Resumen de Assessing the use of multiple forms in variable contexts: the relationship between linguistic factors and future-time reference in Spanish

Aarnes Gudmestad, Kimberly L. Geeslin

• The current study represents a detailed examination of the linguistic variables that are significantly related to verb-form use in contexts of future-time reference for advanced learners and native speakers of Spanish. The results show that the factors lexical temporal indicator, clause type and temporal distance are related to the verb forms that both groups use to express the function of futurity and that (un)certainty and grammatical person and number are only important for native speakers, thus demonstrating that the learners have not yet reached native-like use of this variable structure. In addition to providing more information on the variable use of future-time reference for native and non-native speakers, the investigation makes methodological advancements in the study of morphosyntactic variation by defining a token by the function it performs in communication and by examining the full range of verb forms speakers use to fulfill this function.