Tense Variation in Preadolescent Narratives

Most of the previous research on variation in tense-aspect morphology in narrative has focused on the discourse functions of the alternation between the simple past and the conversational historical present (CHP). However, it is not clear what discourse functions may be implicated in narrative by switches between the simple past and other tense-aspect categories and whether there are differences between contemporary vernacular varieties of English in this regard. This article addresses these issues by examining tense variation in the narrative complicating action clauses embedded in fifty-six narratives of personal experience recounted by a small group of preadolescents recorded in Greater London in the southeast of England. Using a variationist methodology incorporating distributional and multivariate analyses of tense variation in a circumscribed narrative subcomponent, the article examines switches between the simple past, the CHP, and the present perfect. Building on the foundational research conducted on the alternation between the simple past and the CHP in narrative, the results presented here suggest that alternations between the present perfect and other tense forms are motivated by structural and pragmatic considerations associated with the segmentation and evaluation of narrative episodes.