Variation in expressing the past in "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey"

(in English) This thesis explores relationships among the tenses that express the past in the English language. Among these tenses are: past simple, past continuous, present perfect, present perfect continuous, past perfect, and past perfect continuous. The research focuses on the variation between the past simple (which also includes past continuous) and the present perfect (which also includes progressive constructions). The researched variation is the use of the past simple in the context of the present perfect in which the Present-Day English (PDE) would use the present perfect, and vice versa. Three decades (1731-1740, 1791-1800, and 1861-1870) were chosen from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The findings were compared to the PDE situation. The material was collected from an online database called The Proceeding of the Old Bailey, which is believed to be one of the most reliable sources that are representative of the spoken language of the day. It was thought that the variation would be observed best in spontaneous spoken language. The aim was to study spoken language that was influenced by the grammatical prescriptivism of the age only marginally. There was an expectation that the occurrence of the past simple in the context of the present perfect would gradually decrease..