The acquisition of tense—aspect in child second language English

Abstract

and to test Gavruseva's aspectual features account, according to which inherent aspectual properties of the verbs such as telicity and punctuality determine which verbs will be non-finite and which verbs will not (Gavruseva, 2002;2003;2004) in child L2 acquisition. Based on longitudinal data from a Turkish child second language (L2) learner of English, we present counter evidence for both hypotheses. First, it is shown that despite the fact that the early production of past tense morphology occurs exclusively with punctual predicates, data from copula be, auxiliary do and pronominal subjects do not show any evidence for defective tense. Second, contrary to what is predicted in Gavruseva's hypothesis, the rate of uninflected punctual verbs is much higher than that of uninflected non-punctual verbs in the child L2 grammar.Keywords: child L2 acquisition, L2 tense-aspect morphology, Underspecification of Aspect Hypothesis, optional/root infinitives in L2 © 2007© SAGE 10.1177 Second Language Research 23,4 (2007); pp. 383-417 Address for correspondence: Belma Haznedar, Department of Foreign Language Education, Bogaziçi University, 34342 Bebek/Istanbul, Turkey; e-mail: haznedab@boun.edu.tr I IntroductionIt has long been noted that grammatical morphemes cause problems for learners both in first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition (e.g. Brown, 1973;Dulay et al., 1982). In most cases, learners exhibit optionality or variability in the use of morphology relating to tense, agreement, case and/or gender as well as functional elements such as determiners, complementizers and auxiliaries. To this end, much work in L1 and L2 acquisition since the 1970s has explored the presence or absence of verbal and nominal inflection. In regard to the verbal domain, the focus has been on the development of tense-aspect morphology in monolingual and bilingual language acquisition (e.g. Antinucci and Miller, 1976; Bloom et al., 1980;Schlyter, 1990;Shirai and Andersen, 1995;Shirai, 1998; Behrens, 2001), as well as in adult L2 acquisition (e.g. Robison, 1995; BardoviHarlig and Bergström, 1996;Slabakova, 1999;2001). Following the Aspect Hypothesis, in some of these studies L1 and L2 researchers have argued that verbal inflections in early interlanguage grammars function primarily as markers of lexical aspect. That is, when inflections emerge, they are not evenly distributed across all verbs, but mark inherent aspect, not deictic tense.In child L2 acquisition, on the other hand, recent work has mainly concentrated on the acquisition of tense and agreement morphology (e.g. Lakshmanan, 1994;Gavruseva and Lardiere, 1996;Grondin and White, 1996;Prévost, 1997;Paradis et al., 1998;Haznedar, 2001;Ionin and Wexler, 2002). With the exception of some studies (e.g. Rohde, 1996;Gavruseva, 2002;2003;2004), there has been little discussion of how tense-aspect morphology develops in child L2 acquisition. Based on longitudinal data from a Turkish-speaking child L2 learner of English, the primary aim of this article is to investigate the acquisition...

More evidence concerning the Aspect Hypothesis: The acquisition of English progressive aspect by Catalan-Spanish instructed learners

“…Many of these studies, however, have shown no clear agreement as to which theoretical explanations should be given to the predictable patterns of acquisition of tense and aspect. Hence, reasons such as the distribution of input (Ayoun and Salaberry 2008;Rhode 1996;Robison 1995;Andersen and Shirai 1994) to which learners are exposed, the influence of the teaching environment (Bardovi-Harlig 1992), L1 influence (Collins 2002(Collins , 2004Sugaya and Shirai 2007) or alternative universal mechanisms (Slabakova 1999;Gavruseva 2002;and Haznedar 2007 for a counterargument) among others, have been advanced in order to provide an explanation for certain robust patterns of the acquisition of tense and aspect morphology. Within the framework of the AH, the goal of this paper is to provide further evidence from cross-sectional data with regard to the acquisition of progressive aspect by learners of English who are bilingual Catalan-Spanish, a language constellation that has not previously been studied in this domain.…”

The Present State of the Aspect Hypothesis: A Critical Perspective

“…L1 influence and L1-L2 commonality have challenged the exactitude of the AH, since it appears that some learners have an easier time adjusting to the temporal system of the L2 if their native language has similar aspectual inflections (Collins, 2002;Izquierdo & Collins, 2008). Moreover, certain semantic features of lexical aspect -punctuality, followed by telicity -may be more salient to certain learners (Haznedar, 2007).…”

“…Additionally, in Haznedar's (2007) longitudinal study of a child with L1 Turkish at initial stages of L2 English acquisition, her subject initially produced past tense markings on [+punctual] achievement verbs and predicates. Conversely, this subject seldom marked [-punctual] verbs and predicates for aspect at this stage, leaving them in infinitive forms without inflection.…”

“…The retrospective analyses in Liskin-Gasparro (2000) indicate that even at advanced levels of acquisition, language learners make use of inherent lexical aspect when determining lexical markings. Moreover, Haznedar (2007) makes the suggestion that certain elements of lexical aspect are more salient to the L2 learner at early stages of acquisition than others. A third and final area of concern to the AH relates to the nature in which pedagogical materials present grammar, and how such an organization of these materials could impact how learners develop temporal morphology.…”

Be-Insertion in Interlanguage: A Topic Marker, A Tense/Agreement Morpheme, or Both?

“…She is study hard). It is commonly attested in the early stage of L2 English by learners from diverse L1s, such as Arabic (Mourssi, 2013), Bantu languages (Suzman, 1999), Chinese (Yang, 2014), Hmong (Huebner, 1983), Japanese (Shibata, 2006), Korean (Ahn, 2003(Ahn, , 2006Kim, 2011), Russian (Ionin & Wexler, 2002), Spanish (Fleta, 2003;Mayo et al, 2005), and Turkish (Haznedar, 2007). Not only are the L1s of the learners producing be-insertion diverse, but the phenomenon is highly frequent.…”