The fate of ‘redundant’ verbal forms – Double perfect constructions in the languages of Europe

Abstract

German and other languages of Europe have supercomposed tenses which are the result of a twofold application of the strategy that forms perfects. Based on their low frequency in the written registers, these constructions are considered marginal. In spoken German double perfects often compete with the pluperfect. But I argue that their use in literary German is motivated, so that double perfect constructions are indeed members of the tense inventory. Elsewhere in Europe, we find similar con-structions associated with rather specific (and similar) meanings, both where synthetic past tenses are on the decline and where they are preserved.