bardovi-harlig1999 tense aspect morphology temporal semantics.pdf

SSLA, 21, 341382. Printed in the United States of America.

FROM MORPHEME STUDIES TOTEMPORAL SEMANTICS

Tense-Aspect Research in SLA

Kathleen Bardovi-HarligIndiana University

This article surveys the development of second language acquisitionresearch in the area of tense and aspect. Research in the area hasgrown from the incidental investigation of tense-aspect morphologyas part of the morpheme-order studies to investigations of the con-struction of interlanguage temporal semantics. Going beyond verbalmorphology, many studies investigate a full range of temporal expres-sion, including the use of pragmatic and lexical means. Much recentresearch also draws on theories of inherent, or lexical, aspect. Anemphasis on the relation of form and meaning characterizes boththe form-oriented approach and the semantic-oriented approach, thecompeting research paradigms that currently guide our work. Theincrease in scholarly activity in this domain of second language acqui-sition, as reflected not only in the number of studies undertaken butin the number of target languages investigated, bodes well for theunderstanding of temporality in second language.

In many ways the development of research into the acquisition of systems oftemporal expression reflects the development of research in second languageacquisition in general: from early inquiry that investigated acquisition and ac-curacy orders across grammatical subsystems to recent, domain-specific in-quiries that have developed largely independently of research into other areasof the interlanguage grammar. After the investigations of accuracy orders that

I thank Susan Gass for the challenge of writing this article. I also thank the reviewers for their insight-ful comments and many colleagues for making their work available to me. Any errors are mine.

Address correspondence to Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Program in TESOL and Applied Linguistics,Indiana University, Memorial Hall 313, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: [email protected].

1999 Cambridge University Press 0272-2631/99 $9.50 341

342 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig

characterized much of the work involving tense-aspect through the 1970s, thepublished work of the 1980s reflects a paradigm shift to the semantics thatstructure the tense-aspect system. Semantics became the focus of the investi-gation on two distinct fronts. On the North American front, research into thedistribution of verbal morphology in emergent L2 temporal systems was fu-eled by the identification of a semantically determined acquisition sequencein child language acquisition. On the European front, investigation into the ex-pression of meaning took precedence over the investigation of the distributionof form. Both lines of inquiry have been extremely fruitful and have been pur-sued by researchers from both the North American and European traditions.

The linguistic categories investigated in this body of research include tem-poral adverbials, tense, grammatical aspect, and lexical aspect. Tense estab-lishes the location of an event in time (Comrie, 1985) and grammatical aspectallows for ways of viewing the temporal constituency of a situation (Comrie,1976, p. 3). Grammatical aspect is also sometimes called viewpoint aspectbecause the choice between progressive and simple, for example, often re-flects the speakers view of the action (Smith, 1983). In contrast, lexical as-pect, also known as inherent aspect, Aktionsart, and actionality (Binnick,1991), refers to the inherent temporal makeup of verbs and predicates. Lexicalaspect captures characteristics such as whether a verb or verb phrase de-scribes an action with inherent duration like talk and sleep, is punctual likerecognize and notice, or has elements of both duration and culmination likebuild a house and paint a picture. A single verb may show contrasting gram-matical aspect as in he was singing and he sang, but its inherent lexical aspectdoes not change. In these sentences, sing has intrinsic duration whether thegrammatical aspect is simple past or past progressive. A different predicatesing a song has both duration, the singing of the song, and a specific endpoint,the completion of the song (that is, when there is no more song to sing).These differences are captured in the Vendler classification of lexical aspect(1967), which is based on a classification system traced back to Aristotle. Theclassification is discussed in more detail in later sections. The studies re-viewed here address the acquisition of selected features of emergent temporalsystems.

EARLY STUDIES OF VERBAL MORPHOLOGY

Morpheme Studies

The first studies to include tense-aspect morphology did so incidentally; mor-pheme-order studies did not investigate the emergent tense-aspect system inits own right but included verbal morphology as examples of morphology ingeneral. Modeled on the morpheme studies of child language acquisition (e.g.,Brown, 1973; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1973), large cross-sectional studies ofL2 learners of English as a second language revealed an accuracy order

Tense-Aspect Research in SLA 343

isolating from the general results only the verbal morphology (VanPatten,1984)of progressive -ing, irregular past, and the third-singular marker -s forboth children (Dulay & Burt, 1973) and adults (Bailey, Madden, & Krashen,1974).1 Later studies investigated the order of the regular and irregular pastrevealing some variation: Rank order studies found that the regular precededthe irregular past for L2 children (Dulay & Burt, 1974) and adults (Larsen-Free-man, 1975). In contrast, hierarchical ordering of morphemes (i.e., Krashen,1977) placed irregular past before regular past.2 Longitudinal studies of indi-vidual child learners suggested other orders: irregular before regular (Hakuta,1974) and simultaneous acquisition (Rosansky, 1976). Ellis (1987) investigatedstyle-shifting of three realizations of English past tense: regular and irregularpast and the past copula. In spite of the difference in accuracy orders inplanned written narratives as well as planned and unplanned oral narratives,the irregular past showed little variation in the rate of appropriate use acrossconditions whereas the regular past and past copula showed greater variation(see Hakuta, 1974; Rosansky, 1976). The relation of tense-aspect morphologyto styles was to be raised again in a slightly different form as researchers com-pared findings across elicitation tasks and more subtly across variations ofthe same discourse types (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994a, 1999; Comajoan, 1998; Noyau,1990; Wiberg, 1996).

In many ways a classic morpheme accuracy order study investigating theuse of the simple past and past progressive in a variety of tasks and syntacticenvironments, Baileys (1987, 1989) work argued that formal and semanticcomplexity make different predictions for acquisition orders. Formal complex-ity predicts that the past progressive, which is regular, perceptually salient,and invariant, should be learned before the simple past, which is character-ized by irregularity in the most common verbs. (See Kaplan, 1987, for thesame argument regarding French passe compose and imparfait.) Semantic com-plexity predicts earlier acquisition of the simple past. Using measures of bothfrequency and accuracy (well-formed tokens supplied in obligatory contexts),Bailey showed that simple past was used by learners at lower levels bothmore frequently and more accurately on a variety of tasks.

The chief flaw of morpheme studiesfrom the point of view of understand-ing the emerging temporal systemwas identified by Dittmar (1981), who ob-served that the criterion approach (used in the morpheme-order studies)treats a feature of acquisition (in this case tense-aspect) as if the morphemeand its meaning were indissolubly wedded; or at least, shows no interest ineither form or meaning until they reach 80% or 90% appropriate use (p. 146).Later studies lent quantitative support to Dittmars observation: An error anal-ysis of composition exams written by advanced learners of English found 7.5times more errors in the use of tense-aspect morphology than in the form(Bardovi-Harlig & Bofman, 1989). In a subsequent study focusing on tense-aspect use, Bardovi-Harlig (1992a) reported a significant difference in rates ofaccuracy (form) and use (meaning). Similarly, Klein (1993, 1994) identified a


stage in the acquisition of temporal expression in which verbal morphologyappears without targetlike functionsa stage that he sums up as form pre-cedes function (1994, p. 244).

Phonetic Surface Constraints

For researchers who study the acquisition of English, the phonological issueis particularly important. However, every analyst must deal with the interlan-guage phonology of learners, no matter what language is investigated (see, forexample, Harley & Swain, 1978, on the acquisition of French).

Wolfram (1984, 1985, 1989; Wolfram & Hatfield, 1986) hypothesized thatphonological salience guides the distribution of simple past morphologyacross phonetic environments. The principle of saliency has two main claims:(a) that irregular verbs will show greater tense marking than regular verbsand (b) that the phonetic shape of the past tense of the verb and the followingphonological environment will further determine the likelihood of its exhibit-ing past tense. (Wolfram refers to tense unmarking. For ease of comparisonwith other studies, I will discuss the phenomenon in terms of marking.)

In a series of investigations of Vietnamese learners of English, Wolfram(1985, 1989) showed that both regular and irregular morphological markingcould be divided into identifiable phonetic environments. For regular verbs,the verbs most likely to be marked are those with syllabic past [Id] (e.g,treated or raided), followed by the singleton consonant [d] (e.g., stayed orfreed), with clusters (e.g., missed or raised) last (Wolfram, 1989). Clusters aremore likely to surface before a vowel (e.g., missed it) than before a consonant(e.g., missed me) (Wolfram, 1985, p. 235). Among irregular verbs, marking isthe most likely when the past is least like the nonpast form. Marking is mostlikely with suppletives (be), internal vowel change with suffix (sleep/slept), in-ternal vowel change (come/came), modal (will/would), and least likely withreplacives (have/had). Like Wolframs work, Bayleys (1991, 1994) study of L1Chinese learners of English showed that phonetic saliency is relevant to thedistribution of interlanguage tense marking.3 Although the hierarchy positedby Wolfram and colleagues and later by Bayley (1991, 1994) is specific to En-glish, work by Lafford (1996) suggests that phonological salience (in the formof ultimate stress) may be relevant to the formation of the preterit by adultlearners of Spanish as a second language.

A longitudinal study by Sato (1986, 1990) showed that, although two chil-dren of L1 Vietnamese showed increased frequency of irregular past, neitherboy exhibited any use of regular past, with the exception of one token in theeighth month by one child. The absence of regular past led Sato (1984) to in-vestigate the interlanguage phonology of her subjects and to suggest that L1syllable structure constrained the production of syllable-final consonant clus-ters created by the English past tense. Neither Chinese (see Bayley, 1991,1994) nor Vietnamese (see Sato, 1984; Wolfram, 1985, 1989) permit word-finalconsonant clusters (Li & Thompson, 1987; Nyugen, 1987). Further investigat-


ing the role of L1, Wolframs (1984) work on American Indian English showedthat speakers of English whose ancestral language allows word-final conso-nant clusters used past in regular verbs ending in clusters (e.g., walked [kt] orbobbed [bd]) consistently more often than speakers whose ancestral languagelacks clusters.

The influence of a learners L2 phonology may also confound task effects.Regular past in Elliss (1987) study showed the highest use in planned writing,less in planned oral, and still less in unplanned oral (77%, 57%, and 43% use,respectively). Even greater differences between oral and written productionwere reported by Bardovi-Harlig (1992b): Two intermediate learners (one L1Korean, one L1 Chinese) showed 87% and 88% appropriate use of past tensein past time contexts in the written narratives but only 23% and 15%, respec-tively, in the elicited oral narratives. Even allowing for monitor use, the differ-ence in rates is much greater than found by Ellis for style shifting andsuggests that phonological constraints may also be operating. However, suchinterlanguage phonological constraints seem to be subject to individual varia-tion as well; other Chinese and Korean learners showed higher oral rates com-parable to those found by Ellis (1987). As Sato (1986, 1990) cautioned, alearners interlanguage phonology is likely to be relevant whenever an oralsample is collected.

INVESTIGATING THE EXPRESSION OF TEMPORALITYThe shift in focus in the 1980s from the acquisition of morphology as form toa focus on morphology as the surface realization of an underlying semanticsystem derives from an interest in the semantics of interlanguage in general,and temporal semantics in particular. Two main strands of inquiry can be dis-tinguished: the investigation of the expression of semantic concepts throughvarious linguistic devices and the investigation of the distribution of verbalmorphology as an indicator of the underlying semantic system of interlan-guage. Unlike the phonological and morphological studies, research in bothtraditions suggests that semantic features may be applicable to a range of lan-guages, if indeed they are not universal. The studies in this group all take aninterlanguage perspective, describing the interlanguage as a system indepen-dent of the target language. Both strands of research have been fruitful, notonly in yielding important findings, but also in drawing new researchers intothe area of inquiry.

The form-oriented studies (also known as form-to-function studies, Long &Sato, 1984; Sato, 1990; and the formal perspective, Berretta, 1995) follow a par-ticular form and ask how and where it is used by learners, thus determiningwhat it means in the system. The meaning-oriented studies (also known as theconcept-oriented approach, von Stutterheim & Klein, 1987, the semanticallyoriented approach, Giacalone Ramat, 1992, the functional-grammatical per-spective, Skiba & Dittmar, 1992, the notional perspective, Berretta, 1995, andfunction-to-form studies, Long & Sato, 1984; Sato, 1990; see also Trevise & Por-


quier, 1986) investigate a particular concept and ask how it is expressed. Inthe meaning-oriented studies, it is as though the researcher sets up a windowon interlanguage and looks through it to see the range of linguistic devicesused to express a particular concept. The inquiries often differ not only in fo-cus but also in analytic practice. The concept-oriented studies are character-ized by an almost exclusively qualitative approach, whereas the form-orientedstudies take a quantitative approach, whether or not they also employ a quali-tative approach. After a brief discussion of subjects and elicitation tasks, con-cerns common to both strands of inquiry, I will take up the work done in theconcept-oriented approach, followed by a review of two types of form-ori-ented studies.

Although concerns of research methodology are not unique to the study oftense and aspect, particular facets are reviewed here because of their impacton the language samples on which studies in this section are based. The stud-ies have investigated a range of adult learners.4 Second and foreign languagelearners have been studied, the former including both tutored and untutoredlearners. A range of target languages has been investigated, among them En-glish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and, recently, Japanese.

There have also been different designs ranging from case studies of singlelearners, to longitudinal studies of both small and large groups, to small andlarge cross-sectional studies. Learners are also described and compared in avariety of ways: by stage along the basi-meso-acro-lang continuum (Robison,1990; Schumann, 1987), time (in the case of longitudinal studies; Bardovi-Har-lig, 1994b, 1997a; Dietrich, Klein, & Noyau, 1995; Housen, 1993, 1994), featuresof their emergent systems (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994b, 1997a, 1998; Bardovi-Har-lig & Bergstrom, 1996; Bhardwaj, Dietrich, & Noyau, 1988; Collins, 1997; Die-trich et al., 1995), multitest placement in language programs (Bardovi-Harlig &Reynolds, 1995), placement in university language courses (Bergstrom, 1995;Hasbun, 1995; Martnez Baztan, 1994; Ramsay, 1990), length of study (Buczow-ska & Weist, 1991), and OPI (oral proficiency interview) ratings (Lafford, 1996;Liskin-Gasparro, 1997).

Language samples have also been elicited in a variety of ways: by observa-tion on a daily basis (Rohde, 1996, based on the data of Wode, 1981) or con-versational interviews (Bardovi-Harlig, 1997b; Bayley, 1994; Kumpf, 1984b;Robison, 1990). Personal narratives may be part of the conversational inter-view or they may be selected from the data set (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992c, 1994b;Noyau, 1990) or elicited (Liskin-Gasparro, 1997). Impersonal narratives mayalso be elicited by means of a film retell (Bardovi-Harlig, 1995, 1998; Bhardwajet al., 1988; Dietrich et al., 1995; Lafford, 1996; cf. Chafe, 1980, on the use offilm for cross-linguistic investigations) or story retell (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992b).Film clips may favor action or description (e.g., Lafford, 1996). More directedsamples may be collected via elicitation tasks such as cloze passages thatform complete texts (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992a; Bergstrom, 1995) or short contex-tualized passages (Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds, 1995; Collins, 1997). The influ-


ence of task and discourse conventions is taken up by Noyau (1984, 1990) andvon Stutterheim (1991).

Meaning-Oriented Studies: The Concept-Oriented Approach

The concept-oriented approach (von Stutterheim & Klein, 1987) examines therange of linguistic devices that speakers use to express a particular concept,in this case, temporality. A significant contribution of this work has been tobroaden the concept of temporality in SLA research from the emphasis on themorphological system found in early SLA work (which Dietrich et al. attributeto the inflexional paradigm bias, 1995, p. 18) to include other linguistic andpragmatic means. This results in a rich description of the role of time adverbi-als, discourse organization, and morphology, as well as their interaction. Anumber of target languages have been investigated in this framework due inlarge measure to the cross-linguistic study sponsored by the European Sci-ence Foundation (ESF) under the guidance of Clive Perdue and Wolfgang Klein,which investigated the acquisition of English, German, Dutch, French, andSwedish. Italian has also been investigated within the concept-oriented ap-proach (e.g., Giacalone Ramat, 1992). The studies are largely longitudinal, dealmostly with untutored learners, and have elicited interlanguage samplesthrough both conversational interviews and film retell tasks (Dietrich et al.,1995). The investigations have largely focused on reference to the past, whichrequires displacement from the time of speaking (and thus requires marking)and occurs early enough in IL development that it can be studied for mostlearners.

Three main questions drive the inquiry: (a) How do learners express tem-porality at a given stage of their acquisitional process?, (b) how does tempo-ral reference change over time? (i.e., what developmental patterns emerge?(Dietrich et al., 1995, p. 261), and (c) what are the explanatory factors that canaccount for the development from one stage to another, including targetlikeusage?

The ESF design, which investigated the acquisition of five target languagesby learners of two languages each, was set up to answer questions regardingthe influence of the first language and of the target languages. Additionally,the development of temporal expression was examined against the back-ground of the developing interlanguage, which illustrated the fact that no sub-system develops independently of the grammar as a whole. In the first stage ofinterlanguage development (the nominal stage), learners do not yet use verbs(Dietrich et al., 1995). In the next stage (called the basic variety, Klein, 1993,1994; Dietrich et al., 1995) verbs appear, and it is with that stage that this re-view begins.

Studies of at least six different target languages basically agree as to thelinguistic devices employed and the order in which they apply: The expres-sion of temporality exhibits a sequence from pragmatic to lexical to grammati-

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349


cal devices (e.g., Dietrich et al., 1995, Giacalone Ramat & Banfi, 1990). Thisprogression corresponds to the use of (a) discourse principles such as chro-nological order and scaffolding, (b) adverbials, and (c) verbal morphology. Gi-acalone Ramat and Banfi (1990) suggested that the acquisitional sequence isprobably universal and independent of the languages involved. This section isorganized according to these devices. See Table 1 for an overview of availablestudies.

Pragmatic Means. In the earliest stage of temporal expression, there is nosystematic use of tense-aspect morphology. Without tense-aspect morphol-ogy, learners establish temporal reference in four ways: by relying on the con-tribution of their fellow speakers (scaffolded discourse), through referenceinferred from a particular context (implicit reference), by contrasting events,and by following chronological order in narration (Meisel, 1987; Schumann,1987).

The relating of events in chronological order is widely recognized as acharacteristic of learner narratives, although learners may also take advan-tage of the ordering conventions of other types of discourse (von Stutterheim,1991). The phenomenon of iconic discourse ordering in which the order ofmention parallels the order of occurrence has been given many names in thestudy of first and second language acquisition: the order of mention contract(Clark, 1971), the principle of natural order (Klein, 1986), serialization (Schu-mann, 1987),5 and the principle of chronological order (von Stutterheim &Klein, 1987). The term principle of chronological order will be adopted here forits transparency. Chronological order is not restricted to learner language,however, as chronological order is the distinguishing characteristic of narra-tive (Schiffrin, 1981); the distinction between interlanguage and native lan-guage narratives instead lies in recourse to other means of signaling temporalreference that emerge later and are discussed in the following sections (Schu-mann, 1987).

Lexical Means: Adverbials. In the second stage, reference to the past isfirst expressed explicitly through the use of adverbial expressions (e.g., yester-day, then, and after) and connectives (e.g., and, because, and so) (Meisel,1987).6 Dittmar (1981) called interlanguage use of adverbials such as schon(already) suggestive tense markers (p. 146). Research in other paradigmshas noted the role of adverbials in temporal expression (e.g., Brindley, 1987;Wolfram, 1984), but the concept-oriented approach has clarified how centrala role they play (Dietrich et al., 1995; Giacalone Ramat, 1995a; Klein, 1993,1994; Meisel, 1987; Schumann, 1987). Temporal adverbs can be further dividedinto four types: adverbs of position (now, then, yesterday at six), duration (formany days, all week), frequency (twice, quite often), and contrast (already, yet)(Klein, 1993, 1994) and are also acquired in stages (Klein, 1993; Noor, 1993).The first three appear early and gradually add members; the fourth appearslater (Klein, 1993). There is also some evidence that L2 learners of Italian may


mark aspect with adverbials (such as appena hardly or just, and semprealways; Giacalone Ramat, 1992).

At this stage, verbs occur in morphologically unmarked forms, often re-ferred to as base or default forms. In a study of German, Meisel (1980,1987) observed that an invariant form is chosen: It is either a standard formthat is generalized or an interlanguage form that does not exist in the targetlanguage.

The reliance on adverbials may stem in part from the difficulty that learn-ers experience in comprehending verbal morphology (Brindley, 1987) and theavailability of adverbials through lexical acquisition that continues throughlife (Schlyter, 1990). Experiments in input processing, an experimental andhighly quantified inquiry that contrasts with the observational and qualitativenature of the concept-oriented approach, also underscore the functional loadcarried by temporal adverbials. Studies of input processing suggest that (a)learners process for meaning before form, (b) learners process content wordsfirst, and (c) learners prefer to process lexical items over grammatical itemsfor semantic information (VanPatten, 1996). A series of input processing stud-ies reveal that learners of Spanish, French, and Italian as a foreign languagescored higher in assigning temporal reference on recall tasks at both the sen-tence and discourse level when adverbs were present than when verbal mor-phology occurred alone (Lee, Cadierno, Glass, & VanPatten, 1997; Musumeci,1989; Sanz & Fernandez, 1992).

Production and processing studies agree on the importance of cues, lexicalbefore morphological, and on the fact that lower-level learners rely more onadverbials than do advanced learners. Giacalone Ramat and Banfi (1990) sug-gest that tense marking may be less urgent because of the use of adverbs thatindicate time reference (p. 421). In fact, many untutored learners may reachthis stage and not go beyond it (Dietrich et al., 1995). Giacalone Ramat andBanfi (1990) also suggest that the strength of adverbial reference may freeemergent verbal morphology for an aspectual functionan interpretation dis-puted by Klein (Klein, 1993, 1994; Dietrich et al., 1995).

Morphological Means. Following the adverbial-only stage, verbal morphol-ogy appears. At first it is not used systematically (Meisel, 1987; Schumann,1987), and learners continue to rely on time adverbials. As the use of tensemorphology increases, the functional load of the adverbials decreases (Bar-dovi-Harlig, 1992c; Meisel, 1987) and the actual ratio of time adverbials to fi-nite verbs may also decrease (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992c).

The morphological stage can itself be viewed as a series of lesser stages astense marking becomes an increasingly reliable indicator of temporal refer-ence (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992c, 1994b). Although the use of adverbials and tensemorphology enhances a learners linguistic repertoire, it does not replace theprinciple of chronological order. As Schumann observes, in standard lan-guage, verb morphology interacts with, supports, and often duplicates workdone by pragmatic devices in expressing temporality (1987, p. 38).


High levels of appropriate use of verbal morphology seem to be more com-mon in tutored learners than untutored learners, although appropriate use isby no means guaranteed by instruction (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992c, 1994b; Berg-strom, 1995; Hasbun, 1995). Another high-achieving learner is Lavinia (an Ital-ian learner of English, and a participant in the longitudinal ESF project), whohad 10 months of ESL classes in England before she took prevocational andEnglish language clerical skills courses (Bhardwaj et al., 1988). Dietrich (1995)reports that the instructed Turkish learner of German in the ESF study ac-quired morphology (i.e., the past tense and the pluperfect), whereas the untu-tored Italian learners did not; however, Dietrich also points out that thislearner had the most positive attitude toward learning German of all the learn-ers. Differences in attitude aside, it is worth noting that ascribing fundamentaldifferences to instruction is simplistic not only because instructional experi-ences are not uniform (varying from intensive programs in the host environ-ment to sporadic attendance at survival skills courses; see, for example, thediverse exposure of the ESF informants, Bhardwaj et al., 1988) but also be-cause learners vary in their general levels of education, literacy, social net-work, and socioeconomic status, among others, which influence both contactwith target-language speakers and amount as well as quality of input, oral aswell as written.

The stabilization of past-tense verbal morphology apparently opens theway for (morphological) expression of other temporal relations. As the ex-pression of past tense stabilizes, learners begin to make references to anteriorevents, reporting events out of chronological order (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994b).Following the Principle of Natural Order (Klein, 1986)that deviations fromchronological order must be indicatedlearners begin the cycle of depen-dency on adverbials again. (English, for example, uses the pluperfect, or ad-verbials, or both together to mark reverse-order reports.) In interlanguage,adverbs are the most common marker of anteriority in the earliest examplesof reverse-order reports (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994b). Nearly half of the reverse-order reports with no verbal contrast are marked by time adverbials; roughlyhalf of those show a single adverbial and half employ two adverbials. Whenlearners begin to use verbal morphology to signal the contrast between pastand anterior events, roughly half of those also occur with time adverbials, al-though the number signaled by two adverbials drops dramatically. Learnersmay also take advantage of the simultaneous development of their interlan-guage syntax (Klein & Perdue, 1992; von Stutterheim, 1991) and express theanterior event in subordinate clauses, especially those indicating causation. Itis possible that this cycle of lexical to morphological marking occurs through-out the tense-aspect system whenever new formsand meaningsare addedto the system.

For example, in a pilot study of hypotheticals in English, Salsbury (1997)found that lower level learners of English as a second language mark hypo-thetical statements through the use of lexical markers such as hope and wish.Similarly, a cross-sectional study of narratives showed that learners used lexi-


cal markers such as in the imagine/the imagine over to indicate the boundariesof a future-oriented dream sequence occurring in an otherwise past-orientednarrative (Bardovi-Harlig, 1995).

The movement from pragmatic to lexical to grammatical devices is alsofound in the expression of epistemic modality (expectations based on a speak-ers knowledge) by learners of Italian as a second language (Giacalone Ramat,1992, 1995a, 1995b). Epistemic modality is expressed through lexical meansincluding adverbs such as forse and magari (perhaps) and modal adjectivessuch as e` possible che (it is possible that), by first-person verbs such as Ithink or I believe, or by the use of verbs whose lexical meaning includesuncertainty (Giacalone Ramat, 1995a). Modal verbs appear next (Giacalone Ra-mat, 1995b), and morphological means to express modality such as the future,conditional, and subjunctive appear only in the interlanguage of advancedlearners. However, the expected order of adverbs-before-verbs does not ex-tend uniformly to the expression of modality (Dittmar & Terborg, 1991),where, in the case of deontic modality (expressing necessity and possibility),German and Italian data show early emergence of deontic modal verbs andthese are used earlier and more frequently than deontic adverbs or modal ad-jectives (Dittmar & Terborg, 1991; Giacalone Ramat, 1995a, 1995b; Skiba & Ditt-mar, 1992).

Form-Oriented Studies: Studies that Focus on Verbal Morphology

The form-oriented studiesor, more appropriately, form-to-function studies(Sato, 1990)identify a form and trace its distribution in interlanguage,thereby determining its function. If we compare the form-oriented studies tothe concept-oriented studies, we find that the form-oriented studies are essen-tially concerned with the third stage identified in the expression of temporal-itynamely, morphology.

The form-to-function analyses can be further divided into two groups ac-cording to the function that they investigate, as markers of lexical aspectualcategory or discourse organization.7 The two functions are not unrelated asshown by work on mature languages (Dowty, 1986; Dry, 1981, 1983; Fleisch-man, 1985; Hopper, 1979; Hopper & Thompson, 1980) and second languages(Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1994a, 1998; Flashner, 1989; Kumpf,1984b); however, most SLA studies, especially the aspect studies, have investi-gated these functions independently, and I will treat them separately in thefollowing two sections.

Aspect Hypothesis. The aspect hypothesis, like the discourse hypothesisreviewed later in this section, has its roots in theories of temporal semantics.The aspect hypothesis is based on a theory of lexical, or inherent, aspect. Likethe morpheme studies, the aspect hypothesis in SLA research is related toresearch in child language acquisition (Antinucci & Miller, 1976; Bloom,Lifter, & Hafitz, 1980; Bronckart & Sinclair, 1973; see also Weist, Wysocka, Wit-

Tabl

e2.

Empi

rica

lstu

dies

addr

essi

ngth

eas

pect

hypo

thes

is

Targ

etla

ngua

geAu

thor

L1N

#Pre

dica

tes

Inst

ruct

ion

Des

ign

Anal

ysis

Test

sQ

uant

ified

Cata

lan

Com

ajoa

n(1

998)

Engl

ish

131

1CF

L,2

sem

este

rsLo

ngitu

dina

l,co

nver

sa-

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

tiona

lint

ervi

ew,a

ndor

alst

ory/

film

rete

lls

Dut

chH

ouse

n(1

993,

Engl

ish

139

8(T

1)D

FL,a

lso

two

Long

itudi

nal,

2sa

mpl

es1

Stat

ive/

dyna

mic

,Ye

sYe

s19

94)

551

(T2)

1-m

o.vi

sits

toye

arap

art;

guid

edco

nver

-du

rativ

e/pu

nctu

alH

olla

ndsa

tion

Engl

ish

Kum

pf(1

984b

)Ja

pane

se1

250

Non

eCo

nver

satio

nali

nter

view

Stat

ive/

activ

eN

oYe

s

Flas

hner

(198

9)Ru

ssia

n3

649

Lim

ited

in-

Pers

onal

narr

ativ

esfr

omPe

rfec

tive/

impe

rfec

tive/

No

Yes

stru

ctio

nsp

onta

neou

ssp

eech

irre

alis

Robi

son

(199

0)Sp

anis

h1

553

Cont

actl

earn

er,

Conv

ersa

tiona

lint

ervi

ewSt

ativ

e/dy

nam

ican

dYe

sYe

sso

me

inst

ruct

ion

dura

tive/

punc

tual

Bayl

ey(1

991,

Chin

ese

204,

917

10ES

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,pe

rson

alPe

rfec

tive/

impe

rfec

tive

Yes

(199

1)Ye

s19

94)

narr

ativ

es

Bard

ovi-H

arlig

Mix

ed13

594

5In

tens

ive

ESL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

cloz

eVe

ndle

rN

oYe

s(1

992a

)pa

ssag

e

Bard

ovi-H

arlig

&M

ixed

182

8,55

4In

tens

ive

ESL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

shor

tVe

ndle

rYe

sYe

sRe

ynol

ds(1

995)

cloz

epa

ssag

es

Robi

son

(199

5)Sp

anis

h26

3,64

9EF

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,Ve

ndle

r;pu

nctu

alac

tivity

Yes

Yes

conv

ersa

tiona

lint

ervi

ewan

dpu

nctu

alst

ate

Bard

ovi-H

arlig

&M

ixed

2085

0In

tens

ive

ESL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

wri

tten

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

Berg

stro

m(1

996)

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

Rohd

e(1

996)

Ger

man

2ch

ildre

n53

4N

oES

Lco

urse

s,Lo

ngitu

dina

l,sp

onta

ne-

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

atte

nded

elem

en-

ous

spee

chta

rysc

hool

354

Engl

ish

Colli

ns(1

997)

Fren

ch70

3,22

0ES

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,sh

ort

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

cloz

epa

ssag

es

Bard

ovi-H

arlig

Mix

ed37

2,77

9In

tens

ive

ESL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nalw

ritt

enVe

ndle

rYe

sYe

s(1

998)

and

oral

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

Fren

chKa

plan

(198

7)En

glis

h16

Not

spec

i-FF

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,se

mi-

Perf

ectiv

e/im

perf

ectiv

eN

oYe

sfie

dst

ruct

ured

,10-

min

.in

terv

iew

s

Berg

stro

m(1

995,

Engl

ish

118

2,21

1FF

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,w

ritt

enVe

ndle

rYe

sYe

s19

97)

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

and

cloz

epa

ssag

e

Bard

ovi-H

arlig

&En

glis

h20

650

FFL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

wri

tten

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

Berg

stro

m(1

996)

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

Sala

berr

y(1

998)

Engl

ish

391,

200

narr

a-FF

LSe

cond

-sem

este

rst

u-Ve

ndle

rYe

sYe

stiv

e;1,

599

dent

s,m

ultip

lech

oice

,cl

oze

wri

tten

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

,and

cloz

epa

ssag

e

Italia

nG

iaca

lone

Ra-

Chin

ese

41,

142

Som

eLo

ngitu

dina

l,co

nver

sa-

Perf

ectiv

e/im

perf

ectiv

eN

otN

om

at&

Banf

itio

nali

nter

view

spec

ified

(199

0)

Gia

calo

neRa

mat

Mix

ed20

148

prog

res-

4le

arne

rs,s

ome

4cr

oss-

sect

iona

land

16Ve

ndle

ran

dm

enta

lN

otSo

me

(199

5c,1

997)

sive

verb

sin

stru

ctio

n;16

,lo

ngitu

dina

l,co

nver

sa-

stat

essp

ecifi

edno

netio

nali

nter

view

(ora

lna

rrat

ives

,film

rete

ll,de

scri

ptio

nof

pict

ure

stor

ies)

Japa

nese

Shir

ai(1

995)

Chin

ese

323

4In

tens

ive

JSL

Conv

ersa

tiona

lint

ervi

ewVe

ndle

rYe

sYe

sat

8m

onth

sin

Japa

n

Shir

ai&

Kuro

noM

ixed

1793

9In

tens

ive

JSL

Judg

men

ttas

kat

3,6,

9Ve

ndle

rYe

sYe

s(1

998)

mon

ths

inJa

pan

(con

tinue

d)

355

Tabl

e2.

Cont

inue

d

Targ

etla

ngua

geAu

thor

L1N

#Pre

dica

tes

Inst

ruct

ion

Des

ign

Anal

ysis

Test

sQ

uant

ified

Span

ish

Ande

rsen

(198

6)En

glis

h1

child

1,62

9N

one

Long

itudi

nal,

2ye

ars,

2Ve

ndle

rYe

sYe

sco

nver

satio

nals

ampl

es

Ande

rsen

(199

1)En

glis

h2

child

ren

Not

spec

i-N

one

Long

itudi

nal,

2ye

ars,

2Ve

ndle

rYe

sN

ofie

dco

nver

satio

nals

ampl

es

Ram

say

(199

0)En

glis

h30

2,13

0SF

L,so

me

cont

act

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

oral

re-

Stat

es,a

ctiv

ities

,eve

nts

No

Yes

tell

ofpi

ctur

ebo

ok

Mar

tnez

Bazt

anD

utch

1566

2SF

LAd

vanc

edle

arne

rs,2

Vend

ler,

erro

ran

alys

isN

oYe

s(1

994)

com

posi

tions

per

lear

ner

Has

bun

(199

5)En

glis

h80

2,71

3SF

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,w

ritt

enVe

ndle

rYe

sYe

sna

rrat

ives

(film

rete

ll)

Laffo

rd(1

996)

Engl

ish

1338

7SF

LCr

oss-

sect

iona

l,or

alTe

lic/a

telic

No

Yes

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

Lisk

in-G

aspa

rro

Engl

ish

8N

otqu

anti-

SFL

Adva

nced

lear

ners

,ora

lVe

ndle

rN

oN

o(1

997)

fied

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tell)

;re

tros

pect

ion

Sala

berr

y(1

997)

Engl

ish

162,

054

SFL

Cros

s-se

ctio

nal,

oral

Vend

ler

Yes

Yes

narr

ativ

es(f

ilmre

tells

),gr

amm

arte

st,c

loze

test

,an

ded

iting

task

Note

.Ven

dler

stan

dsfo

rVe

ndle

rca

tego

ries

,or

STA,

ACT,

ACC,

ACH

.FL

=fo

reig

nla

ngua

ge;S

L=

seco

ndla

ngua

ge;C

=Ca

tala

n;E

=En

glis

h;F

=Fr

ench

;S=

Span

ish.

356


kowska-Stadnik, Buczowska, & Konieczna, 1984, for a dissenting view) and increoles (Bickerton, 1975, 1981; Givon, 1982).8

What has come to be known simply as the aspect hypothesis (Andersen &Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1994a) has appeared under different names andformulations including the defective tense hypothesis (Andersen, 1986, 1991),the primacy of aspect hypothesis (Robison, 1990), and the relative defective-tense hypothesis (Andersen, 1989). The defective-tense hypothesis states, Inbeginning stages of language acquisition only inherent aspectual distinctionsare encoded by verbal morphology, not tense or grammatical aspect (empha-sis original, Andersen, 1991, p. 307). However, opposing tense and grammati-cal aspect to inherent aspect appears to be too strong (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig,1992a; Robison, 1995) and, in the most current formulation, Andersen and Shi-rai (1994) maintain the importance of the initial influence of aspect (cf. Robi-son, 1990), but do not explicitly set aspectual influence in opposition toencoding tense or grammatical aspect:

First and second language learners will initially be influenced by the inher-ent semantic aspect of verbs or predicates in the acquisition of tense andaspect markers associated with or affixed to these verbs. (p. 133)

Studies of individual adult learners carried out in the 1980s provided pre-liminary support for the hypothesis. Important early studies include those byKumpf (1984b), Flashner (1989), Robison (1990), and unpublished work by An-dersens students (see Andersen, 1991, for a review) as well as Andersensseminal study of two children (Andersen, 1986, 1991). Meisel (1987) pointedout the potential difficulty in separating the effects of level of proficiency fromindividual variation in studies of individuals and further argued for the neces-sity of quantification. Many subsequent studies have been both large andcross-sectional, and they tend to report quantified results.

Untutored learners dominated early research on the aspect hypothesis,and recent investigations of the aspect hypothesis have demonstrated the in-fluence of lexical aspectual class even in instructed learners. The expandedpopulations include foreign language learners (for French, Bardovi-Harlig &Bergstrom, 1996; Bergstrom, 1995; for Spanish, Hasbun, 1995; Ramsay, 1990)as well as instructed learners in host environments (Bardovi-Harlig & Rey-nolds, 1995; Shirai, 1995; Shirai & Kurono, 1998) and bilingual environments(Collins, 1997). Elicitation tasks include oral and written personal and imper-sonal narratives (Table 2), written cloze passages (Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds,1995; Bergstrom, 1995; Collins, 1997), and judgment tasks (Shirai & Kurono,1998). Additionally, the range of both target and first languages has grown; thetarget languages investigated include Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Italian,Japanese, and Spanish (Table 2).

With the exception of Andersen (1986, 1991), most early studies that testedthe aspect hypothesis employed binary divisions of inherent aspect such asstative and dynamic, punctual and nonpunctual, or telic and atelic predicates


(Housen 1993, 1994; Kaplan, 1987; Robison, 1990).9 Robison (1990) showedthat an adult learner of English generally used the regular or irregular pastmarker to mark punctual verbs and used -ing to mark durative verbs whenverbal morphology was used. Kaplan (1987) showed that college studentslearning French as a foreign language distinguished perfective from nonper-fective in past time contexts by using the passe compose (functionally a pret-erit) to mark perfective events and the present to mark nonevents orimperfective. Likewise, Giacalone Ramat and Banfi (1990) found differentialdistribution of verbal morphology in the interlanguage of 4 Chinese learnersof Italian.

Bayleys (1994) study of 20 native speakers of Chinese learning English asa second language also showed that the perfective-imperfective aspectual op-position strongly affects the likelihood that verb forms of all morphologicalclasses will be marked for past tense (see section on phonological salience).Perfective aspect favors, and imperfective aspect disfavors, past-tense mark-inga finding that is constant across proficiency levels and individuals.

In contrast to the binary studies, Andersen (1986, 1991) employed the four-way division, found in the work of Vendler (1967) and amplified by Dowty(1979), to distinguish the aspectual categories of states, activities, accomplish-ments, and achievements. The aspectual classes can be briefly sketched asfollows: States persist over time without change (e.g., seem, know, need, want,and be, as in be tall, big, green). Activities have inherent duration in that theyinvolve a span of time, like sleep and snow. They have no specific endpointas in I studied all week and, thus, are atelic (e.g., rain, play, walk, and talk).Achievements capture the beginning or the end of an action (Mourelatos,1981) as in the race began or the game ended and can be thought of as reducedto a point (Andersen, 1991). Examples of achievement verbs include arrive,leave, notice, recognize, and fall asleep. Accomplishments (e.g., build a houseor paint a painting) are durative like activities and have an endpoint likeachievements.

Based on his study of the acquisition of Spanish as a second language bytwo children, Andersen (1986) posited four stages in the acquisition of per-fective past (the preterit), from achievements, to accomplishments, to activi-ties, and finally to states. Imperfective past appears later than perfective pastand spreads in four stages from states, to activities, to accomplishments, andfinally to achievements. Although imperfective past emerges after perfectivepast, the stages for the two overlap, forming the hypothesized eight stages.

Many studies followed Andersens use of the Vendler categories, and it isthe analytic framework in widest use today. Given the empirical finding thatstates behave very differently from dynamic verbs, and that activities distin-guish themselves from achievements and accomplishments, the binary catego-ries seem to be insufficient to account for the data.10 Studies also showincreased rigor in determining the classification of predicates as seen in thereporting of diagnostic tests (for tests, see Dowty, 1979; Mittwoch, 1991; Ven-dler, 1967; for use in SLA research, see Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996; Has-


bun, 1995; Robison, 1990, 1995; Shirai, 1995; for discussion, see Andersen &Shirai, 1994, 1996; Shirai & Andersen, 1995).

Although many studies provide a quantified description of their findings,studies may still differ in a subtle but interesting way that has to do with thepresentation of the data and the calculation of the distribution. Every aspectstudy aims to determine if verbal morphology shows differential distributionacross the aspectual categories. Some studies address the question Wheredo various morphemes occur?, taking the sum of all the predicates that occurwith a given morpheme across aspectual categories (Salaberry, 1997; Shirai,1995; Shirai & Kurono, 1998). These distribution values are sensitive to unevenproduction across categories. For example, achievements often dominate nar-rative production (see, for example, Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Bergstrom, 1995).Taking the distribution of the simple past, one risks finding that there is ahigher percentage of use of past with achievements because there are moretokens of achievements in a narrative than any other aspectual category. Inthe case of accomplishments, which are more rarely used by learners, we mayfind that there is a lower percentage of use of simple past with accomplish-ments because there are fewer accomplishments used in a narrative thanachievements.

In contrast, other studies address the question How are each of the lexicalaspectual categories marked by learners? In this case, the distribution of ver-bal morphology is viewed within a single lexical aspectual category, and thusthe imbalance in the number of tokens in categories is not reflected in thepercent of use figures (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996;Bergstrom, 1995, 1997; Housen, 1994; Robison, 1990, 1995).

The aspect hypothesis can be broken down into four separate claims (Shi-rai, 1991, pp. 910; see also Andersen & Shirai, 1996).

1. Learners first use (perfective) past marking on achievements and accomplish-ments, eventually extending use to activities and statives.11

2. In languages that encode the perfective/imperfective distinction, imperfective pastappears later than perfective past, and imperfect past marking begins with sta-tives, extending next to activities, then to accomplishments, and finally to achieve-ments.

3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive marking begins with activi-ties and then extends to accomplishments and achievements.

4. Progressive markings are not incorrectly overextended to statives.

The main effect of the influence of aspectual class is that, when interlan-guage verbal morphology emerges, it is in complementary distribution, unlikein the target languages investigated in the same studies, where contrast ispossible (Andersen, 1990b, 1994). The predictions are clear: perfective withevents, imperfective with states, progressive with activities. It is not until themorphology begins to spread that the system exhibits potentially nativelikecontrasts (e.g., see stages 58, Andersen, 1991).

This section is organized around these four effects.12 See Table 2 for a sum-


mary listing of studies and characteristics of research design organized by tar-get language.

The spread of (perfective) past. This is by far the most robustly attestedstage in the distribution of verbal morphology in the interlanguage system,partly because of the dominance of achievements in narrative samples andpartly because the perfective past is the first past morpheme acquired and,thus, easily observed in the interlanguage of learners who have reached themorphological stage of temporal expression. Support for this stage is found inEnglish (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996; Bardovi-Har-lig & Reynolds, 1995; Collins, 1997; Robison, 1995; Rohde, 1996, 1997), Catalan(Comajoan, 1998), Dutch (Housen, 1993, 1994), French (Bardovi-Harlig & Berg-strom, 1996), Italian (Giacalone Ramat, 1995d), Japanese (Shirai, 1995; Shirai &Kurono, 1998), and Spanish (Andersen, 1986, 1991; Hasbun, 1995).

The most convincing support for the aspect hypothesis is found in Robi-sons (1995) study of 26 learners of English at four levels of proficiency attend-ing a Puerto Rican university. Whereas many studies have analyzed thedistribution of tense-aspect morphology exclusively in past-time contexts(e.g., Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996; Bayley, 1994; Bergstrom, 1995; Has-bun, 1995), Robison provided evidence for the distribution of tense-aspectmorphology across temporal contexts, including cases in which learners haveused the past with achievements that denote a present or future event.

Bardovi-Harlig (1998) found a clear progression of past-tense use fromachievements to accomplishments to activities in the data from the oral narra-tives. Of interest in the oral narratives is the fact that accomplishments andachievements pattern differently, which reveals a use of simple past withachievements that is up to 30% greater than with accomplishments. This dif-ference is not apparent in the written narratives of the same study in whichachievements and accomplishments pattern together as events (Mourelatos,1981) nor in the results reported for the written cloze passages by Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds (1995). (See also the replication of Bardovi-Harlig & Rey-nolds, 1995, by Collins, 1997.) The oral data support Andersens predictions(1986, 1991), which posit separate stages of development for achievementsand accomplishments.

Rohde (1996, 1997) investigated the acquisition of English by two German-speaking children (ages 6 and 9) over the course of 5 months. Rohdes analy-sis differs from the others in this section in that he separates the regular andirregular past. He observes, The results of this study show a distributionalbias for both regular and irregular past inflection in the learners data. Inother words, most of the verbs inflected for past tense are achievements(1996, p. 1129).13 When the results in raw scores are converted into percent-ages indicating which type of verbal morphology is used for each lexical as-pectual class (Rohde, 1997), we find that no class exceeds achievements forthe simple past inflection.

The spread of imperfect. The order of emergence of imperfect after preteritpast is well attested (Andersen, 1991). Studies on the acquisition of French,


such as Harley and Swain (1978), have shown that French passe composeemerges before the imparfait (cf. Kaplan, 1987). The prediction that is uniqueto the aspect hypothesis is the direction of spreading across categories. Has-bun (1995) found evidence for the hypothesized stages of the acquisition ofthe imperfect in a study of 80 learners of Spanish as a foreign language whowere enrolled in first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year university Spanishcourses. The cross-sectional sample revealed the emergence of the imperfectin states (in the third year) and its spread to activities (in the fourth year). Inthe narratives of 117 learners of French as a foreign language enrolled in first-,second-, and third-year university courses, Bergstrom (1995) found that theimperfect emerged with states in the second year and spread to activities inthe third year (thus distinguishing activities from other dynamic verbs).

Studies also show that the target-language imperfect is not the first markerof imperfectivity. Kaplan (1987) observed that learners of French used a de-fault present form in the environments of the imperfect before imperfect mor-phology was acquired. Giacalone Ramat (1995d) also observed the use of thepresent in learner Italian, stipulating that although the form looks like a pres-ent tense form (usually third-person-singular indicative) it is more properlyunderstood as a default or base form (see also Andersen, 1991). The use ofpresent or base has also been observed with states in English (Bardovi-Har-lig & Reynolds, 1995; Robison, 1995) and Dutch (Housen, 1993, 1994). Housenreported a significant correlation between present or base and statives andalso between present or base and duratives (the latter being dominated bystatives, which shows statives to be the starting point) in learner Dutch.

The number of lexical states in interlanguage is often limited to about a halfdozen (for immersion children, Harley & Swain, 1978; as well as adults, of L1English learning French, Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996, and Swedish, Kihl-stedt, 1993; Schlyter, 1990) and, thus, the high token counts available for in-vestigating the morphological development on achievements do not exist forobserving the initial stages of the acquisition of the imperfect.

The spread of progressive. For learners of Italian, Giacalone Ramat (1995c,1997) reported that 63% of all progressive tokens occur with activities and anadditional 22% appear with mental states such as credere (believe) and pens-are (think).14 Progressive seems to spread slowly to accomplishments (8%)and achievements (4%). In cross-sectional studies of English, progressive asso-ciates quite robustly with activities (in written cloze passages, Bardovi-Har-lig & Reynolds, 1995; Collins, 1997; in written narratives, Bardovi-Harlig &Bergstrom, 1996; in written and oral narratives, Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; in oralnarratives, Robison 1995). Interestingly, Robison (1995) also found that theaffiliation of progressive marking with activities strengthens with proficiencylevel (p. 356), even as the association of inflections with tense increased withlevel.

Shirais (1995) study of three Chinese learners of Japanese as a second lan-guage enrolled in an intensive Japanese program also supports the aspect hy-pothesis; these learners also showed dominant use of -te i- with activities (55%


of all uses of -te i- occur with activities). A judgment task administered to 17tutored Chinese learners of Japanese shows that learners found it easier torecognize the correctness of -te i- with activity verbs than with achievements(Shirai & Kurono, 1998, p. 264).

Work that discusses the progressive often discusses tense as well becausethe target form of the progressive in the languages studied is composed of theprogressive participle, which emerges first, and a form of be or its equivalent,which carries tense. In English, Bardovi-Harlig observed that in past-time con-texts the bare progressive emerges first, followed by the present progressive,and then the past progressive (Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996; Bardovi-Har-lig & Reynolds, 1995). In this way, tense use becomes increasingly targetlikewith progressive even as the association of progressive and activities is main-tained or strengthened (Robison, 1995).

Overgeneralization of progressive in states. Robison (1990) reported notice-able use of progressive with states by the untutored learner of English he in-vestigated: 22% of all statives (39/176) occurred with progressive. (Calculatedanother way, 45% of all progressives appeared on statives.) In contrast, noneof the three learners (L1 Russian) with limited instruction studied by Flash-ner (1989, p. 75) used progressive with statives. Neither have tutored learnersof English shown the overextension of progressive to states as Robison re-ported. In oral and written narratives, tutored learners of English show nogreater than 3% use of progressive with statives (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Bar-dovi-Harlig & Bergstrom, 1996; Robison, 1995). Giacalone Ramat (1997) re-ported the same low use of progressive with states by untutored adultlearners of Italian. Rohde (1996, 1997) reported only four uses of progressivein the first 34 months by each of the two untutored child learners of English(the total number of predicates produced is not given). Shirai (1995) foundthat 2% of all progressives (-te i-) occurred in the interlanguage of 3 tutoredChinese learners of Japanese. Although the use of progressive with states issomewhat higher in cloze passages than in narratives (Bardovi-Harlig & Rey-nolds, 1995, report a high of 7%, and Collins, 1997, 9% in the lower levelgroups), they do not approximate the higher rate of use by Robisons (1990)learner. Thus it appears that most adult second language learners rarely over-extend the use of progressives. Task may influence rates of use, but it is un-clear what role instruction plays (cf. Giacalone Ramats untutored learners).

In sum, we find that the aspect hypothesis is widely supported. There arepotential counterexamples, however, and these are reviewed in the next sec-tion.

Counterevidence to the aspect hypothesis? The clearest counterexample toany formulation of the aspect hypothesis would be an interlanguage systemthat exhibits equal distribution of verbal morphology in all categoriesthatis, states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. That would involvethe emergence of the preterit, for example, appearing equally in all categories;the same for present, imperfect, and progressive as they emerge. Counterevi-


dence would not necessarily involve contrast between morphemes at the ear-liest stages because the emergence of verbal morphology is ordered withinthe tense-aspect system, with default forms preceding past, and perfectivepast preceding imperfective past, and imperfective past preceding future (Gia-calone Ramat, 1992).

There is no study of which I am aware that presents that type of counter-evidence. Instead, potential counterevidence appears to address individual ef-fects of the aspect hypothesis rather than the hypothesis in its entirety. Thesame things that are required of supporting studies are required of potentialcounterexamples: a clear distinction between grammatical and lexical aspect,articulation of categories employed and diagnostic tests, and quantification ofthe results.

A potential counterexample is found in the interlanguage of a single Japa-nese learner of English who showed almost no verbal morphology except onstates, consisting largely of be in the background (Kumpf, 1984b). Reanalysissuggests that Kumpfs learnerlike the learners in Schumanns (1987) studywho also showed no correlation of inherent aspect and verbal morphologymay have been at too low a level to show productive use of verbal morphol-ogy. In light of the work from the concept-oriented studies, we see that thelearner may not have entered the grammatical stage of temporal expression.(See also Shirai & Kurono, 1998.)

Although it is identified by Shirai and Kurono (1998) as a serious counter-example to the aspect hypothesis, Rohde (1996) nevertheless does not showthat lexical aspect has no influence. Instead, Rohdes study of two childrenshows a distributional bias for both regular and irregular past inflection, asdiscussed earlier. What is not expected, however, is the occurrence of -ingwith achievements: The progressive form does not show a distributionalbias, appearing with both activities and achievements (1996, p. 1129). Thisconstitutes possible counterevidence to the hypothesized spread on -ing. The6-year-old learner showed increasing use of -ing with achievements from Mayto July and in August showed an equal number of types with both activitiesand achievements. However, when the raw scores are converted into percent-ages of verbs in each aspectual category, the use of progressive, even at itshighest, neither meets nor exceeds the use of past (regular and irregular com-bined) with achievements (i.e., 37% progressive to 56% past) and, moreover,91% of the activities with verbal morphology carry progressive.15 The 9-year-old learner shows early use of progressive with achievements, but in eachsample the percentage of achievements that shows use of past is greater thanthe percentage that shows progressive; the use of progressive is the dominantmorphology for activities.

Rohde (1996) attributed some of the progressive use to the childrens fu-ture uses of -ing, which are targetlike. Even in the mature target language, fu-ture uses are allowed with volitional achievements such as hes arriving atnoon tomorrow and NASA is launching the shuttle Tuesday. These future uses


of -ing appear to be quite different from the noncontrastive use of -ing in pastcontexts (to mark activities) that have been reported for other learners. Thisbears further investigation.

Robison (1995) also found an unexpected use of -ing with punctual eventsby the lowest group of six learners in his cross-sectional study (21% of theachievements carried -ing, dropping to 3% in the next group). He found, how-ever, that most of the progressive punctual events were tokens of going toused in a punctual sense as in nine or ten . . . he going to sleep (p. 357). Thisuse decreases dramatically with level of proficiency. In light of the statisticallysignificant results regarding the other effects, including the affiliation of pro-gressive with activities, Robison did not interpret this as a counterexample tothe aspect hypothesis. These cases, involving appearance of -ing in the future,stress the importance of investigating text types and topics that have the po-tential for eliciting broader ranges of reference for the learners (Noyau, 1990;Wiberg, 1996), and they indicate areas for future research.

The largest concept-oriented study on temporality (Dietrich et al., 1995)with the greatest potential for contributing to the discussion because of itslongitudinal and cross-linguistic designs simply reports in relation to Ander-sens aspect hypothesis our results are inconclusive (p. 271). Unfortunately,the analysis of lexical aspect is not part of the published analysis and readershave no evidence against which to weigh this conclusion.

Do inflections mark tense? In the study of influence of lexical aspect on thedistribution of what in the TL are tense-aspect markers, the emergence oftense marking has been overshadowed. Yet several studies address the acqui-sition of tense.

Robison (1995) observed that, even though the correlation of morphologywith lexical aspectual categories strengthens with level of proficiency, tensealso develops:

The correlation of inflection with tense, PAST with anterior reference and-s with present, increases with proficiency level. While lexical aspect domi-nates inflectional choices at the lowest proficiency level, the influence oftense becomes at least comparable to that of lexical aspect in the highestproficiency group. (p. 365)

Impersonal narratives show a similar pattern (Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom,1996).

Housen (1993, 1994) also investigated the acquisition of tense. After onecourse in Dutch (of unspecified length) and four weeks in Holland, the English-speaking learner studied by Housen used past-tense forms predominantly inpast-time contexts, but she used present-tense forms almost equally in pres-ent- and past-time contexts. One year (and another DFL course and a five-weekstay in Holland) later, the learner largely restricted her use of present-tenseforms to present-time contexts (Housen, 1993).16

Holding aspectual class and grammatical aspect constant, we can observe


tense marking as it appears with progressive actitivies (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992a).The lowest level learners show evidence of bare progressive (verb + -ing) andpresent progressive, which intermediate learners abandon in favor of the pastprogressive. The use of past progressive with activities (where NSs suppliedthe simple past) shows targetlike tense use; however, association of progres-sive with activities shows continued influence of lexical aspect (Bardovi-Har-lig & Reynolds, 1995; Robison, 1995).

Buczowska and Weist (1991) and Klein (1993, 1994; Dietrich et al., 1995)claim that tense is acquired before grammatical aspect. A comprehension testcompleted by 60 adult Polish learners of English suggests that learners canmore accurately identify contrasts in tense than grammatical aspect (Buczow-ska & Weist, 1991). These results must be interpreted with caution, however,because the test compared the simple past with the modal future (e.g.,jumped/will jump; see also Kumpf, 1984a, for a discussion of the effect of in-struction on the will future), whereas a contrast between past and base orpast and present would have more faithfully represented an authentic inter-language contrast. However, the ESF study relies on natural production data,which avoids the objection of artificial comparisons. In agreement with Buc-zowska and Weist (1991), they conclude our results clearly contradict thegrammatical aspect before tense hypothesis (Dietrich et al., 1995, p. 270).Consistent with the observation that form precedes function, Klein (1994)elaborates, in no case do we observe an early functional use of these forms(p. 245).

Discourse Structure. A second type of form-oriented study has investi-gated the distribution of tense-aspect morphology with respect to discoursestructure. Godfrey (1980) observed that the use of tense morphology couldnot be fully understood without recourse to discourse. Like many of the stud-ies in second language acquisition of the time, Godfrey focused on errors andavoidance of tense marking, framing the analysis in terms of tense continuity.

Subsequent analysis followed Hopper (1979), Dahl (1984), and Givon (1982)in the analysis of primary languages and linguistic universals, and the distribu-tion of tense-aspect morphology with respect to the structure of the narrative.An early study by Kumpf (1984b) suggested that a relationship exists betweenthe use of verbal morphology in interlanguage and the grounding of the narra-tive.

Narrative discourse is composed of two parts: the foreground and thebackground. The foreground relates events belonging to the skeletal structureof the discourse (Hopper, 1979) and consists of clauses that move time for-ward (Dry, 1981, 1983). As Dry (1992) shows, the sum of multidisciplinary re-search on foreground suggests that it is a cluster concept, including newinformation (Dry, 1983), clause structure (Labov, 1972; Labov & Waletzky,1967; Reinhart, 1984; but see also Dry, 1981, 1983), and agentivity (Hopper &Thompson, 1980). The background does not itself narrate main events butprovides supportive material that elaborates on or evaluates the events in the


foreground. Background clauses may interpret, explain, evaluate, predict, orprovide orientation.

Cross-linguistic investigations suggest that the distinction between back-ground and foreground is a universal of narrative discourse (Dahl, 1984; Hop-per, 1979; Longacre, 1981). Hopper observes that competent (native) users ofa language mark out a main route through the narrative and divert in someway those parts of the narrative that are not strictly relevant to this route(1979, p. 239). One such marking may be the use of tense and aspect (Hopper,1979). Research into interlanguage narratives has shown that tense-aspectmorphology exhibits differential distribution by grounding. As in the case ofthe aspect studies, the early narrative studies were essentially case studies(Flashner, 1989; Kumpf, 1984b; and later Housen, 1994), and subsequent stud-ies with larger learner populations confirmed and elaborated on the results ofthe earlier investigations.

Flashner (1989) found that three Russian learners of English distinguishedforeground from background in oral narratives by marking the foreground pre-dominantly in simple past, whereas the background verbs occurred predomi-nantly in base forms. Similarly, Housen (1994) reported that an Americanlearner of Dutch with one course of Dutch and 4 weeks of active L2 use inHolland reflected the narrative structure in her use of tense-aspect morphol-ogy: Present perfect (with some rare preterit forms) appeared in the fore-ground, whereas simple present and nonfinite forms occurred in thebackground. A year later, the learner showed the same distribution, althoughless pronounced. Kumpfs (1984b) Japanese learner of English also showeddifferential tense-aspect use for grounding in oral interviews, but she usedtensed stative verbs in the background, whereas active verbs were marked forhabitual and continuous aspect, and base forms were used in the foreground.17

Kumpfs Japanese learner, Tomiko, followed the pattern described by Givon(1982) for Guyanese Creole and Hawaiian Pidgin, and for creole tense-aspect-modality where the morphologically marked members are found in the back-ground. Flashner (1989) interpreted the direction of the marking to be an influ-ence of the Russian L1 of her learners. At the time of the Kumpf and Flashnerstudies, the issue was not, as it later became, the direction of morphologicalmarking but the fact that interlanguage used verbal morphology to distinguishforeground from background.

Later studies showed that learners from various backgrounds showed thesame pattern as Flashners (1989) Russian learners. In addition, other L1 Japa-nese learners of English as a second language (who share an L1 with Kumpfslearner) were found to exhibit high use of past in the foreground (Bardovi-Harlig, 1992b, 1995). Recent work on both aspect and narrative analysis hasled to a possible reanalysis of the use of tense statives by Kumpfs learner(Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Shirai & Kurono, 1998).

Veronique (1987) and Bardovi-Harlig (1992b) investigated larger groups oflearners. The pattern of morphological marking followed that reported byFlashner (1989) and showed greater use of the simple past in the foreground


than in the background. In a study of seven untutored Arabic- and Berber-speaking learners of French, Veronique found that the distribution of verbalmorphology across background and foreground differed by level, but thesefindings also showed variation within levels across individuals and within indi-viduals across texts. In the narratives of intermediate learners emergent ver-bal morphology, what Veronique called V + e (i.e., emergent use of passecompose with or without the auxiliary) tends to cluster in the foreground, withbase forms in the background. A study of oral and written narratives from 16ESL learners of a variety of L1 backgrounds found that 12 learners showed agreater use of past in the foreground than in the background (Bardovi-Harlig,1992b). Nine learners showed both greater use of past in the foreground andgreater use of nonpast in the background, and three additional learnersshowed greater use of past in the foreground than in the background with noappreciable difference in nonpast. The remaining four learners showed dis-course-neutral distribution of verbal morphology.

Level of proficiency clearly emerges as a likely factor in the distribution ofverbal morphology relative to grounding, especially when one takes into ac-count that very low-level learners show no systematic use of tense (Schu-mann, 1987) and that advanced learners must eventually use past in bothforeground and background to reach a targetlike use of tense in narratives. Inresponse to the apparent influence of level of proficiency, and the difficulty incomparing learners, Bardovi-Harlig (1995) grouped 37 learners of ESL by over-all rate of appropriate use of past tenses in past-time narratives resulting ineight groups (for similar methodology in grouping learners, see also Ander-sen, 1978; Robison, 1990, 1995; Schumann, 1987). In both the oral and writtennarratives (elicited retells of an 8-minute segment of Modern Times, N = 74),the simple past emerged first in the foreground and rates of simple past useremain higher in the foreground than in the background at all levels. When beis excluded from the sample, the pattern is even more robust (Bardovi-Harlig,1998). The use of past is exceeded by the use of base forms even in the fore-ground at the lowest levels, but in the intermediate level simple past becomesthe dominant foreground verb form used. In the foreground, simple past andbase are the chief verb forms, whereas in the background there are, in addi-tion, progressive as well as present forms. The interlanguage pattern of tense-aspect distribution mirrors the functional simplicity of the foreground and themultiple functions of the background.

Although the studies reviewed in this section have been referred to asstudies of discourse (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1992b, 1994a,1995), they would be more accurately referred to as studies of narrative. AsBardovi-Harlig (1994a) pointed out, a grounding analysis can only be carriedout on narrative texts, or narrative portions of texts. Very few studies haveinvestigated a range of texts, the obvious advantage of narratives being thepresumption of chronological order (von Stutterheim, 1991). Godfrey (1980)compared elicited narratives (using a film retell task) to evaluations of thefilm, a nonnarrative task.


However, the difference between narrative and nonnarrative texts may notrepresent an analytic dichotomy. Von Stutterheim and Klein (1989) locate nar-rative structure (and grounding) in a more general approach to main struc-tures and side structures. In a narrative, the foreground answers the questionwhat happened next? with unbounded states, habituals, and generics ex-cluded. In contrast, in a description, specific temporal reference is normallyexcluded, and temporal location on the time axis leads to side struc

bardovi-harlig1999 tense aspect morphology temporal semantics.pdf

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