Focusing on the project at hand, Green (1993) shows similarities in the way completive preverbal done patterns with SE present perfects (Terry 2006: 2). Thus, the most logical feature to investigate would be effects of preverbaldone within the present perfect environment. In particular, completive done and its aspectual properties will be addressed in section three. As a coexisting system comprised largely of GE features, it is to be expected that AAVE and GE would share the same effects of the present perfect puzzle. However, is this explicitly the case? Concerning tense and aspect, the present perfect has a tense component and an aspect component (Klein: 16). Proceeding on Kleins definition of the present perfect, the interaction of AAVEs aspectual system compared to SAEs present perfect would appear to be even more enigmatic. The remainder of this paper will examine how aspect in AAVE, in particular completive done plays a role in the present perfect puzzle.

3. The Present Perfect Puzzle and AAVE The present perfect puzzle for African American English proves to be just as problematic as Standard American English. Starting from the premise that AAVE does indeed have a dual components system comprised of mostly general English with certain features differing in the use of tense and aspect, auxiliary patterns, and intonations, the possibility exists that there is a solution to be found in the puzzle. Michael Terry, a linguist from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, investigates the peculiar mystery surrounding African American English and the present perfect puzzle. He uses the context of the puzzle itself to examine how perfect constructions are formed in AAVE. In Terry (2006), he focuses on the interaction of definite past-time denoting adverbials with AAE preverbal done sentences such as: (1) John done baked a cake John has baked a cake
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Although disputed, Terry takes done to be the AAVE equivalent of SAE present perfects. That is, done is used as the auxiliary verb as opposed to have in SAE. Following the same patterns as Klein and other researchers, he looks at done constructions where temporal adverbials are pre-posed and post-posed. In the former, Terry reports that pre-posing temporal adjectives always results in ungrammaticality. For example (Terry: 4): (2) *Yesterday, John done baked a cake. Interestingly, Terry notes that the same sentence (2) can be considered grammatically correct if the past-time denoting adverbial is post-posed and given the proper context, or in Terrys case, a carefully constructed context (Terry 2006: 4): (3) Context for (4) Mary and Sue are in a supermarket making decisions about what to buy to take back to the apartment where they both live with John. Mary picks up a banana cream pie and puts it in the cart. (4) Sue: You dont need to buy that pie now! John done baked a cake yesterday. We have plenty of sweets at home. You dont need to buy that pie now. John has baked a cake; he just did it yesterday. We have plenty of sweets at home. The data clearly shows that without the context provided in sentence (3), sentence (4) would be considered to be ungrammatical. The interaction of the past-time denoting adverbial seems to not cause a problem in interpretation due to the context. Nonetheless, an AAVE sentence with a pre-posed temporal adverbial, no matter the given context, will result in ungrammaticality. In his analysis, Terry outlines three pieces of the AAE present perfect puzzle. First he argues that definite past-time-denoting adverbials behave differently when found in an environment containing simple pre-verbal done constructions. In addition, definite past-timedenoting adverbials are oftentimes quite ambiguous in terms of grammaticality when judged by native speakers. Second, he states that pre-posing the adverbial definitely makes the sentence wrong. And third, the manipulation of context allows for post-posed past-time denoting adverbials to work within AAVE perfect completive done structures. Terry argues that the context does two things. The context makes the topic time of a sentence clear. It sets the topic time of the present perfect done construction as a present
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interval. And second, the context gives a reason for additional time specification of the event described (Terry 2006: 5):

Temporal adverbials such as yesterday, today, on Monday, and on a Monday are treated as properties of times. As such, they attach above the VP-level where as previously discussed, they interact with topic times. Some AAE speakers, however, allow a contextually conditioned type-shift that can repackage these temporal adverbials as properties of events. In this form they are constrained to VP-level attachment. As a property of events, the adverbial yesterday can only modify a verb phrase and thus, can only add additional specification to the time of the event described by the verb in a present perfect done construction; it cannot modify the topic time. Syntactically speaking, past-time denoting adverbial phrases can be generated either in the verb phrase or attached at a higher site within the deep structure. A pre-posed adverbial can be based generated at the VP-level, but then topicalized, while a post-posed adverbial will be stay attached at the VP-level. If the present perfect done construction is to be treated according to Comries (1976) definition of the perfect of persistent situation, it is clear why modification of the present perfect topic time by a past-time denoting adverbial would result in ungrammaticality, especially given the extended now analyses of the perfect (e.g. McCoard 1978, Bennett and Partee 1978, Portner 2000). The extended now theory is an intrinsic part of the perfect that is an interval of time that begins in the past and extends up to and includes utterance time (Terry 2006: 9). However, the extended now can be altered by some AAVE speakers if proper context is subconsciously known or given in advanced. In this case, postposed adverbials affixed to the VP-level are not treated as times rather properties of events. Essentially, the extended now time interval is not affected by the past-time denoting adverbial because as a property of an event it modifies the verb phrase and not topic time. Terrys investigation of the present perfect puzzle in African American English proved to be beneficial. Using the SAE present perfect puzzle as a context, he uncovered another piece to the puzzle. His essay was able to identify three parts of the AAE present perfect puzzle based on an intuitive approach to solving it. Unfortunately, his research concludes without a formal analysis thereof. Although he has achieved his goal of tying all three pieces of the AAE present perfect puzzle together, the key to a formal analysis might very well be in the way the notion of packaging is envisioned or even how done construction are thought to function within AAVE.
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4. The Analysis The original goal of this paper was to find out whether the present perfect puzzle exists within African American English. Within SAE English, the puzzle is concerned with the fact that both pre-posed and post-posed temporal adverbials are ungrammatical. Moreover, the puzzle questions what it is about the English present perfect that causes this semantic constraint as opposed to related languages like German, Dutch, or even French or Italian. After analyzing the works previously presented, the present perfect puzzle is indeed apparent in AAE. Although similar, the AAE present perfect puzzle differs on two accounts from the SAE present perfect puzzle. First, there is an inconsistency of grammaticality judgments amongst AAVE speakers. In SAE, speakers unanimously label both pre-posed and post-posed past-time denoting adverbials as ungrammatical. Terrys investigation of speakers from Wise, North Caroline revealed that a speaker might judge sentence (1) as perfectly grammatical one day, and judge the same or a similar sentence as ungrammatical the next (Terry: 3). (1) ?John done baked a cake yesterday John has baked a cake yesterday Perhaps one possibility for this may be the manner in which the data was collected. When asked, speakers in this region might be hesitant in admitting they speak that way, and consequently judge it as incorrect. Another reason might be grammatical interference resulting in speakers subconsciously judging the grammaticality of the sentence according to both grammars. Moreover, Dayton (1996) attributes this difference in judgment to the possibility of done changing from a marker of the perfect to a marker of the perfective. As of yet, no explicit reason can be given for the cause of discrepancy amongst AAVE speakers; however, Daytons hypothesis of historical change is a good start. Second, there are contextually appropriate contexts in which a post-posed past-time denoting adverbial is acceptable. Due to AAVEs rich aspectual system, this is to be expected. Assuming again that verbs denote sets of possible events and that aspect turns these events into sets of possible times, it makes sense for done to function within a context that establishes a current relevance based on an event that took place in the past. The aspectual component of done would convert the time of the event into recently, or justwhich would then not cause a problem in the interpretation of the sentence. At its core, completive done ensures that topic time is included in event time, and in doing so, the extended now remains
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unaffected. This finding seems a likely explanation as to why post-posed adverbials can be acceptable. As for the latter question posed by the SAE puzzle, it still is not clear if the AAVE present perfect patters with SAE or other languages such as German, Dutch, French, or Italian. In the case of past-time denoting adverbials, the data suggests that AAVE would pattern with the latter. However, there is no mention or investigation of an AAVE sentence that is analogous to a topic time excluding utterance time. Klein (1992: 22) lists the following example in German.
(53) Ich habe den Antrag morgen eingereicht. I have the application tomorrow

turned in.

Although present perfect tense, the German language is not constrained by having an event start in the past and carries on to the extended now. It can also have a future event which bears current relevance.Klein notes, What (53) means, is: At some time tomorrow, I will have turned in the application. The adverbial specifies TT i.e., a time span which, in this case, excludes TU (1992: 22). This property of German cannot be likened to AAVE. As such, it can be said that AAVE does not fully equate to SAE or other Germanic languages. As demonstrated above, the present perfect puzzle for African American English does not completely parallel its Standard American English counterpart. Coincidently, it also fails to correspond with other Germanic and Romance languages. As such, this leaves the solution to the African-American present perfect puzzle even more challenging. Based largely off Kleins work, Terry application thereof and investigation into the present perfect puzzle provides remarkable intuitive insight into the problematic of the present perfect in AAVE but ultimately falls short of a formal analysis. Perhaps the answer might lie in the comparison of the present perfect puzzle with a creole or another African language. Nonetheless, his research sets the foundation for the next researchers to follow.

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5. Conclusions The major points investigated within this study were the present perfect puzzle in SAE, the present perfect puzzle outlined by Terry in AAVE, and the role that tense and aspect play in assigning meaning to past-time denoting adverbials. Given the analysis, there is cause to believe that the majority of SAE past-time denoting adverbials will always take scope over the present perfect auxiliary have no matter if pre-posed or post-posed. Conversely, completive done in AAVE is able to manipulate the scope of temporal adverbials by converting them into properties of events rather than times, as one would expect given the function of aspect. Additionally, the disagreement amongst AAVE speakers as to the grammaticality of done used in perfect constructions could be sociolinguistic in nature. The lack of prestige associated with AAVE might be the catalyst causing AAVE speakers to judge the construction with both grammars. Nonetheless, this work has found the parallels existing between the AAVE and SAE present perfect puzzle. All the data collected for this project does a remarkable job of connecting the dots of the puzzle. Yet, more research is needed to make the picture less intuitive and more formal. First, the definitions of tense and aspect need to be sharpened to account for the exceptions that exist. That is, good rules do not need to justify the exceptions. Second, as Terry ultimately fell short of a formal analysis of his intuitive presentation perfect puzzle in AAVE, this paper also agrees that rethinking temporal adverbs modifying done constructions as contextually sensitive might be the key to solving the puzzle.

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6. Bibliography Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related Problems. Cambridge MA: Cambridge UP. Green, Lisa J. 2011. Language and the African American Child. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Klein, Wolfgang. 1992. The Present Perfect Puzzle, In Language 68, 525-552. 2009.How Time is Encoded.In Klein, Wolfgang, und Ping Li (eds.). (2009). The expression of time. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 39 - 82. Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses. In Devon Strolovitch and Aaron Lawson, (eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory VII, 92 110. Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: Macmillan. Terry, J. Michael. 2006. A Present Perfect Puzzle for African- American English. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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