Abstract
The number of linguistic analyses conducted on the basis of authentic language corpora has steadily grown during the last decades. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reliability of individual corpus-based studies by comparing them to studies covering similar or identical grounds. As the subject of investigation the present perfect has been chosen. Ten major corpus-based studies of the present perfect will be surveyed focussing on three main aspects: the frequency of present perfect verb phrases, the temporal specification of utterances in the present perfect and the functions assigned to present perfect constructions.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston