The present perfect (pretérito perfecto compuesto in Spanish) is the most widely used
verb tense in the Spanish language. Its uses vary greatly throughout the Iberian Peninsula and
the Hispanic regions of Latin America. Even though the present perfect can adopt some values
that are generalized to the whole population that speaks the language, there are also other more
innovative values that this tense has acquired in certain regions due to the contact with
indigenous languages. Amongst these innovative values, the use of the present perfect as an
evidential marker in Andean Spanish stands out. As for the pluperfect (pretérito
pluscuamperfecto in Spanish), it is a tense that is interconnected with the present perfect and
the preterite indicative (pretérito perfecto simple in Spanish) and, therefore, can alternate uses
with these two tenses in some dialectical variations of the language. Hence, it can also occur
that the pluperfect be used as an evidential in Andean Spanish. This thesis aims at showing
how native speakers of the Andean dialect of Spanish that is spoken in Quito, the capital of
Ecuador, perceive the present perfect and the pluperfect when used with evidential values, and
how said speakers produce the tenses inside the scope of evidentiality.
