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Abstract
This thesis compares the functions of past tense forms in spontaneous speech in Spanish and French with their representation by linguists and textbooks. Specifically, the occurrences of the preterit (PE) and imperfect (IE) in the Spanish of speakers from Puente Genil, Spain, and of the pass compos (PF) and imparfait (IF) in the French of speakers from Montpellier, France, are classified according to four criteria, selected by virtue of their frequent appearance in the literature: the cyclical nature of the event represented by the verb; the type of verb, whether stative or active; the type of event, whether unique, repeated or habitual; and the co-occurrence of the verb with temporal adverbs. The results show a clear tendency for unique events to be expressed in the preterit or pass compos and for repeated and habitual events to appear in the imperfect, as expected. However, the relationship between the past tense forms and cyclical events and stative and action verbs is much less clear. As for adverbs, they were absent with most of the verbs in the corpora. The expected adverbs occurred in the greatest proportions with the Spanish preterit and the French imperfect.