The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and Dahl’s studies, it advocates the benefits of adopting a cross-linguistic and diachronic approach. Indeed developments in related languages at different stages of grammaticalisation may shed light on evolution in each system.

Emmanuelle Labeau is Senior Lecturer in French language and linguistics at Aston University (Birmingham, UK). She has published extensively on tenses in French and has been the President of the Association for French Language Studies since 2011. Jacques Bres is professor of French Linguistics at Montpellier 3. His research specialisms include verbal tenses and dialogism.

Contents: Aude Rebotier: The takes a step back; who steps in? Narrative Tenses for and in French and in Italian – Mary T. Copple: Following the path: An emerging perfect(ive) viewed through temporal reference – Teresa Maria Xiqués: Towards a Unified Account of the Present Perfect in Catalan and English – Aude Rebotier: French Participle Agreement with : current trends as an indication of grammaticalization – Pier Marco Bertinetto: Non-conventional uses of the Pluperfect in Italian (and German) literary prose – Jacques Bres/Emmanuelle Labeau: About the illustrative use of the + infinitive periphrasis in French – Marianne Collier: The Perfect – Monica-Alexandrina Irimia: Indirect evidentiality and related domains: some observations from the current evolution of the Romanian presumptive – Alexandra Fiéis/Ana Madeira: Modals and tense in Contemporary European Portuguese and in Old Portuguese – Telmo Móia: Portuguese temporal expressions with and their Romance counterparts - Semantic interpretation and grammaticalization.