Tense And Aspect in Romance Languages: Theoretical And Applied Perspectives (Studies in Bilingualism)

Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil) Editors Kees de Bot University of Groningen ...

Author: Dalila Ayoun | M. Rafael Salaberry

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Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages

Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil)

Editors Kees de Bot University of Groningen

Thom Huebner San José State University

Editorial Board Michael Clyne, University of Melbourne Kathryn Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa Joshua Fishman, Yeshiva University François Grosjean, Université de Neuchâtel Wolfgang Klein, Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik Georges Lüdi, University of Basel Christina Bratt Paulston, University of Pittsburgh Suzanne Romaine, Merton College, Oxford Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University

Volume 29 Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages: Theoretical and applied perspectives Edited by Dalila Ayoun and M. Rafael Salaberry

Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages Theoretical and applied perspectives

Edited by

Dalila Ayoun University of Arizona, Tucson

M. Rafael Salaberry Rice University

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages : Theoretical and applied perspectives / edited by Dalila Ayoun and M. Rafael Salaberry. p. cm. (Studies in Bilingualism, issn 0928–1533 ; v. 29) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Romance languages--Tense. 2. Romance languages-Aspect. 3. Second language acquisition. I. Ayoun, Dalila, 1963- II. Salaberry, M. Rafael. III. Series. PC159.T46 2005 440’.045--dc22 2005050068 isbn 90 272 4140 6 (Hb; alk. paper)

© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Acknowledgments About the contributors Chapter 1 The development of L2 tense-aspect in the Romance languages Rafael Salaberry and Dalila Ayoun Chapter 2 The acquisition of perfective and imperfective morphology and the marking of discourse grounding in Catalan Llorenç Comajoan Chapter 3 The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French from a Universal Grammar perspective Dalila Ayoun Chapter 4 Italian tense-aspect morphology in child L2 acquistion Sonia Rocca Chapter 5 Evidence for transfer of knowledge of aspect from L2 Spanish to L3 Portuguese Rafael Salaberry Chapter 6 From empirical findings to the teaching of aspectual distinctions Carl Blyth

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Table of contents

Chapter 7 Towards a comprehensive model of the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect in the Romance languages Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry References Name index Subject index

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Acknowledgments

Born during a trilingual conversation in English, French and Spanish in a quaint café in New Orleans, the idea for this volume grew and gathered increasing momentum from Tucson to Houston, Honolulu to Nice, Portland to San Sebastián (Donostia), to name just a few places. Our most sincere thanks go to our contributors for entrusting us with this edited volume, and for patiently complying with our many requests and suggestions in a timely manner. We are very grateful to the colleagues who took the time to carefully read earlier drafts and provide unvaluable feedback and suggestions on individual chapters and the entire volume: Robert Bayley, Joaquim Camps, Nuria LópezOrtega, Silvina Montrul, Roumanya Slabakova, Anna Giacalone Ramat. Last but not least, we are very much appreciative for the very professional work of the entire John Benjamins team, particularly the copyeditors. Kees Vaes demonstrated patience, understanding, and a great sense of humor as always. The Studies in Bilingualism series’ editors Kees de Bot and Thom Huebner were very professional and prompt in getting back to us. We really enjoyed putting this volume together and sincerely hope it makes an important contribution to our field. Dalila Ayoun Rafael Salaberry

About the contributors

Dalila Ayoun is Associate Professor of French Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her research focuses on the second language acquisition of French and Spanish from a generative perspective, web/computer-based elicitation task design, and the development of tense/ aspect morphology. Her most recent publications include: Ayoun, D. 2004. The effectiveness of written recasts in the second language acquisition of aspectual distinctions in French: a follow-up study. Modern Language Journal, 88, 31–55; and Ayoun, D. 2003. Parameter setting in language acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Continuum Press. She may be contacted at [email protected] Carl Blyth is Associate Professor of French Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin where he teaches courses in French sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. His research focuses on narrative analysis, discourse grammar, pedagogical grammar and instructional technology. His most recent publications include: Kelton, K., Blyth, C. and Guilloteau, N. 2004. Français interactif: An online first year French course (http://www.laits. utexas.edu/fi/); and Blyth, C (Ed.). 2003. The Sociolinguistics of foreign language classrooms. Issues in language program direction. Boston: Heinle. He may be contacted at [email protected] Llorenç Comajoan is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Middlebury College. His research focuses on the acquisition of tense and aspect in Catalan and Spanish, multilingualism in Latin America and Spain, and the relationship between theory and practice in language teaching. His most recent publications include Comajoan, L. and Pérez Saldanya, M. 2003. Gramaticalització i adquisició de llengües: l’adquisició de la morfologia de passat en aprenents del català com a segona llengua [Grammaticalization and language acquisition: The acquisition of past morphology in learners of Catalan as a second language]. Caplletra, 35, 123–152; and Comajoan (in press)

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About the contributors

The early L2 acquisition of past morphology: Perfective morphology as a default marker or aspectual marker? Studies in the Acquisition of the Hispanic Languages: Papers from the 6th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages (D. Eddington, Ed.). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. He may be contacted at [email protected] Sonia Rocca is Adjunct Assistant Professor in Multilingual/Multicultural Studies at New York University. Her research focuses on child second language acquisition, tense-aspect morphology, Italian linguistics. Her most recent publications include Rocca, S. 2002. Lexical aspect in child second language of temporal morphology: A bi-directional study. In R. Salaberry and Y. Shirai (Eds.), Tense-Aspect Morphology in L2 Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. She may be contacted at [email protected] Rafael Salaberry is an Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition in both the Department of Hispanic Studies and the Department of Linguistics at Rice University. Prof. Salaberry is currently the book reviews editor of the journal Language Learning and Technology. Two of his recent books on the development of the syntax and semantics of tense and aspect published by John Benjamins present some of his research findings in this area: The Development of Spanish Past Tense Morphology in a Classroom Environment and Tense-Aspect Morphology in L2 Acquisition. Another research area of Prof. Salaberry is second language teaching, including methodology, testing and web-based learning. An edited volume titled Studies in Spanish Second Language Acquisition: State of the Science treats this topic in detail (Georgetown University Press in 2003). A companion volume focusing on practical applications of research findings to teaching will be published in 2006. Prof. Salaberry’s interest in the development of critical knowledge about culture is reflected in his work as co-author of the new textbook Impresiones, published by Prentice Hall. He may be contacted at [email protected]

Chapter 1

The development of L2 tense-aspect in the Romance languages Rafael Salaberry and Dalila Ayoun Rice University / University of Arizona

The goal of this chapter is to substantiate the relevance and importance of studying tense/aspect systems in order to gain a better understanding of the acquisition of a second language (L2). To this end, we review some of the most prevalent hypotheses about tense-aspect development, and critically assess the outcome of the empirical studies carried out to provide support for each specific theoretical approach. The chapter is organized as follows. In the first section, we present an overview of tense-aspect marking in English and the Romance languages. In Section 2, we present a brief description of six major theoretical approaches to the development of L2 past tense verbal morphology. We divide the approaches according to the importance they place on the effect of the following factors: Pragmatic, semantic, textual, input, cognitive, and syntactic. We provide a critical review of empirical findings relevant for each hypothesis associated with each one of these factors. Finally, in Section 3, we selectively identify some potential theoretical and methodological challenges to the understanding of the L2 development of tense-aspect markers in the Romance languages.

.

The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in the Romance languages

. The problem space L1 English speakers learning a Romance language quickly realize that the morphological inflectional endings illustrating the perfective/imperfective distinc-

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Rafael Salaberry and Dalila Ayoun

tions for past tense “have essentially the same meaning, but [. . .] do not seem to be used in the same way” (Binnick 1991: 371; see also Lunn 1985). Whereas tense distinctions are easily identified and comprehended by native speakers of English, aspectual distinctions are less transparent. This is mostly because aspectual distinctions in English are not as consistently or explicitly marked on inflectional morphology as they are in Romance languages. In effect, the most important aspectual contrast in English is between the progressive and the perfective with the use of past progressive and simple past tense. The following example (from Comrie 1976) shows the clear aspectual contrasts in the use of the same verbal predicate: (1) John read that book yesterday; while he was reading it, the postman came.

In this sample sentence, the event of reading is represented in two different ways in each clause: ‘read’ represents the perfective past, while ‘was reading’ represents the past progressive. In contrast, the most important aspectual distinction in the Romance languages is between the perfective and the imperfective, as illustrated by French passé composé and imparfait, for instance. On the basis of the example in (1), we can conclude that English speakers have a basic conceptual knowledge of past tense aspectual distinctions and could, in principle, transfer that conceptual understanding to their evolving representation of a Romance language grammar. As a caveat, however, we need to point out that English speakers’ conceptualization of aspectual distinctions in past tense is a more limited concept than the one embodied by Romance languages. For instance, Smith (1997: 73) explains that “the two most common imperfectives are the general imperfective and the progressive. The former focuses intervals of all situation types; the latter applies only to non-statives [. . .]. The French imparfait exemplifies the general imperfective viewpoint; it is a past tense with imperfective aspectual value.” Essentially, English speakers cannot typically use the progressive (the only marker of imperfectivity available to them) with statives (unmarked). In addition, combinations of aspectual meanings given by the use of the [+/–progressive] and [+/–perfective] meanings are more transparently expressed in Romance languages than in English. For instance, the following sentence in Spanish illustrates the conflation of the perfective and progressive aspectual meanings (from Comrie 1976): (2) Toda la tarde estuvieron entrando visitas. All the afternoon were-perf arriving visits ‘All afternoon long visitors kept arriving.’

The development of L2 tense-aspect in the Romance languages

Therefore, we cannot necessarily assume that all meanings conveyed by aspectual distinctions in the Romance languages (e.g., habitual versus progressive) will be readily apprehended by an English speaker learning any of the Romance languages. Nevertheless, it remains true that English speakers have a basic aspectual contrast represented by the simple past-past progressive contrast. . Defining and delimiting the concept of aspect .. Lexical aspect, Aktionsart and grammatical aspect Comrie (1976: 3) defines aspect as the “way of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation”: Beginning, middle, and end. Comrie argues further that aspect is concerned with situation-internal time, whereas tense is relative to situation-external time. Alternatively, Klein (1994) defines aspect as the contrast between Topic Time and Situation Time, whereas tense is defined as the contrast between Situation Time, and Time of the Utterance. Aspectual distinctions can be marked overtly (grammatical aspect and Aktionsart) or covertly (lexical aspect). Table 1 presents a summary of the main features of each one of these categories (based on Binnick 1991). Lexical aspect represents the inherent lexical meaning of the verb as determined by the temporal features intrinsic in the semantics of the verbal predicate, including the semantic contribution of internal and external arguments and, according to some authors (e.g., Chung & Timberlake 1985; Smith 1997; Verkuyl 1999), adjuncts as well (see Section 3 below for an extended analysis). Vendler (1967) classified predicates into four types: States, activities, accomplishments and achievements. The following definitions of these categories are based on Comrie’s (1976) reanalysis of Vendler’s definitions:1 States: no input of energy, undifferentiated period Activities: arbitrary beginning and end point (process), successive stages Accomplishments: durative and inherent end point Achievements: inherent end point, but no duration (punctual) Table 1. Three different classifications of aspectual distinctions Lexical aspect

Aktionsart

Grammatical aspect

Lexical Unsystematic Obligatory Universal Covert

Lexical Unsystematic Optional Language specific Overt

Grammaticized Systematic Obligatory Language specific Overt






Table 2. Classification of verbal predicates based on lexical aspectual class (from Andersen 1991) States

Activities

Accomplishments

Achievements

have possess desire like want

run walk swim breathe pull

paint a picture make a chair build a house write a novel grow up

recognize (sth.) realize (sth.) find (sth.) win the race lose (sth.)

A few verbal predicates typically associated with specific lexical aspectual classes are listed in Table 2. Aktionsart, the second category from Table 1 above, is represented by secondary modifications of basic verb meanings (Klein 1994: 17), usually with the use of affixes and sometimes periphrastics. For instance, English predicates may be qualified aspectually by adding prepositions that do not alter the verb form and that are optional: ‘Eat up’, ‘read through’, etc. (Binnick 1991: 207). German has similar examples: Erblühen (to start flowering: inchoative aspect), blühen (flowering) and verblühen (to wither: resultative aspect) (from Klein 1994). In the Romance languages, only Spanish uses a telic particle, se, to change the basic meaning of a verb overtly (Nishida 1994). For instance, in the following pair of sentences in Spanish the particle se introduces the same type of aspectual nuance of meaning exemplified in Germanic languages (examples are from Nishida 1994: 426, 430): (3) a.

Juan se tomó una copa de vino Juan 3rd sg-particle took-perf a glass of wine antes de acostarse. before to go to bed ‘Juan drank up a glass of wine before going to bed’. b. Juan tomó una copa de vino Juan 3rd sg-particle took-perf a glass of wine antes de acostarse. before to go to bed c. ‘Juan drank a glass of wine before going to bed’.

The examples in (4) show that Spanish extends the use of the particle se to basic stative verbs as well:


(4) a.

Mi hermana y yo ya nos My sister and I already 2nd plu-particle lección. lesson ‘My sister and I already know the lesson’. b. Mi hermana y yo ya sabemos la My sister and I already know-pres the c. ‘My sister and I already know the lesson’.

sabemos la know-pres the

lección. lesson

(5) a. *Juan se tomó vino antes de acostarse Juan 3rd sg-particle took-perf wine before to go to bed b. *Mi hermana y yo ya nos sabemos el My sister and I already 2nd plu-particle know-pres the español. Spanish

Finally, grammatical aspect (the third category in Table 1) is obligatorily encoded in the form of auxiliaries plus participles (e.g., passé composé in French), inflectional morphology (imperfecto-pretérito in Spanish), periphrastics (progressive in English, French and Spanish), etc. Languages with rich inflectional morphology such as Romance languages consistently carry obligatory markers of tense-aspect contrasts in past tense illustrating the perfective-imperfective contrast. It is important to mention that grammatical aspect is not necessarily determined by the inherent lexical semantics of the verbal predicate because more than one ending may be used with the same predicate. Thus in Spanish, correr ‘to run’ could be marked with perfective corrió or with imperfective corría. Smith (1997) defines the selection of aspectual marking as a process incorporating two distinct levels that are independent from each other: The situation type (verb + arguments + adverbials), and point-of-view aspect (POV). The situation type represents the way humans perceive and categorize situations. It constitutes a covert category of grammar instantiated in all languages (cf., cognitive concepts such as telicity). On the other hand, viewpoint aspect refers to the partial or full view of a particular situation type as marked by an overt grammatical morpheme (e.g., preterite and imperfect). Smith argues that aspectual categories (i.e., lexical aspectual classes) are not language dependent, but based on human cognitive abilities. Hence, aspect may be characterized as a general cognitive phenomenon: Situation type (e.g., Reinhart 1984), or as a language dependent phenomenon: Point-of-view aspect (e.g., Smith 1983, 1991; Smith & Weist 1986). This distinction is important to account for what Dowty (1979) has called the ‘Imperfective Paradox’ (for further details see

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Depraetere 1995; Landman 1992). For instance, whereas cruzar la calle ‘to cross the street’ may be defined as a telic event with a clear inherent end point (i.e., reaching the other end of the street), we could, in principle, think of a sentence that would make the actual reaching of the other end of the street impossible as in (6): (6) La mujer cruzaba la calle cuando fue atropellada The woman crossed-imp the street when was-perf ran over por un camión by a truck ‘The woman was crossing the street when she was ran over by a truck.’

This paradox can be explained if we separate these two levels of compositionality: Telicity becomes a feature associated with lexical aspect, whereas boundedness is represented in grammatical aspect. .. Components of lexical aspectual values The concept of a division of verbal predicates into lexical aspectual classes has been adopted by researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds: From syntacticians (e.g., Tenny 1991) to semanticists (e.g., Dowty 1979) or philosophers (e.g., Verkuyl 1989). However, temporality is not only encoded in the lexical semantics of the verbal predicate, but also in components beyond the head of the verb phrase such as particles (e.g., ‘to eat’ vs. ‘to eat up’), adverbials (e.g., ‘Suddenly I was asleep’), etc. As a consequence, it is important to distinguish the combined effects of each of the elements that make up the temporal framework of verb phrases. For example, when the internal argument of an atelic verbal predicate is a count noun, the predicate is changed from atelic to telic. (7) a. b. c. d.

Mary smoked [cigarettes]. Mary smoked [a cigarette]. He played sonatas. He played a sonata.

(–count noun: atelic) (+count noun: telic) (–count noun: atelic) (+count noun: telic)

For the purpose of our analysis then, telic events correlate with countable nouns, whereas atelic events correlate with uncountable nouns (mass nouns and bare plurals). Finally, even the nature of the subject of the utterance (the external argument) may affect the inherent semantic aspectual value of the verb (e.g., Depraetere 1995; Langacker 1982; Maingueneau 1994). This is shown in the two classic examples in (8) and (9) borrowed from Smith (1997: 4) and Mainguenau (1994: 71), for English and French, respectively.


[Luc] a franchi le pont toute la matinée. (TELIC) Luc has crossed-perf the bridge all the morning ‘Luc crossed the bridge all morning long.’ b. [La foule] a franchi le pont toute la the crowd has crossed-perf the bridge all the (ATELIC) matinée. morning ‘The crowd crossed the bridge all morning long.’

(8) a.

(9) a. [A famous movie star] discovered that little spa for years. (TELIC) b. [Famous movie stars] discovered that little spa for years. (ATELIC)

For instance, in (8a), one may use world knowledge to surmise that Luc crossed the bridge several times during the morning, not that it took him the whole morning to cross the bridge. In example (8b), in contrast, it is reasonable to assume that it took a whole morning for the crowd to cross the same bridge (again, this is based on our knowledge of the world; see Klein 1994). The latter case represents the single crossing of many people, while the former case represents many crossings of a single person (see below for further analysis of distinctions between lexical and world knowledge). .. Semantic features The classification of lexical aspectual classes can also be made in terms of three basic semantic features: Dynamicity, durativity and telicity. In terms of telicity (from Greek telos meaning limit, end, or goal), states and activities are atelic because they do not have an inherent end point, whereas accomplishments and achievements are characterized as telic because they have an inherent end point. In turn, dynamicity contrasts stative versus non-stative verbs (activities, accomplishments and achievements), whereas durativity distinguishes nondurative punctual events (achievements) from durative events. For instance, Smith (1997: 22) explains that the feature “[Static] denotes an undifferentiated period; [Dynamic] denotes successive stages.” These distinctions can be presented graphically as follows: Schematization of semantic features [+Static] ................ [+Dynamic] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .X [+Telic, +Durative] X [+Telic, +Punctual]

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We need to point out, however, that the relevance of the distinction according to durativity is the most debatable of all three. For instance, in Mourelatos’ (1981: 193) classification, the major semantic feature that separates accomplishments from achievements is durativity although he adds that accomplishments and achievements should be integrated because “both are actions that involve a product, upshot, or outcome.” Klein (1994) provides further theoretical justification for such a claim: Time is not discrete but dense. In this respect, no situation can be ‘punctual’ in the sense of being instantaneous (no duration) (see also Verkuyl 1989). Similarly, Dowty (1986) argues that achievements are punctual only in the framework of a narrative in which sequenced events in a story are not interrupted, but that nothing prevents accomplishments from becoming sequenced events in the story. At most, the punctual nature of achievements may be obtained as a matter of conventional interpretation of world knowledge, as argued above. Finally, recent L2 empirical data contradict the proposed theoretical distinction between accomplishment and achievement verbs as two separate categories of telic events (e.g., BardoviHarlig & Bergström 1996; Hasbún 1995; Ramsay 1990; Salaberry 1998). While the distinction between accomplishments and achievements may be unsubstantiated, it does not seriously compromise the findings of previous studies because both categories share two important semantic features (i.e., dynamicity and telicity). A more problematic situation arises in the potential misclassification of achievements as statives. For instance, compare the sentences in (10a) and (10b): (10) a.

En ese momento Juan supo la verdad at that moment Juan knew-perf the truth ‘At that moment Juan found out the truth.’ (knew, inceptive) b. Juan sabía la verdad Juan knew-imp the truth ‘Juan knew the truth.’ (knew, imperfective)

The English translations show two alternative lexical choices: ‘To find out’ versus ‘to know’. As noted by Bull (1965: 170) “the Spaniard’s [sic] way of organizing reality is [. . .] thoroughly disguised by the English translations.” The use of the appropriate operational test for stative determines that the first instance of saber fails to qualify as a stative, whereas the second case of saber does represent a stative. The difference lies in the semantic contribution of the adverbial phrase ‘at that moment’ in (10a) but not in (10b). The adverbial in (10a) marks the topic time as the inception of the state (see Klein 1994, 1995). Its absence in (10b) renders the default reading of a stative (see above). Most importantly,


notice that the classification of lexical aspectual classes was not made based on morphological marking (supo versus sabía), but, rather, on the adjunct phrase that qualifies the basic form of the verbal predicate. Finally, it appears that the telic-atelic distinction is the most stable semantic feature to determine lexical aspect (e.g., Dowty 1986; Hopper 1982; Maingueneau 1994; Olsen 1997; Smith 1991; Tenny 1991; Verkuyl 1993). Thus, Hopper (1982) argues that “the potential or real bounding of events in (this) discourse is a significant parameter in the strategies for formulating an utterance” (p. 6).2 Similarly, Smith (1991: 19) claims that the fact that “telicity is generally not open to aspectual choice is that humans see it as an essential property. Telicity is not, therefore, a property that can be shifted for purposes of emphasis and point of view.” (11) a. Mary walked [in the park]. b. Mary walked [to the park].

(locative: atelic) (directional: telic)

For example, if we interchange the prepositional phrase in sentence (11a), illustrating a locative PP, with the one of (11b), displaying a directional PP, the aspectual nature of the verb constellation will be fundamentally changed in terms of the telic nature of the verb, that is, from an activity to an accomplishment. .. The multivalence of lexical aspectual categories To make matters more complicated, verbal predicates may belong to more than one single lexical aspectual class depending on various contextual factors: The semantic multivalence of verbs. Mourelatos (1981) mentions how the verb to understand, commonly classified as a state, may also be categorized as an activity or as a telic event. Thus, in example (12) ‘I’m understanding’ functions as an activity verb (homogenous): (12) I’m understanding more about quantum mechanics as each day goes by.

More dramatically, it may also become a telic event: It is punctual in example (15a), and it may be used as part of an imperative construction in (13b): (13) a.

Once Lisa understood (grasped) what Henry’s intentions were, she lost all interest in him. b. Please understand (get the point)!

Despite Vendler’s assertion that sensory verbs (e.g., ‘to see’) may not be characterized as processes (the question ‘What are you doing?’ renders an ungrammatical sentence in English: * ‘I am seeing’), Mourelatos maintains that sensory occurrences may shift aspectual class depending on the context in which they






are embedded. We may have visual or auditory states (e.g., ‘I see dimly’), visual or auditory processes (e.g., ‘I’m hearing buzzing sounds’), and visual or auditory occurrences (e.g., ‘I caught a glimpse of him’). That is to say, sensory occurrences – contra Vendler – may be classified in any type of aspectual class: State, activity or telic event. Therefore, a bottom-up approach may help researchers analyze how verbs dynamically contribute to, but not determine, the build-up of temporal structure. In other words, the argumental structure of the predicate does not determine the final grammaticized form of aspectual value. Chung and Timberlake (1985: 214–218) propose that the shift in aspectual classes is determined by two main factors: (i) Dynamicity and (ii) telicity. First, any verb may be represented as dynamic or non-dynamic. For instance, to convert a process (14a, 15a) to a state, one needs to remove the sense of change or successive stages (14b), or present the verb as a property of its arguments (15b) (all examples are from Chung & Timberlake 1985: 214, 218): (14) a. John is opening the window. b. The window opens onto the garden. (15) a. John is running a mile in six minutes. b. John runs a six-minute mile.

On the other hand, to convert a stative verb (16a, 17a, 18a) to a process, one must add a sense of actual or possible change as in (16b), or present the subject of the sentence as an agent as in (17b), or modalize the concept of change as in (18b): (16) a. I understand my problems. b. I am understanding my problems more clearly every day. (17) a. You are obnoxious. b. You are being obnoxious. (18) a. John lives with his parents. b. John is living with his parents until he finds a place of his own.

Verbal predicates may also be presented as closed (telic event or inception and termination of state) or open (atelic event or stative). With respect to statives, Comrie (1976: 48–51) mentions that the start or end of a state is dynamic, “since for a state to be started or stopped something must come about to bring about the change into or out of the state.” Similarly, Smith (1986) considers the inception of a state as an achievement verb, whereas Robison (1995) distinguishes the inceptive value of a stative from the stative itself with the introduction of a grid of six types of lexical aspectual classes. In Robison’s clas-


Table 3. Classification of theoretical hypotheses Underlying approach

Representative hypothesis

Pragmatic-communicative Input-driven Semantic factor Narrative-contextual factor Cognitive processes Syntactic factor

Basilang speech hypothesis Distributional bias hypothesis Aspect hypothesis Discourse hypothesis Default past tense hypothesis Minimalist hypothesis

sification, the inceptive value of states is considered to be a punctual stative.3 In essence, the inception and termination of a state represent closed events. Finally, with respect to events (activities versus accomplishments and achievements), Dowty (1986) claims that he could not find any atelic verb which could not be interpreted as a telic verb in at least some special sense of the context.

. Theoretical approaches to the analysis of aspect in L2 acquisition The study of the development of aspectual distinctions in the Romance languages (and other languages for that matter) has been conducted according to a number of hypotheses that are continually revised and adapted as more empirical data become available. In this section we will review the following six well-known hypotheses that have been tested with empirical data (Table 3). We hasten to stress that the division of hypotheses according to various theoretical criteria does not necessarily make them incompatible with each other. As a matter of fact, all the above-mentioned hypotheses could be in complementary distribution when we factor in specific research design criteria such as age of acquisition, learning setting, types of task, mode of production, etc. We leave the discussion of possible interaction among hypotheses for the last section of this paper. The following brief summary of the above mentioned hypotheses, while not exhaustive, is intended to provide readers with a basic framework of analysis of the state-of-the-art research on tense-aspect development in the Romance languages. . Pragmatic factors: Non-morphological marking of past tense aspect The analysis of data from the majority of studies with naturalistic learners reveals that most learners mark temporality by means of linguistic and extralinguistic devices during the beginning stages of acquisition. More specif-

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ically, learners immersed in a naturally communicative environment generally do not mark tense and aspectual contrasts through verbal morphology (e.g., Dietrich, Klein, & Noyau 1995; Meisel 1987; Perdue & Klein 1992; Sato 1990; Schumann 1987; Trévise 1987; Véronique 1987). This is not unexpected since “adults [. . .] do not deliberately attend to form, especially redundant and communicatively less important grammatical features” (Schmidt 1990: 145; see also Bley-Vroman 1991; Schmidt 1995; Zalewski 1993). When the encoding of temporal reference is not explicitly represented with morphological markers (e.g., preterite or imperfect in Spanish), the learner may rely on pragmatic devices of two types: (a) Discourse organization principles, and (b) Implicit reference. The discourse organization principles are represented by the principle of chronological order: The order of reported events reflects the order of actual events (Labov 1972); and the bracketing principle: Temporal embeddings which are not elements of the temporal discourse organization, that is, background information. On the other hand, temporality may also be conveyed by means of implicit reference: Inherent temporal reference (lexical semantics), and associative temporal reference. Perdue and Klein (1992), for instance, argue that during the first stages of L2 acquisition learners develop a basic variety of the target language that represents an equilibrium between semantic, pragmatic and phrasal constraints. More importantly, Perdue and Klein point out that some natural language learners fossilize at this stage, while others develop further their basic variety to make it conform to target language standards. The learners who continue developing their L2 system are the ones who perceive lexical and structural inadequacies between the basic variety and the target language forms. In essence, naturalistic learners seem to be especially affected by the particular contextual features of natural discourse: The use of verbal morphology is not necessary to establish communication in the L2. Many of the empirical studies of naturalistic L2 acquisition follow a concept-oriented methodology. The main advantage of this approach is that researchers can analyze what learners can do with the limited, but growing, linguistic resources they have at their disposal. For instance, Noyau (1984, 1990) and Trévise (1987) analyzed narratives in French produced by 7 Spanish speakers and showed that learners with little or no verbal morphology could build highly complex narrative structures (summary, background, foreground, reported speech, plot, and backmove) by using both linguistic and nonlinguistic devices. Among the earlier studies on the acquisition of verbal morphology conducted with naturalistic learners, Schumann (1987) documented the lack of morphological marking of aspectual distinctions during what he labels as the basilang stage. Schumann analyzed the interlanguage of five speakers of


three different languages (one Chinese, one Japanese and three Spanish) who had been living in the United States for at least 10 years at the time of the study. The subjects had learnt English without formal instruction. Despite their lengthy residence in the United States, the interlanguage of these nonnative speakers was quite marginal, if comprehensible at all. Schumann argues that basilang speech “is acquired through the pragmatic functions of the mind’s general cognitive mechanisms and therefore does not attain morphosyntactic regularity” (p. 39). Basilang speech constitutes a system of communication: The formal linguistic features of the interlanguage will develop to the extent that communication does not break down. For instance, morphosyntactic aspectual markers will not be a necessary feature of this type of interlanguage insofar as other temporal markers fulfill the function of marking aspect in some other way. Schumann proposes that learners at the basilang stage mark temporal reference with four basic linguistic tools: (1) Adverbials, (2) Serialization (sequence of utterances reflects actual temporal order of events), (3) Calendric reference, and (4) Implicit reference (temporal reference is inferred from context). Schumann’s data show that ten or more years of residence in the United States are not enough to learn to use past tense inflectional morphology in English. In relative terms, classroom learners learn faster than natural learners do. A more dramatic example of the lack of development of morphosyntactic features is demonstrated in the case of a combination of source and target language that share similar morphosyntactic means. For example, Trévise (1987) documented the case of Spanish native speaker who after three and a half years living in France used “a single past tense form, /e/, which is not an imparfait or passé composé,” and [. . .] only two verbs – donner (to give) and payer (to pay) – that were used in the two forms of past tense (passé composé and imparfait). The Spanish speaker avoided use of past tense morphological marking in French by using periphrastics such as venir de – a strategic move which “does not hamper comprehension at all” (p. 235). Venir de is literally translated as ‘to arrive from (doing something).’ That is, Trevise’s subject conveyed tense and aspectual information with the use of adverbials, periphrastics, sequential information, interviewer scaffolding, etc. To further investigate this topic, Salaberry (this volume) analyzes empirical data on the acquisition of L3 Portuguese among English-Spanish bilinguals, whereas Comajoan (this volume) reviews data from L2 Spanish speakers learning Catalan as an L3.

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. Semantic factors: The Lexical Aspect Hypothesis The theoretical proposal that has generated, directly or indirectly, the most amount of L2 empirical research among instructed learners to date, is the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH), also labeled as the Aspect Hypothesis, the Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis (e.g., Robison 1990, 1995), or the Redundant Marking Hypothesis (e.g., Shirai & Kurono 1998). To the best of our knowledge, no principled difference distinguishes the above-mentioned labels. Hence, they will all be considered to be a single theoretical proposal. The LAH is based on arguments initially made for the evolution of linguistic systems across time and the development of L1 acquisition. For instance, Bybee (1985), Bybee and Dahl (1989), and Frawley (1992) observed that in emergent linguistic systems, aspect markers precede the appearance of tense markers. Further evidence for this developmental trend comes from the early L1 acquisition studies carried out during the 70s and 80s (e.g., Antinucci & Miller 1976; Bloom, Lifter, & Hafitz 1980; Bronkart & Sinclair 1973; Brown 1973; Rispoli & Bloom 1985; Smith & Weist 1986). Following up on that line of research, Andersen (1986, 1991) was the first researcher to use the classification of lexical aspectual classes as the theoretical framework for the analysis of the development of verbal morphology among second language learners. Andersen’s analysis was based on data collected from adolescent natural language learners (two siblings) two years apart. For instance, during the first time of data collection, Andersen noted that 50% of the verbs used by one of the learners in contexts requiring obligatory past tense perfective marking were correctly marked with the preterite. In contrast, none of the verbs requiring imperfective carried any mark of grammatical aspect. During the second stage of data collection, two years later, the same learner used the preterite in 88% of all obligatory cases which required perfective aspect, whereas the imperfect was used in 43% of all obligatory cases. Out of this research emerged the LAH, which attempts to explain the observed correlation between tense/aspect morphemes and lexical aspectual classes according to the Relevance Principle (i.e., aspect is more relevant to the meaning of the verb than tense, mood, or agreement are) and the Congruence Principle (i.e., learners choose the morpheme whose aspectual meaning is most congruent with the aspectual meaning of the verb). Essentially, the LAH states that, in early stages of acquisition, verbal morphology encodes only inherent aspectual distinctions (i.e., it does not encode tense or grammatical aspect). Furthermore, Andersen proposed a sequence of eight developmental stages for the acquisition of Spanish as a second language although he cautioned other researchers that he obtained confirmatory empirical evidence for only four of


the eight proposed stages of development (his original study, briefly described above, was based on the analysis of data from two adolescent native English speakers learning Spanish in an untutored setting). The system of eight developmental stages predicts that perfective markers will appear first and spread from punctual verbs (when achievements are first marked with preterite in stage 2) to stative verbs, whereas the use of imperfective markers will appear later and spread from stative verbs (starting during stage 3) to punctual verbs. Although the LAH has been supported by several empirical studies crosslinguistically (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Robison 1995 for English; Hasbún 1995 for Spanish; Salaberry 1998 for French; Shirai & Kurono 1998 for Japanese), a number of questions have been raised, sometimes in the same studies that appear to support it. These questions range from theoretical issues (e.g., the notion of the spread of morphological markers remains a somewhat metaphorical and not properly substantiated concept) to methodological ones (written narratives appear to be more likely to support the claims of the hypothesis than oral narratives). For instance, Hasbún’s (1995) findings cast some doubts on the validity of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis. She analyzed written data from 80 L1 English speakers enrolled in four different levels of Spanish instruction (first to fourth year). Students watched an excerpt from the film Modern Times twice and they were later asked to narrate the video in writing, by starting with the phrase ‘Once upon a time. . . ’ to avoid the use of the historical present. Native speakers, however, used the historical present, and did so to a larger extent than advanced nonnative speakers. Furthermore, Hasbún’s results showed that among native and nonnative speakers, the distribution of preterite-imperfect with accomplishments and achievements remained proportional. Finally, the data did not show a spread of past tense marking (preterite) from telic (achievements and accomplishments) to atelic events (activity verbs) and later to stative verbs. In fact, the marking of tense distinction occurred in group 2 across all categories of aspectual classes. Finally, the first uses of past tense marking (in group 1) did not occur with achievements, but mostly with statives (followed by accomplishments and activities). Given that the LAH was the harbinger of the study of the development of tense-aspect marking (at least in research conducted by U.S.-based researchers), most chapters in this volume will make direct or indirect reference to it.

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. Contextual factors: The Discourse Hypothesis In addition to the effect of lexical aspect, some researchers have proposed that the choice of past tense verbal morphology is highly influenced by contextual factors above the sentence level such as text type, and, especially, narrative grounding. For instance, Hopper (1982: 16) argues that the nature of aspectual distinctions cannot be characterized by semantics in a consistent way; the adequate reference may only come from a global discourse function. Some L2 studies provide empirical support for this claim. García and vanPutte (1988), for instance, claimed that nonnative speakers seem to rely on more local cues for the selection of aspectual markers of past tense in Spanish, whereas native speakers are more attentive to the overall context of the narrative. García and vanPutte asked learners and native speakers to transform several sentences from present to past tense as in (19): (19) Otálora se embarca, la travesía es tormentosa y crujiente; Otálora embarks-perf, the crossing is stormy and creaky; al otro día vaga por las calles de Montevideo. the other day drifts-3rd sg-perf through the streets of Montevideo ‘Otálora embarks, the crossing is stormy and creaky; the next day he drifts along the streets of Montevideo.’

For example, for the verb ser ‘to be’, the nonnative speakers used mostly the imperfect (45%) in agreement with the lexical aspectual value of the verb (and perhaps the misleading background nature of a predicative proposition as well). Among native speakers, however, only 7% of the responses showed preference for the imperfect. In other words, the majority of native speakers preferred the use of the non-prototypical preterite fue. Given that the verb ser is normally marked with imperfect according to the distributional bias that obtains in both native and nonnative speakers (see Andersen 1994; Andersen & Shirai 1994; Ramsay 1990), it follows that the preterite is used to move it to the foreground of the narrative. In sum, native speakers are more willing to accept the non-prototypical use of tense-aspect morphology (i.e., preterite with the verb ser) – rather than the inherent lexical aspectual value of the verbal predicate – due to the effect of the larger piece of discourse evidenced in the text (see also Andersen 1994; Andersen & Shirai 1994; Lunn 1985; Silva-Corvalán 1983; Wiberg 1996). García and van Putte’s results are even more compelling if we consider that their subjects should probably be considered near-native speakers based on their background profiles.


The most influential hypothesis about the role of discursive context in the development of tense-aspect morphology is the Interactional Discourse Hypothesis (IDH), which, according to Bardovi-Harlig (1994: 43) predicts that “learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground from background in narratives.” It is important to note that the correlation of aspectual differences and perceptual contrasts associated with figure and ground (Givón 1982; Reid 1980; Wallace 1982) finds justification and support among theoretical approaches such as cognitive grammar (Langacker 1999). This particular theoretical framework provides important support for the IDH, to the extent that the hypothesis can be substantiated as part of a well developed linguistic theory. Several studies provide empirical support for the claims of the discourse hypothesis. For instance, Lafford (1996) analyzed narrative retellings of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (from the movie Fantasia; Disney 1940) produced by 15 English-speaking learners of Spanish at the intermediate ACTFL level (2 intermediate-low, 6 intermediate-middle, and 7 intermediate-high). The data analyses showed that morphology use was different according to grounding: Preterite was more common in the foreground. The intermediate-low group did not produce any imperfect forms, and the preterite forms that were produced occurred in the foreground. The intermediate-mid group did not produce any imperfect forms, and the distribution of preterite forms was almost even in the foreground (16 tokens) and the background (14 tokens). Finally, the intermediate-high group produced imperfect forms exclusively in the background, and preterite forms in higher amounts in the foreground (52 tokens) than in the background (15 tokens). In another study, Güell (1998) analyzed preterite and imperfect use by 26 native speakers of Spanish and 86 learners (aged 20–30) with different L1 backgrounds at the university level in Spain. The participants were distributed into four main proficiency levels, as determined by a grammar test, and they performed four tasks. The data from the cloze passage task showed that use of preterite in the foreground and imperfect in the background increased with level of proficiency, as use of imperfect in the foreground and preterite in the background decreased. Interestingly, data from naturalistic learners also seem to support the claims of the discourse hypothesis. We summarize results from three studies based on the learning of French, Italian and Spanish in a natural environment. Véronique (1987) analyzed conversational data from 7 learners of French L2 (2 low-level, 3 intermediate, and 2 advanced) in a natural environment and found that all subjects contrasted base forms (V stem) with perfective forms ([Auxiliary] V + e), but that the distribution of these forms into foreground and background were not uniform. One low-level subject marked the back-

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ground with perfective and left the foreground unmarked. One intermediate learner used both forms (base and perfective) in the background and base forms in the foreground, whereas another intermediate learner used base forms for the background, while most of the perfective forms were in the foreground. The advanced learners, however, marked the foreground mostly with perfective forms. Véronique notes, however, that the independent variable of grounding interacted with what he calls “local constraints.” For instance, calendrical time expressions (e.g., un jour ‘one day’, en cinquante-deux ‘in 1952’) co-occurred with perfective forms, whereas adverbials (e.g., après ‘after’, avant ‘before’) co-occurred with base forms. In another study within the same approach, Giacalone Ramat (2002) reported on data from four L1 English speakers who had studied Italian for 2 years in England and 8 months in Italy. These learners’ use of passato prossimo (perfective) in the foreground was approximately 70% whereas in the background it was about 25%. In contrast, their use of imperfect in the foreground was about 5%, and 50% in the background. Finally, López-Ortega (2000) analyzed the use of L2 Spanish morphology in oral personal narratives elicited from 4 Moroccan (French/Moroccan Arabic L1) immigrants living in Spain. Three of the informants had been living in Spain for 5–6 years, and the other learner had been in the country for 2 years. The analysis of the data showed that there was a significant relationship between use of perfective-imperfective morphology and discourse grounding for all three learners. The data from the above-mentioned studies provide evidence for the role of discourse grounding in the use of morphology, but since the studies were based on different types of learners and tasks, different outcomes are expected. Furthermore, none of the studies was longitudinal. Comajoan’s chapter (this volume) takes the previous studies as a point of departure and presents longitudinal data in order to examine how past forms emerge and develop from the point of view of the discourse hypothesis.4 . Input-based factors: The Distributional Bias Hypothesis The above-mentioned effect of lexical aspect and narrative grounding on the marking of tense and aspect morphology seems to interact with distributional biases present in the input learners receive from native speakers or the type of data they have available to them (Andersen 1994; Andersen & Shirai 1994, 1996). For instance, native speakers of American English use mostly -ing endings with activity verbs and mostly simple past tense forms with achievement and accomplishment verbs. Based on these frequency patterns, Andersen and Shirai argue that L2 learners perceive as absolute the association


activity verbs-progressive morphology as well as the correlation accomplishment/achievement verbs-perfective morphology. It is important to note that distributional biases may be associated with specific cultural conventions that vary across dialects. Smith (1991: 12), for instance, argues that “conventions involve standard and marked choices, shared information between speaker and receiver, and other pragmatic considerations. The conventions are principles for language use rather than rules.” In essence, native speakers may conventionally prefer certain marked choices of verbal morphology over unmarked ones. Indeed, there is variation across languages with respect to the preferred association of lexical aspectual class and verbal morphology. For instance, Yousseff (1988, 1990) argues that the aspectual status of perception verbs may differ in creole languages as compared to English and Japanese. Similarly, Rispoli and Bloom (1985) claim that “a stative predicate in English need not be a stative predicate in Japanese” (p. 472). In fact, the categorization of verbs according to inherent lexical aspect varies within the same language as well as crosslinguistically. Thus, Kachru (1995) claims that in Indian English the stative-dynamic categorization of verbs may be less relevant than a classification of verbs in terms of volitionality as is the case in Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, etc. Because of this difference, the treatment of verbs such as ‘know’, ‘see’, ‘hear’, etc., as dynamic verbs is more conventional in South Asian varieties of English (as reported by Yousseff 1988: 452). It could be argued that another type of distributional bias may be found in the association of aspectual marking associated with different text types or even across sections within any single type of discursive text. Indeed, not all narrative texts (e.g., personal versus movie narratives), nor different sections of a text (e.g., orientation versus complicating action) are on an equal footing. Silva-Corvalán (1986) proposes that verbal forms in isolation (cf., aspectual morphology) do not have specific meanings, but rather general referential meaning which becomes specific in accordance with the type of speech event in which they are embedded. For instance, the structure of a narrative may be composed of the following elements: Abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda (Labov 1972). The distribution of aspectual markers will vary from section to section of the narrative. In general, the distribution of the perfective is higher in the abstract, the complicating action, the resolution and the coda, whereas the imperfective is more common in the orientation and evaluation sections (pp. 235–241). For instance, in the orientation section, “the imperfect frequently conveys the meaning of coexistence with narrative events rather than that of repeated habitual actions” (p. 240).

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Very few studies have analyzed the effect of distributional biases in L2 development (e.g., Andersen 1994; Coppieters 1987; Salaberry 1998), even though it could be argued that any study that analyzes the effect of the LAH will implicitly take into consideration distributional biases. More importantly, among the studies that present data relevant to the analysis of input-based distributional biases, we have clear differences according to learning environment. For instance, naturalistic learners such as Anthony (Andersen 1986, 1991) show a gradual spread of past tense marking starting with the prototypical forms towards the non-prototypical ones because natural learners are building the system of past tense aspect in a (highly) contextualized linguistic environment. Classroom students, on the other hand, do not have enough access to the type of (extended) non-classroom discourse that may help them recognize when it is appropriate to reject the prototypical marker of aspect in favor of the non-prototypical one (see also Coppieters 1987). For instance, Salaberry argued that even though second semester French students used the passé composé and imparfait in proportions similar to native speakers, a more detailed analysis revealed some confounding of data when unmarked versus marked choices were teased out (prototypical versus non-prototypical). The net effect was that classroom students present a very different profile from native speakers in the selection of the marked (non-prototypical) use of passé composé with statives (the contrast analyzed in the above-mentioned study). . Cognitive processing factors: The Default Past Tense Hypothesis The default past tense hypothesis predicts that, during the first stages of L2 development, learners will attempt to mark tense distinctions rather than aspectual distinctions, and in so doing will initially rely on a single marker of past tense, most typically the perfective form (Salaberry 1999, 2003; Wiberg 1996). From the point of view of a strictly linguistic analysis, this hypothesis can be labelled as the unmarked past tense hypothesis given that the conceptualization of the perfective-imperfective distinction (a linguistic contrast) may be the relevant factor that leads learners to rely on a single marker of past tense. For example, Comrie (1985: 121) argues that in the Past tense, the perfective aspect is the unmarked member of the dichotomy. Similarly, Fleischman (1990) argues that in narratives the perfective is the unmarked form and the imperfective, the marked form (for more details on the notion of markedness, see Waugh 1990). Furthermore, Guitart (1978: 142), while making reference to the preterite-imperfect Spanish contrast, claims that the perfective form “states that an occurrence took place before the moment of speaking,” whereas the


imperfective form tells about an occurrence which happened before the time of speaking “in which some other situation took place or was taking place.” On the other hand, one can also focus on strictly cognitive processing factors and argue that learners may be cognitively constrained in the marking of complex temporality forms and start out with the marking of tense contrasts, and later complexify their interlanguage production when they show signs of contrasting tense and aspect morphologically. From the latter perspective, the causal factor that can account for possible developmental stages of L2 acquisition of verbal morphology is the role of the perceptual saliency of verbal endings (i.e., regular-irregular morphology), their frequency in the input, and also whether the L1 conveys past tense aspectual contrasts morphologically (e.g., Bayley 1994; Giorgi & Pianesi 1997; Klein et al. 1995; Lafford 1996; Salaberry 2000b; Wolfram 1985). For instance, Lafford (1996: 16) proposed the saliency-foregrounding hypothesis: “Phonologically salient verb forms are used to reflect salient (foregrounded) actions in L2 narrative discourse.” In terms of phonological saliency, both Spanish past tense regular preterites with final stress and irregular preterites with internal vowel changes stand out phonologically in comparison with verbs that carry penultimate stress and that have only three irregular forms (i.e., the imperfect). With respect to frequency, Klein et al. (1995: 271) claim that “irregular verbs are typically frequent, and the morphological differences are perceptually salient, compared to a regular ending such as -ed, which may be hard to process for many learners” (see also Salaberry 2000b; and Housen 2002). In the first study to test the potential role of a default past tense marker in the beginning stages of development of L2 Spanish among adult classroom learners, Salaberry (1999) analyzed oral narratives collected at two different times of language learning (two months apart) from sixteen students from four different levels of proficiency. The analysis of the findings revealed that the learners at the lowest proficiency level never used the imperfect (even after having received explicit instruction and practice on its use during the two weeks prior to data collection). Moreover, the data showed that the effect of lexical aspectual classes increased constantly as a function of proficiency and experience with the language. Salaberry proposed that L1 English speakers might be using the Spanish preterite as a default marker of past tense across lexical aspectual classes in L2 Spanish. Salaberry (2002) extended that investigation with the use of a written a cloze-type fill-in-the-blank test, a task which, although less spontaneous than the oral narratives, allowed for the use of more powerful statistical procedures. The main participants in this study were students from two college-level Spanish language courses: 25 students from a third-semester course and 24 stu-

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dents from a sixth-semester course. A group of 32 monolingual native speakers of Spanish residing in their native country acted as a control group. The data from the advanced students revealed a clear relationship between lexical aspectual classes and past tense verbal endings: The use of imperfect was associated with stative verbs (63%) and the use of preterite with the telic event category (82%). In contrast, the morphological marking of verbs among the intermediate learners was not necessarily correlated with lexical aspectual types: The use of the preterite was represented in all lexical aspectual categories (a default marker of past tense across lexical aspectual categories). A more recent study, Salaberry (2003), however, reveals that the default marker of past tense may be affected by the textual features of the narrative. Salaberry analyzed the use of past tense verbal morphology in L2 Spanish among 105 L1 English speakers divided into three levels of proficiency. The analysis used two multiple-choice tasks based on two different texts of similar lengths: One text was based on a fictional narrative and the other one on a personal narrative. The objective was to determine whether text type (operationalized as fictional or personal narrative in the form of a fixed text) had any significant effect in the choice of inflectional markers of past tense. The analysis of the data based on the fictional narrative test confirmed the findings reported in the previous studies to the extent that the preterite was used more often than the imperfect with statives in all but the highest level of proficiency (against the claim of the LAH). This finding confirms the trend of increasing reliance on lexical aspect to mark past tense in correlation with increasing L2 proficiency. The analysis of the data from the text based on the personal narrative, however, revealed a dramatic contrast: Among the lowest level of proficiency, the imperfect was used more often than the preterite with statives (46.1% versus 21.2% respectively), with atelic events (46.1% versus 29.1% respectively), and even, surprisingly, with telic events as well (41.7% versus 31.4% respectively). Finally, it is worth noting that, in more recent studies, researchers who offered strong support for the lexical aspect hypothesis have started to view the default past tense hypothesis as worthy of consideration, at least with regards to the developmental process of some learners, more specifically, adults in classroom settings (Shirai 2004). New empirical evidence on the relevance of this hypothesis will be presented in Salaberry (this volume) and the concluding chapter.


. Syntactic factors: The UG-Minimalist Hypothesis Among strictly syntactic approaches, the UG/Minimalist-based hypothesis has been used as the main theoretical framework of several recent studies. The Minimalist hypothesis predicts that the semantic nuances of aspectual phenomena can be explained in syntactic terms. Starting with de Miguel (1992), UG-based proposals have assumed that information about lexical and grammatical aspect respectively are located in different positions within the clause structure. De Miguel, in particular, proposed that information about aspect is incorporated in the lexical entry of the predicate by means of a special covert argument: Davidsonian argument <e> (event argument).5 The projection of the eventive argument provides information that is not subsumed under the TENSE node; instead, it projects a new functional category: AspP with the binary feature [+/–perfective]. More recently, Giorgi and Pianesi (1997: 164) argue that, in English, verbs are always perfective (i.e., they denote bounded events) because “this is the only way for [them] to get the correct categorial features and for allowing the derivation to converge.” In contrast, in the Romance languages (Giorgi & Pianesi substantiate their case with examples from Italian), the verb does not need to use the aspectual feature of the verb ([+perfective]) because of Italian’s rich inflectional morphology (unambiguous association with relevant categorial features). More importantly, lexical aspect is represented in a lower functional category AspP, where the semantic features [±telic] are checked. In contrast, grammatical aspect is assumed to be located in a higher AspP, above the VP and below the TP, where the features [±perfective] are checked through overt tense/aspect morphology (i.e., preterite and imperfect in Spanish). Following Giorgi and Pianesi’s argument, authors working within the purview of the minimalist program (e.g., Montrul & Slabakova 2002, 2003; Schell 2000; Slabakova & Montrul 2002) have concluded that under the assumption that knowledge of the existence of the functional category of aspect is transferred, the main challenge for L1 English speakers is to (a) learn to disassociate the feature [+perfective] used with English eventive verbs, (b) recognize that Spanish verbs are morphologically complex and learn appropriate distinction preterite/imperfect, and (c) map formal features [+/–perfective] with preterite/imperfect morphophonology, respectively. For instance, Schell (2000) investigated the development of past tense markers in Spanish among five students during a nine-month study-abroad program in Spain. By the time the students traveled abroad, two learners had already completed two years of Spanish courses at the university level and three had completed three years

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of course work. Her data came from written cloze-tasks in which the Spanish verbs were provided in their infinitive form. Data were collected longitudinally three times: Before traveling abroad, three and a half months into the stay and at the end of the nine-month period. Schell’s data show, among other findings, the overuse of the preterite among at least three of the subjects before the beginning of the study abroad stay. Schell surmises that given that Outer Aspect checks Inner Aspect Phrase, “the Anglophone L2 learners transfer the abstract feature value [+perfective] associated with the English eventive verbs to the L2 at Inner Aspect Phrase.” Schell’s account, however, is faced with an interesting theoretical conundrum given that, according to Giorgi and Pianesi, statives in English are not associated with the abstract feature [+perfective]. All verbs in English, however, “must be expressed using the simple past morphology.” Schell concludes then that “the high frequency of the preterit with states is due to the transfer of [+FINAL] from the English morphology used to modify them in the L1” (p. 131). Within the same theoretical paradigm, Slabakova and Montrul (2002) used a sentence conjunction judgment task to test 57 English-speaking learners of Spanish (30 were classified as intermediate and the remaining 27 as advanced learners). The instrument measured whether learners were aware of the semantic implications (logical entailments) of the Spanish past tense form (preterite or imperfect). For instance, in Romance languages when an event is unbounded it can be negated, but a bounded event cannot be subsequently negated as shown in (20a) and (20b), respectively: (20) a.

Los González vendían la casa pero nadie la compró The González sold-imp the house but nobody it bought-perf ‘The González sold their house but nobody bought it.’ b. Los Gonzalez vendieron la casa pero nadie la The González sold-perf the house but nobody it compró. bought-perf ‘The González sold (pret) their house but nobody bought it.’

Interestingly, after establishing that the learners had knowledge of the preterite/ imperfect morphology through the use of a pre-test, the aggregate data from Slabakova and Montrul’s conjunction test from both groups of learners revealed a statistically significant difference between preterite and imperfect with verbs of all lexical aspectual classes. That is, learners knew the semantic entailments associated with bounded and unbounded grammatical aspect. Ayoun (this volume) will present a more thorough theoretical account and literature


review of studies on tense-aspect from the point of view of the minimalist approach.

. Towards a comprehensive model of tense-aspect development In this section we selectively identify some potential theoretical and methodological challenges faced by researchers who are trying to develop a comprehensive model of development of verbal morphology in L2 acquisition. We selectively describe the following three problems: (1) Difficulties to classify lexical aspectual classes, (2) The challenge of incorporating the various insights of several independent hypotheses into a coherent theoretical whole, (3) Theoretical and methodological difficulties to distinguish and separate the levels of lexical and grammatical aspect, and (4) The interaction of specific methodological factors of research design with specific empirical outcomes. . Classification of lexical aspectual classes One of the methodological challenges that makes very complex the analysis of the effect of lexical aspect on the use of past tense verbal morphology is the fact that there is no one single set of operational tests that can determine categorically to which lexical aspectual class each verbal predicate belongs. One of the first sets of operational tests designed to distinguish “the time schemata presupposed by various verbs” were those developed by Vendler (1967). Vendler’s tests serve to classify the four lexical aspectual classes summarized in Section 1. Dowty’s (1979) operational tests are, however, the most widely used in L2 acquisition studies. His tests distinguish (i) statives and dynamic actions (six tests), (ii) activities and accomplishments (five tests), and (iii) accomplishments and achievements (six tests).6 We note that both Vendler’s and Dowty’s tests were based on the analysis of English data. For applications to French data see Bergström (1995), and for an application to Spanish data see Hasbún (1995). Some of these tests, however, may not be reliable. Klein (1994), in particular, argues that lexical contents are usually classified according to three major criteria: (i) adverb modification, (ii) aspect modification, and (iii) presuppositions and implications.7 Klein argues, however, that only the latter of the above categories appears powerful enough to distinguish lexical contents. The first criterion (i.e., adverbial modification) is perhaps the most extended one in the literature on the acquisition of aspect. For instance, telic and atelic events may be discrimi-

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nated by adding two different adverbial phrases: In x time (e.g., minutes) versus for x time (e.g., minutes) (Dowty 1979: 56; Vendler 1967: 100). Telic events are considered grammatical with the former, but ungrammatical with the latter. The opposite case obtains with atelic events. For instance, the question ‘For how long did you push the cart?,’ (activity) is considered to be ‘grammatical,’ whereas ‘How long did it take to push the cart?’ (no end point established), arguably, sounds odd. The opposite result with the same questions reveals that drawing a circle is an accomplishment (pp. 100–101). Klein, however, claims that the constraints exploited by tests based on adverb modification are inadequate (see also Tenny 1991 for similar criticism). For example, if we follow the rationale that underlies the use of the test, the lexical content of ‘to open a window’ will be classified as a telic event (example from Klein): (21) a. He opened the window in five seconds b. *He opened the window for five seconds

The second statement, however, may also be considered grammatical under a different interpretation. That is to say, to open the window is a combination of two different states: Window not open – window open (source state and target state following Klein’s classification of lexical contents into 0-state, 1-state, and 2-state). It is only when we refer to both source and target state at the same time that we obtain an ungrammatical reading with the adverbial phrase for x time. If, on the other hand, we focus our attention on the resulting state only, we obtain a possible (grammatical) reading. In this case, the use of the adverbial phrase ‘for five minutes’ (instead of, for instance, ‘for five seconds’) shifts the focus of attention from the change from source to target state, to the target state only. In sum, adverbial tests are not accurate because they are semantic tests “focusing on a particular interpretation of the sentence or expression” (Tenny 1991: 7). The second set of criteria, aspect modification, is generally tested on stative verbs. For instance, Vendler differentiated between verbs that “possess continuous tense and verbs that do not.” Stative verbs are not expected to accept the -ing morphological marker of progressive aspect. Against this prediction, however, we find locative predicates (inherently statives) that normally accept the progressive even in languages like English: ‘I am standing on the floor.’ In fact, we may also find non-locative predicates: ‘I am liking that.’ Klein (1994: 34) comments that the test of aspect modification is open to the criticism of circularity if statives are defined as the verbs corresponding to the aspectual class that does not tolerate the progressive marker; or simply false according to the example above. Finally, entailments are the most consistent of the available


operational tests (e.g., Dowty 1979; Hasbún 1995; Shirai 1991). Entailment tests, however, are only available to distinguish telic from atelic events because they are predicated on the notion of an end point (telicity). The test of telicity distinguishes telic versus atelic verbs by questioning the predicate in the following way: (22) If you stop in the middle of V-ing, have you done the act of V?

If the answer is affirmative, the verbal predicate is atelic; if the answer is negative, the verbal predicate is telic. Given the above-mentioned difficulties to obtain clear-cut and trustworthy classifications of lexical aspectual classes, we believe it is essential that future studies provide adequate descriptions of the criteria used to classify lexical aspectual classes. Moreover, it is very important that future research studies ascertain the highest level of reliability by using several raters to assess inter- and intra-rater reliability levels. Such measures of consistency have been incorporated in the studies presented in this volume. . Overlap in theoretical predictions Notwithstanding the potential complementarity of some of the factors that underlie the various hypotheses analyzed in the previous section, it is theoretically important to determine the potential weight of each factor throughout different developmental stages of acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. The problem, however, is that the specific unique contribution of some hypotheses may be difficult to discriminate. We will discuss two cases in particular: The potential overlap of semantic and contextual factors and the difficulty to distinguish the explanatory value of cognitive or syntactic factors. First, the inherent overlap in the prediction made by the lexical aspect hypothesis and the discourse hypothesis has already been pointed out by BardoviHarlig (1995), Lafford (1996) and Reinhart (1984), among others. As an example, Reinhart (1984) lists the temporal and textual criteria that mark the notion of foreground: Narrativity (only textual/narrative units can serve as foreground), punctuality (punctual events serve more easily as foreground), and completeness (completed events serve more easily as foreground). BardoviHarlig (1995) also considers the feature of “newness” (new information is more relevant for the foreground). The similarities that underlie the criteria distinguishing foreground and background information and the classification of verbs according to inherent semantic value are remarkable: Telic and atelic events are correlated with the foreground and background of a story, re-

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spectively. Not surprisingly, Bardovi-Harlig claims that the distinction of the predictions of each approach “may be too fine-grained for a study of interlanguage” (Bardovi-Harlig 1995: 286). Second, general cognitive and linguistic modular hypotheses appear to offer different accounts for the same type of developmental data, and more importantly, for a very similar definition and sequence of stages. For instance, Schell (2000), from within the scope of a minimalist account, argues for the existence of three developmental stages (ref. Constructionism), a first stage marked by L1 transfer, a second stage in which learners rely on the inherent lexical aspect of the verb, and a third and final stage during which “advanced learners are capable of seeing the compositionality of aspect and take all of the various factors in consideration, such as the overall situation or context in which the event takes place.” Note, however, that the previous description is similar to a general cognitive account proposed by the default marker of past tense: During the very early stages of development, tense marking as represented in the L1 is prevalent. It is then followed up by a more protracted stage in which past tense marking gradually correlates with the values of lexical aspectual classes until, finally, learners arrive to a more advanced stage of development in which past tense markers are used irrespective of the lexical value of the verb phrase. As a possible overlap between these two hypotheses we should note that the main premise of Constructionism is that L2 competence is not homogeneous during the early and intermediate stages of acquisition. This permeability of the evolving interlanguage system makes it subject to the application of general cognitive processes. Future studies should focus their attention on specific methodological procedures that could help disambiguate these conflicting theoretical claims. . Conflating lexical and grammatical aspect Purely syntactic analyses of aspectual morphosyntax conflate both lexical and grammatical values of aspect into a single chain of ‘events.’ For instance, according to de Miguel (1992), the event argument <e> is lexically determined by the theta grid of the predicate (lexical), and, in turn, the event argument determines the aspectual feature (perfective or imperfective) of the AspP. As a consequence of this theoretical assumption, the aspectual nature of the event argument of the predicate will have overall syntactic consequences. This theoretical approach, however, is problematic because the selection of perfective or imperfective constitutes an open binary choice that may be influenced but not determined by the event argument (e.g., point of view versus situation aspect


in Smith’s terms).8 Even in cases in which this theoretical stance is relaxed, this problem may continue to be an important one. For instance, in Slabakova and Montrul’s (2003) study of genericity, it is argued that English past tense is aspectually neutral (de Swart 1998, p.c.) and preserves the aspectual values it inherits from the Aktionsart (lexical aspectual class) of the predicate [. . .] Spanish, of course, has a habitual marker in the imperfective morphology, whose functioning does not depend on the Aktionsart of the predicate.

Slabakova and Montrul are aware of the consequences of their prediction as they state explicitly, in a related footnote (number 9), that their perspective contradicts, for instance, Smith’s representation of the simple past in English as perfective. Slabakova and Montrul explain that “Smith’s proposal is one possible working hypothesis that the learner might unconsciously entertain, among others.” Perhaps the most important evidence that justifies a separation of lexical and grammatical aspect is that such a separation of components helps us solve the imperfective paradox (see Section 1 above). Additional evidence against the conflation of grammatical and lexical aspectual levels of analysis is provided by the analysis of what is the linguistic description of events (and states) in reality. For instance, if we compare a typical activity verb (a process) such as ‘to sleep’ and a telic event such as ‘to leave the room,’ we readily think of the notion of boundary (telicity) as the discriminating semantic feature which distinguishes these two predicates. It is open to question, however, that sleeping has no boundaries, or that the process of sleeping is more homogeneous (a defining feature of activity verbs) than leaving a room (cf. Klein 1994). Thus, the selective description of the situation will be primarily determined by what “the speaker finds useful and appropriate for his/her communicative purposes” (Smith 1991: 11). Klein (1994: 75), therefore, proposes two maxims to account for the amount of information conveyed by lexical means: Maxim of minimality (put as little as possible into the lexical content) and maxim of contrast (add some feature to the lexical content if otherwise the expression cannot be distinguished in lexical content from some other expression). In other words, most temporal information will not be part of lexical content, but part of world knowledge (unless the maxim of contrast forces us to be more specific).

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


. Research design factors Montrul and Salaberry (2003: 64) highlight the important role of several methodological factors related to the research design of any empirical study of tense-aspect development: (a) Type of data and data collection procedures, (b) Selection and use of operational tests to determine lexical aspectual classes, (c) Language-specific characteristics of tense-aspectual contrasts, (d) The effect of learning environment, and (e) Types of input. We agree with the importance and relevance of the list of methodological challenges proposed by Montrul and Salaberry. Notwithstanding the relevance of their list, we would like to focus our attention on the important role of two additional research design components not directly addressed in that list: (a) Subject-related factors (e.g., age, level of proficiency in the L2, motivation to learn the L2), (b) The use of an operational definition of ultimate attainment in L2 tense-aspect acquisition. For a more extended discussion of the other factors discussed by Montrul and Salaberry, we refer the reader to that publication. The impact of subject-related factors such as age of the learners, varying levels of proficiency across different components of an overall linguistic ability, language aptitude and varying levels of motivation, is likely to have a differential effect on the outcome of any given study. For instance, the learners that Andersen relied on to develop his LAH are significantly different from most college-level learners used in the majority of studies on the L2 development of tense-aspect since Andersen’s work. Similarly, the proficiency of any learner, probably closely associated to learning setting, measured beyond the relative performance on the use of verbal morphology (e.g., lexicon) may have an effect on, for instance, whether learners are more akin to rely on associations between verb types and specific endings. Along the same lines, learners with a relatively extended database of L2 words may be more likely to have additional time to process and be successful with the use of unstable rules of verb endings during oral narratives. Testing learners’ overall proficiency level in their L2 in addition to testing their proficiency level in their tense/aspect system would allow for a better informed analysis of the learners’ performance on various elicitation tasks testing their tense/aspect systems. Knowing their overall proficiency level would also allow us to formulate more realistic hypotheses about what their tense/aspect systems should look like. Ultimately, and ideally, we may be able to formulate clear and systematic predictions about the L2 learners’ performance not only in the development of their verbal morphology but also in the development of their overall pragmatic, semantic and syntactic systems, and how they interact since they are clearly inter-related. Aside from the


pre-test, elicitation task, post-tests (ideally, immediate and delayed post-tests) design, future research should also try to incorporate a variety of assessment instruments. This last stipulation should help researchers avoid the problem of task-specific and content-specific results that may compromise any attempt to generalize any study’s findings. Therefore, a more detailed description of important subject-related factors may provide vital information to discriminate empirically different outcomes among various studies testing the same hypotheses. With reference to measures of ultimate attainment in verbal morphology and L2 acquisition in general, we need to note that, starting with Coppieters (1987), there has been great interest in determining the relative degree of native-like performance among non-native speakers, and even more importantly, whether non-native speakers process the target language in the same way native speakers do, irrespective of whether they perform in similar ways according to most behavioral measures. One important question, however, is what constitutes evidence for ultimate attainment. For instance, working within the scope of Giorgi and Pianesi’s proposal, Montrul and Slabakova (2003) argue that the different feature values of AspP in Spanish and English are hypothesized to account for the different morphological and interpretative properties of the aspectual tenses in these two languages. Montrul and Slabakova argued that their data reveal that the performance of near-native and very advanced non-native speakers of Spanish is indistinguishable from the native speakers’ data. Montrul and Slabakova conclude that learners can overcome the parametric correlates of tense-aspect in their L1 and have access to L2 features of functional categories not represented in the native language of the learner. The question that remains, however, is whether the instruments used by Montrul and Slabakova are comprehensive enough to rule out non-native like behavior. More importantly, it is also open to question whether non-natives could perform almost indistinguishably from native speakers even though they may process their L2 in qualitatively different ways than they process their L1 or differently than native Romance language speakers process their native language. In closing this section, let us point out that the majority of previous studies have gone to great lengths to incorporate as many factors as possible into their research design. We believe, however, that as hypotheses become more nuanced and specific and data start to converge on more detailed findings, as shown in previous sections in this chapter, there is a need to include even more detailed research designs. We will provide specific examples of such designs with specific reference to the studies in this volume in the final chapter of this volume.

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. Conclusion The analysis of tense-aspect development in the Romance languages has already become a well-researched topic, with the majority of studies conducted mostly during the last two decades starting with the seminal article of Andersen (1986) (Section 2 in this chapter). The current theoretical and empirical challenges on the development of tense-aspect marking (Section 3 in this chapter) assure us of an increasing interest and dedication among new researchers towards a better understanding of this topic. In fact, the findings from L2 acquisition studies could be instrumental, not only to develop the field of L2 acquisition itself, but also to be used as the natural testing ground for the various theoretical approaches that are intent on developing a comprehensive and valid definition of tense-aspect phenomena (Section 1 in this chapter).

Notes . The reanalysis of Comrie takes care of some inconsistencies in Vendler’s original definition. For instance, Comrie (1976: 49) points out that it is not accurate to say that statives involve no change (e.g., being standing in a position may or may not involve change), nor that dynamic situations necessarily involve change (e.g., an oscilloscope emitting a pure tone at 300 Hz does not necessarily involve visible change). A more accurate representation is to say that statives do not require effort whether from inside (agentive) or from outside (non-agentive). . See Depraetere (1995) for a principled distinction between boundedness and telicity. . Guitart (1978: 153) refers to three types of stative verbs determined by boundaries: Ingressive statives and egressive statives (inceptive and terminative points of a state) as well as persistive statives. Persistive statives are events which are ‘the manifestation of a certain state that does not come to an end upon being manifested.’ . We are thankful to Llorenç Comajoan for providing us with the information about the studies from Güell, Giacalone-Ramat and Véronique. . An event argument is an extra argument also called Davidsonian after Davidson (1980) who proposed the existence of such an argument to account for the grammaticality of action predicates. However, ter Meulen (1995) rejects the proposal that aspectual information can be encoded in a Davidsonian event argument. . Dowty’s list, in turn, is based on George Lakoff ’s dissertation. . According to Klein (1994) two major types of evidence can be used to determine the inherent lexical semantics of predicates and associated arguments and adjuncts: (i) The nature of the situation we are describing (the case in reality), and (ii) Combinatorial linguistic restrictions (operational tests of lexical content). The first line of evidence is inconclusive because it is “methodologically difficult to separate what is the case in reality from what is the


case in the lexicon” (Klein 1994: 32). In fact, lexical contents refer to selective descriptions of reality. . Notwithstanding the above argument, however, an analysis that makes the choice of grammatical aspect dependent on lexical aspect may still predict what syntactic consequences will follow the particular aspectual value chosen by the speaker. For example, the use of the imperfective will be associated with generic times that, in turn, may license certain constructions like impersonal se. Such analysis, however, does not specify which aspectual value (perfective or imperfective) will be used in each utterance as a matter of speaker’s choice.

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Chapter 2

The acquisition of perfective and imperfective morphology and the marking of discourse grounding in Catalan Llorenç Comajoan Middlebury College

This chapter examines the acquisition of L2 past morphology within discourse analysis theory and argues that learners use emerging past morphology to mark different types of information (foreground and background) when they create narratives. This claim is evaluated in light of the discourse hypothesis and data from a study in the acquisition of Catalan morphology in a foreign language environment. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section presents a description of Catalan tense and aspect. The second section is an overview of current issues in the definition of discourse grounding, and more specifically of foreground and background in narratives. The third section reviews research regarding the use of morphology and its relationship to discourse grounding and focuses on the L2 acquisition of verbal morphology in Romance languages (discourse hypothesis). The fourth section presents a study of the acquisition of Catalan preterite and imperfect that investigates how learners build narratives using verbal morphology. Finally, some conclusions and suggestions for further research are discussed.

.

Tense and aspect in Catalan

Current descriptions of the Catalan verbal system agree that the tense categories are present, past, and future; and that the main aspectual distinctions are between the perfective and the imperfective (Badia 1994; Pérez Saldanya 2002; Wheeler, Yates, & Dols 1999).1

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Llorenç Comajoan

Table 1. Catalan imperfect and preterite morphology for the verbs cantar ‘sing’ and dormir ‘sleep’ Subject Pronouns

Imperfect

Imperfect

-AR verbs (e.g., cantar)

-ER, -RE, and -IR verbs (e.g., dormir)

Singular Jo (1st person)

cant-ava

dorm-ia

Tu (2nd person)

cant-aves

dorm-ies

Ell, ella (3rd person) Vostè (2nd person formal)

cant-ava

dorm-ia

Plural Nosaltres (1st person)

cant-àvem

dorm-íem

Vosaltres (2nd person)

cant-àveu

dorm-íeu

Ells, elles (3rd person) Vostès (2nd person formal)

cant-aven

dorm-ien

Preterite Periphrastic, Simple All verbs

vaig cantar, cantí vaig dormir, dormí vas cantar, cantares vas dormir, dormires va cantar, cantà va dormir, dormí vam cantar, cantàrem vam dormir, dormírem vau cantar, cantàreu vau dormir, dormíreu van cantar, cantaren van dormir, dormiren

. The Catalan verbal system The Catalan verbal system presents two main differences when compared to other languages of the Romance group. First, Catalan has two preterite paradigms, here labeled periphrastic preterite and simple preterite (Table 1).2 The simple form in (1) is synthetic in nature and developed from the perfect Latin system. The periphrastic form in (2) is composed of an auxiliary that has the verb anar ‘to go’ as its source followed by an infinitive (see Pérez Saldanya 1996, 1998 for the grammaticalization route of the periphrastic preterite). (1) Ahir celebràrem l’aniversari de l’Arnau. Yesterday celebrate-1pl-simple perf the birthday of Arnau ‘Yesterday we celebrated (simple preterite) Arnau’s birthday.’ (2) Ahir vam celebrar l’aniversari de l’Arnau. Yesterday aux go-1pl-pres celebrate-inf the birthday of Arnau ‘Yesterday we celebrated (periphrastic preterite) Arnau’s birthday.’

The use of the auxiliary anar ‘to go’ as a mark of anteriority in (3) contrasts with the use of the same auxiliary in other Romance languages to mark poste-

Perfective and imperfective morphology in Catalan

riority (e.g., Spanish ir a + infinitive ‘to go to + infinitive’ in (4), and French aller + infinitive ‘to go + infinitive’ in (5)). (3) Ahir vaig comprar un ordinador. Yesterday aux go-1sg-pres buy-inf a computer ‘Yesterday I bought a computer.’ (4) Mañana voy a comprar un ordenador. Tomorrow go-1sg-pres to buy-inf a computer ‘Tomorrow I am going to buy a computer.’ (5) Demain je vais acheter un ordinateur Tomorrow I go-1sg-pres buy-inf a computer ‘Tomorrow I am going to buy a computer.’

In order to mark posteriority, Catalan uses synthetic future tense forms, as in (6), and it does not allow for the use of anar + infinitive ‘to go + infinitive’; hence, the ungrammaticality of (7). (6) Demà compraré un ordenador. Tomorrow buy-1sg-fut a computer. ‘Tomorrow I am going to buy a computer.’ (7) *Demà vaig comprar un ordinador. Tomorrow aux go-1sg-pres buy-inf a computer

Catalan allows for the use of the periphrasis anar a + infinitive ‘to go to + infinitive’ to refer to the actual (imminent) physical motion and destination (Wheeler et al. 1999) as in (8), or an inchoative unrealized situation in the imperfect (Badia 1994) as in (9): (8) A: On vas ara? ‘Where are you going now?’ B: Vaig a comprar un ordinador. go-1sg-pres to buy-inf a computer ‘I am going to buy a computer.’ (9) Anava a dir-li-ho, però al final no em vaig go-1sg-imp to say-inf-him-it, but at the end no me aux go-1sg-pres atrevir. dare-inf ‘I was going to tell him, but in the end I did not dare.’

Both periphrastic and simple preterite forms are in use in Catalan but with clear stylistic and dialectal restrictions. In the dialects of Catalonia, periphrastic preterite forms are standard, and simple forms are restricted to formal written

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Llorenç Comajoan

registers. In contrast, simple preterite forms are used in speech and informal style in some varieties of the Balearic and Valencian dialects. The second difference between Catalan and other Romance tenses is that the Catalan past verbal system – in addition to tense, aspect, and modality – requires considering the notion of temporal distance. Examples (10) and (11) show that Catalan preterite is used for past events that happened at least one day ago, and that the present perfect is used for past situations within the day of the speech situation. Tenses used to refer to actions performed within one day are labeled hodiernal; those referring to actions performed at least the day before are prehodiernal (Comrie 1985). (10) L’any passat/Ahir/*Avui/*Aquesta tarda/*Fa dos minuts va arribar en Joan de Madrid. [Preterite] ‘Last year/Yesterday/*Today/*This afternoon/*Two minutes ago John arrived from Madrid.’ (11) *L’any passat/*Ahir/Avui/Aquesta tarda/Fa dos minuts ha arribat en Joan de Madrid. [Present perfect] *‘Last year/*Yesterday/Today/This afternoon/Two minutes ago John arrived from Madrid.’

Finally, the use of different verbal forms (present perfect and preterite) according to temporal distance is strict in Catalan. Whereas the use of perfective and perfect forms with the same meaning coexists in different varieties of English (Declerck 1991: 259) and Spanish (Butt & Benjamin 2000), this is not the case for Catalan:3 (12) Ho he fet avui. [Present perfect, hodiernal] ‘I have done it today.’

(Catalan)

(13) *Ho vaig fer avui. [Preterite] ‘I did it today.’

(Catalan)

(14) I did/have done it today.

(English)

(15) Lo hice/he hecho hoy. ‘I did/have done it today.’

(Spanish)

. Tense The Catalan tense system is based on the deictic time location (anterior, simultaneous, and posterior) and its absolute or relative relationship to another point in time, as illustrated in Table 2 (from Pérez Saldanya 2002).


Table 2. Catalan tenses Tense Anteriority

Time location Simultaneity

Posteriority

Absolute

va ballar “danced” Preterite (ha ballat) (“has danced”) (Present perfect)

balla “dances”, “is dancing” Present

ballarà “will dance” Future

Relative

(havia ballat) (“had danced”) (Pluperfect)

ballava “danced”, “was dancing” Imperfect

ballaria “would dance” Conditional

The distinction between absolute and relative tenses is based on whether the deictic relationship is with the moment of speech or with a reference point (see Reichenbach 1947): (16) En Joan tornarà dissabte. ‘Joan will come back on Saturday.’ (17) Vaig dir a la Núria que en Joan tornaria dissabte. ‘I told Núria that Joan would come back on Saturday.’

Whereas in (16) the future tense form establishes an absolute relationship between the deictic center (speech point, now) and the situation of coming back (posterior to the deictic center), in (17) the situation of coming back is ordered in relation to the moment of speech and a moment in the future of the past situation. The two relationships are represented in (18) and (19), respectively: (18) Moment of speech, Reference

Event

Event

Moment of speech

(19) Reference point

In (18), the moment of speech is absolutely anterior to the event (coming back on Saturday). In (19), the event is anterior to the moment of speech (which makes the sentence past), but the event is posterior to a reference point, and thus relatively ordered. However, this interpretation is only valid if it is assumed that the event has already happened. If the event has not yet happened, the following sentence and representation would be possible. (20) Ahir vaig dir a la Núria que en Joan tornarà dissabte. ‘Yesterday I told Núria that Joan will return on Saturday.’

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Llorenç Comajoan

(21) Moment of speech

Event, Reference

Some compound forms (present perfect and pluperfect) in Table 2 are in parentheses to indicate that they have a temporal value (different from their corresponding simple forms, i.e., Catalan present perfect is an absolute hodiernal tense), but also an aspectual value (derived from their corresponding simple forms). Other forms (e.g., perfect future, perfect conditional, and anterior past) are not included in the table, because they are considered aspectual variations of their corresponding simple forms and do not provide new temporal references. . Grammatical aspect Table 3 presents a summary of aspect in Catalan, adapted from the Spanish description provided by García Fernández (1998: 58). The following discussion focuses on perfective and imperfective aspects.4 Pérez Saldanya (2002) illustrates the difference between perfective and imperfective through the following example:5 (22) Ahir vaig parlar amb l’Enric. Mentre parlava amb ell, em vaig adonar que. . . ‘Yesterday I talked [Preterite form; perfective aspect] to Enric. While I was talking [Imperfect form; imperfective aspect] to him, I realized [Preterite form; perfective aspect] that. . . ’

In (22), the situation parlar amb l’Enric ‘to talk to Enric’ is visualized in two different ways. In the perfective aspect, the situation of talking to Enric is viewed as complete and with clear limits, whereas in the imperfective the focus is on a specific span in which the action was taking place. Syntactically, only perfective forms allow for the use of bounded quantified expressions (tres vegades, ‘three times’ in (23); an adverbial clause in (24); and limited duration in (25)): (23) L’any passat vam arribar/*arribàvem tres vegades a les 8. ‘Last year we arrived [Preterite]/*[Imperfect] three times at 8 o’clock.’ (24) Va mirar/*mirava la televisió fins que li vam dir que la tanqués i se’n vingués amb nosaltres. ‘He watched [Preterite]/*[Imperfect] television until we told him to turn it off and come with us.’

Morphology

Preterite, Compound forms (Hodiernal present perfect)

Present, Imperfect

Compound forms

Simple future, simple conditional

Aspect

Perfective

Imperfective

Perfect

Neutral

Same as imperfective and perfective

L’Anna va dir que ella faria el sopar avui. ‘Anna said she would cook [Conditional] dinner today.’

Demà en Joan anirà a Girona. ‘Tomorrow Joan will go [Future] to Girona.’

No he menjat mai cargols. ‘I have never eaten [Present perfect] escargots.’

Experiential

En Joan era molt simpàtic. ‘Joan was [Imperfect] very nice.’

Continuous

L’Anna s’ha trencat el braç. ‘Anna has broken [Present perfect] her arm.’

Quan vaig arribar, parlava per telèfon. ‘When I arrived, he was talking [Imperfect] on the phone.’

Progressive

Resultative

De petit em quedava a dinar a l’escola. ‘In my childhood, I stayed [Imperfect] at school for lunch.’

Avui el president ha llegit el discurs. ‘Today the president has read [Present perfect] the speech.’

Ahir, el president va llegir el discurs. ‘Yesterday the president read [Preterite] the speech.’

Avui he fet el sopar. ‘Today I have cooked [Present perfect] dinner.’

Ahir vaig fer el sopar. ‘Yesterday I cooked [Preterite] dinner.’

Example

Habitual

Ingressive

Terminative

Values

Table 3. Catalan aspect, morphology, and values (adapted from García Fernández 1998: 58)

Perfective and imperfective morphology in Catalan 

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(25) Ahir va mirar/*mirava la televisió durant tres hores. ‘Yesterday he watched [Preterite]/*[Imperfect] television for three hours.’

Semantically, the perfective aspect has clear restrictions related to lexical aspect. For instance, soler (habitual auxiliary) is incompatible with perfective forms (*va soler, *solgué), but compatible with imperfective (solia, sol). The same behavior is observed with permanent states: (26) *El llibre va tenir vuit capítols. ‘The book had [Preterite] eight chapters.’ (27) *La finestra es va orientar al sud. ‘The window was oriented [Preterite] toward the south.’

Finally, in discourse, perfective forms build narrative sequences (i.e., in chronological order) by default. Thus, in the following sentence, although there are no adverbials or other devices to indicate that the situations happened in order, they are interpreted as sequential: (28) Va entrar a casa, va deixar les claus damunt la taula del rebedor, va guardar l’abric a l’armari i es va deixar caure sobre el sofà del menjador. ‘He went in [Preterite], left [Preterite] the keys on the table in the hall, put [Preterite] the coat in the wardrobe, and dropped [Preterite] on the dining-room coach.’

The opposition between perfective and imperfective in Catalan is relevant in the past but not in the present, since present situations are not concluded, and thus, there can be no focus on their inception or end. Consequently, present forms are by definition imperfective. The perfective-imperfective opposition exists in the future, but it is not grammaticalized in Catalan. Table 4 presents a summary of the Catalan tense and aspect forms (third person singular) that are most relevant to the acquisitional study presented in Section 4.

Table 4. Tense and aspect in Catalan Present ballo ‘dances,’ ‘is dancing’

Tense Past va ballar / ballava ‘danced’ / ‘was dancing’

Perfective

Aspect Imperfective

va ballar ‘danced’

ballava ‘danced’, ‘was dancing’


. Discourse grounding: Foreground and background The data for the study in this chapter are comprised of narratives produced by L2 learners of Catalan. Narratives have been studied from several perspectives (see Calsamiglia 2000 for a summary), but in the current study the basic definition from Labov and Waletzky (1967: 13) was adopted: Narrative will be considered as one verbal technique for recapitulating experience, in particular, a technique of constructing narrative units which match the temporal sequence of that experience. Furthermore, we will find that narrative which serves this function alone is abnormal: it may be considered empty or pointless narrative. Normally, narrative serves an additional function of personal interest determined by a stimulus in the social context in which the narrative occurs. We therefore distinguish two functions of narrative: (1) referential and (2) evaluative.

Narratives have structure (abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution, and coda; Labov & Waletzky 1967) and texture. Texture refers to the fact that some situations are more salient than others (Fleischman 1990; Silva-Corvalán 1983). Saliency is linguistically marked by a variety of linguistic devices. For instance, in a classification of linguistic categories into more or less salient, Wallace (1982) argued that human, animate, concrete, and count nominal forms are more salient than nonhuman, inanimate, abstract, and mass nominal forms; and that perfective, transitive, actional, and foreground verbal forms are more salient than nonperfective, intransitive, stative, and background verbal forms (see also Hopper & Thompson 1980). The common thread that runs through Wallace’s saliency scale is the perceptual concept of figure and ground, also referred to as the foreground-background distinction of discourse grounding. Intuitively, the difference between foreground and background refers to a basic distinction between the backbone material of a narrative (the foreground) and the supportive material (the background). This distinction has been a challenge for researchers in the study of discourse because foreground and background are intricately related to a variety of linguistic notions (Table 5). The foreground-background distinction has been critically examined (Couper-Kuhlen 1987; Depraetere 1996; Dry 1992; Fleischman 1990; Givón 1987; Reinhart 1984), and the general consensus seems to be that there is no single defining feature for the two concepts (Fleischman 1990: 184):

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Table 5. Characteristics of foreground and background (Givón 1984: 288) Feature

Foreground

Background

Tense Sequentiality Durativity Perfectivity Modality Activeness Syntax

Past In-sequence Compact/punctual Perfective/completive Realis Action/event Main clauses

Present, future, habitual Out-of-sequence, anterior, perfect Durative/continuous Imperfective/incompletive Irrealis State Subordinate clauses

The foreground-background contrast is better viewed as a spectrum or continuum in which saliency is a matter of degree, the different degrees being expressed through an interplay of the semantic and grammatical oppositions available in the language.

Even in those definitions that take into account several factors, there is a feature that stands out in the definition of foreground: Sequentiality of events for instance, Reinhart (1984: 801) argued for the following temporal criteria to define grounding: Narrativity: Only narrative units, i.e., textual units whose order matches the order of the events they report, can serve as foreground. Punctuality: Units reporting punctual events can serve more easily as foreground than units reporting durative, repetitive, or habitual events. Completeness: A report of a completed event can serve more easily as foreground than a report of an ongoing event.

The first criteria is categorical (“only” ordered events can be foreground), but the other two are gradable (“can serve more easily as foreground”). Finally, Depraetere (1996: 715) defined foreground from the perspective of prototypicality but also gave special status to the chronological order of sentences (Table 6). The use of a prototypical scale stresses that even though it is the norm to mark the foreground with present, past, or future tense, it may be possible to use pluperfect for a succession of past events reported in a previous past moment. The data from the study in this chapter were part of a larger study that examined the role of lexical aspect and discourse grounding in the acquisition of morphology (Comajoan 2001). In order to avoid circularity, information regarding the lexical aspect of predicates could not be used to analyze the data. For this reason, the defining characteristic of grounding in this study will be the ever present criterion of chronological order (see Section 4.3).


Table 6. Definition of foreground (adapted from Depraetere 1996) Foreground: Sequence of chronologically ordered bounded situations whose sequence is reflected in the linear order in which they are reported [+ Prototypical] [– Prototypical] Narrative present, past, future tense Bounded telic Main clause Subclause with loose bonds with main clause

Pluperfect Bounded atelic Subclause with tight bonds with the main clause

. Distribution of morphology and discourse grounding . The discourse hypothesis The term discourse hypothesis was first used by Bardovi-Harlig (1994), and it is currently used in studies of the acquisition of L2 morphology and its relationship to discourse grounding. Following research in functional linguistics (Hopper 1979) and discourse analysis (Dry 1983), Bardovi-Harlig (1994: 13) formulated the hypothesis as follows: “The discourse hypothesis for interlanguage development states that learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground from background in narratives.” Other terms used for the same hypothesis are discourse-pragmatic hypothesis (Housen 1997), discourse-functional hypothesis (Housen 1998), figure-ground distinction (Andersen 1993), and discourse motivation (Andersen & Shirai 1994).6 Whereas the amount of L2 research in the aspect hypothesis is large and growing, research in the discourse hypothesis in L2 acquisition has not developed as much. The following section presents a review of the literature focusing on discourse studies and acquisitional research. . Research regarding the relationship of verbal morphology and discourse structure The use of verbal morphology in different types of discourse has been studied in Catalan (Alturo 1997; Bronckart & Bourdin 1993; Pérez Saldanya 2002), English (Dry 1981, 1983; Schiffrin 1981), French (Bonnotte, Kaifer, Fayol, & Idiazabal-Gorrochategui 1993; Bronckart & Bourdin 1993; Dolz 1993; Plazaola & Bronckart 1993; Schneuwly, Rosat, & Dolz 1989), Old French (Fleischman 1985, 1990), Spanish (Bonnotte, Kaifer, Fayol, & Idiazabal-Gorrochategui 1993; Silva-Corvalán 1983), as well as other languages (e.g., Tagalog, Malay,

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Table 7. Verbal density percentages of morphology use in French and Catalan in four types of text (Bronckart & Bourdin 1993) Discourse type

Verbal morphology

French Narrative Report Letter Explanation Average

Present 12 28 23 70 33

Passé composé 2 15 29 1 12

Passé simple 53 25 5 1 21

Imperfect 17 11 20 1 12

Catalan

Present

Present perfect

9 14 17 75 29

Simple preterite 8 7 4 – 4

Imperfect

Narrative Report Letter Explanation Average

Periphrastic preterite 46 43 35 – 31

20 13 18 1 13

– – 3 1 1

and Old English in Hopper 1979; Basque and Italian in Bronckart & Bourdin 1993). Bronckart and Bourdin (1993) investigated the relationship between verbal morphology, type of text, and grounding in German, Basque, Catalan, French, and Italian. For each language, three groups of 15 young students (aged 10, 12, and 14) were asked to produce four written types of text: A narrative (the story of Snow White), a report (a news story about the police arresting a driver), a text combining interactive discourse and reporting (a letter to a friend), and an explanation text (explain how a lock works). For the five languages, a variety of tenses was studied, but the following discussion focuses on present and past tenses in Catalan (periphrastic preterite, simple preterite, and imperfect) and French (passé composé, passé simple, and imperfect). Table 7 provides the results regarding morphology in French and Catalan for the four types of text. The numbers refer to verbal density percentages, obtained by dividing the overall number of verb forms by the total number of words and multiplied by 100.7 Both in French and Catalan, the explanation text clearly differed from the other texts by its high density of present (70% in French and 75% in Catalan). In French, use of passé composé and passé simple followed opposite trends in the different types of text: Use of passé composé was very low in the narrative (2%), it increased in the report (15%), and it reached the highest density in the letter (29%). The opposite trend was true for the passé simple: The lowest percentages were in the explanation and letter (1% and 5%), the use of passé


Table 8. Temporal bases for four types of text in French and Catalan (Bronckart & Bourdin 1993) Discourse type French Narrative Report Letter Explanation

Temporal base Catalan

Passé simple / Imperfect Present / Passé simple Present / Passé composé / Imperfect Present

Preterite / Imperfect Present / Preterite / Imperfect Present / Preterite / Imperfect Present

simple increased in the report (25%), and it received the highest percentage in the narrative (53%). Regarding imperfect morphology in French, it was used in similar low proportions in the narrative, the report, and the letter. Similar trends in the use of morphology can be observed in Catalan. The use of present increased in the report and the letter and was the highest in the explanation. The use of periphrastic preterite in Catalan seemed to follow the trend of passé simple in French, since its use was the lowest in the explanation and the highest in the narrative. However, the use of periphrastic Catalan in the letter and report was much higher than passé simple in French. Simple preterite was rarely used in Catalan, due to the fact that the use of this form is limited dialectally and stylistically. The use of imperfect in Catalan was similar to the use in French, and it did not show a clear difference according to text type. When examining the highest density percentages for each type, one can establish the temporal base for the different texts, as shown in Table 8. The textual effect is clear in French, since the temporal base for each text is different. Catalan has fewer contrasts because of the limited use of simple preterite, but one can still notice that the temporal base for narratives is clearly preterite-imperfect. Bronckart and Bourdin (1993) also analyzed the distribution of verbal forms in the orientation, complicating episodes, final situation, and coda in the narratives with a preterite-imperfect base (for Catalan) and passé simple-imperfect base (for French). The results showed that Catalan periphrastic preterite and French passé simple coded the foreground, whereas Catalan and French imperfect coded the background. In Catalan, the orientation part was dominated by imperfect forms (77%), but as the narrative developed and moved to the complicating part, preterite increased (51%) and coexisted with imperfect. In the final situation and coda, preterite was the most common form (64%). Similar results were found for French and Italian. Bronckart and Bourdin (1993) discussed specific differences for individual languages, and for Catalan they noted that the temporal base for the narrative

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and the report was preterite-imperfect and that only in the older students (age 14) present forms in the function of historical present emerged. . L2 research in the acquisition of verbal morphology and discourse grounding Bardovi-Harlig (1992b) was the first of a series of studies about the acquisition of verbal morphology in discourse by classroom learners of different L1 backgrounds. The analysis of oral and written narratives produced by 16 low and high intermediate learners of English showed that (a) some learners marked the foreground-background distinction more than others, (b) those who were sensitive to discourse grounding tended to use past tense in the foreground and nonpast forms in the background, and (c) the background of narratives contained a greater diversity of verbal forms than the foreground. In a second cross-sectional study, Bardovi-Harlig (1995) studied 37 written and oral narrative pairs of the video clip Modern Times (Chaplin 1936) and provided evidence of the role of grounding in the emergence of morphology. The results showed that past morphology emerged in the foreground and that, over time, as past morphology continued to increase in the foreground, base (unmarked) morphology decreased. In contrast, past morphology in the background emerged later and never surpassed use of past in the foreground. Housen (1998) provided data from five conversations with Ema, a Dutch L1 learner of English and argued that there was no relationship between the use of English -ed/-ing and discourse grounding, since a chi-square analysis indicated that there was no significant difference between the use of verbal morphology (base, simple past, and continuous forms) and discourse grounding. However, the data in the figures showed that use of simple past was more common in the foreground than the background in all five conversations. Noyau (1984, 1990) and Trévise (1987) analyzed narratives in French produced by a total of 7 Spanish speakers and showed that learners with little or no verbal morphology could build highly complex narrative structures (summary, background, foreground, reported speech, plot, and backmove) by using linguistic and nonlinguistic devices. Véronique (1987) analyzed conversational data from 7 learners of French L2 (2 low-level, 3 intermediate, and 2 advanced) in a natural environment and found that all subjects contrasted base forms (V stem) with perfective forms ([Auxiliary] V + e), but the distribution of these forms into foreground and background was not uniform.


Table 9. Percentage rates of Spanish preterite and morphology use in the foreground and background in four groups and native speakers (cloze passage) (Güell 1998)

Pret Imp

G1

G2

66 14

54 22

Foreground G3 G4 78 17

92 5

NS

G1

G2

100 0

40 45

36 49

Background G3 G4 17 76

6 86

NS 0 90

Note. G followed by a number refers to the proficiency groups. NS = native speakers.

Giacalone Ramat (2002) reported on a study of four intermediate L1 English students of Italian who had studied Italian for 2 years in England and 8 months in Italy. The results of the study showed that the use of passato prossimo (perfective Italian form) was about 70% in the foreground and 25% in the background (the use of imperfect in the foreground and background was 5% and 50%, respectively). Lafford (1996) analyzed narrative story retellings of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (from the movie Fantasia; Disney 1940) produced by 15 English-speaking learners of Spanish at the intermediate ACTFL level (2 intermediate-low, 6 intermediate-middle, and 7 intermediate-high). The data analyses showed that morphology use was different according to grounding. More specifically, preterite was more common in the foreground than the background. Güell (1998) studied preterite and imperfect use by 26 native speakers of Spanish and 86 learners (aged 20–30) with different L1 backgrounds at the university level in Spain. The participants were distributed into four main proficiency levels, as determined by a grammar test, and they performed four tasks.8 The data from the cloze passage task showed that the use of preterite in the foreground and imperfect in the background increased with level of proficiency, as the use of imperfect in the foreground and preterite in the background decreased (Table 9). The beginner data from Güell (1998) indicated that at the early stages of acquisition learners use preterite morphology both in the foreground and background, but the trend is for preterite to be more common in the foreground than in the background. Finally, López-Ortega (2000) analyzed the use of morphology in oral personal narratives elicited from 4 Moroccan (French/Moroccan Arabic L1) immigrants living in Spain. Three of the informants had been living in Spain for 5–6 years, and the other learner had been in the country for 2 years. The analysis of the data showed that there was a significant relationship between the use of perfective-imperfective morphology and discourse grounding for all three learners.9 For instance, Alicia produced 29 tokens of perfective morphology

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in the foreground and 3 in the background, and she produced 24 tokens of imperfective morphology in the background and 5 in the foreground. The data from these studies provide evidence for the role of discourse grounding in the use of morphology, but since the studies were based on different types of learners and tasks, different outcomes are expected. Furthermore, none of the studies was longitudinal, and thus, the learners’ interlanguage cannot be examined in their development.

. The study . Participants The participants for the study came from a class of Catalan as a foreign language taught at a large Midwestern university in the United States. None of the three learners had previous knowledge of Catalan.10 All three learners were native speakers of English and had extensive knowledge of foreign languages, mainly Spanish and French. Table 10 provides information on the linguistic background of the three participants. The data in the table come from selfevaluations provided by the participants at the beginning of the period of data collection. The Catalan class in the Fall (1996) semester met for three 50-minute periods each week. Two of the periods were dedicated to learning the language and one to introducing culture and literature topics. The language classes followed a communicative approach with emphasis on oral skills and everyday situations using the textbook Digui Digui by Mas, Melcion, Rosanas, and Vergés (1991). At the time when data collection started, the participants had been exposed to 16 language sessions and 8 literature sessions. The only type of verbal morphology that was explicitly taught during the first semester was present tense. Input in the classroom, however, contained many examples of preterite and imperfect, especially during the culture and literature sessions, which were conducted entirely in the target language. The Catalan class during the first semester was taught by a native speaker of Catalan. During the second semester, the three learners continued attending the Catalan class but did not take it for university credit. The author of this chapter taught the class during the second semester (January to mid-April 1997), which met at the university once a week for 70 minutes. During this second semester, students were introduced to several grammatical structures of Cata-


Table 10. L1 and L2 knowledge of the three participants, based on self-evaluations Daniel

Robert

Barbara

Major Marketing and Spanish, undergraduate

Spanish linguistics, graduate

Music, graduate

L1

English

English

English

L2

Spanish (12 semesters, high school, major in college), Speak (G), Write (NL), Read (NL), Understand (G)

Spanish (graduate student in Spanish linguistics) Speak (NL), Write (NL), Read (NL), Understand (NL)

Korean (language at home) Speak (R-Basic), Write (Basic), Read (Basic), Understand (G)

French (5 high school semesters) Speak (G), Write (G), Read (G), Understand (G)

French (minor in college) French (3 years at public school) Speak (G), Write Speak (R), Write (G), Read (G), Understand (R) (G), Read (G), Understand (G) Romanian (4 semesters in college) Speak (R), Write (R), Read (R), Understand (R)

Spanish (3 high school years; 2.5 undergraduate years; 3 graduate semesters) Speak (G), Write (G), Read (G), Understand (G)

Italian (2 semesters in college) Speak (-R), Write (-R), Read (R), Understand (R)

German (3 high school years, 2 undergraduate years) Speak (0), Write (0), Read (song texts only), Understand (R-Basic)

Note. NL = native-like; G = good; R = Regular; -R = less than regular; 0 = reading knowledge only.

lan, including preterite and imperfect morphology and use. The methodology and textbook for the second semester were the same as for the first semester. The context of learning Catalan at a university in the United States shaped the research design of the study and the learning conditions of the participants in several ways. First, the number of Catalan students in such an environment is very low (nine students in the United States in Fall 1998 according to Brod & Welles 2000), and, thus, case studies or longitudinal studies are more appropriate for language acquisition research than cross-sectional studies. Second, it is very likely that learners of Catalan will have knowledge of other languages, since enrollment in a Catalan class usually has the prerequisite of having (reading) knowledge of another Romance language, as was the case at the institution

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where the participants for this study were studying Catalan. Despite the variability in the learners’ profiles, the three participants in this study shared some characteristics regarding their L1 and L2. All three were English native speakers who had no previous knowledge of Catalan and had an intermediate or advanced level of Spanish and French. In addition, Robert and Barbara had some knowledge of another L2 (Romanian, Italian, Korean, or German). Finally, even though the participants were in a beginner Catalan class, this class was hardly comparable to a typical foreign language setting. In addition to the differences in the linguistic background of the students, three other differences were noted in the Catalan class: The students were highly motivated to learn the language, the teaching methodology focused more on oral skills than written skills, and the learners’ tolerance for natural input was higher than in typical beginner learners (e.g., from the beginning of instruction, literature and culture sessions were done entirely in Catalan).11 . Tasks and procedure The data for this study came from a series of narrative tasks that the participants produced during a period of 7 months (two semesters). All data were orally produced and later transcribed. Three elicitation tasks were used to gather the narrative material: Video narratives, storybook narratives, and a folktale. The video narrative was an 8-minute film clip entitled Alone and Hungry from the movie Modern Times (Chaplin 1936) (MT, henceforth) (also used in Bardovi-Harlig 1995; Bardovi-Harlig & Bergström 1996; Hasbún 1995; and Salaberry 1999, 2000a). The other narratives were elicited from two storybooks and two comic strips: Llegenda del Cavaller Sant Jordi “The Legend of the Knight Saint George” (SG, henceforth) (Vinyes & Rifà 1986), The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby (Berenstain & Berenstain 1974), Jep i Fidel “Jep and Fidel” (Madorell 1989), and El Mag “The Magician” (Puig & Monrós 1989). The folktale was elicited by asking the participants to tell a traditional story from their culture. The participants completed a total of four retellings of the Modern Times video clip, six of the Saint George storybook, one of the Magician story, two of Jep and Fidel (three for Daniel), and three of the Berenstain story (two for Barbara). The four Modern Times retellings were produced in four different sessions, two during the first semester (MT1 in October 1996, MT2 in December 1996), and the other two during the second semester (MT3 in March 1997, MT4 in April 1997). The participants watched the 8-minute film clip, and immediately after, they retold it in Catalan in the presence of the researcher. The


researcher did not interrupt the participants, but provided vocabulary items as requested. The six retellings of Saint George were produced in four different sessions, three during the first semester (SG1 and SG2 at the beginning of November 1996; SG3 in the middle of November 1996) and the other three during the second semester (SG4 and SG5 in February 1997; SG6 in April 1997). In each session, the participants were given the storybook with the words masked and were asked to tell the story. The conditions for the retellings were slightly different. For the first retelling of the Saint George narrative (SG1), the participants were given the storybook and were asked to retell the story without a prompt or any other type of information. Afterwards, in the same session, in order to make sure that they understood the story, the researcher told the story in the past following a script with a balanced number of preterite and imperfect forms (13 for each type). During the same session, after the researcher told the story, the learners produced the second retelling of Saint George (SG2). In the third retelling of the Saint George narrative (SG3), the learners were given the prompt Una vegada hi havia un drac monstruós que vivia en un poble “Once upon a time there was [Imperfect] a monstrous dragon that lived [Imperfect] in a village” in order to elicit past contexts. For the fourth retelling of Saint George (SG4), the participants were provided the prompt, and they retold the story. In the same session, the researcher told the story following the script, and the subjects produced the fifth retelling (SG5). Finally, in the sixth retelling (SG6), the participants retold the story without a prompt or the researcher’s input. Thus, the format for the fourth retelling of Saint George approximately mirrored the third one, and the conditions for the fifth retelling approximately mirrored the second retelling. The types of narratives and the conditions in which they were elicited varied highly. For instance, whereas all four Modern Times retellings were elicited spontaneously and in the same conditions, the six Saint George retellings were elicited less spontaneously and in unequal conditions, because the learners were provided a prompt and in some of the retellings the researcher read the story. The focus of the study was the longitudinal development of tense-aspect morphology, and thus, it was deemed more appropriate to study as many different narratives as possible instead of the multiple elaborations of one single narrative. The results section will provide separate results for all narratives, the Modern Times narratives, and the Saint George narratives in order to discuss possible differences due to task type and data collection procedure.

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. Data analysis All the data were tape-recorded and transcribed using an adaptation of the CHAT transcription in CHILDES (MacWhinney 1995). All verbal forms produced in past context were identified by the researcher and coded for the following variables: (a) Verbal morphology: present, preterite, imperfect, present perfect and other; and (b) Discourse grounding: foreground and background.12 The coding of grounding in narratives is not an easy task, and it is even more difficult in the case of learner interlanguage data because one has to interpret the learners’ utterances as they build discourse. Optimally, one would want to follow the method to distinguish foreground-background used by Tomlin (1984, 1985), in which the task (a video clip) was analyzed into pivotal, foreground, and background information following independent subject judgments. However, this method was not used for this study because it was assumed that there was not a set target discourse structure that learners needed to match, but rather, that different learners may build narratives in different ways.13 Foreground was defined as those clauses that move the story forward, answer to the question “What happened?”, and are chronologically ordered (as in Bardovi-Harlig 1995, 1998). Out of these three requirements, the most important (as discussed in Section 3) and the easiest to verify was chronological order. Thus, in ambiguous cases, this requirement was given priority. The rest of the clauses were assigned to background. Foreground approximately corresponded to Tomlin’s (1984, 1985) pivotal and foreground information, and background corresponded to Tomlin’s definition of background. The fragment in (29) exemplifies the coding of discourse grounding in a narrative produced by Barbara in the second retelling of Saint George (B indicates background; F indicates foreground). (29) Barbara, MT2, Month 3;1214 1. B: hi ha [B] una noia en el en el carrer mirant per la finestra+/ d’un d’un for forn? B: there is [B] a girl on the street looking at the window of a bakery 2. L: ++#mhm# L: mhm 3. B: i que va veure [F] les barres de pa i tot això B: and who saw [F] the loaves of bread and all this 4. B: i com que no no té [B] diners ni ni casa B: and since she does not have [B] money or home


5. B: B: 6. B: B: 7. B: B: 8. B: B: 9. B: B: 10. L: L: 11. B: B:

pero té té [B] gana but she is is [B] hungry roba [F] un//+ una barra de pa she steals [F] a loaf of bread i va veure [B] una senyora and saw [B] a woman que la noia va robar [B] la e//+ el pa that the girl stole [B] the bread i can you say ac//+ acusa? and can you say “acusa”? acusa acusa i acusa i acusa [F] de: de robar-la and acuses acuses [F] her of stealing it

Another important matter that arises in the coding of discourse grounding is the influence of verbal morphology. In principle, one would want to apply the definitions of foreground and background to the data without being biased by morphology or syntax. However, this would not respect the structure of discourse as it is being built by the learner. For the coding of discourse grounding in this study, data were first coded by taking into account only the propositional content of clauses (without morphology or syntax). However, it was evident that in some cases, syntax (e.g., when-clauses, indirect reported speech) made a difference in the coding of grounding, and for this reason, the data were examined again taking into account both morphology (preterite and imperfect) and syntax (main and subordinate clauses). In those cases when one sentence could be foreground or background, and morphology determined the interpretation of discourse grounding, the coding favored the form produced by the learner (e.g., if the learner used a preterite form, the clause was coded as foreground). The most common case for this sort of difficulty was in when-clauses and relative clauses.15 This study makes a distinction between emergence and development of morphology. Emergence of morphology was examined by looking at the tasks in which the first 10 instances of preterite and the first 10 instances of imperfect morphology were produced. For the study of development, the data are discussed for Stage 1 (first four months of language learning, previous to instruction of past morphology) and Stage 2 (second four months of language learning, after instruction of past morphology).

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. Results .. Emergence of morphology The data in Table 11 show that preterite emerged in the foreground and imperfect in the background. Out of the total emerging uses of preterite (last column in Table 11), 37 were in the foreground, and 4 in the background. The trend was the opposite for the imperfect: 9 tokens were in the foreground, and 37 in the background. Regarding individual data, Table 11 shows that the total results were confirmed for Barbara and Robert, but not as clearly for Daniel, because he used 8 imperfect forms in the foreground and 10 in the background. Daniel’s interlanguage differed from Barbara and Robert in another respect. The period of emergence (first 10 tokens of preterite and first 10 tokens of imperfect) was longer for Daniel than for Barbara and Robert. Whereas Robert and Barbara produced them within approximately 2 months, Daniel produced all 8 imperfect tokens in the foreground in one retelling (Month 7). Specifically, the 8 imperfect tokens represented three different predicates that were reformulated several times. .. Development of morphology The development of perfective and imperfective morphology can be studied by examining the use of morphology in the same retelling task at different times. In order to control for type of task, the use of morphology in the MT retellings and the SG retellings is provided separately for the three learners. Table 12 shows the percentage use of preterite and imperfect morphology in the foreground and background over the total number of inflected tokens Table 11. Distribution of preterite and imperfect tokens in the tasks that contained the first 10 tokens of preterite and the first 10 tokens of imperfect morphology (all retellings) Daniel F Pret Imp

B

(1;7–5;27) 10 0 (1;17–7;4) 8 10

Barbara F

B

(1;18–2;8) 10 2 (1;18–2;15) 1 15

Robert F

B

(1;17–2;8) 17 2 (1;17–2;8) 0 12

Total F

B

37

4

9

37

Note. The numbers in parentheses indicate the period of time (month; day) when the tasks containing the first 10 tokens were produced.


(in the present, preterite, imperfect, or other types of morphology) in the MT retellings.16 The data from Daniel at Stage 1 show that he almost did not use any past morphology. He produced no instances of preterite or imperfect morphology in the background, and only two instances of preterite morphology in the foreground. The two instances of preterite morphology in the foreground represented only 5% of the inflected morphology. Most of the remaining inflected tokens were in the present. These data confirm the results from Table 11; that is, the first type of past morphology to emerge was preterite, and it emerged in the foreground. Table 12 shows how verbal morphology developed in Daniel’s interlanguage. Specifically, at Stage 2, the use of preterite morphology in the foreground represented 55% of the inflected tokens (compared to 5% at Stage 1). Imperfect morphology emerged at Stage 2, and it emerged both in the foreground and the background. When imperfect emerged at Stage 2, the percentage use over the total number of inflected forms in the background was higher (33%) than in the foreground (7%). Finally, at Stage 2, the background was marked by preterite and imperfect morphology in similar proportions (33%). The developmental data from Barbara and Robert indicated that from the beginning these two learners used more preterite and imperfect morphology than Daniel. For instance, whereas preterite morphology in Daniel’s interlanguage represented 5% of the morphology in the foreground at Stage 1, in Barbara’s data it accounted for 17% of the morphology and for Robert it accounted for 51% of the morphology. The marking of foreground at Stage 1 by Barbara followed the same pattern found in David’s data. She mostly used nonpast morphology, and when she used past morphology she used preterite forms. Unlike Daniel, at Stage 1, Barbara already used preterite morphology in the background (33%). In addition, in Barbara’s data at Stage 1, 33% of the total number of inflected tokens in the background were in the preterite. This percentage was higher than in the foreground, where only 17% of the inflected tokens were marked with preterite. Thus, Barbara’s results at Stage 1 seem contrary to what the discourse hypothesis predictes. At Stage 2, the results were in conformity with the discourse hypothesis, because the percentage of inflected tokens in the preterite in the foreground (42%) was higher than in the background (20%). In general, the data from Barbara confirm, as was the case for Daniel, that learners in the beginning stages of acquisition produce very little imperfect morphology. For instance, at Stage 2, Barbara only produced 1 imperfect token in the foreground and 3 in the background (compared to 50 preterite tokens in the foreground and 10 in the background). The

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Llorenç Comajoan

Table 12. Distribution of preterite and imperfect morphology according to discourse grounding in the MT retellings Pret

Foreground Imp Infl T

Pret

Background Imp Infl T

Daniel MT1 MT2 Tot St1 Tot St1 %

2 0 2 5%

0 0 0 0%

(14) (29) (43)

0 0 0 0%

0 0 0 0%

(4) (9) (13)

MT3 MT4 Tot St2 Tot St2 %

23 24 47 55%

0 6 6 7%

(39) (47) (86)

6 3 9 33%

0 9 9 33%

(11) (16) (27)

Barbara MT1 MT2 Tot St1 Tot St1 %

1 7 8 17%

0 0 0 0%

(11) (35) (46)

1 4 5 33%

0 1 1 7%

(2) (13) (15)


23 27 50 42%

0 1 1 1%

(53) (66) (119)

3 7 10 20%

1 2 3 6%

(22) (29) (51)

Robert MT1 MT2 Tot St1 Tot St1 %

0 26 26 51%

0 0 0 0%

(20) (31) (51)

0 1 1 8%

0 3 3 25%

(6) (6) (12)


21 26 47 82%

0 1 1 2%

(26) (31) (57)

4 1 5 31%

2 5 7 44%

(8) (8) (16)

Total (all 3 learners) TotSt1 TotSt1%

36 26%

0 0%

(140)

6 15%

4 10%

(40)

144 55%

8 3%

(262)

24 26%

19 20%

(94)

TotSt2 TotSt2%

Note. MT followed by a number refers to the first, second (Stage 1), third, and fourth (Stage 2) retelling of the Modern Times film clip. Tot St1 = Total number of preterite (Pret) or imperfect (Imp) tokens at Stage 1. Tot St2 = Total number of tokens at Stage 2. Infl T refers to the total number of inflected tokens (in present, preterite, imperfect, or other). The percentages are over the number of inflected tokens.


small production of imperfect tokens can be related to the small production of background information (e.g., for Barbara in Stage 1 only 15 inflected tokens in the background, compared to 46 in the foreground). For this reason, other narrative tasks must be examined (e.g., the SG narratives, see below). At Stage 1, Robert’s foreground data followed the same pattern as the data for Daniel and Barbara. The only type of past morphology produced by Robert at Stage 1 in the foreground was perfective (51%). Robert’s data for the background showed that imperfect morphology was used in a higher proportion than perfective morphology, but never as high as perfective morphology in the foreground. At Stage 2, the foreground was mostly marked by preterite morphology (82%). The proportion of background marked by imperfect at Stage 2 was 44%, compared to 31% by the preterite, but it must be acknowledged that Robert, as was the case for the other two learners, produced few instances of morphology in the background (5 preterite tokens and 7 imperfect tokens at Stage 2). The bottom of Table 12 collapses the data from the three learners at the two stages. These data provide evidence for the following four results regarding the MT retellings. First, at Stage 1, both the foreground and the background were coded in the preterite, but only the foreground was exclusively marked in the preterite. Second, at Stage 1, imperfect morphology was used to mark only background material. Third, at Stage 2, both the foreground and the background were more marked by past morphology than at Stage 1; Preterite developed more in the foreground than in the background, and the opposite was true for the imperfect. Fourth, the background was marked by preterite and imperfect morphology both at Stage 1 and Stage 2. In order to examine whether these results were related to the type of task, the SG data were examined following the same methodology as for the MT retellings. Table 13 shows the use of preterite and imperfect according to discourse grounding in the SG data. Table 13. Distribution of preterite and imperfect morphology according to discourse grounding in the SG retellings Pret Daniel SG1 SG2 SG3

0 0 0

Foreground Imp 0 0 0

Infl T

Pret

(22) (12) (11)

0 0 0

Background Imp 0 2 1

Infl T (3) (12) (15)

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Table 13. (continued) Pret

Foreground Imp Infl T

Tot St1 Tot St1 % SG4 SG5 SG6 Tot St2 Tot St2 %

0 0% 6 7 12 25 59.5%

0 0% 0 0 0 0 0%

Barbara SG1 SG2 SG3 Tot St1 Tot St1 % SG4 SG5 SG6 Tot St2 Tot St2 %

9 9 7 25 51% 10 15 15 40 90.9%

0 0 1 1 2% 1 1 0 2 4.5%

(22) (15) (12) (49)

Robert SG1 SG2 SG3 Tot St1 Tot St1 % SG4 SG5 SG6 Tot St2 Tot St2 %

7 10 12 29 91% 17 11 12 40 93%

0 0 1 1 3% 0 0 0 0 0%

(8) (11) (13) (32)

54 43% 105 81%

2 2% 2 2%

(126)

Total (all 3 learners) TotSt1 TotSt1% TotSt2 TotSt2%

(45) (16) (12) (14) (42)

(12) (16) (16) (44)

(18) (11) (14) (43)

(129)

Pret

Background Imp Infl T

0 0% 0 0 0 0 0%

3 10% 0 1 7 8 21.6%

1 0 0 1 4% 1 0 2 3 6.9%

2 6 7 15 56% 12 13 12 37 86%

1 1 0 2 8% 0 0 0 0 0%

5 7 8 20 83% 8 7 0 15 60%

3 4% 3 3%

38 47% 60 57%

(30) (12) (12) (13) (37)

(11) (9) (7) (27) (14) (15) (14) (43)

(7) (9) (8) (24) (11) (7) (7) (25)

(81) (105)

Note. SG followed by a number refers to the first, second, third (Stage 1), fourth, fifth, and sixth (Stage 2) retelling of the Saint George storybook. Tot St1 = Total number of preterite (Pret) or imperfect (Imp) tokens at Stage 1. Tot St2 = Total number of tokens at Stage 2. Infl T refers to the total number of inflected tokens (in present, preterite, imperfect, or other). The percentages are over the number of inflected tokens.


The data from Table 13 show a clear pattern for all three learners: The foreground was marked with preterite morphology, and the background was marked with imperfect morphology. This trend can be observed in the total data for the three learners at the bottom of Table 13: From Stage 1 to Stage 2 preterite morphology developed in the foreground (from 43% to 81%), whereas imperfect morphology in the background did not develop as much (from 47% to 57%). Use of preterite in the background and imperfect in the foreground did not develop from Stage 1 to Stage 2. The results in the MT and SG data differ in two respects. First, use of past morphology was higher in the SG than in the MT retellings; and second, the background in the MT retellings was marked with preterite and imperfect, whereas in the SG retellings it was marked with imperfect. The discussion section will examine these differences. The developmental trends can best be observed in the longitudinal use of morphology in the retellings produced by the different learners. The following narrative segments show the use of verbal morphology in the same scene at four different times (two at Stage 1, and two at Stage 2) as produced by Daniel, Barbara, and Robert. The narrative segment spans from the opening scene of the Modern Times video clip up to the stealing of the bread by the young woman. For each narrative segment, information regarding morphology and grounding are provided on the right margin. Examples (30) and (31) are the retellings of the scene by Daniel at Month 1;17 (MT1) and Month 3;5 (MT2), respectively. (30) Daniel, MT1, Month 1;17 1. D: <en la película> [=sp] hi ha una dona D: there is a woman 2. D: i ella saca un poc de pan sin pagar [=sp] D: and she takes some bread without paying 3. D: i hi ha unes persones en la panadería [=sp] D: and there are some people in the bakery 4. D: i i la policia van allà també, allà també D: and and the policeman goes there too, there too (31) Daniel, MT2, Month 3;5 1. D: hi ha una dona D: there is a woman 2. D: i a dona agafa el pa en la pastiteria D: and the woman takes the bread in the bakery

Pres

B

Pres

F

Pres

B

Pres

F

Pres

B

Pres

F

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Llorenç Comajoan

3. 4. 5.

D: D: D: D: D: D:

i ella no paga and she does not pay i el gerent de de la patisseria grita and the manager of of the bakery yells i llama una policia and calls the policeman

Pres

F

Pres

F

Pres

F

In examples (30) and (31), the learner exclusively used present morphology for both the foreground (lines 2 and 4 in MT1; lines 2–5 in MT2) and the background (lines 1 and 3 in MT1; line 1 in MT2). As a result of such limited use of verbal morphology, the narratives lacked texture in the sense that no prominence was given to any situation. Examples (32) and (33) show the use of morphology in the same scene but approximately 3 months later (MT3 at Month 6;6 and MT4 at Month 7;10). (32) Daniel, MT3, Month 6;6 1. D: en la pel.lícula de Charlie Chaplin hi ha D: in the movie of Charles Chaplin there is 2. D: hi ha una dona D: there is a woman 3. D: i la dona va a sota or [=en] a a fora de la patisseria D: and the woman goes under or outside the bakery 4. D: i hi ha un camió allí D: and there is a truck there 5. D: i després que la persona el prop//+ propietari del patisseria s//+ es marxa D: and after the person the manag//+ manager of the bakery s//+ leaves 6. D: la dona va a agafar un una loaf [=en] D: the woman goes and takes a a loaf (33) Daniel, MT4, Month 7;10 1. D: alguna dia havia una dona que D: one day there was a woman who 2. D: teni//+ que tenia molt fam D: who was very hungry 3. D: i la dona vaig agafar una barra de pa D: and the woman took a loaf of bread

Pres

B

Pres

B

Pres

B

Pres

F

Other

F

Imp

B

Imp

B

Pret

F

The narrative material from MT3 in example (32) was still entirely in the present, but it included more background information than MT1 (30) and MT2 (31). In MT4 (33), Daniel retold the segment providing less narrative


material but used preterite for the foreground (line 3) and imperfect for the background (lines 1–2). From MT1 to MT4 the foregrounded situation in the fragment – the stealing of the bread – developed in the following manner: (34) MT1 Ella saca un poc de pan sin pagar [=sp]. ‘She takes [Pres] some bread without paying.’ (35) MT2 A dona agafa el pa en la pastisseria. ‘The woman takes [Pres] the bread in the bakery.’ (36) MT3 La dona va a agafar un una loaf [=en]. ‘The woman goes and takes [Pres/Pret?] a loaf.’ (37) MT4 I la dona vaig agafar una barra de pa ‘And the woman took [Pret] a loaf of bread.’

In MT1 (Month 1), Daniel’s interlanguage was at an early stage and showed clear cases of Spanish influence. Thus, in (34) the stealing event was verbalized using a Spanish lexeme (sacar, ‘to take’) in present tense form and Catalan pronunciation. In (35), present tense was still used, but the inflected lexeme was Catalan (agafar, ‘to take’). In (36), Daniel used a form that was coded as “other” since it could neither be coded as as present va a agafar ‘goes and takes’ nor as preterite va agafar ‘took.’ Regardless of the actual morphological status of this form, Daniel’s interlanguage was developing, and, interestingly, the form va a agafar is reminiscent of the use of [anar + a + infinitive] in the early grammaticalization process of such constructions into periphrastic preterite in Medieval Catalan (see Pérez Saldanya 1998). Finally, in (37) an unambiguous preterite form was used to refer to the stealing event. Even at this final stage, the process of acquiring form and meaning was not totally accomplished, since Daniel used a preterite form appropriately but inflected it in a non-target manner (the target form is third person va agafar instead of first person vaig agafar). The development from present to preterite and imperfect morphology use just illustrated in the retellings produced by Daniel was not found in the interlanguage of all the participants in this study. For instance, Barbara never used imperfect in the scene under discussion, but over time she used different types of morphology to mark foreground and background (examples 38 and 39). For the narrative material in example (38), Barbara used present morphology for three background clauses and one foreground clause.

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Llorenç Comajoan

(38) Barbara, MT1, Month 1;18 1. B: oh! és la història de: de B: oh! it is the story of 2. B: una noia que que n que no té diners B: a girl who who who does not have money 3. B: i que no té casa B: and who does not have a home 4. B: i va en la [=laughing] B: and goes on the [=laughing] 5. B: ok, que [=laughing] en inglés és molt molt més fàcil [=laughing] B: ok, [=laughing] in English it is more much easier [=laughing] 6. B: to steal? to: B: to steal? to: 7. L: robar L: to steal 8. B: rob//+ ah! roba pa B: rob//+ ah! steals bread 9. B: de la camioneta? B: from the truck? 10. B: camioneta B: truck

Pres

B

Pres

B

Pres

B

Pres

F

In (39), Barbara continued to use present, but preterite emerged to refer to the moment in which the woman saw the loaf of bread that she later stole. (39) Barbara, MT2, Month 3;12 1. B: hi ha una noia en el en el carrer mirant per la finestra+/ d’un d’un for forn? B: there is a girl on the street looking at the window of a of a bakery? 2. B: i que va veure les barres de pa i tot això B: and who saw the loaves of bread and all this 3. B: i com que no no té diners ni ni casa B: and since she does not have money nor a home 4. B: però té té gana B: but is is hungry 5. B: roba un//+ una barra de pa B: steals a//+ a loaf of bread

Pres

B

Pret

F

Pres Pres Pres

B B F


At Stage 2 Barbara produced background clauses that included a variety of morphology types (present and continuous present in MT3, example (40)). Foregrounded situations were given prominence by marking them in preterite (lines 7 and 9). (40) Barbara, MT3, Month 6;7 1. B: al principi de la pel.lícula hi ha hi ha una noia que B: at the beginning of the movie there is there is a girl who 2. B: està caminant pel carrer B: is walking along the street 3. B: i està mirant per les finestres B: and is looking in the windows 4. B: i d’una I know this word [=laughing] bakery B: of a I know this word [=laughing] bakery [. . . ] 5. B: ok hi ha un forn a la cant//+ cantonada B: ok there is a bakery on the cor//+ corner 6. B: i la la noia ve, B: and the the girl sees, 7. B: no, @ va veure [=laughing] per la fe//+ finestra barres de pa B: no, @ saw [=laughing] in the win//+ window loaves of bread 8. B: i quan el quan quan el home entra [=laughing] en el forn en el forn B: and when the when when the man enters [=laughing] the bakery the bakery 9. B: la noia va robar una barra de pa B: the girl stole a loaf of bread

Pres

B

Cont Pres B Cont Pres B

Pres

B

Pres

F

Pret

F

Pres Pret

B F

In MT4 (41), there was very little background material, and it was mostly marked with preterite. The two background clauses in MT4 (lines 5 and 8) were marked with preterite and present respectively, both inappropriate uses for past context retellings (imperfect forms are the target forms). What is remarkable about Barbara’s retellings is that although there was no use of imperfect at all to mark grounding in the scene under discussion, the learner used different types of morphology to provide some texture to the narratives.

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(41) Barbara, MT4, Month 7;26 1. B: el títol és sola i amb amb gana [=laughing] B: the title is alone and hungry [=laughing] 2. L: ja, perfecte, és així L: yes, perfect, it is that 3. B: es refereix a la noia, no? B: it refers to the girl, right? 4. L: #mhm# L: #mhm# 5. B: ok, un dia va caminar una noia pel carrer B: ok, one day the girl walked a girl on the street 6. B: i va arribar al forn B: and she arrived at the bakery 7. B: i va veure pel f//+ per la fenestra tot el pa que: que B: and saw in the win//+ in the window all the bread that that 8. B: hi ha al forn B: there is at the bakery 9. B: i va arribar el camion de: de pa+/ del forn B: and the bakery truck arrived 10. L: ++#mhm# L: ++#mhm# 11. B: i va va t//+ tenir l’idea de tomar de de prendre! [=laughing] B: and she had the idea of taking of grabbing [=laughing] 12. L: de prendre o agafar L: to take or to grab 13. B: agafar+/ robar una barra B: to take+/ to steal a loaf

Pret

B

Pret

F

Pret

F

Pres

B

Pret

F

Pret

F

Finally, Robert’s interlanguage is a good example of what a more developed narrative grounding system may look like. In the first retelling, Robert just produced one clause in the present tense for the scene under discussion (42). Approximately 2 months later, Robert retold the same scene using exclusively preterite and imperfect morphology (appropriately): Imperfect in the background and preterite in the foreground (43). (42) Robert, MT1, Month 1;17 R: una noia roba un pa R: a girl steals a bread

Pres

F


(43) Robert, MT2, Month 3;13 1. R: hi havia una noia que R: there was a girl who 2. R: tenia molta: molta fam molta+/ R: was hungry: very hungry very+/ 3. L: ++fam és gana L: ++hungry is “gana” 4. R: gana R: hungry 5. L: #mhm# L: #mhm# 6. R: i va # veure un una camió de de una pastisseria o un forn R: and saw a a truck of of a bakery 7. L: #mhm# L: #mhm# 8. R: i un empleat de la pas//+ pastisseria descargava [=sp] [=laughing] R: and an employee of the bak//+ bakery was unloading [=laughing] 9. L: #mhm# L: #mhm# 10. R: pa R: bread 11. R: quan el empleat va en//+ entrar a la pastisseria R: when the employee entered the bakery 12. R: la noia va robar un pa R: the girl stole a bread

Imp

B

Imp

B

Pret

F

Imp

B

Pret

F

Pret

F

In sum, the quantitative data (Tables 12 and 13) have shown that there was a tendency to create combinations of specific types of morphology and grounding information: Preterite morphology associated with foreground, and imperfect with background. However, it must be acknowledged that not all learners’ interlanguage displayed the same associations at all times and in all tasks. . Discussion The results regarding emergence of preterite and imperfect morphology in the beginner Catalan data in this study provided evidence that the preterite

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Llorenç Comajoan

emerged before the imperfect and it emerged in the foreground, whereas the imperfect emerged in the background. However, the individual data analysis revealed that the data from Daniel did not display this trend, since he produced similar numbers of tokens of imperfect in the foreground and the background. In addition, the period of emergence of past morphology in Daniel’s data was longer than in the data from Robert and Barbara. Regarding the development of preterite and past morphology from Stage 1 to Stage 2, the results showed that preterite morphology developed more in the foreground than in the background, whereas the opposite was true for the imperfect. The foreground was mostly marked by preterite morphology whereas the background was marked by preterite and imperfect. Finally, in the development of morphology in the different MT segments, there were individual differences. Learners marked texture in the narratives using different types of morphology, but the texture was not always marked with a preterite-imperfect contrast (e.g., it was marked with a present-preterite contrast). The individual differences in these data beg two related questions: What was the role of the learners’ previous language proficiency? And were these typical L2 learners? Table 10 showed that Robert and Barbara had more experience learning languages than Daniel. Most notably, Robert had knowledge of four other Romance languages when he started learning Catalan (Spanish, French, Romanian, and Italian). Barbara and Daniel had a similar profile for the two other Romance languages that they had studied (Spanish and French), but Barbara, in addition, had studied German and was a Korean heritage speaker. These profiles suggest that Daniel had less experience learning languages and had been exposed to fewer languages than the other two learners.17 The results of the study indicated that the period of emergence of preterite and imperfect morphology in Daniel’s data was longer than in the other two learners, and that Robert’s use of morphology was closer to native-speaker use than the data from Daniel and Barbara. One plausible explanation for these differences is that Barbara and Robert could transfer their knowledge of languages with perfective-imperfective morphology to the acquisition of Catalan at a faster rate than Daniel. However, differences in learner profile cannot be the only explanation. For instance, Table 11 showed that the period of emergence in Daniel’s data was approximately four months (1;17–5;27) for the preterite and six months for the imperfect (1;17–7;10). However, the periods of emergence in conversational data were much shorter (one month for preterite and less than two months for imperfect).18 Thus, in addition to the learner’s profile, one must also take into account the type of task performed (e.g., retellings from video clips vs. spontaneous conversations) or the type of narrative task (e.g.,


MT retellings vs. SG retellings). In sum, despite the differences in their profiles and their development, all three learners’ interlanguage developed morphology devices to mark narrative texture. Learners may follow different routes and rates of acquisition and use different linguistic devices – appropriately or not –, but eventually they appear to be extremely resourceful in building a narrative (Bardovi-Harlig 1992b, 1995, 2000). A related matter that is specific to the acquisition of Catalan is the noticing of preterite forms in the input. Whereas imperfect morphology in Catalan is inflectional (as in Spanish and French), preterite morphology is periphrastic (as passé composé in French), which may have important consequences on language processing, because it appears that learners attend to the end of words to infer morphological information (Slobin 1985; VanPatten 1996). On the one hand, this means that learners of Catalan may expect inflection for past morphology but not notice it, since it is not placed at the end of the verb form. On the other hand, the saliency of Catalan preterite forms may make them more noticeable to learners. For instance, in a debriefing at the end of the study, Barbara explained that she remembered two instances when she made a mistake using Catalan preterite: I mistook it for the future, it was when Ana [name of instructor] was, gave her first talk, and I thought that that was like like like the Spanish historic present, and then the second time was when Joan [name of the instructor] asked me “Vas anar al concert?” [“Did you go to the concert?”], and I thought he was asking me if I was going to go to the concert, but he was asking if I had gone.19

Further L2 research should investigate how differences in saliency of verbal morphology can help or hinder learners from noticing morphology and, consequently, inferencing new meanings of morphology.20 In addition, Catalan data could also be used to study the acquisition of regular versus irregular preterite and imperfect forms, since the formation of preterite in Catalan is regular (due to its periphrastic nature), whereas imperfect is often irregular.21 In contrast, preterite forms in other Romance languages (e.g., Spanish) tend to be more irregular than imperfect forms. Regarding the question as to whether these were typical L2 learners or not, it must be acknowledged that these learners’ linguistic knowledge did not resemble the average North American college student taking a second language in a tutored environment. These learners differed from tutored university learners in several ways. They showed a high level of motivation, because they were taking the Catalan class out of their personal interest (e.g, they were interested

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in Catalan arts, had friends in Catalonia, or wanted to learn another Romance language). In addition, they all had extensive knowledge of other languages, and the instruction they received was rich in communicative input (exclusive use of Catalan from the first day of class and emphasis on interactions rather than manipulation of linguistic forms). Because this study did not compare these learners to learners who could be described as typical (e.g., immigrant learners of Catalan in Catalonia without previous knowledge of other Romance languages in tutored or untutored environments), it is not possible to ascertain whether the development of the interlanguage of the learners in this study is substantially different from another type of learner. However, the results from this study can be compared to previous research in the acquisition of past morphology and its relation to discourse grounding. The results from Lafford (1996) indicated that learners at the intermediate (low and mid) levels did not use any imperfect forms for the video retelling and that learners at the intermediate-high level used imperfect exclusively in the background. In this respect, the learners’ interlanguage in the current study seemed to have developed more, because they used imperfect in the beginning stages. However, it must be noted that these results are clearly influenced by the methodology of the studies (cross-sectional in Lafford 1996, semi-longitudinal in this study). If only results from one retelling were considered in the current study, it would be easy to conclude that beginner learners did not use imperfect morphology (e.g., Daniel in MT1 and MT2, Table 12), but this is not what the longitudinal results showed. For this reason, it is necessary for further research to examine longitudinal data from the same learners. The results from López Ortega’s (2000) study confirmed that there was a relationship between morphology and discourse grounding, but the individual results also indicated that use of morphology varied according to participant. Finally, the results from Güell’s (1998) beginner group (Level 1), unlike the (low and mid) intermediate learners in Lafford (1996), used imperfect morphology, and they tended to use it in the background. The learners in Güell (1998) used preterite both in the foreground and background, although in a larger proportion in the foreground. What all these studies have in common is what is stated by the discourse hypothesis, namely that perfective morphology is associated with foreground information and imperfective morphology with background information. The discourse hypothesis also implies that perfective morphology emerges before imperfect morphology, but since most studies have not studied data longitudinally, this statement could not be confirmed. In the current study, Table 11 showed that both preterite and imperfect emerged within the same period


in the data provided by Barbara and Robert (approximately between one and two months). In Daniel’s data, however, imperfect morphology took longer to emerge than preterite morphology. Some of the differences in the results are likely to be related to differences in the types of narrative tasks produced by the learners. In this study, the two narrative tasks that were used to elicit the data were different in terms of procedure of data collection and the narrative material itself. Whereas the MT retellings were done after watching a video, the SG retellings were done as the learners were looking at the pages of the storybook. In addition, for some of the SG retellings learners were given a prompt and listened to the story in the past. The main difference in the production of past morphology between the MT and the SG retellings had to do with a higher use of past morphology in general and, more specifically, a higher production of background (imperfect) material (Tables 12 and 13). The higher production of background material can be related to the fact that the SG retellings provided more opportunities for background information than the MT retellings, because the narrative in the storybook contained more descriptive material than the narrative in the video retelling. In addition, the amount of descriptive-background material that learners may encode has to be related to the amount of processing time they have in order to produce past morphology. For the SG retellings, the participants had more processing time than for the MT retellings because they produced the language as they were looking at the picture book, whereas for the MT retellings they watched the 8-minute video and then retold it without having online access to the information. Thus, more processing time may allow for a higher production of background material, which may provide for more opportunities to produce imperfect morphology. Previous research that has examined the production of preterite and imperfect in different tasks has shown, for instance, that advanced learners of Spanish used more imperfect in personal narratives than in video retellings (Liskin Gasparro 2000), beginner learners of Spanish used more imperfect in personal narratives with habitual actions than in nonpersonal narratives (e.g., picture story narratives, Camps 2002), and L2 English learners produced more background material in irrealis sequences (e.g., a dream sequence, BardoviHarlig 2000). In sum, these studies and the data from the current study show that discourse type and tasks can play an important role in the production of foreground and background information, which has an important repercussion for the production of different types of verbal morphology. All the findings from this study and previous research point toward the role of discourse in the acquisition of past morphology. Despite the fact that

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acquisitional studies that relate the acquisition of morphology to discourse are few, discourse figures prominently as one of the explanations for acquisitional stages in interlanguage (the discourse hypothesis). The explanation for the discourse hypothesis is related to the cognitive need to distinguish between the backbone of a narrative and its supportive material (Andersen & Shirai 1994; Givón 1984; Hopper 1979). Thus, Givón (1984: 289) argued that the pairs foreground-perfective, background-imperfective, past-foreground, present/future/habitual-background are not necessarily logical, but a representation of the “cultural-cognitive perceptual facts concerning what humans are most likely to consider noteworthy, informative, salient, memorable or outstanding in the coding and communication of experience” (emphasis in original). Givón (1984) posited some “putative grounds” for the hypothesis that pasttime, nondurative, and perfective actions may be more salient, more robustly coded, and easier to retrieve than ongoing, durative, imperfective actions. However, even though the foreground-background distinction is often related to cognitive and universal principles, it is rarely stated whether this distinction is innate or provided by the input. Experimental studies have argued for the cognitive validity of the foreground-background distinction, but just for specific languages (e.g., Erbaugh 1987; Tomlin 1984, 1985 for English). It needs to be noted that the universality of the foreground-background distinction does not necessarily entail that such distinction has to be coded morphologically (Fleischman 1990: 169). As argued by Fleischman (1990) and Hopper (1979), the distinction can be done through verbal morphology but also via local/nonlocal pronominalization, word order, and clause type. Thus, what seems to be universal is the need to mark saliency, either using verbal morphology or other linguistic devices. In the L2 studies that have studied the acquisition of the form-function relationship of past morphology, the explanation of results has been related to the L2 learners’ need to build discourse. Shirai and Andersen posited a series of principles that could be subsumed under a prototype and discourse account for both L1 and L2 acquisition (Andersen 2002; Andersen & Shirai 1994, 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 1998, 2000; Shirai 1998, 2002; Shirai & Andersen 1995; Shirai & Kurono 1998): All of these principles [relevance, congruence, one-to-one] follow naturally from the speakers’ (both learners and nonlearners) communicative need to distinguish reference to the main point/goal of talk from supporting information, within the tradition of research on grounding and the function of tense-aspect marking in narratives. (Andersen & Shirai 1994: 152 [emphasis in original])


More recently, Andersen (2002) has reaffirmed that discourse motivations can account for the development of L2 past morphology, but he has also emphasized that the grounding distinction between foreground and background is one of several dimensions of the development of past.22 This multidimensional explanation puts discourse at the center of language development in a similar manner to which Hopper and Thompson (1980, 1984) put discourse as the explanation of linguistic categories. The strength of this explanation is that it can account for variable results in L2 and linguistic research, but it has its weaknesses as well. For instance, it is difficult to test empirically (Does grounding create the morphology or vice versa?), and it may be circular: Learners use morphology because they mark narrative grounding, and they mark narrative grounding in order to create morphology (Slabakova 2002). For these reasons, further research needs to isolate morphology use from discourse grounding in L2 and investigate more specifically their relationship (as in Bonnotte et al. 1993).

. Conclusion The results of this chapter provided evidence for the importance of studying the learners’ interlanguage from a longitudinal and individual perspective. The few previous studies that had investigated the use of verbal morphology according to discourse grounding were cross-sectional and thus could not investigate the emergence and development of verbal morphology over time. Further research should investigate the longitudinal development of morphology in larger groups of learners in order to establish relationships between learner profiles and language development. The data showed that even in the case of learners with extensive L2 learning experience, emergence and development of morphology requires some time. The time that is necessary depends on the learner. Further research, thus, should combine the investigation of groups of learners with case studies of individual learners in order to have detailed descriptions of specific learners’ interlanguage (matched to their profiles) and group behavior. Research in L2 acquisition and task variation is vast and fruitful (see R. Ellis 1994; and Romaine 2003 for a review), but task variation studies have mostly focused on methodological issues and data elicitation. Further research should investigate task variation not only from a methodological perspective but also from a textual and processing perspective. Different types of tasks require from the learners a variety of processing strategies that will have repercussions in

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their use of morphology. For instance, Salaberry and López Ortega (1998) found that L2 Spanish learners made more mistakes in the use of the preteriteimperfect in grammar tasks than in narrative tasks. In sum, further research, as already suggested by Bardovi-Harlig (1999, 2000) and Salaberry (2000a), should go beyond the study of narratives and expand onto other text types (e.g., descriptions) and other interaction modes (e.g., conversations). Finally, this study has examined the use of morphology in the background and foreground of narratives, but the grounding categories are not binary but rather form a continuum. Further research needs to explore new methodologies that allow for the coding of narrative data in a more detailed manner (e.g., the categories in Fleischman 1990; Polanyi 1989; and Liskin Gasparro 1996) and for the operationalization of grounding (e.g., Tomlin 1984, 1985). To conclude, L2 research in the acquisition of past morphology may find itself in a situation of “embarrassment of riches” (Slabakova 2002), especially in research related to lexical aspect, but questions about the development of morphology from a discourse perspective still deserve further investigation. In this respect, acquisition research needs to integrate sentence-level and discourselevel analyses in order to develop current hypotheses and have a better understanding of the process of L2 acquisition.

Notes . See the introductory chapter to this volume for a review of the concepts of tense and aspect. . See Badia (1994) and Wheeler et al. (1999) for regular and irregular conjugations. For a discussion of the terminological issues in labeling tenses in Spanish and Catalan, see Brucart and Rigau (1997), Pérez Saldanya (2002), and Rojo and Veiga (1999). Preterite and imperfect are used to refer to past periphrastic perfective forms and past imperfective forms, respectively. . The fact that both Spanish and English accept present perfect and preterite forms with the adverbial “today” does not necessarily imply that Spanish and English tense systems are entirely similar. Furthermore, both Spanish and English dialects differ in their use of preterite and present perfect forms in perfective situations. . Table 3 follows the description for Spanish aspect by García Fernández (1998). In this view, Spanish (and Catalan) perfect aspect is not a subclass of perfective aspect as argued by Bertinetto (1986, 1997) and Bertinetto and Delfitto (2000) for Italian. See Alturo (1997, 1998, 1999) for a discussion of Catalan perfect aspect. . The examples from this section are from Pérez Saldanya (2002).

Perfective and imperfective morphology in Catalan . So far, research in the discourse hypothesis has focused on narratives, and thus the hypothesis might be more appropriately termed the narrative hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, personal communication, April 27, 2001; see Bardovi-Harlig 1999, 2000 for a discussion of other discourse types). . The total percentages for each text type in Table 7 do not add up to 100 because the table does not include all the verbal forms used (e.g., pluperfect). See the original tables in Bronckart and Bourdin (1993) for the other forms. . The four tasks were: (a) A written narrative using pictures and a prompt, (b) A cloze passage with 13 atelic predicates and 15 telic predicates in which the learners had to conjugate verbs into the preterite or imperfect, (c) A preterite-imperfect multiple choice test using the same passage as the second task, and (d) A preterite-imperfect multiple choice test of sentences investigating to what extent learners recognized the compositionality of aspect. Group 1 learners (described as “false beginners”) are those who more closely resemble the Catalan learners in the current study. Since Group 1 learners only performed the second task (cloze passage), the discussion focuses on the results from this task. . One important difference between the study in López-Ortega (2000) and previous studies is that in López-Ortega’s study “imperfective” morphology included present, present progressive, and imperfective past progressive, whereas “perfective” included perfect past progressive, preterite, present perfect, and pluperfect. This is not directly acknowledged in López-Ortega (2000), but a comparison of Tables 3 and 4 in the study shows that the tables refer to the same tokens. . The data from this study come from a larger study that included six learners of Catalan as a foreign language and narratives from retellings and conversations (Comajoan 2001). Three of the learners were studied for a period of three months (one U.S. university semester, approximately). The other three were studied for a period of seven months (two semesters). Only data from the learners who participated in the complete study are presented in this study. The pseudonyms for the learners are Daniel, Barbara, and Robert. . The three participants’ language profiles indicate that they were not L2 learners engaged in the process of L2 acquisition but rather multilingual or L3 learners engaged in multilingual acquisition. The process of multilingual acquisition distinguishes itself from L2 acquisition in that the former is more diverse and complex (Cenoz 2000) because it allows for multiple combinations of the learning of the languages. English was the L1 for all three learners in this study, and Catalan was the last language they had started learning, but the order and number of languages they learned in between was not the same (see Table 10). Hammarberg (2001) argued that the factors that need to be taken into account regarding the influence of first and second languages on third languages are typological similarity (the L2 has more influence than the L1 on the L3 if the L2 is closer typologically than the L1), proficiency (the higher the level of the L2 the more it can influence the L3, especially if the L2 has been used in natural contexts), recency (the language that has been activated more recently is the one that has more influence on the L3), and status (an L2 is more likely to be activated in L3 performance than the L1). The investigation of multilingual versus L2 acquisition is beyond the scope of this study, but it must be acknowledged that the three participants in this study were multilingual learners at the beginning stages of learning Catalan, and that the factors named by Hammarberg (2001) for multilingual acquisition must have had an impact

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on the three learners. All three had a good command of French and Spanish, two languages that are typologically related to Catalan. Specifically, all three learners rated themselves as “good” in almost all four skills in French and Spanish (see Table 10). Thus, it is expected that French and Spanish influenced their acquisition of Catalan. Regarding recency, all three learners spoke Spanish during the semesters in which they were learning Catalan, and thus it would be expected that Spanish influenced their acquisition of Catalan. See Cenoz and Genesee (2001), Cenoz, Hufeisen, and Jessner (2001), Cenoz and Jessner (2000) and Sanz (2000) for discussions related to multilingual acquisition. . In the larger study where these data come from, the coding of the data included additional variables (e.g., appropriateness of use and aspectual characteristics) (Comajoan 2001). . The data presented here were part of a larger study (Comajoan 2001) that contained spontaneous conversational data for which there cannot be independent subject judgments of narrative structure. . The numbers next to “Month” in each example refer to the months and days that had elapsed since the beginning of language learning. For instance, 3;12 indicates that 3 months and 12 days had elapsed. See the Appendix for the transcription codes used in the examples. For ease of readability, hesitation and confirmation markers (mhm, ahm) from the participants are omitted from all examples. Catalan verb forms are underlined. . See Comajoan (2001) for details on the coding of when-clauses and relative clauses. . The development of morphology is studied by examining the percentage uses of preterite and imperfect morphology. The quantitative results are based on a comparison of frequencies of nominal data (preterite and imperfect forms, discourse grounding categories). Research dealing with the discourse hypothesis provides percentages and does not analyze data using statistical tests because some assumptions for the use of the most common statistical test to compare nominal frequency (chi-square) may not be fulfilled. . No independent language proficiency measures were used to assess the learners’ knowledge of each of the languages, but the data from Table 10 indicate that Robert and Barbara had more exposure to languages and for a longer period (they were older and had learned more languages than Daniel). . The results from conversational data come from Comajoan (2001). . Ana and Joan are pseudonyms. Joan was the regular instructor for the Catalan class during the first semester. Ana was a teaching assistant who helped the instructor. . See Schmidt (1993b) and Robinson (2003) for a discussion of noticing and its implications in SLA. . Catalan imperfect forms – unlike Spanish forms – present a number of morphological irregularities. For instance, most verbs ending in -ndre and -ure show irregularities (aprendre “to learn,” aprenia; prendre “to take,” prenia; creure “to believe,” creia; seure “to sit,” seia; beure “to drink,” bevia; viure “to live,” vivia). . The other dimensions posited by Andersen (2002: 93) are: verb semantics (telic vs. atelic), event type (unitary vs. habitual-iterative), realis-irrealis (factual vs. hypothetical), pragmatic role (direct vs. indirect), and discourse structure.


Appendix: Transcription codes Most of the codes were adapted from the CHAT transcription in CHILDES (MacWhinney 1995). The abbreviations used for verbal morphology and discourse grounding were: Pres (present), Cont Pres (continuous present), Pret (periphrastic preterite), Imp (imperfect), F (foreground), and B (background). Each participant was identified by the name (pseudonym) initial followed by a colon (e.g., D:). The researcher was identified by L:. The sign @ indicates laughter. Square brackets with an equal sign inside provide information about the immediately previous utterance. When the information refers to more than the previous word, the affected words are inside < >. The information can be about pronunciation, language, emotion, and so on. In the following example, it indicates that the word “fitness” was used in English. D: és un fanàtic de fitness [=en] D: he is a fitness fanatic The codes for languages used in the data were the following: en = English; fr = French; sp = Spanish; ct = Catalan. Long utterance was indicated by: The signs //+ indicate that the word is unfinished and will be reformulated. For instance: D: però però el el el hom//+ el home deia D: but but the the the ma//+ the man said The signs +/ indicate interruption by the listener. ++ indicates the listener’s intervention. Thus, material marked with +/ and ++ overlaps. 1. 2. 3. 4.

D: D: D: D: L: L: L: L:

els acudits #ahm# tenen que ser limpias [=sp]+/ the jokes #ahm# had to be clean+/ però no: no era muy [=sp]+/ but no, they were very+/ ++ah! net ++oh! clean! ++no ho eren? [=laughing] ++they weren’t? [=laughing]

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Chapter 3

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French from a Universal Grammar perspective Dalila Ayoun University of Arizona

Introduction A large part of the research conducted to date on the development of temporalaspectual systems in the interlanguage of L2 learners has focused on the investigation of the distribution of verbal morphology as an indicator of its underlying semantic system. A second line of inquiry, the investigation of the expression of semantic concepts through linguistic devices, has not been as actively pursued. Moreover, the study of tense-aspect systems has been limited to the fields of philosophy (dating as far back as Aristotle) and semantics, with an increasing number of studies focusing on the syntax-semantic interface (e.g., Bononi 2002; Sanz 2000; Tenny 1994). The Minimalist Program looks at the syntax-semantics interface in a new way in that minimalist mechanisms are intended to account for the fact that the meaning of a sentence is derived from the idiosyncratic features of lexical items, and the way these items are linked through functional categories. The acquisition of temporal-aspectual systems by L2 learners from a more strictly syntactic perspective is a growing line of empirical research, even if L2 empirical studies from a generative/minimalist perspective are still scarce. Most of the empirical minimalist studies to date have focused on the acquisition of L2 English by Bulgarian native speakers (Slabakova 2000, 2003), or both Bulgarian and Spanish native speakers (Slabakova 2001), the acquisition of L2 Spanish by native speakers of English (Montrul 2002; Montrul & Slabakova 2002, 2003; Slabakova & Montrul 2000, 2002, 2003), as well as the differences between Standard Russian and American Russian in Russian-English bilingual

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speakers (Pereltsvaig 2002). To the best of my knowledge, no empirical study has yet targeted French as an L2. Most of the theoretical models proposed within the generative/minimalist framework posit the functional projection AspP, initially proposed in Tenny (1992) and Borer (1993), and further developed in Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) for English and Romance languages, primarily Italian and Spanish.1 Section 1 will present a descriptive account of the major contrastive features of tense-aspect distinctions in English and French followed by the Minimalist approach to tense/aspect in Section 2. Aspect will be hypothesized to be instantiated in the functional category AspP, where the interpretable [±perfective] features are checked through overt aspect morphology (e.g., Giorgi & Pianesi 1997). The current literature is reviewed in Section 3, followed by learnability predictions in Section 4: The minimalist framework implies that L2 learners have to acquire both the inflectional morphology and the semantic properties associated with the projection AspP. Section 5 presents crosssectional empirical data from English native speakers who are learning French as a foreign language in a formal academic setting. Two elicitation tasks – a personal narrative and a cloze task – were administered to L2 French learners to investigate the relationship between the acquisition of inflectional morphology and aspectual semantic distinctions through functional categories. Do learners have difficulties with the surface morphology rules or with the abstract syntactic features? These features are strong in French, but weak in English. The narrative data will be analyzed from a broad perspective in order to establish whether our participants have acquired all the functional categories that come into play in a well-formed clause. We will see below that a growing number of studies in adult and child L2 acquisition are promising in that their findings indicate that the acquisition of functional categories and their values is not impaired, and that children and adults alike can display native-like performance.

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Tense and aspect in French and English

. Tenses in French and English French and English present two different tense and aspectual systems. We will focus on the past tenses. In French, temporality is expressed by tense, time adverbials, and periphrastic tenses, while in English, temporality is conveyed by tense, modals, have and time adverbials.

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French

French main past tenses are the passé composé, the passé simple, the imparfait and the plus-que-parfait, as illustrated respectively by the following examples: (1) a.

Sophie est arrivée en retard. Sophie is arrived-perf-fem-sf late ‘Sophie arrived late.’ b. Sophie arriva en retard. Sophie arrived-perf late ‘Sophie arrived late.’ en retard. c. Sophie arrivait Sophie arrived-imp late ‘Sophie arrived/was arriving/would arrive late.’ d. Sophie était arrivée en retard. Sophie was arrived-perf-fem-sg late ‘Sophie had arrived late.’

The passé composé in (1a) and the passé simple in (1b) are perfective past tenses, the only difference being that the latter is more rare and typically limited to written contexts, or to more elevated registers in oral contexts. The plus-queparfait in (1d) is also a perfective past tense that always indicates a point further back in time than a predicate encoded at the passé composé or the imparfait. The imparfait in (1c) is an imperfective past tense that also carries iterative and durative semantic values. English main past tenses are the simple past, the past progressive, and the past perfect as shown in (2a), (2b) and (2c), respectively: (2) a. The children played all day. b. The children were playing all day. c. The children had played all day.

The main tenses in French and English are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively. The present forms are included to illustrate inflectional endings. Tables 1 and 2 illustrate that although neither French or English have morphologically uniform inflectional paradigms according to the definition of Jaeggli and Safir (1989) which states that either all or none of the verb forms must be inflected for a paradigm to be uniform, French exhibits rich inflectional morphology, whereas English does not. Compare the following forms for present indicative of ‘to speak’ in English, French, and Spanish, respectively:

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(3) 1sg. 2sg. 3sg. 1pl. 2pl. 3pl.

To speak I speak you speak s/he speaks we speak you speak they speak

Parler je parle tu parles il/elle/on parle nous parlons vous parlez ils/elles parlent

Hablar hablo hablas habla hablamos habláis hablan

The English verbal paradigm used to be morphologically rich in that the first three persons of the singular had distinct endings which also distinguished them from the plural persons (Kroch 1990; Roberts 1993). But a morphological change led to their disappearance, and the only remaining form in modern English is the -s of the third person singular. In French, the first and third persons of the singular are identical, whereas in Spanish, as an example of another Romance language with rich inflectional morphology, all verbal forms are distinct. Furthermore, the first, second and third persons of the singular along with the third person of the plural in French are phonetically identiTable 1. Present and past tenses in French Tense

Morphological encoding

Present (PRES)

Verb + inflectional endings

Example

Je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent Passé composé Auxiliary Avoir Present + past J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils (PC) participle ont parlé Passé simple Verb + inflectional endings Je parlai, tu parlas, il parla, nous (PS) parlâmes, vous parlâtes, ils parlèrent Imparfait (IMP) Verb + inflectional endings Je parlais, tu parlais, il parlait, nous parlions, vous parliez, ils parlaient Plus-que-parfait Auxiliary Avoir Imparfait + J’avais, tu avais, il avait, nous avions, (PQP) past participle vous aviez, ils avaient parlé Past progressive Auxiliary Etre + en train de + J’étais en train de parler (PastProg) nonfinite verb

Table 2. Present and past tenses in English Tense

Morphological encoding

Example

Present Simple Past Present Perfect Past Perfect Past progressive

Verb + -s / Ø Verb + -ed Has/have + verb + -(e)d Had + verb + -(e)d Verb + -ing

I talk / he talks I talked I have talked, he has talked I had talked I was talking / you, they were talking


cal since they are all pronounced [parl]. The auxiliary verbs être ‘to be’ and avoir ‘to have’ have irregular inflectional paradigms, and are hence uniform and morphologically richer in that all forms exhibit a different inflection as shown in (4): (4)

être 1sg. je suis ‘I am’ 2sg. tu es ‘you are’ 3sg. il/elle est ‘he/she is’ 1pl. nous sommes ‘we are’ 2pl. vous êtes ‘you are’ 3pl. ils/elles sont they-masc/they-fem are

avoir j’ai ‘I have’ tu as ‘you have’ il/elle a ‘he/she has’ nous avons ‘we have’ vous avez ‘you have’ ils/elles ont they-masc/they-fem have

All the periphrastic tenses (auxiliaries followed by past participles as in (1a) above) thus show rich inflectional endings. By contrast, verbal inflection only appears in four contexts in English: 3rd person singular as seen above, in finite non-subject wh-questions, in finite negative declaratives, and with -ed as a past marker, as shown in (5), (6), and (7), respectively; (5) a. What did you eat? b. Why does she leave so early? (6) a. We cannot be late for this meeting. b. They will not compromise on this issue. (7) a. She used to play the piano. b. I worked all day yesterday.

English modals lack verbal morphology altogether as illustrated in the following examples with would and may: (8) a. I/we/they would never do such a thing. b. You/they may not be able to attend.

To summarize, the French and English tense systems present more differences than similarities. Neither system is morphologically uniform, but French exhibits rich inflectional morphology contrary to English. I will argue below that

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the inflectional richness of French has learnability implications for L2 learners. Temporality is expressed in both languages by tense and time adverbials. In addition, French has periphrastic tenses, while English uses modals. . Aspect in French and English As established in the first chapter of this volume, grammatical aspect and lexical aspect must be clearly distinguished. Grammatical aspect is concerned with the “different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation” (Comrie 1976: 3), and is expressed through morphological markers. For instance, in French, the aspectual distinction between perfective and imperfective is realized through the inflectional morphology of the passé composé and the imparfait, respectively. The perfective is equated with an external perspective from the speaker who perceives an event with well-defined beginning or ending points, whereas the imperfective reflects an internal perspective for the speaker who views the situation from within, without definite or bounded temporal boundaries. Lexical aspect refers to the inherent semantic property of the verb phrase or predicate. Following most of the current research on tense-aspect, this chapter will adopt Andersen’s (1991) description of the Vendler-Mourelatos hierarchy (Mourelatos 1978; Vendler 1967) in order to distinguish between the following aspectual categories: (a) States defined as situations that do not involve change over time, and that do not have salient endpoints, e.g., to need something; (b) Activities defined as situations that involve change over time but lack a specific outcome, e.g., to run, laugh; (c) Accomplishments defined as situations that have duration, and that involve an end result, e.g., to fix the computer; (d) Achievements defined as situations which involve an instantaneous change, e.g, to notice something. Moreover, achievements and accomplishments are said to be telic because of their inherent outcome or endstate, whereas states and activities are said to be atelic because of their lack of such inherent outcome or endstate. The French and English aspectual systems display some similarities, but also some crucial differences. The main aspectual distinction in French is between the perfective and the imperfective. Neither aspect is dominant because both apply equally to all situation types (Smith 1997). Thus, both the passé composé and the imparfait are used for states, activities, achievements and accomplishments. The perfective in French is realized through the morphology of the passé composé or the passé simple (see Table 2 and examples in (1) above). The imperfective is realized through the morphology of the imparfait.


In contrast, the main aspectual distinction in English is between the perfective and the progressive. The perfective is realized through the morphology of the simple past and the past perfect which accept all situation types, while the progressive is realized through the past progressive be + -ing which can only be used with eventive situation types. Statives are hence usually excluded (Smith 1997).2 Thus, the perfective is the dominant viewpoint in English, whereas French is characterized by a clear symmetry that opposes the perfective and the imperfective, contrary to English which uses the progressive as its main imperfective viewpoint. In French, both the perfective and the imperfective apply equally to all situation types, whereas in English only the perfective applies to all situation types, since the progressive which is used as the imperfective is typically limited to non-stative events. These facts are also summarized in Figure 1 for French and Figure 2 for English. English does not have a viewpoint that precisely corresponds to the morphological representation of the French imperfective, the imparfait. Hence, the English translations of the imparfait can only be approximate (examples are from Smith 1997: 199):3 (9) a.

Sa mère lui racontait des contes de fées tous les soirs. His/her mother to him told-imp fairy tales all the evenings ‘His/her mother would tell him fairy tales every evening.’ b. Dominique partait chaque matin à huit heures. Dominique left-imp every morning at eight hours ‘Dominique would leave every morning at 8 o’clock.’ c. Autrefois j’étais malade de longues semaines. In the past I was sick some long weeks ‘In the past I used to be ill for long weeks at a time.’ d. Jean continuait à arriver Jean continued-imp to arrive (aux cocktails de mes amis tout l’été). (to the parties of my friends all summer) ‘Jean continued to arrive (at my friends’ parties all summer).’

Consequently, L2 learners tend to erroneously equate the imparfait with the English progressive which typically appears with non-stative predicates. This is not true for the imparfait, as illustrated with the following examples in (10) (Smith 1997: 200):

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(10) a.

Marthe a vécu à Paris. Martha has lived at Paris ‘Martha lived in Paris.’ b. Marthe vivait à Paris. Martha lived-imp at Paris ‘Martha was living in Paris.’

Smith (1997: 200) explains that the first example in (10a) presents a closed situation, in contrast with the second example in (10b) that presents a situation

Figure 1. French aspectual system

Figure 2. English aspectual system


that may or may not still be open. Contrary to the English progressive, the imparfait in (10b) does not have or imply any type of activity or temporary status. Moreover, Ayoun (2004) shows how the imparfait presents more difficulties for English-speaking learners (as opposed to speakers of other Romance languages) of French than the passé composé, because it encompasses three different semantic aspectual values (i.e., the imperfective, the iterative, and the durative, following Kaplan 1987), whereas the passé composé embodies only the perfective. Again, the imperfective is interpreted as nonperfective as in (11): (11) a.

J’ai lu le journal. I have read the newspaper ‘I read the newspaper.’ b. Je lisais le journal. I read-imp the newspaper ‘I was reading the newspaper.’

The action of reading the newspaper came to an end in (11a) while it was still ongoing in (11b). The iterative conveys habituality as in (12): (12) a.

Le lundi matin, je jouais au tennis. The Monday morning, I played-imp tennis ‘On Monday mornings, I would play tennis.’ b. Elle faisait toujours ses courses seule. She made-imp always her shopping alone ‘She would always go shopping by herself.’

Finally, the durative is understood to refer most often to stative or activity predicates, as illustrated in (13): (13) a.

Nous ne savions pas qu’elle était malade. We knew-imp not that she was sick ‘We did not know that she was sick.’ b. Elle adorait danser seule. She loved-imp to dance alone ‘She loved to dance alone.’

Based on empirical findings, Ayoun (2004) contends that Anglophone learners of French tend to rely on the passé composé because it has a straightforward correspondence with the perfective in the English simple past, while initially limiting themselves to just one or two aspectual values of the imparfait. The imparfait applies to all lexical classes of predicates expressing open situations with neither initial or final endpoints, as shown in the following examples taken from Smith (1997: 197):

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(14) a.

L’enfant pleurait. The child cried-imp ‘The child was crying.’ b. Ils bâtissaient une cabine. They built-imp a cabin ‘They were building a cabin.’ c. Il entrait dans un magasin. He entered-imp in a store ‘He was entering a store.’ d. La mer était calme. The sea was-imp calm ‘The sea was calm.’

Activity

Accomplishment

Achievement

Stative

Note that the non-stative predicates encoded at the imparfait are translated by the past progressive in English. The lexical idiom être en train de ‘to be in the middle of doing something’ is similar to the progressive in English in that it conveys that a dynamic situation is in progress. It is only used with non-stative predicates. The French progressive does not contrast with the perfective or the imperfective. Hence, it is not part of its aspectual system, but has a semantically-based distribution instead. In summary, grammatical aspect is expressed through inflectional morphology in French. The fact that the concepts of lexical aspect and grammatical aspect cannot be teased apart “creates a close connection, formally and conceptually, between aspect and temporal location” (Smith 1997: 197). The perfective-imperfective contrast is encoded in the passé composé and imparfait (which really represents three aspectual values – the imperfective, the durative, and the iterative), whereas it is not grammaticalized in English, a language in which the main aspectual contrast is between the perfective and the progressive.

. Tense/aspect and minimalism The reader may recall that the minimalist framework posits the functional category AspP, for the repository of aspect, in addition to AgrP for agreement, and TP for tense. However, I will argue that a minimalist study on tense and aspect cannot limit itself to AspP. It must also consider the other functional categories that account for the formation of a finite clause, because it is reasonable to assume that L2 learners must first be able to produce a well-formed tensed clause


(i.e., with tensed raised predicates), before they can acquire and display subtle aspectual and semantic differences. Let us thus briefly review the relevant functional categories that account for cross-linguistic variation. The main functional categories are: Complementizer (Comp), Inflection (Infl or I) – which is split into Agreement (i.e., the functional head AgrP) and Tense (i.e., the functional head TP) following Pollock’s (1989) seminal proposal – Negation, Determiner, and Number. Functional categories are associated with features such as tense, number, person, gender, and case. These features vary cross-linguistically in that they may or may not be present, and if they are present, they may be different. For instance, French has a gender feature that English lacks, and while both languages have Infl features, these features are strong in French but weak in English. Feature strength is particularly important and relevant for English and French in an L1-L2 relation, because it accounts for several word order variations that must be acquired by L2 learners. For instance, number features are strong in French and nouns must raise overtly from N to Num over adjectives to check and delete the uninterpretable features. The resulting word order in French is Noun Adjective, whereas in English it is Adjective Noun, because nouns do not raise, since the Num features are weak.4 Moreover, French, in a similar fashion to other Romance languages, displays gender agreement on nouns, adjectives and determiners, whereas English lacks such overt gender features and agreement. Finally, as established above, French verbal forms are inflected for person, number and tense, whereas English verbal forms typically exhibit zero derivation. Feature strength also accounts for the proper placement of negation, adverbs, floating quantifiers and pronominal inversion in interrogatives with respect to the verb, properties subsumed under the verb movement parameter (Pollock 1989, 1997). Because French finite lexical verbs have strong features, they must thus raise overtly so that the uninterpretable Infl features can be checked and erased before Spell-Out. Conversely, verbs with weak features, that is finite lexical verbs in English, do not raise, leading to the following well-known examples contrasting English and French structures: (15) a. b. c. d.

Mark does not like Lisa. Marc (n’) aime pas Lise. *Mark likes not Lisa. *Marc (ne) pas aime Lise.

(16) a. Mark often sees Lisa. b. Marc voit souvent Lise.

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c. *Mark sees often Lisa. d. *Marc souvent voit Lise. (17) a. Does he like Lisa? b. Aime-t-il Lise? c. *Likes he Lisa?

The examples in (15) and (16) illustrate that English lexical verbs remain in situ, i.e., they have to follow the negation not and the adverb often, whereas the French examples indicate that the lexical verb must move out of its initial position to precede these elements. In addition, the examples in (16) demonstrate that in questions with pronominal inversion, English requires do-support. To summarize, the fundamental difference between English and French (as well as other Romance languages) rests in the feature strength of the various functional categories that account for sentential word order in general, and for the feature composition and values of AspP in particular, as displayed in Table 3.5 M-paradigm refers to morphological paradigm, and F-features refer to formal features. Thus, in French, AspP is associated with both [+perfective] and [–perfective]. Grammatical aspect is expressed morpho-syntactically with the passé composé and the imparfait, respectively. By contrast, the [–perfective] value is irrelevant in English where the perfective-imperfective contrast is not grammaticalized. All eventive predicates (i.e., activities, achievements and accomplishments) are inherently associated with the [+perfective] value (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997), whereas French predicates lack an inherent aspectual value and must acquire their aspectual properties by checking the [±perfective] features in AspP through passé composé and imparfait morphology. English has an additional [+prog] value for the progressive aspect. Several structural implementations of AspP have been offered. For instance, Travis (1991, 1994) suggests that AspP is located within the expanded VP-shell, whereas Borer (1993) proposes that AspP is situated between TP and VP creating a [TP AspP VP] structure. Sanz (1999, 2000) contends that inherently telic predicates check their lexical telicity features in another projection, Table 3. French and English feature composition and AspP values French AspP F-features [+perfective] [–perfective] Ø, progressive

M-paradigm passé composé Imparfait Lexical idiom: Être en train de + verb

English AspP F-features [+perfective]

M-paradigm Simple past

[+progressive]

-ing


AktionsartP or AktP. The head of AktP is specified as [±telic] and it is located in the VP-shell. And finally, to account for the complexity of Slavic predicates, Pereltsvaig (2002) proposes an OuterAspP category below TP, along with an InnerAspP category below VP.6 I will adopt the [TP AspP VP] structure as in Borer (1993) and Giorgi and Pianesi (1997), among others, and assume that in French, as in the other Romance languages, aspect is instantiated in the functional category AspP, where the interpretable [±perfective] features are checked through overt aspect morphology.

. Selected literature review Because relevant L2 French studies have been extensively reviewed elsewhere (e.g., Ayoun 2001, 2004; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Salaberry & Ayoun this volume), this section will only present a brief summary and update before reviewing the more recent empirical studies conducted within the minimalist framework. In general, studies of instructed English-speaking L2 learners (children in immersion French classes and adults in college classes) appear to confirm the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen 1991; Andersen & Shirai 1996; Shirai 1991): The use of past morphology is influenced by aspectual class (from achievements and accomplishments to activities), and the perfective emerges before the imperfective (e.g., Ayoun 2004; Bardovi-Harlig & Bergström 1996; Bergström 1995; Harley 1989, 1992; Salaberry 1997, 1998). However, the studies conducted by the European Science Foundation (ESF) researchers using migrant adult learners with various L1s in a naturalistic setting yielded different results. It was found that adult learners of French failed to acquire the grammaticalized past aspectual distinction, even at advanced levels, and relied instead on other lexical and discourse means (e.g., Klein & Perdue 1992; Noyau 1998; Noyau, Houdaïfa, Vasseur, & Véronique 1995; Vasseur 1986). However, the L2 French non-instructed learners in a naturalistic setting studied by Schlyter (1990) appeared to have acquired the aspectual contrast between the passé composé and the imparfait. Kihlstedt (2002) compared the interlanguage of 4 Swedish-speaking learners of French at the university level extracted from the InterFra corpus data of oral interviews, Bartning 1997) with the production of French native speakers as a control group. A descriptive analysis indicated that grammaticalization of past time reference was not yet complete, in spite of productive morphological marking. The more advanced learner displayed greater morphological accu-

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racy than the other learners, and marked temporality with various means. It was argued that the imparfait was particularly indicative of the level of grammaticalization with the production of forms preceding the mastery of semantic functions. Thus, the use of the imparfait was initially restricted to a small number of verbs and aspectual values. The use of the plus-que-parfait was also taken as an indication of a higher level of proficiency in the L2. In Ayoun (2004), it was found that English-speaking learners of L2 French in an academic setting benefited equally from three different types of treatment – traditional grammar instruction (G-group), modelling (M-group), and recasting (R-group) – as measured by a free production task for the passé composé, but not for the imparfait. It appears that the learners associated past tense endings with lexical aspectual classes: They started with statives but moved on to accomplishments before activities; a progression that does not follow from the hypothesized prototypical progression. At the time of the data collection, imperfective marking was starting to spread from statives to accomplishments. Overall, the learners appeared to be limited to a few, common predicates for both the passé composé and the imparfait; and the imparfait uses were almost always restricted to the durative with a few predicates. The first empirical minimalist studies focused on L2 English by Bulgarian native speakers (Slabakova 2000, 2003), or by both Bulgarian and Spanish native speakers (Slabakova 2001). Slabakova (2001) tested the acquisition of the telicity marking parameter by Bulgarian-speaking learners of English. The telicity marking parameter subsumes three related constructions – verb-particle, resultative secondary predicates and double objects – and presents two main contrasts: (a) The [+telic] morpheme is situated in AspP in English, but in PerfP in Slavic; (b) The [+telic] morpheme is null in English, and depends on the object’s cardinality, whereas it is overt in Slavic, lexicalized as a pre-verb, and the object’s cardinality is irrelevant in establishing telicity. Three groups of L2 English learners, and two groups of native speaker controls, were administered an aspect task, a translation task, a grammaticality judgment task, and a stories task. Group and individual results indicated that the learners’ ability and consistency in judging and distinguishing between telic and atelic sentences increased with their level of proficiency. Slabakova (2000) also used an aspectual interpretation task to test the accuracy of two groups of L2 learners of English in interpreting telicity: A group of native speakers of Bulgarian (n = 22), and a group of native speakers of Spanish (n = 21), while native speakers of English served as controls (n = 32). English and Spanish share the same parametric value of the aspect parameter (Smith


1997) regarding telicity, that is, contrary to Bulgarian, they do not exhibit an overt [+telic] morpheme on verbs, and the telicity of verbs is determined by the cardinality of objects. The hypothesis of L1 transfer was supported in that the results of an aspectual interpretation task showed that: (1) The English native speakers and the Spanish L2 learners recognized the contrast between telic and atelic sentences (i.e., they preferred atelic sentences in combination with a habitual context to telic sentences in a habitual context, whereas Bulgarian L2 learners did not; (2) The Bulgarian-speaking learners were accurate in judging atelic sentences, but significantly less accurate in their judgments of telic sentences. It thus appears that they were transferring the L1 value of the aspectual parameter. This may be explained by the fact that they were only at beginning and intermediate levels of proficiency. Slabakova (2003) set out to investigate whether Bulgarian-speaking L2 learners of English in instructional settings are able to acquire AspP with its semantic implications: (a) Eventive English verbs are inherently [+perf]; (b) The present tense is associated with a quantificational feature and a generic operator; (c) Progressive morphology has a continuous interpretation; (d) Statives can have a habitual interpretation in the simple past. None of these semantic distinctions are part of the Bulgarian tense/aspect system. After a proficiency test, participants in low, high and advanced levels of competence, were asked to perform an elicited production task, and a truth value judgment task (Crain & Thornton 1998; Grimshaw & Rosen 1990). The results of the first task indicated that learners had acquired the inflectional morphology for simple and progressive aspect in English. The results of the second task revealed an improvement in the learners’ ability to accurately map inflectional morphology to appropriate semantic contexts with their competency level. The advanced learners clearly demonstrated a successful acquisition of AspP and its values. In a series of studies based on the analysis of Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) for English and Spanish, S. Montrul and R. Slabakova investigated the acquisition of the interpretive properties of the preterite and the imperfect tenses in Spanish by English-speaking learners. First, Slabakova and Montrul (2000) used a truth value judgment task to test the intuitions of English-speaking learners of Spanish (n = 69) at the intermediate and advanced levels. Results indicated that intermediate learners were significantly more accurate with the imperfect than with the preterite when using state verbs such as poder ‘be able to’ or saber ‘know’. The results of the advanced group, which showed greater accuracy with both tenses, suggested that instructed L2 learners can learn properties that are usually not explicitly taught.

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Slabakova and Montrul (2002) administered a proficiency test and a morphology test to English-speaking learners of Spanish (n = 60), before asking them to perform a sentence conjunction judgment task to investigate the interpretations L2 learners assign to preterite and imperfect past morphology. The group and individual results revealed a clear developmental trend with all advanced learners and some intermediate learners demonstrating the ability to differentiate between the semantic features associated with grammatical aspect. In Montrul and Slabakova (2002), English-speaking learners of Spanish at intermediate (n = 42) and advanced (n = 29) levels of proficiency (established by an independent proficiency test), and Spanish native speakers (n = 23) were instructed to perform two tasks. The first task was a morphology test to determine whether L2 learners could distinguish between the morphological endings of the preterite and the imperfect in a narrative. The second task was a sentence conjunction judgment task designed to test the semantic implications of the two tenses. The group results revealed that the L2 learners who had obtained accuracy scores of at least 80% on the morphology test seemed to have acquired the semantic interpretations of the two past tenses, whereas those who scored below 80% were still struggling with the semantic contrasts, particularly with states and achievements. The individual results suggested that “the acquisition of morphology precedes the acquisition of semantics, and that both types of acquisition are gradual developments” (p. 140). It was concluded that “the formal features associated with the functional category AspP are acquirable and ‘unimpaired’ in SLA” (p. 141). However, L2 learners may be missing the pragmatic ability to “coerce” (de Swart 1998), “a process that provides a context to avoid a clash of semantic features. Coercion shifts the emphasis to the process immediately preceding the change of state, thus in a way turning achievements into accomplishments” (p. 141). Montrul and Slabakova (2003) compared English-speaking advanced learners and near-native speakers with native speakers of Spanish in order to address the question of ultimate attainment in the tense/aspectual domain, and whether functional categories features are affected by a critical period hypothesis (such as Hawkins & Chan’s 1997 Failed Formal Features hypothesis). The results of the sentence-conjunction judgment task did not show any differences between the near-native speakers and the native speakers. However, on the truth-value judgment task, only the near-natives performed like the native speakers in recognizing the generic restriction on the preterite and specificgeneric ambiguity of the imperfect, the latter being clearly more difficult than the former for the advanced and superior learners. It was nonetheless con-


cluded that near-native competence is attainable in the domain of aspectual interpretations. Montrul (2002) compared bilingual speakers of English and Spanish as a heritage language with monolingual Spanish speakers to investigate whether the age of onset of bilingualism influences ultimate attainment. Assuming AspP to be a functional category where the [±perfective] features are checked, Montrul (2002) addresses the question of whether both the morphological features and the semantic features are affected by language loss, or whether bilingual speakers display patterns of “incompleteness” in the Spanish preterite/imperfect contrast. The results of the interpretation and production tasks revealed significant differences between bilingual and monolingual speakers on achievement predicates in the imperfect, and stative verbs in both the preterite and the imperfect, whereas the early child bilingual speakers differed from the monolingual speakers on stative verbs in the preterite. In other words, the simultaneous bilinguals displayed incomplete acquisition, while the early child bilinguals showed some evidence of attrition, mostly for stative verbs in the preterite. The wide range of proficiency shown by the bilingual speakers also contributed to the conclusion that, contra Toribio (2001), for many participants, the loss of morphological features is accompanied by the loss of the formal features, and provides support for the critical period hypothesis. Slabakova and Montrul (2003) targeted two groups of English-speaking learners of Spanish divided in an intermediate group (n = 40) and an advanced group (n = 29) (18 NSs from various Spanish-speaking countries served as controls). After taking a proficiency test and an inflectional morphology recognition test (adapted from Salaberry 1997), the participants were asked to perform a truth-value judgment task with 80 story-sentence combinations, in order to test their knowledge of the preterite and the imperfect, as well as the possible generic interpretation of pronominal subjects. In Spanish, when the predicate is in the imperfect, the subject pronoun can be interpreted as having a generic meaning (‘people in general’) or a specific meaning (‘we’). When the predicate is in the preterite, the subject pronoun cannot be interpreted as generic. This distinction is not explicitly taught in foreign language classrooms and thus presents a case of poverty of stimulus. The overall results showed that the advanced learners have acquired the semantic properties of the Spanish preterite and imperfect, as well as the universal semantic conditionals (a habitual clause reading implies a generic pronominal subject), and the negative constraint on the generic interpretation of the preterite. The intermediate learners were

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less consistent and accurate than the advanced learners, but displayed a clear developmental trend toward the acquisition of these properties. In a longitudinal study of English-speaking university students participating in a study abroad program in Spain, Schell (2000) assumed the existence of two functional categories, Inner and Outer Aspect Phrases, to account for preterit and imperfect past tenses in Spanish (see also Salaberry & Ayoun this volume). This study focused on the interaction between morphosyntax and semantics in examining how L2 learners may acquire the form-meaning relationship of Spanish tense/aspect. It assumed the three stages of the constructionist approach (Herschensohn 2000): Feature strengths are initially unset and learners finish by mastering the lexical aspect of most verbs by the advanced stages, after the feature values at the Inner Aspect Phrase have been specified. Finally, investigating the differences between Standard Russian and American Russian (the variety of Russian spoken by second-generation Russianspeaking immigrants in the U.S.) lead Pereltsvaig (2002) to claim that American Russian encodes lexical aspect, rather than grammatical aspect. She follows Travis (2000) in assuming a syntactic structure where there are two functional projections: InnerAspP to encode lexical aspect – located between the two VPshells –, and OuterAspP, to encode grammatical aspect, located outside the VP-shells in the I-I-domain. Pereltsvaig argues that in Standard Russian, aspectual morphology is associated with OuterAspo , whereas in American Russian it is associated with InnerAspo . Past/nonpast tense morphology is in To in both Standard and American Russian. She furthermore assumes that vP encodes agentivity/transitivity instead of lexical aspect (contra e.g., Piñon 1993; Verkuyl 1999; Slabakova 2001). The analysis is based on 150 verb forms extracted from a corpus (field work of Maria Polinsky, University of California at San Diego) representing the Russian spoken by English L2 dominant speakers for whom Russian is the first but clearly secondary language that they use rarely, and in which they are illiterate. It appears that the American Russian aspectual system does not mark a clear preference for either the perfective or the imperfective aspect, and most predicates are always used in the same aspectual form, leading Pereltsvaig to conclude that in American Russian, “aspectual marking encodes a lexical semantic property of the verb” (p. 7). She further observes that “American Russian should be characterized as lacking syntactic agreement altogether; in other words, American Russian speakers cannot do either subject-verb or DP-internal agreement through feature-checking or feature-matching” (p. 15). Thus, with respect to functional projections, lexical aspect is marked by aspectual morphology but grammatical aspect is not marked at all (i.e., OuterAspP is missing) whereas tense is marked correctly, but


subject-verb agreement is not. Pereltsvaig rejects the possibility of L2 transfer because it makes two predictions which are not borne out: Imperfective morphology is not used similarly to English -ing, and perfective morphology does not mirror English perfect aspect. The loss of uninterpretable features is accounted for by L1 attrition, defined as incomplete L1 acquisition, because these speakers become English-dominant before puberty, and do not benefit from exposure to Standard Russian. The following points emerge from this review of the literature (which is also summarized in Appendix B). First, when comparing the results obtained by studies conducted with learners in formal settings with the results of studies that tested learners in naturalistic settings (i.e., the ESF studies), it appears that instructed learners have an advantage over non-instructed learners. The only L2 learners in a non-instructed setting who appeared to have acquired the aspectual distinctions between passé composé and imparfait were those studied by Schlyter (1990). Naturalistic learners generally fail to grammaticalize past tense reference. However, instructed learners may be handicapped by the lack of exposure to natural input, as exemplified by their inability to coerce (Montrul & Slabakova 2002). Studies that investigated instructed L2 learners from intermediate to advanced stages of proficiency concluded that a developmental trend was noticeable, and that these learners were eventually successful in their acquisition of the tense/aspect systems of their respective L2s (i.e., Spanish and/or English). Finally, the studies that focused on near-native speakers generally concluded that near-native competence was attainable (e.g., Montrul & Slabakova 2003). However, these studies also stressed the fact that tense and aspect is a sensitive domain of L2 language acquisition that may be subjected to a critical period hypothesis, be it for bilingual speakers of heritage languages like Spanish (Montrul 2002), or for English-American Russian bilingual speakers who become dominant in English before puberty, and are not exposed to Standard Russian (Pereltsvaig 2002).

. Learnability issues I will assume that the morphological richness of the French verbal inflectional endings outlined above functions as a trigger for the L2 acquisition of the strength of the functional categories, because it is salient and widely available in the input. Moreover, verbal paradigms are strongly emphasized in foreign lan-

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guage classes, in which they are typically consistently practiced with numerous written and oral exercises. However, instructed L2 learners of French face a number of difficulties in their acquisition of the tense/aspect system. First, they are likely to be confused by the diversity of verbal inflectional endings. The mapping of the functional categories onto the appropriate morphology is complicated by the large number of endings for each verb (Terrell 1986), to which are added phonological difficulties, because the IMP endings sound very similar to other forms (Harley 1986). Instructed learners in formal academic settings may also be disadvantaged by the textbooks which are typically available to them. Aspectual distinctions appear to be rarely mentioned in traditional foreign language textbooks, which often contain inaccurate, confusing, and inadequate explanations based on semantic distinctions, as opposed to the relevant aspectual distinctions (Abrate 1983; Dansereau 1987). The absence of explanations based on aspectual distinctions in textbooks is due, in part, to their inherent complexity. As Blyth (1997: 54) noted: Inherent lexical aspect and grammatical aspect are often distinguished poorly in textbooks because they exhibit a strong correlation in actual usage – inherently punctual verbs are most frequently encoded in perfective aspect and inherently stative verbs are more frequently encoded in imperfective aspect.

Textbooks also often fail to stress that although French displays a straight correspondence between its tenses and aspects, English does not. For instance, the simple past can encompass both the perfective and imperfective aspects (Andrews 1992). The poor treatment of aspectual complexity in textbooks is compounded by inadequate pedagogical approaches (Blyth 1997). For instance, although the passé composé is typically introduced relatively early on in instructed settings (that is, by the end of the first semester), the introduction of the imparfait is usually delayed until the second semester. Consequently, students may wrongly and prematurely assume that the passé composé is a default past tense and use it as such, until they are exposed to both past tense markings, and start to learn to choose the appropriate one given a specific context and its aspectual value. The functional category AspP exists in English but L2 learners will have to acquire the French [–perfective] feature. Based on current findings, it is unclear whether adult L2 learners can acquire new functional categories or functional categories existing in the L1 but with different features in the L2. The current literature offers diametrically opposed views on the L2 acquisition of functional categories. At one end of the spectrum is the view that L2 learn-


ers cannot acquire functional features at all because adult L2 acquisition is not constrained by Universal Grammar (e.g., Meisel 1999, 2000). Then there is an intermediary position that contends that the acquisition of L2 functional categories and features is either limited to the features already available in the L1 (e.g., Hawkins & Chan’s 1997 Failed Feature Hypothesis), or impaired because the features remain “valueless” or “inert” (e.g., Beck 1998). Thus, Tsimpli and Roussou (1991), and Smith and Tsimpli (1995) argue that functional categories are part of a sub-module of Universal Grammar that is subjected to a critical period, preventing the representation of functional categories in the L2 when they are not already present in the L1. This position is reminiscent of the No Access/Partial Access hypotheses proposed earlier for L2 acquisition in general (e.g., Clahsen & Muysken 1986). It is also suggested that the problem may be limited to feature strength. Thus, Hawkins (1998) contends that English-speaking learners of French cannot access the gender feature, and Schell (2000) proposes that although feature strengths are initially unset, learners end up by mastering the lexical aspect of most verbs by the advanced stages, after the feature values at the Inner Aspect Phrase have been specified. At the other end of the spectrum is the position that allows for the acquisition of functional categories and their features in the L2 such as the Full Access Hypothesis (e.g., Epstein, Flynn, & Martohardjono 1996; Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996). The disagreement lies in the initial representation of the functional categories, that is, whether they are present from the very beginning, or whether they develop later. Generally, child L2 acquisition research suggests that functional categories are present and operative from the very beginning. For instance, Lakshmanan and Selinker (1994) contend that the Complementizer and the Complementizer Phrase are evidenced in child L2 grammars of English very early on, while the analysis of a three-year corpus lead Grondin and White (1993) to claim that determiners, Infl, and CP are present in the very early utterances of an English-speaking child acquiring French as an L2. Haznedar (2003) claims that the development of CP does not depend on the prior development of IP in child L2 grammar of English, and explains the lack of morphological forms as a problem with the realization of surface morphology, rather than as an impairment in the domain of functional categories. For others, functional categories are initially absent in interlanguage grammars, and gradually develop in discrete stages on the basis of input. For instance, the Minimal Tree Hypothesis proposed by Vainikka and YoungScholten (1994, 1996a, 1996b, 1998) states that only lexical categories are



 Dalila Ayoun

available to adult L2 learners from the beginning, and that they project the relevant functional categories progressively, starting with a bare-VP stage. Eubank’s Weak Transfer / Valueless Features (1993/1994, 1996) Hypothesis, based on L2 German, is similar to the Minimal Trees Hypothesis in that there is partial transfer from the L1 and that the L2 initial state is incomplete. Although both lexical and functional categories may transfer, feature values such as the strength value of agreement which determines the presence of overt verb movement do not. However Eubank’s Hypothesis predicts an optionality of verb raising that has not been supported by empirical research (e.g., Ayoun 2003, forthcoming 2005; Dube 2000; Kawamoto 2000). An alternative approach, the Missing Surface Inflection hypothesis, (Haznedar & Schwartz 1997; Lardiere 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Prévost & White 2000; Haznedar 2001), assumes that abstract functional categories and features are present in L2 grammars, but that the difficulty lies in mapping the abstract features to their morpho-phonological forms on surface morphology. A study by Duffield, White, Bruhn de Garavito, Montrul and Prévost (2002) also challenges impairment hypotheses with empirical evidence from Spanish-speaking and English-speaking L2 learners of French. The Spanish native speakers’ grammar has clitic projection, while the English native speakers’ grammar does not. The results of a sentence matching task indicated that L2 learners can indeed acquire clitic projections which are not present in their L1, as well as reset feature values from weak to strong. Following others (e.g., Duffield et al. 2003; Montrul & Slabakova 2002; Schwartz & Sprouse 1994), I will assume that L2 grammars are constrained by Universal Grammar, and that consequently, functional categories and features are in principle acquirable. I will thus assume that adult L2 learners can acquire functional categories which are not present in their L1, and can set features values to the appropriate L2 strength. I will further assume that the difficulties the L2 learners may encounter lie in the mapping of the abstract features to the appropriate L2 surface morphology, as proposed above, and in processing difficulties, rather than in a lack of access to Universal Grammar. To summarize, the task of the English-speaking learners of French is to acquire: (a) The strong features of functional categories; (b) The perfectiveimperfective aspectual distinction expressed by a complex morpho-syntax (i.e., the inflectional paradigms for passé composé and imparfait); (c) The appropriate mapping of the formal feature [+perfective] with passé composé morphology, and the feature [–perfective] with imparfait morphology; (d) The three aspectual values conveyed by the imparfait (imperfective, durative, iterative); (e) The lexical idiom être en train de to convey the progressive.


Based on the results of previous studies reviewed above, the study presented below was designed to address the following predictions regarding learners of L2 French: (1) They will be successful in acquiring the semantic properties of the functional category AspP; (2) They will be successful in acquiring target-like use of inflectional morphology; (3) They will be successful in acquiring the appropriate feature strength of AspP. These predictions will thus test for semantic (albeit only indirectly), morphological and syntactic knowledge, respectively.

. The study . Participants Two groups of participants were recruited for this cross-sectional study: English-speaking learners of French as a foreign language in an instructed setting at a major North-American university, and French native speakers living in the United States at the time of the data collection. . Procedure The L2 language learners came to a language laboratory once a week for three weeks in a row to participate in three consecutive sessions. During the first session, they were administered a pre-test composed of two written computerized tasks as an independent measure of their proficiency level in French: A scalar grammaticality judgment task, and a preference/grammaticality judgment task. These tasks tested a variety of structures (e.g., tense/aspect encoding, verb movement phenomena, agreement). For the second and third sessions, the participants were asked to perform two tasks: A personal narrative and a cloze test. The second session tested past tense morphology, while the third session focused on future tense morphology. Only the results of the first and second sessions will be reported here. All tasks were written, computerized, and available online through a web browser. Participants sat in front of individual computers. They were not constrained by time, but they averaged 38 minutes per session, and no one took more than 50 minutes to complete a session. The data they entered was saved on a folder on a web-server to be downloaded and analyzed later. Online data collection offers several methodological advantages as listed in Ayoun (2000: 77):



 Dalila Ayoun

– – – – – –

it eliminates or minimizes human error in collecting and recording the data; it facilitates the organization and analysis of data; it avoids missing data since the tasks may be designed to require the participants to enter a response; it ensures that all participants are exposed to the stimuli and/or the treatment in the same way (Hulstijn 1997); it permits the accuracy of timed experiments; and it allows for a better control of experimental variables in general. The data are then more likely to better inform SLA processes.

For instance, the cloze task was designed in such a way that a response was required for each text field corresponding to a predicate, thus avoiding the pitfall of incomplete data. . Results of the pre-test The L2 learners were assigned to one of three proficiency levels based on the scores they obtained on the two tasks of the pre-test: The IntermediateMid group, the Intermediate-High group, or the Advanced group. A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant difference between the L2 groups on the pre-test, as displayed in Table 4. The means and the standard deviations obtained on the pre-test scores are presented in Table 5. These means indicate that the L2 learners were at significantly different levels of proficiency at the onset of the data collection. We will thus be able to Table 4. ANOVA on pre-test scores

Between groups Within groups Total

SS

df

MS

F

Significance

4053.475 618.440 4671.915

2 34 36

2026.738 18.189

111.424

.000

Table 5. Pre-test scores’ means and SDs Group

mean

n

SD

Advanced Intermediate-High Intermediate-Mid

77.93 65.43 52.37

11 12 14

6.462 2.858 2.920

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 

observe how a tense/aspectual system is represented at different stages of the learners’ interlanguage. . Results of the personal narratives The participants were asked to write a personal narrative on a topic of their choice. They were instructed to think about something of personal significance such as a birthday celebration, a vacation, or a personal achievement. We hoped that allowing them to select a topic with personal significance would lead to longer and more inspired texts. The participants were not timed. They were instructed to use at least 10 different predicates and 4 different adverbs. The participants generally chose to write about a birthday, a short trip, or a more lengthy stay in a French-speaking country, a childhood memory, a vacation, a friendship or love story, a significant event in the past such as being accepted into a school or discovering an aptitude for sports. There were a total of 14 different topics. The most popular were a childhood memory (n = 10), a stay (n = 10), a vacation (n = 9) or a trip (n = 9). As displayed in Table 6, there is a wide range in the length of the personal narratives as measured by the total number of words in the first row of the table, for the L2 learner groups as expected, but also for the NS group. As could be

Table 6. Overall production in personal narratives Group

NS (n = 14)

Advanced (n = 11)

Intermediate-High Intermediate-Mid (n = 12) (n = 14)

Average # Words Range Average # Sentences Range Average # Verb Tokens Range Average # Verb Types Range Type/Token Ratio Average Total # Overall Errors

170.78 91–344 9.14 5–18 19.78 12–36 16.21 9–29 .83 .69–1.0 9 0–5 (n = 3–21%) 10 3

140.18 101–277 10.09 5–15 19.72 10–39 13.27 6–21 .71 .52–.87 22 0–6 (n = 6–55%) 10 18

157.41 70–282 11.41 4–17 21.25 10–36 13.83 8–21 .67 .52–.84 87 2–15 (n = 12–100%) 9 21

Total # Tenses Total # Tenses Errors

97.28 58–160 7.57 5–12 13.64 8–23 10.57 7–16 .79 .50–1.0 66 0–16 (n = 13–93%) 7 28

 Dalila Ayoun

expected, the participants’ production decreased with their level of proficiency: NSs wrote the most, while the Intermediate-Mid group wrote the least. The same wide range can be observed in the number of sentences as displayed in the second row of Table 6, but there does not seem to be a correlation between the number of sentences produced and the level of proficiency of the participants, even if on average the Intermediate-Mid group was the least productive. All groups, including the NS group, turned out to have participants who produced very few sentences (only 5), and other participants who were much more prolific (up to 17 sentences in the Intermediate-High group, for instance). The NSs, the Advanced group and the Intermediate-high group are very close in the average number of verb tokens they used (19.78, 19.72, and 21.25, respectively), whereas the Intermediate-Mid group averaged fewer tokens (13.64), and fewer verb types (from 7 to 16), in comparison with the other L2 learner groups and the NS group. Table 7 illustrates the variety of morphological forms used by all groups, NSs and L2 learners alike. The first column lists the morphological form, e.g., passé composé or imparfait; ‘error’ indicates the number of errors made, if any, for each of the morphological forms. Thus, the Intermediate-High group produced 110 tokens encoded at the passé composé, and 15 of these tokens were erroneously used by 8 out of the 12 participants. The Intermediate-Mid group produced a similar number of tokens, and made a similar number of errors. The overwhelming majority of errors were made with the passé composé, while virtually no errors were made with the other past or present forms. This indicates a tendency on the part of the L2 learners to over-rely on the passé composé as the morphological marker for past tense. They tend to use the passé composé instead of the imparfait, probably presumably because they do not yet master the semantic subtleties of the latter form (as found in Ayoun 2004). The variety of tenses used by the participants is also illustrated by Figure 3. Figure 3 clearly shows that all groups used mostly the passé composé and the imparfait. Very few L2 learners use the plus-que-parfait as a third past tense form known for emerging later in learners’ interlanguage (Bardovi-Harlig 2000). It is used 26 times by most of the NSs (n = 10), the Advanced group produced only 5 error-free tokens, learners in the Intermediate group produced 6 predicates corrected encoded at the plus-que-parfait, whereas only 3 L2 learners in the Intermediate-Mid group produced 3 correct forms. None of the L2 learner groups used the passé simple, whereas 3 NSs produced a total of 11 tokens, which amounts to only 4% of the total number of tokens produced.

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 

Table 7. Tenses used in personal narratives Tenses/Groups

NS (n = 14)

Advanced (n = 11)

Intermediate-High (n = 12)

Intermediate-Mid (n = 14)

PC Error

80 (n = 11) 3 (n = 1)

88 (n = 11) 8 (n = 6)

110 (n = 12) 15 (n = 8)

113 (n = 14) 16 (n = 7)

IMP Error

100 (n =14) 0

82 (n = 11) 2 (n = 2)

93 (n = 12) 2 (n = 2)

47 (n = 14) 2 (n = 2)

PQP Error

26 (n = 10) 0

5 (n = 4) 0

9 (n = 6) 3 (n = 2)

4 (n = 3) 1 (n = 1)

PS Error

11 (n = 3) 0

0

0

0

CondPast Error

2 (n = 2) 0

2 (n = 2) 1 (n = 1)

0

0

PastProg

0

1 (n = 1) 0

0

0

PastPass Error

3 (n = 3) 0

1 (n = 1) 0

2 (n = 1) 0

1 (n = 1) 0

Present Error

31 (n = 9) 0

19 (n =5) 0

32 (n = 11) 7 (n = 4)

18 (n = 7) 2 (n = 2)

SubjPres Error

4 (n = 4) 0

6 (n = 2) 0

1 (n = 1) 0

0

Futur Error

4 (n = 3) 0

0

1 (n = 1) 0

1 (n = 1) 0

CondPres Error

7 (n = 3) 0

5 (n = 2) 2 (n = 1)

1 (n = 1) 1 (n = 1)

5 (n = 4) 0

Imperative Error

2 (n = 1) 0

0

1 (n = 1) 0

0

Infinitive

0

0

2 (n = 1)

0

The present is the most often used non-past morphological form for all groups alike. Its use is error-free by the Advanced group (5 learners produced 19 tokens); 4 learners produced 7 errors out of 32 tokens used by 11 learners in the Intermediate-High group; and 2 learners are responsible for 2 erroneously present encoded forms out of 18 tokens produced by 7 learners in the Intermediate-Mid group. A notable finding is that only one participant (from the Intermediate-High group) produced two predicates in the infinitive form. All the other verbal forms were inflected for tense, with a relatively low number of errors compared with the total number of tokens produced.

 Dalila Ayoun

Int-Mid

CondPres Pres PQP IMP PC

Int-High

Advanced

NS 0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Figure 3. Tenses most frequently used in personal narratives

The participants were also asked to use at least four different adverbs. The quantitative results presented in Table 8 indicate the following. The Intermediate-Mid group used very few time adverbs, relying instead on their tense/aspect system, and on temporal expressions such as quand j’étais petit(e) ‘when I was young’, il y a trois ans ‘three years ago’, l’été dernier ‘last summer’, il y a quelques années ‘a few years ago’. The Intermediate-High group used many more adverbs (almost as many as the NS group), but again they are overwhelmingly manner adverbs. The Advanced group has a much more equal distribution of time and manner adverbs, although they produced fewer adverbs than the Intermediate-High group. And the NS group produced a slightly greater number of time adverbs than manner adverbs. Almost all the participants produced adverbs in all groups, with the exception of the lowest level of proficiency, the Intermediate-Mid group (only 8 out of 14 participants used adverbs). Table 8. Adverbs used in personal narratives

Intermediate-Mid Intermediate-High Advanced NSs

Manner adverbs

Time adverbs

Total

N

15 49 20 27

3 7 17 31

18 56 37 58

8–57.5% 11–91.7% 11–100% 13–92.8%

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 

Table 9. States and activities used in personal narratives Narratives Tokens NSs 279 tokens 224 types

Advanced 216 tokens 163 types

Int-High 256 tokens 168 types

Int-Mid 191 tokens 146 types

States Percentage

IMP Pres PC PQP

129 71 30 15 4 3 3 91 61 15 7 (*2) 3 (*1) 3 2 125 75 (1*) 31 (4*) 15 (5*) 3

46.2% 55.0% 30.0% 11.6% 3.1% 2.3% 2.3% 42.1% 67.0% 16.5% 7.7% 3.3% 3.3% 2.2% 48.8% 60.0% 24.8% 12.0% 2.4%

IMP Pres PC CondPres

83 44 (*2) 17 16 (*6) 3

43.5% 53.0% 20.0% 19.3% 3.6%

IMP Pres PC PS CondPres Fut IMP Pres PC PQP SubjPres CondPass

Activities Tokens Percentage IMP Pres PQP PS PC SubjPres PC IMP Pres SubjPres Cond Pres PastProg PC IMP Pres PQP SubjPres Infinitive PC IMP PQP

62 27 18 7 3 2 2 48 25 (*2) 16 (*1) 3 1 1 1 48 23 (*1) 17 (*1) 2 (*1) *2 2 *2 59 52 (*7) 3 2 (*1)

22.2% 43.5% 29.0% 11.29% 4.8% 3.2% 3.2% 22.2% 52.1% 33.3% 6.25% 2.1% 2.1% 2.1% 18.7% 47.9% 35.4% 4.2% 4.2% 4.2% 4.2% 30.9% 88.1% 5.1% 3.4%

The total number of verb tokens produced by the three L2 groups and the NS group were broken down by aspectual classes. The first column displays how many tokens and types each group produced overall. Thus, we can see that for instance the NS group produced the greatest number of tokens, followed by the Intermediate-High group (279 and 256, respectively), but the type/token ratio is higher for the former group than the latter (.802 vs. .656). The Advanced group and the Intermediate-Mid group have quasi-identical type/token ratios (.754 and .764, respectively), although the latter group produced fewer tokens (191 vs. 216). Then, within each column for the aspectual classes, the first line for each group indicates how many tokens were produced for that aspectual class. It also gives the percentage that the number of tokens produced in this aspectual

 Dalila Ayoun

Table 10. Accomplishments and achievements used in personal narratives Narratives NSs 279 tokens 224 types

Advanced 216 tokens 163 types

Int-High 256 tokens 168 types

Int-Mid 191 tokens 146 types

Accomplishments Tokens Percentage

PC Pres PQP

35 12 9 5 3 2 2 34 27 (*2) 2 1 1 1 1 1 35 30 3 (*1) 2 (*1)

12.5% 34.3% 25.7% 14.28% 8.57% 5.71% 5.7% 15.7% 79.4% 5.8% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% 13.7% 78.9% 7.9% 5.3%

PC

18 18 (*2)

9.4% 100%

PC PQP IMP Pres PS PastPass PC IMP PQP Pres SubjPres CondPass PastPass

Achievements Tokens Percentage PC PQP PS CondPres IMP

53 34 6 5 3 2

18.9% 64.2% 11.3% 9.4% 5.6% 3.7%

PC IMP Pres SubjPres CondPres SubjPass

43 28 (*3) 4 (*1) 4 2 2 1

19.9% 65.1% 9.3% 9.3% 4.6% 4.6% 2.3%

48 38 (*4) 5 (*2) 1 *1 1 1 1 31 28 (*1) 1 1 1

18.7% 79.2% 10.4% 2.1% 2.1% 2.1% 2.1% 2.1% 16.2% 90.3% 3.2% 3.2% 3.2%

PC PQP IMP Pres Fut PastPass Imp PC CondPres Fut PQP

class represents. Thus, for the Advanced group for example, the states represent 42.1% of the total number of tokens produced. The majority of tokens produced by all groups were states (from 42.1% for the Advanced group to 48.8% for the Intermediate-High group). Accomplishments represent the smallest percentage of all the tokens produced (from 9.4% for the Intermediate-Mid group to 15.7% for the Advanced group). Activities and achievements represent about the same percentage of tokens produced (from 18.7% to 22.2%) for all the groups with the exception of the Intermediate-Mid group, the lowest level of proficiency, who produces a higher percentage of activities with 30.9% than the other groups who average only 21.0%.

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 

100 80 achievements accomplishments activities states

60 40 20 0 NSs

Advanced

Int-High

Int-Mid

Figure 4. Aspectual class distribution in narratives

Thus, as also illustrated by Figure 4, the NS group and the L2 learner groups are very similar in their distribution of states, activities, accomplishments and achievements among the tokens produced in the personal narratives. The only notable exception to the trend that favors the states than the activities and achievements followed by the accomplishments, comes from the Intermediate-Mid group who produced a significantly greater number of activities than the other groups. There are notable differences in the number of morphological markings used by the various groups: The lower the level of proficiency, the fewer morphological markings are being used, particularly for the accomplishments. Another notable finding is the low number of errors in morphological encoding indicated by an asterix in Tables 8 and 10: The number in parenthesis with an asterix indicates how many tokens of the total number of tokens produced were incorrectly encoded. Thus, out of 7 states encoded at the PC for the Advanced group, 2 were wrong. As expected, there are no errors of encoding for the NS group. The Advanced group produced a total of 12 errors spread across the four aspectual classes, from 2 errors with accomplishments to 4 errors with achievements. The Intermediate-High group produced the most errors with a total of 26 inappropriate aspectual choices mostly with states (10), then activities and achievements (7 each). The same distribution can be observed with Intermediate-Mid group who made fewer errors, 19, almost exclusively with states and activities (8 errors in each aspectual class). However, these errors amount to a small percentage of the overall number of tokens produced: 5.5%,

 Dalila Ayoun

10.2% and 9.94% for the Advanced, Intermediate-High and Intermediate-Mid groups, respectively. The results for the personal narratives allow us also to see whether the L2 learners have adopted a strong value for Infl (i.e., the L2 setting of the verb movement parameter) – as evidenced by the appropriate placement of negation, adverb and pronominal inversion with respect to the verb – as well as whether they have adopted strong L2 features evidenced in proper word order (e.g., Noun Adjective), and inflectional endings. These elements are assumed to be a good indicator that L2 learners are using an L2 grammar with strong, as opposed to weak features as in their L1 (Ayoun 1999, 2003, forthcoming 2005). To this end, the data obtained from the personal narratives were encoded in CHAT format using the CED editor, and analyzed with CLAN (MacWhinney 1995). Not a single instance of non-targetlike negation placement was found, indicating that in the participants’ L2 French grammar lexical verbs raise to Infl to check and erase their strong features. All nouns, adjectives and past participles were appropriately inflected for tense, number and gender, with only a few occasional mistakes in gender agreement. Few adverbs were used, and they were almost always manner adverbs with scope over the entire sentence as opposed to verbal scope. The following sample sentences illustrate the participants’ production on the personal narratives from different participants: (18) Intermediate-Mid group a. Quand nous sommes arrivées. . . When we are arrived-fem-pl-perf ‘When we arrived.’ b. Elles ont voulu m’ aider. They-fem-pl have wanted-perf me to help ‘They wanted to help me.’ c. Elle m’ a dit très lentement. She to me has told-perf very slowly ‘She told me very slowly.’ d. J’ai facilement trouvé. . . I have easily found-perf ‘I found easily.’

The data in (18) illustrate proper morphological encoding, verbal inflection and agreement. In addition (18c) and (18d) show proper adverb placement.


(19) Intermediate-High group a. Je n’ai plus eu telle difficulté. I have no more had-perf such difficulty ‘I no longer had such difficulty.’ b. Nous n’avons rien trouvé. We have nothing found-perf ‘We did not find anything.’ c. Je me suis beaucoup amusée. I me am a lot entertained-fem-sg-perf ‘I had a lot of fun.’ d. Ma mère qui, tristement, n’était pas venu avec nous. My mother who sadly was not came-perf with us ‘My mother who, sadly, did not come with us.’

The data from the Intermediate-High group also demonstrate that these learners have acquired proper morphological encoding (including a nonprototypical use of the stative être in (19a), negation placement in (19a, b), and agreement, except for (19d) (venu instead of venue, to reflect feminine singular agreement). (20) Advanced group a. Mon ami ne nous a rien dit. my friend not to us has nothing told-perf ‘My friend did not tell us anything.’ b. . . . mais il ne m’entendait pas. . . . but he (not) me heard-imp not ‘. . . but he could not hear me.’ c. J’aimais beaucoup ma famille française. I liked-imp a lot my family French ‘I really liked my French family.’ d. Ma copine est venue m’ en parler. My girlfriend came-perf to me it talk ‘My girlfriend came to talk to me about it.’

Proper morphological encoding and inflectional ending along with correct negation placement are also evidenced in these sample data in (20) from the Advanced group. As mentioned above, the two past tenses used most often were the passé composé (as well as the passé simple for the NS group) and the imparfait, but they were spread differently across the four lexical classes as illustrated by Figures 5 and 6, respectively.





Dalila Ayoun 110 100 90 80 natives advanced int-high int-mid

70 60 50 40 30 20 states

activites

achieve

accomplish

Figure 5. Cloze task by lexical class

The passé composé was used the least often to encode states, and the most often to encode achievements across all four groups. The use for the other two classes, activities and accomplishments, varies quite a bit from group to group, particularly for the activities which are used extensively by the lowest group of proficiency, the Intermediate-Mid group, in stark contrast with the NS group. The next figure, Figure 6, presents some interesting contrasts as well. All groups clearly used the imparfait mostly with state predicates. The Advanced group is the only one to have encoded a significant number of achievements at the imparfait, and all groups, with the exception of the IntermediateMid group, produced a similar number of activities at the imparfait. To sum up, the results of the personal narratives revealed that the interlanguage of our L2 learners displays well-formed sentences with correct verb, negation and adverb placement. Verbs are inflected for tense, person and number with very high accuracy. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for gender and number with high accuracy as well. This indicates that the interlanguage of these L2 learners projects the appropriate functional categories associated with the appropriate strength. Moreover, predicates are encoded with a variety of past and present morphological forms with a very low rate of errors (e.g., 12.5% of the predicates encoded with the passé composé, and 2.7% of the predicates encoded with the imparfait). The aspectual class analysis showed that all groups produced a majority of states, then accomplishments (except for the Intermediate-Mid group who produced a greater number of activities

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 110 100 90 80

states activities achieve accomplish

70 60 50 40 30 Natives

Advanced

Int-High

Int-Mid

Figure 6. Cloze task by group and class

than accomplishments), followed by activities and achievements. This distribution applies to the NS group as well as the L2 groups. It is the morphological encoding within each aspectual class that differentiates the NS group from the L2 learner groups, and even the various levels of proficiency within the three L2 learner groups. The NS group used a wider variety of past and present morphological forms within the aspectual classes than the L2 learner groups. This will be further discussed below. . Results of the cloze task The participants were instructed to read the entire story before completing it by encoding the given base form of the predicates at the appropriate form as dictated by the context. The story was an adaptation of Snow White, a wellknown fairy tale, in order to facilitate the overall comprehension of the text, and to restrict it to familiar lexical items. Foreign language instructors checked the text for appropriateness. The 27 predicates of the cloze task target mostly the simple past and are distributed across the four lexical aspectual categories as follows: 8 states, 6 activities, 5 accomplishments, and 8 achievements. The token/type ratio for the predicate/aspectual class was 1.0, i.e., there were as many types as there were





Dalila Ayoun

tokens of each aspectual classes (e.g., there were 6 types of predicates exemplifying activities) with the exception of states. There were 7 types of states, because there were 2 tokens of ‘to be’. No attempt was made to balance the number of tokens for each aspectual category. Instead, preference was given to producing a natural text structure given the fictional story being told. Obligatory contexts (80% consistency or greater) were determined by the responses of French native speakers (n = 8) who served as a control group in an informal pilot study. The text structure required passé composé for 15 predicates (1 non-prototypical state, 3 activities, 7 achievements, and 4 accomplishments), imparfait for 8 predicates (7 states and 1 activity), plus-que-parfait for 4 predicates (2 activities, 1 achievement and 1 accomplishment). Moreover, the potential effect of adverbs was tested with four different manner adverbs on 1 state, 1 achievement and 2 accomplishment predicates. Again, the authenticity of the textual internal cohesion was deemed to be more important than a balanced number of tokens per lexical category. Two experienced raters were used to classify predicate tokens into the Vendler-type inherent aspectual classes as defined above. They worked independently, and were in agreement for 85% of the tokens. A third rater was used to resolve the remaining 15%. They used the operational test from Shirai (1991) which consists in three progressive steps: Step 1: Is it a state? Ask: Does V have a habitual interpretation in simple present? If No => V is a state If Yes => Go to Step 2 example: to love running (state) = to buy running clothes (non-state) Step 2: Is it an activity? Ask: Does “X is V-ing” imply “X has V-ed” without an iterative/habitual meaning? If Yes => V is an activity If No => Go to Step 3 example: to run (activity) = to run a marathon (non-activity) Step 3: Is it an accomplishment or an achievement? Ask: If “X V-ed in Y time”, then “X was V-ing during that time” If Yes => V is an Accomplishment If No => V is an Achievement example: I ran a marathon in three hours (accomplishment) = I entered a marathon (achievement)

The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French 80 70 60 50

states activities accomplish achievement

40 30 20 10 0 NS

Advanced

Int-High

Int-Mid

Figure 7. Imparfait use in narratives

The data were first analyzed to see whether the participants were on target. In other words, did they encode each item under each lexical class with the targeted morphological form? For instance, 8 of the 9 state tokens were expected to be encoded with the imparfait, while one was designed to be encoded with the non-prototypical form of the passé composé. Table 11 summarizes these results by group and lexical class for a quick overview (Appendix A presents the complete results). The raw scores were converted into percentages. The percentages displayed in Table 11 correspond to the accuracy with which the participants encoded the predicates as expected within each aspectual class. Thus, we can see that overall the L2 learners obtained the highest accuracy on achievement predicates, followed by accomplishments and states, while they had the most difficulties with the activity predicates. As also illustrated by Figure 7, there is a strong lexical class effect for all L2 learner groups. Table 11. Averages by lexical class and group

States Activities Achievements Accomplishments

NSs

Advanced group

Intermediate-High

Intermediate-Mid

99.11% 88.09% 96.42% 94.28%

78.40% 59.08% 89.78% 87.27%

66.67% 62.50% 76.04% 73.33%

58.03% 36.90% 78.57% 67.28%





Dalila Ayoun 60 50 40 states activities accomplish achieve

30 20 10 0 NS

Advanced

Int-High

Int-Mid

Figure 8. Passé composé use in narratives

The four groups pair up in terms of lexical class effect, as indicated by how parallel their respective lines are: Thus, Intermediate-High and Advanced groups constitute one group, whereas the Intermediate-Mid and the NS groups constitute another group. Moreover, as also illustrated by Figure 8, the proficiency level was not always a good predictor of performance. The NSs always outperform the L2 learners, and generally the performance decreases with the proficiency level, even if the developmental trend among the L2 learner groups is not as clear as could be expected. However, the scores for the NS group and the Advanced group are close (e.g., 94.28% and 87.27% on accomplishment predicates, respectively), except for the activity predicates (88.09% vs 59.08%, respectively), whereas the other L2 groups show greater variation in scores across lexical classes. For instance, the IntermediateHigh and the Intermediate-Mid groups are close on achievement predicates (76.04% and 78.54%, respectively), but very far apart on activity predicates (62.5% vs 36.9%). The raw means with the standard deviations, minimum and maximum scores, are also given in Table 12. To compare differences among the groups across the lexical classes, we ran mixed design repeated measures ANOVAs with Lexical Class as the withinsubject-variable, and Group as the between-subject-variable. The results are displayed in Table 13. Significant differences were found for; (a) Lexical Class across groups (F(3, 141) = 120.428, p < 0.0001); (b) The interaction of Lexical Class with Group


Table 12. Raw means, standard deviations on cloze task by lexical class and group

States (n = 8)

Group

N

Mean

SD

Minimum

Maximum

Intermediate-Mid Intermediate-High Advanced Natives

14 12 11 14 51

4.714 5.166 6.363 7.928 6.058

1.772 1.585 1.361 .2673 1.859

1 2 4 7

8 8 8 8


14 12 11 14 51

2.428 3.666 3.545 5.500 3.803

1.398 1.557 1.967 1.019 1.854

1 1 1 3

5 6 6 6


14 12 11 14 51

3.500 3.833 4.272 4.571 4.039

.6504 1.029 .4671 .5136 .7990

2 4 4 4

4 5 5 5


14 12 11 14 51

6.357 6.166 7.272 7.785 6.902

.9288 1.337 .6467 .8018 1.153

4 4 6 5

8 8 8 8

Total ACT (n = 6)

Total ACC (n = 5)

Total ACH (n = 8)

Total

Table 13. GLM (lexical class by group) on cloze task SS

df

MS

F

Sig.

Between Subjects Effect Group Error

150.322 122.188

3 47

50.107 2.600

19.274

).

Modèle: [Il pleuvait] >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> _______.__________________._____________________ [Il l’a regardée.] [La femme s’est fâchée.] Cette publicité se trouve sur le site web suivant: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/movs/ads/ nom d’utilisateur (username): frvideo mot de passe (password): ensemble *Remarquez: Vous devez taper le nom d’utilisateur et le mot de passe 2 fois. Finalement, cliquez sur renault.mov — A. La femme s’est fachée. — B. Il l’a regardée. — C. Elle a fermé la porte de la voiture violemment. — D. Il a baissé sa vitre. — E. Il pleuvait. — F. Il regardait dans l’eau. — G. Elle est montée dans la voiture.

Pedagogical implications 

— H. Elle a frappé sur la vitre (une vitre=window) — I. L’homme conduisait sa voiture et chantait. — J. Il est resté tout seul. — K. Elle a pris les clés de la voiture. — L. Un couple rentrait d’une soirée élégante. — M. Elle a trouvé une barrette dans la voiture. — N. Il est sorti de la voiture pour chercher ses clés. — O. Il y avait un cheveu blond dans la barrette. — P. Elle est sortie de la voiture furieuse. — Q. Elle a fait semblant (to pretend) de jeter (to throw) les clés dans la Seine. — R. C’était une nuit d’hiver. — S. Elle a rayé (rayer=to scratch ) la voiture avec la barrette. — T. Ils étaient très bien habillés. — U. Elle est partie toute seule avec la voiture. Exercice 4. Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé dans la publicité Fiat? (from Français Interactif, University of Texas copyright, http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/index. html) Regardez la publicité de Fiat. Ensuite, conjuguez les verbes donnés au passé composé ou à l’imparfait. Cette publicité se trouve au site web suivant: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/movs/ads/ nom d’utilisateur (username): frvideo mot de passe (password): ensemble *Remarquez: Vous devez taper le nom d’utilisateur et le mot de passe 2 fois. Finalement, cliquez sur fiat.mov 1. Il 2. Il y 3. La voiture 4. Ils 5. L’homme 6. Il 7. La femme 8. Il publicitaire. 9. Il 10. Il 11. Il 12. Sa femme 13. Elle 14. Il

(pleuvoir). (avoir) un couple dans une voiture. (être) rouge. (se disputer). (sortir) de la voiture. (ne pas parler) à sa femme. (être) triste. (a. marcher) sous la pluie, quand il (b. voir) une affiche (penser) à sa femme. (se dépêcher) pour la retrouver. (voir) la voiture. (être) dans un embouteillage (traffic jam). (être) surprise de le voir. (embrasser= to kiss) sa femme.

Exercice 5. Le week-end pluvieux d’Emilie (from Français Interactif, University of Texas copyright, http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/index.html)

 Carl Blyth

Ecoutez le récit. Votre professeur va lire l’histoire 2 fois. Ensuite récrivez l’histoire avec un partenaire. [Teacher’s script.] “Samedi après-midi, ma mère et moi, nous voulions aller faire une promenade et peut-être aussi faire les boutiques mais il a commencé à pleuvoir. Comme il y avait heureusement de bonnes émissions à la télé, ma mère et moi, nous sommes restées à la maison et nous avons regardé la télé. Samedi soir, nous ne sommes pas sorties parce qu’il pleuvait toujours et qu’il faisait vraiment mauvais temps. Nous avons préparé un bon dîner à la maison. Dimanche, le temps était toujours pluvieux. Le matin, je suis allée à la salle de sports pour faire un peu d’exercise. Ensuite, je suis rentrée déjeuner avec ma famille et l’après-midi, j’ai fait mes devoirs pour la fac.” Exercice 6. L’événement le plus heureux de votre vie Ecrivez un bon récit avec au moins 15 verbes différents au passé composé et à l’imparfait. (Quel âge aviez-vous? C’était où? Qu’est-ce qui vous est arrivé? Qu’est-ce que vous avez fait ensuite? Pourquoi? Etc.)

Chapter 7

Towards a comprehensive model of the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect in the Romance languages Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry University of Arizona / Rice University

In this chapter, we summarize and discuss the findings presented in the chapters that comprise this volume with the intention of elaborating a more comprehensive model of the development of tense-aspect marking in the Romance languages (restricted to data from Catalan, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian). The first section will briefly review the tense/aspect differences between English, the first language of most of our learners, and the five Romance languages listed above. In the second section we summarize and critically discuss the empirical findings presented in this volume and we bring to bear on the discussion previous empirical findings when they confirm, or especially, when they contradict the findings described in the previous chapters. In the third section of this chapter we describe how the different theoretical hypotheses proposed to account for the development of tense and aspect in the Romance languages can be viewed as complementary rather than exclusionary. Finally, as a follow-up to Blyth’s chapter in this volume, we discuss whether there are specific learnability conditions that affect the sequence or rate of development of tense-aspect marking in the Romance languages.

.

Tense/aspect differences and learnability implications

All Romance languages display rich inflectional morphology, not only on the main verbs, but also on auxiliaries and lexical verbs as well as gender and number agreement on past participles. In contrast, English is considered to be morphologically poor. It is often argued that English-speaking L2 learners of a

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

Table 1. Summary of aspectual distinctions in English vs. Romance languages

Periphrastic Preterite Simple Preterite Imperfect Imperfect progresive

Catalan

Italian

French

Portuguese

Spanish

English

Romance language will have difficulties in the mapping of surface morphology because of their number, complexity and redundancy. Before addressing learnability issues though, we will briefly contrast the way the Romance languages mark past tense aspectual contrasts. As shown on Table 1, the Romance verbal systems present more similarities than differences, particularly when compared to the verbal system of English. Interestingly, even though the perfective forms in the Romance languages are fairly equivalent to perfective forms in English, it is in the perfective rather than the imperfective forms that the Romance languages exhibit most formal differences among them. For instance, Catalan has two preterite paradigms: A simple preterite and a periphrastic preterite. Both past tense paradigms in Catalan have clear stylistic and dialectal specifications, and the notion of temporal distance is an important consideration (see Comajoan this volume). In contrast, Italian has two perfective periphrastic forms, the passato prossimo (with specific rules governing the auxiliary selection of avere vs essere) and the passato remoto, used in written narratives and in the spoken register of the central and southern dialects (see Rocca, this volume). Similar to Italian, but not entirely, French has a periphrastic past tense (passé composé) used in all spoken dialects of French and a synthetic perfective past tense (passé simple) that is restricted to written contexts, mostly formal ones, or narratives in general. Although perfective past forms are available in Portuguese and Spanish, the synthetic form of the past perfective is standard in most registers and varieties as the preterite is in English. Contrast this situation with the case described above for Catalan, French and Italian, in which the periphrastic form of the past perfective is the standard form. Note too that this periphrastic form in the Romance languages is similar in surface morphology to the English present perfect but while the former is perfective, the latter is imperfective, and carries into the present contrary to the Romance perfective forms. As for the imperfective forms in the Romance languages, they are always synthetic, and they always convey several aspectual contrasts, particularly habituality (as is done with the past progres-

Towards a comprehensive model 

sive in English, although not applied systematically to all verbs), progressivity and iterativity (and even non-aspectual meanings such as genericity). As discussed in the previous chapters, the main aspectual distinction in Romance languages is represented by the perfective-imperfective contrast, whereas a similar aspectual contrast in English exists in the perfectiveprogressive opposition. The progressive is grammaticalized only in Spanish and Portuguese; it is expressed with a lexical idiom in French and conveyed by one of the semantic values of the imperfect in Italian and Catalan. The fact that the imperfective is not grammaticalized through inflectional morphology in English creates certain learnability difficulties for English-speaking L2 learners of Romance languages. That is, L1 English learners not only have to move from a perfective-progressive aspectual system to a perfective-imperfective aspectual system, but they also have to acquire multiple and subtle semantic values for the imperfect (e.g., habituality, progressivity). This learning objective is worthy of substantive research because it is informative about various areas of second language acquisition. For one thing, it is generally agreed that the conceptualization and use of tense-aspect information spans various levels of linguistic analysis including lexical, semantic, discursive and pragmatic information. In other words, the learning of tense-aspect marking provides an all encompassing object of study that should be accounted for by the various specialized branches of linguistics. More importantly, the above-mentioned theoretical significance has not gone unnoticed to language acquisition theorists who have proposed a number of hypotheses that could account for the development of tense-aspect marking. Some of these hypotheses belong to rather distinct theoretical frameworks that make it difficult for researchers to decide which theoretical account better explains any given body of empirical evidence. An interesting research case is the one of L1 English speakers who are learning a third, fourth or nth Romance language. The majority of the chapters in this volume focus on the learning of a Romance language subsequent or concurrent with the learning of another Romance language. Comajoan analyzes data of Catalan among learners who speak several other languages, mostly Romance languages. Rocca analyzes data from children learning L3 Italian in a natural setting in addition to L2 French in an academic setting. Salaberry analyzes data from adults already proficient in Spanish who are learning Portuguese as an L3 in an academic setting.

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

Table 2. Summary of empirical studies Chapter 2 L1 L2

English French, Italian or Romanian L3 Catalan TL tested Catalan Participants Young adults (n = 3)

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

English French

English French

English Spanish

none Italian French Italian Young adults Children (n= 3) (n = 37); 3 groups of proficiency; NS controls (n = 14)

Portuguese Portuguese Young adults (n = 70); two groups of proficiency; NS controls (n = 16) Type of Semi-longitudinal Cross-sectional, Semi-longitudinal Cross-sectional, data case studies developmental case studies developmental Setting Instructed Instructed Naturalistic Instructed Framework Discourse and lexical UG/Minimalism Discourse and Lexical aspect aspect hypotheses syntactic, lexical lexical aspect aspect hypotheses Tasks Video narratives, Computerized Free production Verb-selection storybook narratives, personal task, guided retell task based on folktale narrative, cloze of cartoon, cloze cartoon narrative test test Findings Perfective before Greater Activities in Significant effect imperfective morphological compound past for verb type; marking; and syntactic in foregrounding, scores for telic imperfective knowledge than and imperfect for events differ from marking primarily semantic; varying backgrounding; states and atelic associated narrative mastery across imperfect used events background and the four lexical more with perfective marking classes activities than mostly used in with states narrative foreground

. Summary of empirical findings from this volume In this section we review in more detail the new empirical evidence about tense-aspect acquisition presented in this volume with an eye towards the elaboration of a comprehensive theoretical model. For that purpose we present a detailed critical review of the findings given that there are substantial differences in research design that do not allow us to gather quick generalizations. For ease of exposition, the methodology and findings of the empirical studies reported in the chapters of this volume are summarized in Table 2.

Towards a comprehensive model 

Table 2 shows that three studies used young adult participants (Chapters 2, 3 and 5); the Catalan and Italian chapters presented semi-longitudinal case studies, whereas the French and Spanish/Portuguese chapters described crosssectional developmental data. Different types of narratives, from free to guided and based on personal experience or videos/cartoons, and verb selection task or cloze task, were used to elicit data. . Chapter 2: L3 Catalan Comajoan investigated the acquisition of L3 Catalan past morphology within the framework of the discourse hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig 1994), thus contributing to a relatively small but growing area of research in Romance languages (e.g., Bronckart & Bourdin 1993 explored the relationship between verbal morphology, type of text and grounding in Catalan, French and Italian, as well as in non-Romance languages). More specifically, Comajoan examined how beginning L3 learners of Catalan use past tense morphology in marking foreground and background in narratives in an instructed setting. Comajoan obtained longitudinal data over a period of 7 months. When data collection started the learners had already completed 16 classroom sessions during one academic semester. Even tough preterite and imperfect had been present in the input, these forms had not yet been explicitly taught. Instruction of past morphology started during the second semester. Video narratives and storybook narratives were used to elicit oral developmental data. Although there was some individual variation, as expected with a small number of participants, results generally suggested that perfective morphology emerges before imperfective morphology, with imperfective morphology being primarily associated with the background of a narrative, whereas perfective morphology was mostly used in the foreground of a narrative. However, as pointed out by Comajoan, it is not easy to tease out the effect of discourse grounding on morphology and vice-versa. Comajoan’s chapter, emphasized the role of discourse in the acquisition of past morphology, and provides additional empirical evidence to analyze in further detail the effect of factors above the sentence level on the selection and use of past tense verbal morphology. . Chapter 3: L2 French Ayoun adopted a minimalist perspective in which aspect is represented by the functional category AspP. Two computerized elicitation tasks (a personal narrative and a 27-item cloze test) were administered to English-speaking L2

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

learners of French and to French native speakers who served as controls. The learners were classified into three groups of proficiency according to the results of two pre-test tasks. Ayoun’s data show that the L2 learners were successful in acquiring target-like use of inflectional morphology given the productive use of perfective and non-perfective morphology in the personal narratives. Ayoun, however, argued that her L2 learners of French were not successful in acquiring the semantic properties of AspP, as evidenced by the results of the cloze task, although the data from the personal narrative may indicate that this failure could be restricted to the INT-MID group only (the one with the lowest proficiency in the sample population). This discrepancy is discussed more extensively in the next section. . Chapter 4: L3 Italian Rocca presented a longitudinal study investigating the development of past forms in the Italian interlanguage of three English-speaking children (7 to 8 year-olds) to test not only the predictions made by the Aspect Hypothesis, but also how auxiliaries are selected in relation to lexical aspect. The three children were receiving L2 French instruction in school, but naturalistic exposure to L3 Italian. The data collection consisted of 15 sessions of 30–40 minutes each over 6 months. There were 3 parts to each session: First, a free production task that served as a warm-up, then a guided retell task based on an animated cartoon video, and finally a cloze task using picture stories from popular child literature. The majority of verb forms produced by the children were the bare past participle, the compound past and the imperfect. Both the bare participle and the compound past were used mostly to mark past on telic events (accomplishments and achievements). Indeed, the perfective marker became the preferred choice among all learners for the marking of activities towards the end of the data collection period (starting in sessions 9, 10 and 12 for FER, HEL and LOU respectively). The use of the Perfective and imperfect markers was apparently guided by narrative grounding effects. The bare participle and the compound past were also used more often with states by FER and HEL starting in sessions 6 and 7 respectively. LOU, however, always marked states primarily with the imperfective form. . Chapter 5: L3 Portuguese Salaberry conducted a comparative analysis of L2 Spanish and L3 Portuguese by English native speakers in an instructed setting in order to test the null hy-

Towards a comprehensive model 

pothesis stating that the selection of past tense morphological marking in L2 Portuguese among adult L1 English/L2 Spanish learners is independent of the effect of inherent lexical aspectual value of verbal predicates across different levels of proficiency. The statistical analyses on the results of a verb-selection task based on a narrative that recounted the events on a cartoon revealed a significant main effect for verb type, but not for knowledge of aspectual distinctions. A follow-up post-hoc test showed that the scores for telic events differed from states and atelic events, and no statistically significant difference was found between statives and atelic events. Telicity was thus the main factor as confirmed by the notable fact that the native speaker groups and the advanced Spanish learners displayed the same morphological marking of telic and atelic events, contrary to the selection of past morphological markings for statives which revealed drastic differences between the native speaker groups and the learner groups. While there was no clear association of the imperfect with any lexical class, the learners chose either the preterite or the imperfect for telic events. It is concluded that the learners’ choices of morphological marking are made along clear aspectual notions for telic events but not for statives. These data thus provided evidence of positive transfer from one Romance language to another when it comes to non-statives. It is argued that, due to their irregular morphological features and frequency, statives may be processed differently than other types of predicates: [+dynamic] verbs may be rule-governed, whereas the marking of [–dynamic] verbs may be made by associations.

. Critical review of empirical findings . Chapter 2: L3 Catalan The differential results obtained with the two different types of narratives (those elicited with the film Modern Times (MT) as opposed to those obtained with the Saint George (SG) story) deserve a more extended discussion. In the data displayed in Tables 13 and 14 (Comajoan this volume), we notice that the MT narratives show a preponderance of use of the perfective marker irrespective of grounding (with the exception of the fourth narratives of Daniel and Robert). In contrast, the SG narratives from all learners show a clear effect of grounding irrespective of any longitudinal developmental factor. These results may be due to the data elicitation procedure, the type of narrative, or a combination of both. A third explanation, advanced by Comajoan, is differences in processing: When learners were asked to recount the MT film excerpt, they

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

had to rely on memory to remember the story, whereas they were provided with prompts before they narrated the SG story. Unfortunately, it is impossible to tease out the effects of elicitation procedure, text type and processing factors, as they are compounded in the research design. Another notable outcome about the learners’ narratives based on the SG story is that, in spite of the differences in elicitation procedure and the time that the narratives occurred, the learners’ use of past tense verbal morphology is consistent across all students and across time. That is, all three learners favored the perfective in the foreground and the imperfective form in the background in all narratives irrespective of when they were elicited or the prompts they received. For instance, in sessions 2 and 5, the researcher narrated the story before the participants were instructed to do so, whereas in sessions 3 and 4, they were provided with a prompt. In contrast, in session 6, learners narrated the story without prompts. Remarkably, the percentages of use of perfective-imperfective morphology in foreground and background sections did not change throughout time. Arguably, it can be claimed that these learners simply transferred their L2 (and possibly also L1) knowledge about foreground-background marking in narratives. If that were the case, we would expect that the main challenge these learners faced was to correctly map their already substantial semanticdiscursive knowledge developed on another Romance language onto a third Romance language. In this respect, the comparison of the first three SG narratives from Daniel with the second three is particular revealing (see Table 14). Note that in narratives 1 to 3 Daniel never used any perfective marker of past tense and only used 3 tokens of the imperfective past. In other words, it looks as if he was not morphologically marking past tense in any systematic way. However, when we analyze the SG narratives collected during the second semester (i.e., narratives 4 to 6), we note that Daniel marked 25 tokens with past perfective (all of them in the foreground) and 8 with past imperfective (all in the background). These results appear to show a sudden change in Daniel’s use of morphological markers of past tense, a change that was accompanied by the successful division of labor between foregrounded and backgrounded clauses . Chapter 3: L2 French from a minimalist perspective The data from the personal narrative indicates that the INT-MID group of learners has not yet acquired the semantic properties associated with the aspectual phrase. There are two pieces of evidence that support this position: The proportion of use of passé composé-imparfait and the categorical use of

Towards a comprehensive model 

Table 3. Tenses and errors in personal narratives Tenses groups

NS (n = 14)

Advanced (n = 11)

Intermediate-High (n = 12)

Intermediate-Mid (n = 14)

PC Error IMP Error

80 (n = 11) 3 (n = 1) 100 (n =14) 0

88 (n = 11) 8 (n = 6) 82 (n = 11) 2 (n = 2)

110 (n = 12) 15 (n = 8) 93 (n = 12) 2 (n = 2)

113 (n = 14) 16 (n = 7) 47 (n = 14) 2 (n = 2)

past tense markers among the least experienced group of learners. Consider the data presented again in Table 3. First, notice that the proportion of use of passé composé-imparfait among the lowest level group of learners is roughly two to one. In contrast, the use of passé composé-imparfait for all other groups (including native speakers) is approximately in a 1:1 proportion. In other words, this trend in the use of past tense markers in L2 French seem to indicate that the INT-MID group does not have a good conceptual distinction of aspectual differences given that they seem to rely on the use of a default value of past tense, represented by the perfective form (Salaberry 1999, this volume). In turn, the data from the other groups of learners seem to indicate that, as soon as learners gain more experience with the language, as represented in the INT-HIGH and ADV groups, the perfective-imperfective contrast becomes more equally balanced and (in line with the proportion of use of past tense markers among native speakers). The second factor that seems to indicate lack of semantic aspectual contrasts among the least advanced learners in Ayoun’s group of subjects is that the INT-MID learners mark activities, accomplishments and activities almost exclusively with passé composé (88%, 100% and 90% respectively). In contrast the use of imparfait among these students is restricted to states only (44 out of 47 uses of imparfait occurred in this category). It is quite likely that frequent and few verb types that represent the category states makes it easy for students to restrict the use of the imparfait to a handful of verbs. In other words, the imparfait represents an exception to the rule of thumb of using passé composé to mark past tense as a default. This outcome could be the result of the application of a generative rule for the use of the perfective marker, compared with an associationistic process that matches the use of the imperfective past tense with specific, frequent and few verbs (mostly stative) (e.g., Housen 2002).

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

. Chapter 4: L3 Italian Rocca’s study provides some interesting data about the use of auxiliaries: Avere was preferred by all learners and acted as form of default auxiliary. Essere appeared late in the process and was nevertheless rarely used and with few verbs. This finding about the use of auxiliaries in production data contrasts with primarily judgment-based data from studies conducted by Sorace (2000). Another interesting finding was that the compound past was used first in spontaneous tasks before being used in controlled tasks. This is in contrast with the typical finding from instructed settings in which new forms tend to appear more consistently and more target-like in controlled environments, and then move to spontaneous environments later. Despite an apparent overall general tendency found in her data in favor of the LAH, Rocca points out one particular trend that seems to run against at least one of the developmental claims of the LAH. Rocca notes that the two learners judged to be at a more advanced developmental stage than the third learner, reduced their use of the imperfective in association with states as their proficiency increased. The analysis of data from Table 15 shows that both FER and HEL marked states with the imperfective form up until the fifth and sixth sessions respectively. Subsequently, both learners used either the bare participle or the compound past to mark states. In contrast, LOU’s morphological marking of states throughout all 15 sessions is similar to the performance of FER and HEL up to sessions 5 and 6, Arguably, had the collection of data continued, LOU’s marking of states would have eventually revealed a similar change as the one reflected in FER and HEL’s data. The analysis of the selection of verbal morphology for activities on Table 16, reveals that FER and HEL stopped using the imperfective to mark activities after sessions 8 and 9 respectively, and started using the perfective markers instead. The parallel in this switch from imperfective to perfective markers for both states and activities at around the same time (slightly later for activities) should not go unnoticed. We also need to mention that the marking of accomplishments and achievements is fairly straightforward: All three learners used mostly perfective morphology to mark telic events throughout all 15 sessions of data collection. Rocca surmises that the strong correlation of the use of bare past participles with telic predicates (across all participants) and, concomitantly, the strong correlation between the imperfective form of the verb and states (for at least one participant) may be indicative of the effect of lexical aspect in the selection of verbal morphology (cf. the LAH). Rocca recognizes, however, that this strong correlation of morphological marking with both ends

Towards a comprehensive model 

of the lexical aspectual continuum (i.e. telic-perfective and states-imperfective) was apparent in only LOU. Rocca infers, nevertheless, that LOU is the child who is simply not yet at a sufficiently developed stage. Additional data from a greater subject pool may confirm this developmental trend. . Chapter 5: Spanish/Portuguese Salaberry’s findings with adult L3 learners of Portuguese show a developmental trend similar to the one in Rocca’s study with respect to the lack of relevance of lexical aspect for the marking of state verbs in spite of clear differences in the participants’ ages, learning environment and exposure to the L3. Despite these important differences, both authors invoke the potentially powerful role of L1 transfer from English with regards to the likely rejection of the imperfective form to mark statives in L3 Italian or L3 Portuguese. Salaberry claims that the difficulties the L3 Portuguese learners displayed in the verb selection task in marking statives parallel those experienced by L2 Spanish learners, even at very advanced levels of proficiency. But wouldn’t the previous L2 Spanish knowledge of L3 Portuguese learners help them in their acquisition of tense marking in that additional Romance language? Unless of course their L2 Spanish interlanguage does not yet reflect a solid command of stative marking. These findings are somewhat surprising for highly motivated learners in an academic setting where they benefit from extensive explicit instruction. Irregular inflectional endings in particular are very much stressed and emphasized with a variety of oral/aural and written exercises with a focus on form. It will be interesting to see if the results of a less controlled task (the narration of the cartoon) reveal similar results. We note one methodological caveat: The participants’ overall proficiency level was not assessed with an independent measure for their L2 Spanish or their L3 Portuguese (a self-assessment was used instead); and their proficiency in L2 Spanish tense/aspect was not assessed at all. It is thus difficult to judge to what degree the findings regarding the marking of statives illustrate positive transfer from the L2 to the L3, although they concur with previous findings with L2 Spanish as reviewed in Salaberry’s chapter.

. Towards a comprehensive model of tense-aspect acquisition The various theoretical frameworks adopted in the chapters of this volume illustrate how several different factors need to be considered simultaneously to provide an adequate descriptive and explanatory account of the acquisition

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

of tense/aspect systems by L2/L3 learners. In the introductory chapter we reviewed six theoretical approaches to the analysis of aspect development in L2 acquisition. In this final section we review the potential explanatory power of these different approaches in light of the empirical findings discussed in the preceding section. We start this section with a word of caution about the comparability of different empirical studies given the significant differences in research design among them. For instance, Rocca’s study in this volume is the one that most closely resembles the study conducted by Andersen (1986). Rocca’s subjects are L1 English children learning a Romance language (L2 Italian) in a nonacademic setting in a natural environment (cf. Italy). Similarly, the young adolescents described by Andersen (1986) are also L1 English speakers learning a Romance language (L2 Spanish) in a naturalistic setting (cf. Puerto Rico). We note, however, that there are also important differences between these two studies. For instance, at the time Rocca started collecting her data, the three children in her study had been living in Italy for 4 years and 9 months. Andersen’s data were collected at two different times, roughly after 2 and 4 years of exposure to the L2. Furthermore, even though Rocca’s subjects were not taking any academic classes in Italian they did get academic exposure to another Romance language (cf. French) during the period of data collection. In contrast, Andersen’s subjects were enrolled in a school that used only English as the medium of communication. In this section, we will assess the relevance of various methodological factors such as the ones described above as we try to develop a coherent model and overarching account for the development of tense-aspect in L2 acquisition. . Determinant factors and processes in tense-aspect marking The appeal for a broader theoretical approach is based upon the assumption that different explanatory accounts are not necessarily competing with one another. Instead, they can be seen as complementing each other, each providing a different piece of information from its own perspective. This may be particularly true for the acquisition of tense and aspect systems because they are relevant to many other areas of inquiry at the same time: Syntax, morphology, semantics, and discourse/pragmatics. There is no doubt that a satisfying explanatory account will have to continue considering in greater detail how these areas are inter-connected. In this section we will review the major factors that have been considered relevant to explain the development of past-tense aspect

Towards a comprehensive model  Input biases

Context

Learning settings

Semantic biases

Native languages

– processing goals (e.g., default values make processing more expedient) – discourse goals (e.g., grounding helps to convey information more efficiently) – pragmatic goals (e.g., communication may not need to rely on redundant morphological marking)

Figure 1. Independent variables and processing factors in the development of L2 past tense

marking in general, and we will describe how the latest empirical findings may re-shape current hypotheses. Figure 1 will be used to illustrate how we can integrate into a single framework the different factors that have been proposed to account for the development of past tense morphology in a second language, and more specifically for our purpose, in the Romance languages. The determining factors are the features of the L2 database to which learners have access or are subjected in developing their L2 verbal system: Input biases, contextual factors, learning setting, and semantic biases. For instance, input biases may expose learners primarily to perfective forms as it has been claimed could be the case for instructional settings where the manipulation of input data is easier to achieve in a systematic way. Arguably, it is possible that such input biases may be all there is to the significant use of perfective forms in beginning and subsequent stages of acquisition. The perfective form, however, does not need to be favored, as many different circumstances may create input biases that favor the use of the imperfective. Similarly, learning setting is also likely to have an effect on the access to specific types of data as in the case of natural learners who tend to be exposed to mostly oral data, typically in informal contexts of interaction, and rarely supplemented by metalinguistic information about language use. This type of natural learning setting prototypically exemplified in the subjects of Rocca’s chapter differs quite dramatically from the type of learning environment available to, for instance, the L3 Catalan learners in Comajoan’s chapter or the L2 French learners in Ayoun’s chapter. A third type of determinant of the database available to learners is the textual features of language data, especially embodied in discourse factors such as grounding. As expressed by Blyth (this volume), for instance, classroom learn-

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

ers may be predominantly exposed to fictional narratives with a predominance of foregrounded clauses, as opposed to personal narratives exhibiting the reverse weight according to grounding. Semantic factors as represented in lexical aspectual classes, may also have a determining effect on the use of verbal morphology as it has been claimed by the LAH. Finally, the specific biases from the L1 can guide the learners’ attention to specific features of the L2, and, moreover, it can help the learner obtain a more accurate conceptual understanding of the semantic, discursive and pragmatic features of tense-aspect markers. Finally, we note that all these factors may generate important interaction effects. Thus it is quite likely that learning setting brings about specific types of input biases and, in turn, these biases are probably represented by particular weights of verbs belonging to specific lexical aspectual classes embedded in specific levels of textual grounding. Needless to say, the majority of researchers, irrespective of their theoretical persuasion, have been attentive to the role that the above-mentioned determining factors may play on the acquisition of tenseaspect marking. For instance, Shirai (2004: 1) argues that the “prototype past (i.e., past tense with telic events) is frequent in the input, and the learners’ L1s tend to have a similar prototype.” Shirai goes on to contend that, in principle, both the effects of input and native language could account for the bias towards using perfective morphology, especially during the beginning stages of acquisition. We now focus on the analysis of the processes depicted in Figure 1. This is the area where the various theoretical frameworks will favor the role of one or another specific process in consonance with the preferred theoretical view of L2 development in general. Take, for instance, the preference given to strictly general cognitive processes or linguistic representation. A general cognitive system is a constructive data-driven process based on universals of cognitive structure, as opposed to universals of linguistic structure. An example is the Competition model, which, as MacWhinney (2001) explains, includes three components: The input (cue reliability and availability), the learner (cognitive processing), and the interactional context (environmental and social support). In this model, linguistic representation occurs as an epiphenomenon of cognitive processing (along the lines of the argument proposed by N. Ellis 2001). In contrast, the minimalist framework proposes that the central factor that can help us account for developmental sequences and acquisition in general is the representation of linguistic categories as governed by Universal Grammar. More specifically, as described in Ayoun (this volume), the functional category AspP exists in English but L2 learners will have to acquire the [–perfective] feature relevant to the Romance languages representation of AspP

Towards a comprehensive model 

(not instantiated in the English AspP). Despite the above-mentioned overarching theoretical contrast between the competition model and strictly modular linguistic models such as Minimalism, there also appear to be important similarities between strictly linguistic and strictly cognitive accounts. MacWhinney (2001: 72), for one, argues that the competition model “assumes that lexical items are activated before full syntactic frames are composed.” This process parallels the hierarchical distinction that minimalism draws between lexical and functional categories and the most logical sequential nature of acquisition. Even more importantly, there may also be commonalities as to the main factors that may prevent ultimate attainment in the target language. Ayoun (this volume) adopts the position that L2 grammars are constrained by Universal Grammar, thereby suggesting that functional categories and features are in principle acquirable. More specifically she claims that “adult L2 learners can acquire functional categories which are not present in their L1, and can set features values to the appropriate L2 strength.” Ayoun, however, is cautious not to overstate her claim about the access to Universal Grammar pointing out that L2 learners may not be entirely successful in the mapping of the abstract features to the appropriate L2 surface morphology, mostly due to processing difficulties. In other words, it is quite possible that adult L2 learners could have access to Universal Grammar without necessarily displaying native-like behavior with 100% consistency particularly on the more cognitively demanding tasks (Ayoun forthcoming 2005). Interestingly, the notion that cognitive processes prevalent among adult learners may limit the ultimate level of attainment in the target language appears to be a claim voiced by non-modular general cognitive models as well. MacWhinney (2001: 80), for instance, proposes that the modules that make up the competition model are “emergent and permeable as opposed to innate and encapsulated.” Therefore, L2 learning is part of a general cognitive process, making L2 representation parasitic on L1 representation (lexicon, phonology, and syntax). For the learner, the goal is to build up L2 representations as a separate system. As MacWhinney explains, this is constrained by the process of neuronal commitment: “Once a local neural area has been committed, it then begins to accept input data which lead toward a fine-tuning of the activation weights governing processing” (p. 87). . Developmental stages The findings presented in this volume and elsewhere (e.g., Ayoun 2004 for L2 French) clearly indicate that L2/L3 learners in instructed settings go through

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

developmental stages in their acquisition of their respective tense/aspect systems. Their performance definitely improves with their level of proficiency. Pienemann (1987: 154–155) claims that there is “a developmental principle which predicts that ‘rules which require a high degree of processing capacity are acquired late.”’ Pienemann (1989: 54) claims further that “the constraints imposed by language processing play a decisive part in determining the specific order in which given sorts of L2 items are acquired by different individuals.” Some of the major constraints that Pienemann alludes to are: (a) The perceptual saliency of the target item (general perceptional mechanism), (b) The learner’s orientation towards the task (individual variation), and (c) A hierarchy of processing prerequisites (implicational nature of target structures). The findings presented in this volume and elsewhere (e.g., Ayoun 2004 for L2 French; Comajoan 2001 for Catalan; Giacalone Ramat 2002 for Italian; Salaberry 2000a for L2 Spanish) clearly indicate that the learners’ performance in the use of past tense verbal morphology improves with their level of proficiency. In this section we would like to offer a comprehensive account of how the different theoretical hypothesis about the development of tense-aspect converge on the same sequence of stages, and how each stage of development is related to different theoretical hypotheses. In essence, we are proposing that the significant discrepancies among various theoretical hypotheses are not necessarily because some hypotheses are wrong and others could be right, but rather, the different predictions may be due to the particular stage of development that each hypothesis may tend to describe more accurately. More specifically, we propose that, during the beginning stages of development, L1 English speakers learning a Romance language are guided by tense considerations, as exemplified in their L1. Later on, as they develop a larger database in the target language, they begin to be more clearly guided by the distribution of past tense markings according to lexical aspectual classes, and finally, as they approximate a native-like system of tense-aspect, they start to incorporate more clearly discursive factors, in particular, appropriate foreground-background aspectual distinctions. We hasten to add that the particular features identified above (i.e., tense, lexical aspect and grounding) are the ones that most clearly characterize each developmental step in the sequence. Needless to say, learners will mark tense during advanced stages of development at the same time that grounding will also be a consideration among beginning learners (especially given that grounding is part of the L1 system as well). The main features that most clearly define the developmental profile of each stage of acquisition, however, are the ones we identified above.

Towards a comprehensive model 

.. Lexical aspect or tense One of the most researched hypothesis about the development of tense-aspect marking is the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH). Essentially, the LAH states that in early stages of acquisition, verbal morphology encodes only inherent aspectual distinctions (i.e., it does not encode tense or grammatical aspect). Not surprisingly, all chapters in this volume tested for this hypothesis, directly or indirectly. In general, the analysis of the empirical evidence presented in this volume corroborates one specific finding from other recent studies: The initial stages in the use of verbal morphology are not accounted for by a straightforward correlation of lexical aspectual classes of verb phrases with verbal morphology. For instance, in the acquisition of the Romance languages there is evidence for this effect primarily from Spanish (e.g., Salaberry 1999, 2002, 2003) and French (e.g., Bergström 1995). This type of counterevidence is also found in other languages such as L2 English. For instance, the data from Bardovi-Harlig and Bergström (1996: 317–318), originally adduced to support the role of the LAH, revealed that “the use of simple past with states increases noticeably from Group 1 (15.0%) to Group 2 (56.9%).” In essence, it is clear that the developmental picture of tense-aspect marking originally proposed by Andersen needs to be reviewed and possibly revised as acknowledged by the original proponents of the LAH. Thus, Shirai (2004: 16) argues that the [Lexical aspect] hypothesis is supported by most studies, but its developmental component, namely the prediction that beginning learners are more restricted by inherent aspectual value than more advanced learners may need to be revised, since cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that involve production data do not necessarily show such a restriction.

Shirai accounts for these findings by proposing that the deviation from the prediction of the LAH during beginning stages “comes from haphazard production of frequent forms based on rote learning.” Although we agree with Shirai’s analysis of the empirical findings that contradict the LAH, and provide additional evidence along those lines in the chapters in this volume, we disagree with the claim that the mounting evidence about the lack of support for the LAH can be explained as the result of haphazard performance and/or memorized verb forms. Furthermore, since we do not think that these two factors are necessarily connected, we will discuss them separately. First, regarding the issue of haphazard production of past tense forms, we do not think there is enough evidence to support the claim that beginning learners are less systematic in their use of past tense morphology than more advanced learners. This is especially true with data sets that show that begin-

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

ning learners tend to mark almost every verb, irrespective of lexical aspectual class, with one single marker of past tense that appears to be acting as a default marker (e.g., Salaberry 1999, 2002, 2003). This outcome reminds us of the over-regularization effects exhibited by children who use the English past tense morpheme marker on irregular past tense forms (cf. Karmiloff-Smith 1986). Second, Shirai proposes that empirical evidence that appears to contradict the LAH could be explained as the result of differences in elicitation procedures. In particular, Shirai argues that the data that usually contradict the tenets of the LAH typically come from “production data involving longitudinal or cross-sectional data,” whereas “paper-and-pencil tests often show patterns consistent” with the LAH. Basically, the argument is that the more demanding tasks (especially oral production on-line) force learners to resort to the use of memorized forms in order to get by and comply with the communication task. In contrast, the tasks that allow for more monitoring, more faithfully show the effect of lexical aspect in the use of past tense markers. This claim, however, is not upheld by previous studies that looked at the effect of monitoring and planning on the use of past tense markers (e.g., Ellis 1987 for L2 English and Salaberry & López Ortega 1998 for Spanish). For instance, Salaberry and López Ortega (1998) found that L2 Spanish learners made more mistakes in the use of preterite-imperfect in guided grammar tasks than in prompt-based free narrative tasks. .. Lexical aspect or grounding As discussed in Chapter 1, there is an inherent overlap in the criteria that underlie the predictions made by the lexical aspect hypothesis and the discourse hypothesis (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig 1995; Reinhart 1984). The discourse hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig 2000) proposes that learners will mark the foreground with the perfective form and the background with the imperfective form (alternatively, the background may be left unmarked with the use of, for instance, present instead of past tense). The empirical evidence presented in Comajoan (this volume), as well as his analysis of previous studies, helps us begin to disambiguate the effect of lexical aspect and grounding. For instance, the film narratives (based on excerpts from Modern Times) did not show any significant effect of grounding on the use of past tense forms, contrary to the data from the story book narratives which did show an effect for grounding. As discussed above, it is not clear what prompted these results given the confounding effect of data elicitation procedures and the discursive nature of the two narrative prompts. Furthermore, the subjects in Comajoan’s study were proficient in other Romance languages as well, and as we argued above, it is

Towards a comprehensive model 

quite likely that these learners transferred their knowledge about past tense semantic distinctions from one Romance language to another. If we compare the results from Comajoan’s study with the data from Güell (1998), we have additional empirical evidence in favor of the argument that, despite the differential effect of grounding to construct different narratives, there appears to exist a more basic effect associated with the use of a default marker of past tense that permeates any subsequent and more modest effect of foregrounded versus backgrounded clauses. Of course, this argument is restricted to beginning stages of development only, as shown in the data from Güell. The discourse hypothesis may be more valuable in explaining advanced stages of tense-aspect acquisition, rather than beginning or intermediate stages of development of tense-aspect marking. This is especially true if we consider that the concepts of figure and ground, from Gestalt psychology, can account for the process of perspective taking, an aspectually discursive factor that is more likely to be at play among advanced learners. N. Ellis (2001) highlights the relevance of perspective taking in a variety of other areas such as vision and attention and its relationship with schemata, scripts and frames. In sum, the discourse hypothesis is more likely to be relevant to advanced stages of L2 development, rather than to the beginning stages of acquisition as shown by the analysis of empirical data above. .. Integrating theoretical accounts Given that we have already discussed the relevance of lexical aspect and grounding in the previous sections (cf. the Lexical Aspect hypothesis and the Discourse hypothesis), we will focus now on the claims advanced by the other theoretical hypotheses summarized in Chapter 1. We will start with the default past tense hypothesis. This hypothesis, originally proposed by Wiberg (1996) to account for data from L2 Italian children, was later expanded by Salaberry (1999, 2000) for instructed adult learners of L2 Spanish. The main theoretical premise of this hypothesis challenges one of the basic tenets of the LAH arguing that during the very early stages of development, tense (as represented in the L1) will guide the marking of L2 past tense marking. Later on, as the learner gains more experience with the L2, past tense marking gradually starts to correlate with the values of lexical aspectual classes until, finally, learners arrive at a more advanced stage of development in which past tense markers are used irrespective of the lexical value of the verb phrase. It is important to note that the notion of default marker of past tense is only relevant for the very beginning stages of acquisition. Salaberry (2000) concluded that

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

although the Default Past Tense hypothesis may apply to learners at the very beginning stages of their L1 or L2 acquisition, [. . .] it is unlikely that it would find strong support from advanced or even intermediary L2 learners, especially in instructed settings.

Indeed, the evidence in this volume and previous studies seem to provide more than adequate empirical support for the important role of tense on the initial marking of past tense verbal morphology. Interestingly, the finding that beginning learners of a Romance language may overuse the perfective form during beginning stages of acquisition seems to be accounted for by the Minimalist hypothesis given that English bears the [+perfective] across all dynamic classes.1 Most researchers working within the Minimalist program are less than clear on the possible stages of development that may guide the acquisition of past tense marking in the Romance languages. This is not unexpected given that Minimalism is better equipped to describe the nature of grammatical knowledge rather than the nature of change of that knowledge (e.g., Gregg 2001). Schell (2000), however, following the minimalist account as expressed in constructionist terms (Herschensohn 2000), clearly argues for the existence of distinct developmental stages: A first stage marked by L1 transfer, a second stage marked by the inherent lexical aspect of the verb, and a third and final stage in which learners incorporate all factors that determine tense-aspectual marking including, but not limited to, “the overall situation or context in which the event takes place.” Only the last stage in Schell’s sequence appears to be affected by discursive factors such as foreground-background distinctions. Note also that the sequence of developmental stages proposed by the default marker of past tense (couched within a general cognitive account) is not incompatible with the developmental stages independently proposed by Schell following a quasi-modular linguistic hypothesis. Finally, as discussed in Chapter 1, the main premise of constructionism is that L2 competence is not homogeneous during the early and intermediate stages of acquisition. This permeability of the evolving interlanguage system makes it subject to the application of general cognitive processes. Future studies should focus their attention on specific methodological procedures that could help disambiguate the possible effect of general cognitive processing on supposedly modular linguistic knowledge.

Towards a comprehensive model 

. Assessing the generalizability of the comprehensive model As mentioned above, L1 English speakers have important clues from their own language as to the relevance and reality of aspectual marking as reflected in the contrast of simple past tense-progressive past tense. However, English speakers may have difficulties sorting out the conditions that warrant the use of past tense aspectual markers in complementary distribution in the Romance languages (at least during the beginning stages as argued above). As a consequence, the initial use of one single inflectional morpheme of past tense in the Romance languages among L1 English speakers may potentially indicate that aspectual distinctions are secondary to tense distinctions. This is a logical conclusion if we assume that native English speakers are likely to transfer their knowledge about the use of inflectional morphology to mark tense in their L1. This is, in fact, what we should expect according to Andersen’s (1989) principle of one-to-one form-function mapping. There is, nevertheless, empirical evidence against the view that tense is marked first because it may be a more basic semantic distinction. Indeed, the general tendency of L1 English speakers to use the perfective marker of past tense in the Romance languages is also replicated in languages that preferentially mark aspect but not tense. For instance, Duff and Li (2002: 446) argue that during the beginning stages of acquisition, English speakers learners overextend the use of the perfective marker of aspect LE in L2 Chinese. In order to explore the potential generalizability of the tentative theoretical model that we outlined in the previous section, we investigate in more detail how English speakers use verbal morphology in languages that mark aspect instead of tense. We also analyze recent findings that look at the opposite analysis, that is how speakers of an aspect-based language learn to mark tense. The following analysis will be crucial to test the limits of the model of tense-aspect acquisition described in previous sections of this chapter. .. Is tense-marking more basic than aspect-marking? Chinese does not mark tense morphophonologically, but it does mark aspect (Duff & Li 2002). Moreover, past tense aspectual markers in Chinese are oriented towards discourse and pragmatic factors that, in some cases, make the use of aspectual markers syntactically optional (Smith 1991). This contrast in the marking of tense and aspect in English and Chinese has consequences for the learning of each respective target language. For instance, Duff and Li (2002: 445) point out that L1 English speakers tend to initially use the Chinese perfective/perfect aspectual marker LE as an across-the-board past tense

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

marker, effectively overextending its use compared to what native speakers do. Notice that this finding matches the evidence from the learning of Romance languages as well as of English. In principle, one could make the argument that tense is a basic semantic distinction and, therefore, the difficulties brought about by the incorporation of a system of aspectual marking to the evolving interlanguage are due to the semantic complexity of aspect. If that is the case, we should find evidence of an easier or accelerated development of verbal morphology among learners whose native language exhibits morphological marking of aspect but not tense (e.g., Chinese). Interestingly, L1 Chinese speakers seem to encounter problems to mark tense morphologically in L2 English (e.g., Hawkins & Liszka 2003). This is the exact mirror image of the problems that L1 English speakers have when they mark aspect. Therefore, whether the L1 moves from a tense-based to an aspect-based system or vice-versa, the problems and performance of learners in both cases appear to be similar. In order to further substantiate the claim we made about the factors that explain the developmental stages of acquisition in the Romance languages we will review one recent study on the learning of English by Chinese speakers. .. More empirical evidence for an integrated account We turn now to the theoretical interpretation of recent findings from L1 Chinese speakers learning English as the target language (Hawkins & Liszka 2003). We will argue that these data, as was the case with the data presented in the chapters in this volume, can be better accounted for if we consider a more comprehensive theoretical framework that integrates the potential explanatory effect of several factors at once. Hawkins and Liszka investigated the use of L2 English past tense marking among L1 speakers of Chinese, L1 Japanese and L1 German learners. We note that Japanese and German, like English, have functional projections for tense. For the purpose of our discussion, we will concentrate on the analysis of the data from the Chinese speakers. The L1 Chinese speakers (as well as the German and Japanese speakers) performed at an advanced level of L2 English proficiency as determined by a written test that assessed their use of past tense marking. Their use of past tense in two spontaneous oral narratives (a personal anecdote and the recounting of a movie excerpt), however, stand in stark contrast with the written test. In effect, the oral data revealed a much lower proficiency threshold. More specifically, the oral data revealed that the L1 Chinese speakers were more successful using irregular past tense forms (approximately 84% correctly inflected for past) than regular past tense (approximately 63% correctly inflected for past). In sum,

Towards a comprehensive model 

Chinese speakers had greater than chance success in marking verbs for past tense, and they were more successful with irregular past tense forms. Hawkins and Liszka adduce that the irregular forms may be processed as independent lexical items that have a different morphological status than syntactically-based regular forms. As for the regular forms, the authors conjecture that Chinese speakers may not treat the regular forms as the irregular ones due to their regularity as applied to many different verbs and their associated frequency in the input. What is puzzling, however, is the lack of consistent use of regular past tense markers: About one third of verbs in past tense contexts were not correctly inflected. Hawkins and Liszka surmise that it is possible that “the language faculty allows some monitoring of surface strings” (p. 40). As the authors pointed out, there is some independent evidence to support this claim. For instance, the operation of post-syntactic output constraints may explain why in French the third-person accusative clitic precedes the dative one (Elle le lui donne), but that the dative clitic precedes the accusative one when first- or second-person clitics are considered along with the third-person one (Elle me le donne). Following up on this claim, Hawkins and Liszka conclude that “Chinese speakers cannot establish [+/–past] on T in English precisely because this feature is absent in their L1” (p. 41). In other words, parameterized syntactic features not present in the L1 will not be modifiable during L2 development, effectively blocking the development (among adults) of an L2 system equivalent to the one that native speakers have. The best learners can do at this point is to post-syntactically monitor the data and insert the past tense morphological marker whenever they deem it necessary. Consequently, a great deal of variation both within and across subjects is expected.2 It nonetheless appears that Hawkins and Liszka reject alternative theoretical accounts too prematurely. For instance, they consider the potential value of the LAH, but they reject it because the data do not support the original conceptualization of the LAH. In effect, the analysis of Hawkins and Liszka shows that the 25 regular inflected forms used by the Chinese speakers were distributed as follows: None on state verbs, 10 on activities, 1 on accomplishments and 14 on achievements. Even though Hawkins and Liszka reject the explanatory effect of lexical aspect under the assumption of the more conservative LAH (a position that is no longer advocated by original proponents of the LAH as exemplified by Shirai 2004), the fact that no states were marked for past tense is entirely consistent with the analysis presented by Salaberry (1999, 2000, this volume). Similarly, Hawkins and Liszka prematurely reject the potential value of the Discourse Hypothesis even though their own study did not include any analysis of

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

use of past tense forms based on foregrounded or backgrounded clauses (p. 39). Instead they reject the relevance of the discourse hypothesis based on the analysis of empirical evidence from a different study with different data. In sum, we believe that the alternative theoretical accounts discarded by Hawkins and Liszka might actually be complementary rather than alternative to their proposed hypothesis. When we consider the role that different factors play during different stages of development of past tense marking, as we argued in previous sections, we can probably make better sense of the apparently contradictory findings that seem to challenge the hypothesis about tense-aspect development reviewed in Chapter 1 of this volume.

. The relevance of a developmental model on a pedagogical model of tense-aspect acquisition In this final section we discuss the potential relevance of the integrated theoretical model of development of past tense aspectual marking for the elaboration of a pedagogical model. . The effect of instruction on tense-aspect marking The data from most studies on classroom learning show that instruction on verbal morphology is not surprisingly associated with its extended use. In effect, there are numerous studies that present empirical evidence in favor of the effect of explicit instruction on the use of verbal morphology. For instance, Hasbún’s (1995) study of L2 Spanish acquisition shows that her students started marking past tense verbal morphology as soon as they were provided with explicit instruction on the topic. In some cases, even without extensive practice, the effects of the academic environment are significant. For instance, Stokes (1985) reported on a pretest-posttest experimental study that revealed that high levels of focus on form (monitoring) resulted in higher gains in accuracy (measurement on cloze test) for Spanish tense-aspect phenomena. The performance on tense-aspect, however, was superior than on other target language features of verbal morphology such as mode, person and number. The subjects who participated in Stokes’ experiment were second semester students of Spanish (end of semester) and there was no instruction provided between tests except for the explicit mention of what feature was tested according to treatment group. Students were told that the purpose of the test was “to measure how well they could perform with regard to tense and aspect suffixes on

Towards a comprehensive model 

verb forms” (p. 381). In sum, the data from Stokes show that merely requesting students to focus their attention on a target item was enough to generate an improvement from pretest to posttest. On the other hand, there are other studies have shown less promise about the potentially long-term and substantive effects of academic environments. Harley (1989), for instance, found mixed results with reference to instruction in a communication-based syllabus. The grade 6 immersion students who participated in her study received 8 weeks of instruction on the use of French passé composé/imparfait and were tested twice after the end of the instructional period: Immediately after instruction and 3 months later. Harley used three tasks: A free composition, a cloze test, and an oral interview. The results showed a positive effect for the productive distinction of passé composé/imparfait in the tests administered immediately after instruction. This effect, however, did not show up in the delayed post-test. This is an interesting finding for two reasons. First, these data are based on relatively open-ended tasks (at least two out of three). Therefore, it is less likely that students were able to closely monitor their language use with classroom-prompted metalinguistic knowledge. Second, and more importantly, it appears that pedagogical manipulations do not necessarily affect the natural sequence of acquisition of the L2 grammar. Harley’s results, however, are based on data from children. It is open to question, then, whether adults in classroom-only settings would perform differently. Jourdenais et al. (1995) investigated the effect of input enhancement on the production of past tense morphology among five second semester college students of Spanish. Five other students acted as a control group. The study was based on the analysis of (1) the production of preterite-imperfect in a written narrative following the presentation of a text narrating the same story, and (2) think-aloud protocols performed concurrently with the writing task (number of language related episodes containing reference to past tense verbal morphology). The treatment group received an enhanced text (the preterite was shadowed and the imperfect was in bold), whereas the control group received the same text with no typographical enhancement. The results of the experiment show that (1) the treatment group attempted more past tense forms than the control group, and (2) the treatment group made more explicit mentions about aspect than the control group. In essence, the type of experimental treatment exemplified in Jourdenais et al. was successful as measured by number of attempted past tense forms in written narration and explicit mention of rules during the think-alouds. There are, however, two important constraints. First, the study did not attempt to control for possible long term effects of the treatment. Notice, for instance, that Harley (1989) discovered

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

that after three months of a combined form-meaning instructional approach on aspectual differences in L2 French short term gains were not maintained. Secondly, it is possible that differences in production of target forms do not necessarily represent knowledge or more control of those grammatical features, but rather more attempts at past tense use. .. Input biases in classroom talk and classroom data Before we analyze potential effects of instruction on developmental sequences we need to review the factors that may be important to notice the features of a target grammatical item. For instance, Schmidt (1990: 143) claims that the factors that influence noticing grammatical features of the target language are: (1) Task demands, (2) Frequency, (3) Saliency of the feature, (4) Individual skills and strategies, and (5) Expectations created by the native language. It is clear that except for factors related to the L1 and individual differences, classroom settings will typically differ quite dramatically from the type of input available in natural non-academic settings of social interaction. Harley (1989) adds additional pedagogical factors that will increase the chances that learners will use morphological means to mark tense-aspect contrasts such as the appeal to students’ metalinguistic awareness, greater and more focused opportunities for output, and goal-directed interaction in small group contexts. Harley highlights not only the pedagogical effect of traditional instructional setting determinants such as metalinguistic awareness, but the pedagogical relevance of factors that typically define the conditions of learning in the natural environment. .. Input biases in classroom talk and classroom data Among the most important features of instructed settings for the acquisition of semantic-discursive grammatical features is the type of input available to learners. Kaplan (1987), for instance, reports that 84% of all forms of past tense used in a sample of classroom French are in the passé composé. This claim is corroborated by Swain (1991: 243) in a study that analyzed classroom talk in grade 6 immersion classes: Two thirds of the verbs correspond to the passé composé and one-third to the imparfait. Furthermore, Swain reported that only 15% of all verbs used by these teachers are in the past tense, and more importantly that the imparfait is “almost completely limited to the verbs avoir, être, faire and vouloir,” (‘to have’, ‘to be’, ‘to do’, and ‘to want’) (see also Ayoun 2004). These two studies, albeit a small sample, are usually supported by anecdotal evidence from many languages teachers. More importantly, these data seem to

Towards a comprehensive model 

confirm that the classroom talk may be highly biased towards the use of the perfective form. On the other hand, we should note that classroom talk may also be affected by the materials used in classroom as samples of language use in the target language. These speech samples are primarily represented by classroom textbooks. Hasbún (1995), for instance, claims that the learners who participated in her study used a textbook in which the Spanish perfective form was presented before the imperfective. Furthermore, she adduces there was a bias towards the use of decontextualized examples that probably made the native-like distinction of the perfective-imperfective contrast quite a challenge. For instance the distribution of lexical aspect in the lesson that introduced the imperfective past tense was as follows: Stative verbs (8%), activities (82%), and telic events (10%). The activity verbs were presented without a context that would allow them to be viewed as closed events (i.e., telic) even though this is typical of native speech. Arguably, the learners were leaning towards the development of a very simplistic approach to past tense use, one that would likely lead students towards developing a low-level system of past tense verbal morphology that is unlikely to mirror the native speaking system. Similarly, the analysis of the type of pedagogical presentation of the contrast passé composé-imparfait in the textbook “Deux Mondes” (Terrell, Rogers, Barnes, & Wolff-Hessini 1993: 242) shows an even stronger bias: “To describe a state of being in the past, French usually uses the imperfect tense.” The type of pedagogical recommendation of Terrell et al. (such as the one cited above) represents an explicit lesson on semantic aspectual classes. This provides further support for the assumption that statives probably constitute a very restricted set of verbs which learners can incorporate into their nonnative system in a non-algorithmic fashion (i.e., associative learning) (cf., DeKeyser 1994; N. Ellis 1996; R. Ellis 1987). .. Developmental sequences Given the weight of the empirical evidence about the pedagogical effects of academic settings (in comparison with similar empirical evidence from natural settings), most researchers agree on the beneficial effects of instruction. For instance, Buczowska and Weist (1991: 548) claim that “(a)dults are capable of processing the morphology, and given typical pedagogical practices, tutored L2 learners are not permitted to avoid doing so.” In effect, as shown in the analysis of previous studies, it is not unusual for learners at the very beginning levels of proficiency to start marking past tense morphology. In fact, this effect is even more pronounced when L1 English speakers have already been exposed to another Romance language (see chapters on Portuguese, Catalan and Italian in

 Dalila Ayoun and Rafael Salaberry

this volume). More importantly, Bardovi-Harlig (2000), for instance, argues that the most natural progression in acquisition (i.e., pragmatic → lexical → morphological) may possibly be affected by instruction. The above mentioned positive effect of instruction is, however, still vaguely defined. For instance, will instruction help learners skip only the first step of pragmatic marking in the sequence proposed by Bardovi-Harlig without necessarily affecting the remaining steps in the developmental sequence? This is a conservative claim that, as we argued above, is likely to be corroborated by most empirical studies as shown above. On the other hand, one could also make a more radical statement and argue that instruction will have an effect across all stages of the developmental continuum of tense-aspect marking. For instance, a conscious attempt to mark tense (very likely in classroom environments) may override the developmental claim of the LAH and lead to a more balanced attempt at marking past tense endings across lexical aspectual classes. This claim, when applied to L1 English speakers learning a Romance language is obviously based on the assumption that learners will naturally rely on their L1 knowledge about the semantic and discursive meanings conveyed by verbal morphology. Such knowledge can be used as a point of departure to develop their L2 system of verbal morphology by “stretching”, so to speak their L1 system (cf. dialect learning). Thus, in line with the preliminary three-stage developmental model described in this chapter (i.e., tense marking → lexical aspect marking → discourse marking), we argue that instruction will encourage the immediate use of verbal morphology during the beginning phases of classroom instruction. This, in effect, overrides the significant weight of pragmatic marking. Naturally, learners will use verbal morphology to convey mostly tense distinctions given that aspectual contrasts in English are not conveyed through inflectional morphology (but rather periphrastically). Eventually, the sheer saliency and frequency of specific verbs as determined by distributional biases inherent in classroom speech and classroom pedagogical materials will have a subsequent effect. Almost as quickly as learners start to build a larger lexical database, they will start to rely on the lexical aspectual value of verbs in association with the most typical morphological endings used with each lexical aspectual class. Ultimately, learners aided and encouraged by extensive metalinguistic knowledge would try to incorporate a level of analysis to their conceptualization of the meaning of past tense verbal morphology: Discursive-pragmatic factors (e.g., grounding effects). In sum, we propose that instruction will have a similar moderating and guiding effect throughout different stages of development; equally relevant during the very beginning stages of acquisition in which the pragmatic-

Towards a comprehensive model 

functional marking of tense-aspect is almost non-existent (at least relative to the extent of its importance as reflected in studies of naturalistic learners without access to formal instruction) to the more advanced stages when metalinguistic awareness can help learners engage in a multi-level analysis of semanticdiscursive and pragmatic meanings of past tense verbal endings. In line with the previous argument, one obvious and not so surprising corollary, is that the selection of the appropriate type of pedagogical intervention as well as the timing of such pedagogical manipulation must follow the stages that learners go through in their development of inflectional morphology (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Pienemann 1987, 1989). In fact, this claim has been made before as Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds (1995) claimed that the design of classroom pedagogical activities should be based on three main factors: Increased focus on meaning, use of positive evidence, and reliance on information about acquisitional sequences. Even though our claim is not novel, it can be argued that the still preliminary theoretical claim advanced in this chapter with regard to the potential reality of the three stages of development of past tense verbal morphology in the Romance languages adds one additional piece of information to previous claims about the benefits of pedagogical intervention. That is, explicit instruction may be particularly useful for the learning of more complex grammatical concepts, as is the case of viewpoint aspect, when students have reached the stage of development in which they are more akin to look beyond local sentence-based semantic contrasts. During the first two stages of development, it is likely that simply providing learners with minimal information about the use of the past tense verbal markers will be enough to trigger first the use of past tense markers (appropriately or not), and later on frequency and saliency effects primarily represented in prototypical associations of verbal endings with lexical aspectual classes.

Notes . As discussed in Salaberry (this volume) the theoretical status of states is not entirely clear, although Schell, among others, assumes that the [+perfective] feature is incompatible with states but that learners will nevertheless mark states for past with the perfective form in the Romance languages. . As correctly pointed out by Hawkins and Liszka, the empirical evidence used by the authors should be viewed with caution because Hawkins and Liszka’s findings are based on data from only two L1 Chinese speakers who produced a total of 116 past tense tokens in their oral narratives.

References

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Name index

A Abrate 98, 283 Allen 235, 283 Alturo 45, 74, 283 Anastassiadi 229, 283 Andersen 4, 14, 16, 18, 20, 30, 32, 45, 72, 76, 84, 91, 139, 184, 185, 186, 216, 218, 220, 222–223, 264, 269, 273, 283–284, 302 Andrews 98, 222, 284 Antinucci 14, 140, 149, 175, 177, 284 Artegoita 238 Ayoun 24, 87, 91, 92, 96, 100, 101–102, 104, 110, 213, 218, 220, 224, 229, 232, 239, 240, 257–258, 261, 266–267, 268, 278, 284 B Badia 35, 37, 74, 284 Bardovi-Harlig 8, 15, 17, 27, 28, 45, 48, 52, 54, 69, 71, 72, 74, 75, 91, 104, 142, 185, 219, 220, 257, 269, 270, 280, 281, 284–285 Barnes 245, 285 Bartning 91, 285 Bayley 21, 285 Beck 99, 285 Benati 235, 285 Benjamin 38, 287 Berenstain 52, 285 Bergström 8, 25, 52, 91, 219, 269, 285 Berman 177, 227, 285 Bernini 140, 285 Bertinetto 74, 124, 129, 137, 138, 285–286, 287

Bianchi 124, 286 Binnick 2, 3, 4, 183, 286 Birdsong 123, 218, 286 Bley-Vroman 12, 241, 286, 295 Bloom 14, 19, 286, 299 Blyth 98, 212, 222, 224–225, 226, 227, 286 Bonnotte 45, 73, 286 Bonomi 79, 286 Borer 80, 91, 286 Bourdin 45, 46, 47, 75, 257, 286 Brod 51, 286 Bronckart 14, 45, 46, 47, 75, 257, 286 Brown 14, 286 Brucart 74, 286 Bruhn de Garavito 100, 289 Buczowska 279, 286 Bull 8, 286 Burzio 131, 286 Butt 38, 287 Bybee 14, 130, 287 C Calleri 140, 175, 176, 287 Camps 71, 185, 204, 287 Carter 233, 243, 287 Casalmiglia 43, 287 Caselli 140, 177, 298 Celce-Murcia 243, 287 Cenoz 75, 76, 287 Centineo 132, 287 Chafe 230, 287 Chan 94, 99, 292 Chaplin 48, 52, 287 Chung 3, 10, 287

 Name index

Clahsen 99, 287 Cohen 123 Collentine 235, 287 Comajoan 13, 18, 44, 75, 76, 226, 231, 257, 259–260, 268, 287 Comrie 2, 3, 10, 20, 32, 38, 84, 137, 181, 223, 287 Connor 222, 223, 287 Cook 229, 287 Coppieters 20, 31, 183, 210, 218, 287 Couper-Kuhlen 43, 287 Cowart 123, 287 Cox 222, 287 Crain 93, 287 Crookes 231, 241, 287, 295 D Dahl 14, 130, 131, 138, 193, 287 Dansereau 98, 212, 214, 287 Davidson 32, 287 Declerck 38, 287 DeKeyser 232, 235, 279, 287 Delfitto 74, 137, 287 Demidarche 124, 287 de Miguel 23, 28, 185, 288 Depraetere 6, 32, 43, 44, 45, 289 de Swart 29, 94, 289 Dietrich 12, 289 Disney 17, 289 Dols 35, 306 Dolz 45, 289 Doughty 212, 215, 232, 233–234, 238, 239, 289 Dowty 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 25, 26, 27, 32, 132, 193, 197, 198 Dry 43, 45, 289 Dube 100, 289 Duff 273, 289 Duffield 100, 289 E Egerland 124, 289 Ellis, N. 266, 271, 279, 289 Ellis, R. 73, 211, 213, 217, 233, 240, 247, 279, 290, 304

Epstein 99, 290 Erbaugh 72, 290 Eubank 100, 290 F Farley 235, 290 Farrar 239, 290 Fayol 45, 286 Federico 235, 303 Flashner 140, 218, 290 Fleischman 20, 43, 72, 74, 217, 226–227, 231, 244, 290 Flynn 99, 290 Foley 132, 290 Foerster 212, 222, 225, 237, 238 Fotos 233, 297 Frawley 14 Fridman 238 G García 16, 205, 212, 290 García Fernández 40, 41, 74, 290 Gascoigne 239, 290 Gass 123, 232, 239, 291 Genesee 76 Giacalone Ramat 18, 49, 140, 268, 291 Giorgi 21, 23, 31, 80, 90, 91, 93, 180, 192, 193, 291 Givón 17, 43, 44, 72, 291 González 187, 291 Gordon 239, 291 Granda 187, 190, 204, 220, 291 Gregg 272, 291 Grimshaw 93, 291 Grondin 99, 291 Güell 17, 49, 70, 191, 220, 271, 291 Guitart 20, 32, 292 H Hafitz 14, 286 Hammarberg 75, 292 Harley 91, 98, 212, 217, 219, 277–278, 292 Harrington 235, 287

Name index 

J Jaeggli 81, 293 Jarvis 140, 293 Jessner 76 Jourdenais 238, 239, 277, 293 Julien 124, 293

L Labov 12, 19, 43, 244–245, 294 Laca 124, 294 Lafford 17, 21, 27, 49, 70, 294 Lakshmanan 99, 294 Landman 6, 294 Langacker 6, 17, 222, 294 Lardiere 100, 209, 295 Ledgeway 177 Lee 217, 234, 295 Leeman 238, 295 Leiria 180, 181, 295 Leow 232, 295 Levin 132, 295 Li 273, 289 Lifter 14, 286 Lightbown 220, 239, 297 Lin 239, 295 Liskin Gasparro 71, 74, 184, 204, 210, 212, 216, 218, 226, 295 Liszka 194, 274–276, 292 Long 239–240, 241, 293, 295 López-Ortega 18, 49, 70, 74, 75, 185, 188, 231–232, 295, 300 Loschky 241, 295 Lubbers-Quesada 187, 188, 295 Lunn 2, 16, 222, 295 Lyster 239, 296

K Kachru 19, 293 Kaifer 45, 286 Kaplan 212, 278, 293 Karmiloff-Smith 270, 293 Kawamoto 100, 294 Kellerman 140, 294 Kihlstedt 91, 294 Klein 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 21, 25, 26, 32, 33, 91, 193, 197, 207, 289, 294, 298 Ko 242, 294 Kramsch 243, 294 Kroch 82, 294 Kumpf 209, 218, 294 Kurono 14, 15, 72, 185, 216, 302

M Mackey 239, 240, 296 MacWhinney 54, 77, 110, 236, 266, 267 Madorell 52, 296 Maingueneau 6, 9, 296 Martohardjono 99, 290 McCarthy 233, 243, 296 Meisel 10, 99, 296 Miller 14, 140, 149, 175, 284 Monrós 52, 299 Montrul 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 79, 93–97, 100, 124, 126–127, 183, 184, 185, 210, 289, 296, 302 Morgan 229, 297 Mourelatos 8, 9, 84 Muysken 99, 287

Hasbún 8, 15, 25, 27, 52, 198, 220, 276, 279, 292 Hatch 243, 292 Hawkins 94, 99, 194, 274–276, 292 Haznedar 99, 100, 292 Hedgcock 123, 239, 292, 295 Hernán 222, 223–224, 292 Herschensohn 272, 292 Hopper 9, 16, 43, 45, 46, 72, 73, 292–293 Houdaïfa 91, 297 Housen 21, 45, 48, 206, 208, 261, 292 Hufeisen 76 Hulstijn 102, 293

I Idiazabal-Gorrochategui 45, 286 Inagaki 239–240, 293, 295 Izumi 239, 293

 Name index

N Nassaji 233, 297 Nelson 239, 297 Nicholas 239, 297 Nishida 4, 297 Noyau 12, 48, 91, 289, 297 O Odlin 140, 297 Okuwaki 209, 297 Oller 221, 297 Olsen 9, 182, 193, 297 O’Neill 238, 300 Ong 224, 297 Ozete 222, 297 Ortega 240, 295 P Paprotté 223, 298 Paradis 183, 298 Parish 231 Penny 180, 181, 298 Perdue 12, 91, 294, 298 Pereltsvaig 80, 96, 127, 298 Pérez Saldanya 35, 36, 38, 40, 45, 63, 74, 298 Perlmutter 131, 298 Philp 240, 296 Pianesi 21, 23, 31, 80. 90, 91, 93, 180, 192, 193, 291 Pica 239, 298 Pienemann 220, 268, 281, 298 Piñon 96, 298 Pinker 206, 298 Pizzuto 177, 298 Polanyi 74, 298 Polinsky 96 Pollock 89, 298 Prévost 100, 289, 299 Puig 52, 299 Pustejowsky 132, 299 R Ramsay 8, 16, 299

Ranta 239, 296 Rappaport Hovav 132, 295 Reichenbach 39, 299 Reid 17, 299 Reinhart 5, 27, 43, 44, 222–223, 270, 299 Reynolds 15, 185, 281 Rieken 240, 299 Riley 229, 299 Rinvolucri 229, 297 Rigau 74, 286 Riggenbach 243, 299 Rispoli 14, 19, 205, 299 Roberts 82, 299 Robinson 76, 219, 235, 287, 299 Robison 10, 14, 15, 299 Rocca 139, 140, 176, 221, 258, 262, 299 Rohde 206, 299 Rojo 74, 299 Romaine 73, 300 Rosa 238, 300 Rosen 93, 291 Roussou 99, 305 Rutherford 232, 300 Ryan 180, 181, 300 S Safir 81, 293 Salaberry 8, 13, 15, 20, 21, 22, 30, 52, 74, 91, 96, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 197, 204, 205, 210, 216, 219, 220, 231–232, 235, 245, 258–259, 263, 268, 269, 271–272, 296, 300 Sanz 79, 90, 300 Sato 12 Saxton 239, 300–301 Schachter 140, 301 Schell 23, 28, 96, 99, 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, 204, 210, 220, 272, 301 Schiffrin 45, 231, 301 Schlyter 91, 301 Schmidt 12, 76, 99, 180, 183, 222, 232, 278, 301, 305 Schmitt 180, 192, 193, 301 Schumann 12, 13, 218, 301 Schütze 123, 301

Name index

Schwartz 99, 100, 183, 184, 301 Selinker 99, 294 Shirai 14, 15, 16, 18, 22, 27, 45, 72, 91, 129, 139, 184, 185, 198, 206, 216, 266, 269, 270, 275, 284, 301–302 Silva-Corvalán 16, 19, 43, 45, 231, 302 Sinclair 14 Slabakova 23, 24, 29, 31, 73, 74, 79, 92–97, 124, 126–127, 184, 185, 210, 296, 302 Slobin 69, 177, 227, 302 Smith 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 19, 29, 84–88, 92, 193, 204, 216, 273, 303 Sokalski 235, 287 Sorace 123, 124, 132, 134, 136, 140, 153, 178, 262–263, 303 Spada 220, 239, 297, 303 Sprouse 99, 301 Stokes 276–277, 303 Strapp 239, 303 Swain 236, 278, 303, 304 T Takashima 240, 304 Tanaka 240, 304 Tannen 230, 231, 304 Tarone 123, 231, 304 Tenny 6, 9, 26, 79, 80, 124, 132, 304 Terrell 98, 304 Terry 222, 304 Thogmartin 222, 304 Thompson 43, 73, 292 Thornton 93, 287 Timberlake 3, 10, 287 Tomlin 54, 72, 232, 304 Toribio 94, 304 Travis 90, 96, 305 Trévise 12, 13, 48. 305 Tsimpli 99, 303 U Ungerer 222, 305 Uribe-Etxebarria 124, 287

V Vainikka 99, 305 VanPatten 69, 212, 217, 234–235, 295, 305 vanPutte 16, 205, 212 Van Valin 132, 290, 305 Vasseur 91, 297, 305 Vendler 3, 9, 10, 25, 26, 32, 84, 132, 182, 305 Verkuyl 3, 6, 8, 9, 96, 305 Véronique 12, 17, 48, 91, 297, 305 Veiga 74, 299 Villa 232 Volterra 140, 149, 177, 306

W Waletzky 43 Wallace 17, 43, 306 Waugh 20 Weist 5, 14, 279, 286, 303 Welles 51 Westfall 212, 222, 225, 306 Wheeler 35, 37, 74, 306 White 99, 100, 291 Wiberg 16, 20, 140, 175, 176, 177, 271, 306 Widdowson 211, 306 Wilkinson 230, 306 Williams 212, 233–234, 239, 289 Wode 140, 306 Wolfram 21, 306

Y Yates 35, 37, 306 Young-Scholten 99, 305 Yousseff 19, 306

Z Zalewski 12, 306 Zobl 140, 306



Subject index

A Accomplishment 3–4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 84–86, 107–109, 116–119, 122–123, 132, 133, 139, 140, 197 143, 145, 157, 160, 167–170 Achievement 3–4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 18, 19, 25, 84–86, 107–109, 116–119, 122–123, 137, 140, 142, 145, 160, 170–173, 176, 188, 197, 206 Activity 3–4, 7, 9–11, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 29, 84–86, 107, 116–119, 122–123, 133, 135, 136, 139, 140, 146, 152,157, 160, 163–167, 174, 175, 176, 197 Adverbial (phrase) 5, 6, 8, 13, 18, 25–26, 80, 89–90, 106, 110, 184 Aktionsart 3–4, 29 Aktionsart phrase 91 American Russian 96–97 Aspect Hypothesis 3, 11, 14–15, 84–88, 91, 129, 139, 140, 174–175, 184, 185, 189, 191, 199, 204, 205, 207, 247, 262, 266, 269–271, 280 Aspectual complexity 212–214 Aspectual phrase (AspP) 23, 88–91, 93, 94–95, 98–101, 123, 124, 260–261 Association rules/processes 218, 222

206–209,

Atelic 6–7, 8–9, 134, 147, 149, 192, 197, 201, 204 Attention

212, 214, 241, 242, 243, 246

Auxiliary selection

131–137

Awareness 220, 223, 230, 232–233, 236–237, 248

B Background 12, 16, 17–18, 27–28, 43–45, 54–74, 161, 164, 165, 174, 175, 190, 208 Bare past participle 140, 142–144, 146–149 Basilang speech/stage 11–13 Basque 46 Bi/multi-lingualism 75–76, 236, 247–248 Bounded(ness) 6, 23, 192 Bracketing principle 12 Bulgarian 93

C Catalan 13, 35–42, 46–47, 257, 259–260 CHAT/CLAN 54, 110 Child L1 acquisition 149, 177, 227, 239 Child L2 acquisition 80, 91, 95, 99, 139, 140, 174–177, 184 CHILDES 54 Chinese 194, 273–276 Creoles 19 Coercion 94 Cognitive factors 20–22 Compound past 130, 140, 142, 143, 146–148, 149, 151, 154, 156, 157, 161, 163,165, 167, 169, 170, 172, 173–175, 177, 213, 221 Congruence Principle 14, 72 Constructionism 28, 96, 220 Contextual factors 9, 16–18 Classroom learners 20, 48, 50, 234–243 Cloze task 113–114, 123, 141–142

 Subject index

D Default auxiliary 152, 157, 169, 172, 177 Default past tense hypothesis 11, 20–22, 180, 186–188 Default past tense 146, 148, 151, 163, 173, 176, 186–187 Developmental readiness 218, 220 Developmental stages 14–15, 218–221, 267–268, 279–281 Dictogloss 236–238, 247 Discourse grounding 12, 18, 43–45, 54–74 Discourse grounding and verbal morphology 45–50, 54–74 Discourse hypothesis 11, 16–18, 45 Pedagogical applications 243–245 Distributional bias (hypothesis) 11, 18–20, 179, 184, 185, 207, 208 Durative 3, 7, 72 Dynamic(ity) 7, 10, 134, 174, 193, 197, 201, 204, 207, 208, 209 E English 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 81–83, 89–90 American English 18–19 Indian English 19 South Asian Englishes 19 Etre en train de 82, 88 F Failed Formal Features hypothesis 94, 99 Feature strength 80, 89–90, 96, 99–101, 110, 112 Focus on form 213, 233, 239, 241, 246 Foreground 17–18, 27–28, 43–45, 54–74, 164–165, 174 Formal complexity 213–214 Frequency 216–217 French 2, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17–18, 46–47, 80–88, 89–90, 257–258, 260–261 Full Access hypothesis 99 Functional categories 80, 88–91, 98–101 Functional complexity 213

G Generative 131 German 4, 46 Grammaticalization 36, 42, 63 Grammatical aspect 3, 5, 23, 25, 28, 29, 40, 42, 84–88

H Habitual 42, 44, 71 Hindi 19 Hodiernal (pre) 38, 40

I Imparfait 2, 46–47, 81–82, 84–88, 92, 98, 104–105, 111–112, 119–123, 213, 217, 240, 246 Imperfect 19, 22, 56–63, 181 Imperfective 1, 2, 5, 19, 20, 29, 40, 42, 49, 84–88, 180–183 Imperfective Paradox 5–6 Imperfetto 129, 137–139, 140, 141, 157–168, 170, 174–175 Infinitive 36, 37, 38, 63, 105 Inflectional richness 81–84, 97–98, 123 Inner aspect phrase 24, 96, 186 Input activities 236, 239 Input based factors 18–20 Input biases 265–266, 278–279 Input enhancement 238–239, 277 Instructed learners 70, 93, 95, 97–101 Interactional discourse hypothesis 17, 211 Intake 217 Italian 17–18, 23, 46–47, 130–131, 133, 135–137, 139

J Japanese 19

K Kashmiri 19

Subject index

L Labovian approach/model 244–245 Lexical aspect 3, 29, 185–187, 190, 191, 204 Lexical Aspect Hypothesis see Aspect Hypothesis Lexical aspectual class/category 193, 195, 197, 198, 200, 204, 205 M Marathi 19 Marked(ness) 132, 137, 149, 156 Metalanguage 213, 215, 224–225, 246, 247 Minimal Tree hypothesis 99–100 Minimalism 28, 79–80, 88–91, 185–186, 192, 260–261, 266–267 Minimalist hypothesis 11, 23–25 Missing Surface Inflection hypothesis 100 Modals 80, 83, 84 Model(ling) 92, 240 Modern Times 15, 48, 50, 52–53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61–67 Morphological mapping 80, 100, 121 N Naturalistic learners 11–13, 14, 17–18, 20, 91, 97 (Near)-nativess 31, 94–95 O One-to-one principle 72 Operational tests 25–27, 114, 197–198 Outer aspect phrase 23, 91, 96, 186 Output activities 234, 239, 240 Output hypothesis 236 Output processing 236–237 P Passato prossimo 49, 129–131, 141, 149, 152, 164, 175, 177 Passato remoto 130

Passé composé 2, 46–47, 69, 80–82, 84–88, 92, 98, 104–105, 111–112, 119–123, 213, 217, 240, 246 Passé simple 46–47, 81–82, 84, 86, 104–105 Pedagogical applications 211–212, 218–251 Periphrastic preterite 36–37, 46–47 Periphrastic forms/tenses 4, 5, 13, 80–84, 130, 137, 138, 139, 180, 182 Perfective 1, 2, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23–24, 40, 42, 56–63, 84–88, 180–183 Plus-que-parfait 81–82, 92, 118–120, 121 Portuguese 13, 180–183, 258–259–263 Pragmatic factors 11–12 Present 46–47, 81–83 Preterite 46–47, 49, 56–65 Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis see Aspect Hypothesis Processing instruction 234–236 Progressive 2, 5, 19, 26, 84–88, 182 Prototype/(non) prototypical 16, 20, 92, 111, 121, 130–131, 132, 134, 135, 137–138, 175, 176, 185, 186, 205, 206 Punctual 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 27, 44, 197 R Recasts/recasting 92, 239–241 Redundancy 216, 217 Relevance Principle 14, 72 Reliability 213, 214–215 Resultative 4 Research design 30–31, 52–53, 68, 73–74, 101–102, 123–124, 141–142, 187–191, 226–227, 231–232 Romance 1–2, 4, 24, 36–38, 180, 253–255, 257, 259, 260, 263 S Saint George 52–54, 56, 59, 61 Saliency/salient 21, 69, 193, 214, 217–218, 223, 238, 239, 247 se 4–5 Semantic factors 14–15, 184



 Subject index

Semantic features 7–8 Situation aspect 28 Situation type 5 Slavic 92 Spanish 1, 2, 4–6, 8, 14–15, 16, 17–18, 20–22, 23–24, 180–183 Standard Russian 96–97 State(s)/stative 3–4, 7, 10, 26, 84–86, 107–109, 116–119, 122–123, 182, 188, 193, 199, 203, 205, 206 Structured input 232–236 Syllabus/syllabi 213, 232 Syntactic factors 23–25 T Task-essential language 241–243 Telic (telicity) 6–7, 8–9, 10, 29, 133–134, 140, 143, 146–147, 149, 152, 156, 173, 175–176, 186, 192, 193, 197, 199, 201, 203–205 Telicity marking parameter 92–93 Temporal distance 38 Text types 19, 22, 46–47, 103, 226–231 Theoretical approaches 11

Traditional grammar instruction 92, 98 Transfer 179, 187, 190, 204, 207, 209 Type/token 107–108 U Unaccusative 131, 134, 137, 149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 169, 172, 176, 177 Unaccusative hypothesis 131 Unbounded 24 Unergative 131, 134, 152 Universal Grammar (UG) hypothesis 23–25, 99–100 Unmarked past tense hypothesis see Default past tense hypothesis V Viewpoint aspect 5, 205 Vendler-Doughty classes 132, 143 Vendler-Mourelatos classes 3–4, 84 Visual perception 222–225 W Weak Transfer/Valueless Features

100

In the series Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil) the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 30 PIENEMANN, Manfred (ed.): Cross-Linguistic Aspects of Processability Theory. Expected December 2005 29 AYOUN, Dalila and M. Rafael SALABERRY (eds.): Tense and Aspect in Romance Languages. Theoretical and applied perspectives. 2005. x, 316 pp. 28 SCHMID, Monika S., Barbara KÖPKE, Merel KEIJZER and Lina WEILEMAR (eds.): First Language Attrition. Interdisciplinary perspectives on methodological issues. 2004. x, 378 pp. 27 CALLAHAN, Laura: Spanish/English Codeswitching in a Written Corpus. 2004. viii, 183 pp. 26 DIMROTH, Christine and Marianne STARREN (eds.): Information Structure and the Dynamics of Language Acquisition. 2003. vi, 361 pp. 25 PILLER, Ingrid: Bilingual Couples Talk. The discursive construction of hybridity. 2002. xii, 315 pp. 24 SCHMID, Monika S.: First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance. The case of German Jews in anglophone countries. 2002. xiv, 259 pp. (incl. CD-rom). 23 VERHOEVEN, Ludo and Sven STRÖMQVIST (eds.): Narrative Development in a Multilingual Context. 2001. viii, 431 pp. 22 SALABERRY, M. Rafael: The Development of Past Tense Morphology in L2 Spanish. 2001. xii, 211 pp. 21 DÖPKE, Susanne (ed.): Cross-Linguistic Structures in Simultaneous Bilingualism. 2001. x, 258 pp. 20 POULISSE, Nanda: Slips of the Tongue. Speech errors in first and second language production. 1999. xvi, 257 pp. 19 AMARA, Muhammad Hasan: Politics and Sociolinguistic Reflexes. Palestinian border villages. 1999. xx, 261 pp. 18 PARADIS, Michel: A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. 2004. viii, 299 pp. 17 ELLIS, Rod: Learning a Second Language through Interaction. 1999. x, 285 pp. 16 HUEBNER, Thom and Kathryn A. DAVIS (eds.): Sociopolitical Perspectives on Language Policy and Planning in the USA. With the assistance of Joseph Lo Bianco. 1999. xvi, 365 pp. 15 PIENEMANN, Manfred: Language Processing and Second Language Development. Processability theory. 1998. xviii, 367 pp. 14 YOUNG, Richard and Agnes Weiyun HE (eds.): Talking and Testing. Discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency. 1998. x, 395 pp. 13 HOLLOWAY, Charles E.: Dialect Death. The case of Brule Spanish. 1997. x, 220 pp. 12 HALMARI, Helena: Government and Codeswitching. Explaining American Finnish. 1997. xvi, 276 pp. 11 BECKER, Angelika and Mary CARROLL: The Acquisition of Spatial Relations in a Second Language. In co-operation with Jorge Giacobbe, Clive Perdue & Rémi Porquier. 1997. xii, 212 pp. 10 BAYLEY, Robert and Dennis R. PRESTON (eds.): Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Variation. 1996. xix, 317 pp. 9 FREED, Barbara F. (ed.): Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context. 1995. xiv, 345 pp. 8 DAVIS, Kathryn A.: Language Planning in Multilingual Contexts. Policies, communities, and schools in Luxembourg. 1994. xix, 220 pp. 7 DIETRICH, Rainer, Wolfgang KLEIN and Colette NOYAU: The Acquisition of Temporality in a Second Language. In cooperation with Josée Coenen, Beatriz Dorriots, Korrie van Helvert, Henriette Hendriks, Et-Tayeb Houdaïfa, Clive Perdue, Sören Sjöström, Marie-Thérèse Vasseur and Kaarlo Voionmaa. 1995. xii, 288 pp. 6 SCHREUDER, Robert and Bert WELTENS (eds.): The Bilingual Lexicon. 1993. viii, 307 pp. 5 KLEIN, Wolfgang and Clive PERDUE: Utterance Structure. Developing grammars again. In cooperation with Mary Carroll, Josée Coenen, José Deulofeu, Thom Huebner, Anne Trévise. 1992. xvi, 354 pp. 4 PAULSTON, Christina Bratt: Linguistic Minorities in Multilingual Settings. Implications for language policies. 1994. xi, 136 pp.

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DÖPKE, Susanne: One Parent – One Language. An interactional approach. 1992. xviii, 213 pp. BOT, Kees de, Ralph B. GINSBERG and Claire KRAMSCH (eds.): Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective. 1991. xii, 275 pp. FASE, Willem, Koen JASPAERT and Sjaak KROON (eds.): Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages. 1992. xii, 403 pp.

Tense And Aspect in Romance Languages: Theoretical And Applied Perspectives (Studies in Bilingualism)

Tense, Aspect, and Indexicality (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)

Language Attrition: Theoretical perspectives (Studies in Bilingualism)

Perspectives on Aspect (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics)

Tense and Aspect in Bantu

Tense and Aspect in Bantu

Tense and Aspect in Bantu

Tense and Aspect Systems

Tense, Mood and Aspect: Theoretical and Descriptive Issues

Declarative and Procedural Determinants of Second Languages (Studies in Bilingualism)

Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar

Exploring time, tense, and aspect in natural language database interfaces

Gambling Problems in Youth: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives

American Spanish pronunciation: theoretical and applied perspectives

Studies in Japanese Bilingualism (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22)

Exploring time, tense and aspect in natural language database interfaces

Bilingualism and Identity: Spanish at the Crossroads with Other Languages (Studies in Bilingualism, Volume 37)

Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology : Eurotyp 20-6)

Bilingualism and Identity: Spanish at the Crossroads with Other Languages (Studies in Bilingualism, Volume 37)

Child Second Language Acquisition; A bi-directional study of English and Italian tense-aspect morphology (Studies in Bilingualism)

First Steps in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Unaccusative Verbs in Romance Languages (Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Languages and Cognition)

Language and Education in Japan: Unequal Access to Bilingualism (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities)

Grammatical Categories: Variation in Romance Languages (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World

Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs)

Languages in America: A Pluralist View (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism)

Spanish in Four Continents: Studies in Language Contact and Bilingualism

Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages (Studies in Language Companion Series)

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Tense And Aspect in Romance Languages: Theoretical And Applied Perspectives (Studies in Bilingualism)

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Language Attrition: Theoretical perspectives (Studies in Bilingualism)

Perspectives on Aspect (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics)

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Tense and Aspect in Bantu

Tense and Aspect Systems

Tense, Mood and Aspect: Theoretical and Descriptive Issues

Declarative and Procedural Determinants of Second Languages (Studies in Bilingualism)

Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar

Exploring time, tense, and aspect in natural language database interfaces

Gambling Problems in Youth: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives

American Spanish pronunciation: theoretical and applied perspectives

Studies in Japanese Bilingualism (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22)

Exploring time, tense and aspect in natural language database interfaces

Bilingualism and Identity: Spanish at the Crossroads with Other Languages (Studies in Bilingualism, Volume 37)

Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology : Eurotyp 20-6)

Bilingualism and Identity: Spanish at the Crossroads with Other Languages (Studies in Bilingualism, Volume 37)

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Languages in America: A Pluralist View (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism)

Spanish in Four Continents: Studies in Language Contact and Bilingualism

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