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Errors in Tense and Aspect in theCompositions of Secondary School Pupils

Dennis Yap Swee Beng

A thesis submitted to theNational Institute of EducationNanyang Technological University

In fulfilment of the requirement for the degree ofMaster of Arts

2006

ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Library and Information Services Centre, National Institute of Educatio


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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Associate Professor Lubna Alsagoff, my

supervisor, for being a wonderful teacher and mentor. Her patience,

guidance and insight have made doing this thesis an enjoyable and

achievable endeavour.

To all who have encouraged me along the way and made this

journey possible.

To the One without whom nothing is possible.



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Contents

Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction 1

1.1 The Study 1

1.2 Background and Rationale of the Study 3

1.3 Significance of the Study 5

1.4 Organisation of the Thesis 6

1.5 Conclusion 9

Chapter Two: Literature Review 10

2.1 English in Singapore 10

2.1.1 Role and Status of English in Singapore Today 11

2.1.2 Approaches to Explaining Singapore English (SE) 14

2.1.3 Errors in English 19

2.2 A Study of Tense and Aspect 21

2.2.1 Overview of Tense and Aspect (Alsagoff, 2001) 21

2.2.2 Studies investigating tense and aspect in SE 22

2.2.3 Past tense marking errors in compositions of primaryschools students Yip (2004)

25

2.3 The Aspect Hypothesis 28

Chapter Three: Framework of Study and Methodology 49

3.1 The Hypothesis 50

3.2 Definitions and Classifications of Tense and Aspect 52

3.2.1 Tense 53

3.2.2 Grammatical Aspect 55



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3.2.3 Lexical Aspect 61

3.3 Data Collection 79

3.4 The Subjects 86

3.5 Statistical Methods 88

Chapter Four: Findings 91

4.1 Overview of Corpus 92

4.2 H1(a): The relationship between aspectual classes of verbs(i.e. State, Activity, Accomplishment and Achievement) and

patterns of errors in tense marking.

93

4.2.1 Analysed in terms of Telicity 97

4.2.2 Analysed in terms of Punctuality 100

4.2.3 Analysed in terms of Stativity 102

4.2.4 Analysed in terms of Agentivity 104

4.3 H1(b): The relationship between aspectual classes of verbs(i.e. State, Activity, Accomplishment and Achievement) andpatterns of errors in perfective aspect marking.

107





4.4 H1: The relationship between aspectual classes of verbs(i.e. State, Activity, Accomplishment and Achievement) andpatterns of errors in tense and perfective aspect marking.

115







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Chapter Five: Discussion of Findings 130

5.1 Summary and Discussion of Findings 130

5.2 Telicity and Completeness of Event in relation to Tense-Aspect Marking

139

5.3 Problems and Limitations of Study 148

5.4 Future Research 149

Chapter Six: Conclusion 157

6.1 Overview of Study 157

6.2 Pedagogical Implications 158

6.3 Conclusion 160

Bibliography 165



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List of Tables, Charts and Figures

Tables

Table 1: Componential analysis of how Vendlers (1967) four-way

classification is related binary semantic categories.

62

Table 2: Summary of how binary categories of lexical aspect relate toVendlers Four-Way classification.

72

Table 3: Summary of tests to classify verbs under Vendlers Four-Wayclassification

78

Table 4: Result of Chi Square Test for Aspectual Classes (Tense) 96

Table 5: Result of Chi Square Test for Telicity (Tense) 99

Table 6: Result of Chi Square Test for Punctuality (Tense) 101

Table 7: Result of Chi Square Test for Stativity (Tense) 103

Table 8: Result of Chi Square Test for Agentivity (Tense) 106

Table 9: Distribution of aspect marking errors across semanticcategories

107

Table 10: Result of Chi Square Test for Telicity (Aspect) 110

Table 11: Result of Chi Square Test for Agentivity (Aspect) 114

Table 12: Result of Chi Square Test for Aspectual Classes (Tense-Aspect)

118

Table 13: Result of Chi Square Test for Telicity (Tense-Aspect) 121

Table 14: Result of Chi Square Test for Punctuality (Tense-Aspect) 124

Table 15: Result of Chi Square Test for Stativity (Tense-Aspect) 126

Table 16: Result of Chi Square Test for Agentivity (Tense-Aspect) 128

Table 17: Summary of number of verbs and number errors within theforeground and background of narrative texts

143

Table 18: Result of Chi Square Test for Verbs in Foreground andBackground of Narratives

144

Table 19: Samples of Structural Variation (Mod Aux + Verb + ed/en) 152



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Figures

Figure 1: Expanding triangles of English expressions 18

Figure 2: Examples of state verbs 84

Figure 3: Examples of activity verbs 84

Figure 4: Examples of achievement verbs 85

Figure 5: Examples of accomplishment verbs 85



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Annexes

Annex A: The Corpus

Annex B: List of Tense-Aspect Errors in Corpus

Annex C: Detailed Summary of Errors in Corpus

Annex D: List of State Verbs in Corpus

Annex E: List of Activity Verbs in Corpus

Annex F: List of Accomplishment Verbs in Corpus

Annex G: List of Achievement Verbs in Corpus

Annex H: Samples from corpus used to analyse text according todiscourse structures (Foreground and Background)



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Abbreviations

SE Singapore English

SCE Singapore Colloquial English

SSE Singapore Standard English

STE Singapore Tamil English

StdBrE Standard British English

StdE Standard English



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Abstract

This thesis is an investigation of tense and aspect errors in compositions of

Singapore secondary students from a lexical semantic perspective. In

particular, it seeks to provide a systematic understanding of the differences

in the marking of tense-aspect in Singapore English writing through a

quantitative investigation that examines data in relation to the Aspect

Hypothesis (AH). The AH examines the acquisition of tense and aspect

errors in relation to the meaning of verbs, in particular, meanings which are

related to how the verb denotes an event, i.e. its lexical aspect. In

acquisition literature, it predicts that a learner will acquire and appropriately

use morphological tense-aspect marking for telic verbs (i.e. achievements

and accomplishments) before atelic verbs (i.e. states and activities)

(Salaberry and Shirai 2002, Andersen and Shirai 1996, Bardovi-Harlig

2000). From this, it was extrapolated that as learners first acquire the use

of past marking and/or perfective marking on telic verbs, learners will less

frequently make errors in past and perfective marking among telic verbs.

Conversely, learners are expected to make past and perfective marking

errors more frequently among atelic verbs. In this study, we formulate and

test the hypothesis that aspectual classes of verbs can explain patterns of

errors in past tense and perfective marking.



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The following are the research questions to the study.

1. What are the patterns of errors in tense and aspect in the

compositions of secondary school students?

2. What are the possible explanations to these errors in tense and

aspect?

3. What are the pedagogical implications for teachers in Singapore in

view of these types of errors in tense and aspect in the compositions

of secondary school students?

The results of the study were positive, with both sub-hypotheses (H1a) and

(H1b) being validated and the main hypothesis (H1) has been validated

with clear significance. What this means is that aspectual classes of verbs

(i.e. State, Activity, Accomplishment and Achievement) can explain the

patterns of errors in tense and perfective aspect marking.

This study is significant for a number of reasons. First, it demonstrates that

what has often been attributed to L1 influence is actually universal in

pattern. Secondly, the study demonstrates that the variation is consistent

i.e. that pupils are making systematic errors related to a universal tendency

to equate meaning with structure. Thirdly, the study has vast pedagogical

implications.



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Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 The Study

This thesis is an investigation of tense and aspect errors in compositions of

Singapore secondary students from a lexical semantic perspective. In

particular, it seeks to provide a systematic understanding of the differences

in the marking of tense-aspect in Singapore English writing through a

quantitative investigation that examines data in relation to the Aspect

Hypothesis (AH). The AH examines the acquisition of tense and aspect

errors in relation to the meaning of verbs, in particular, meanings which are

related to how the verb denotes an event, i.e. its lexical aspect. In

acquisition literature, it predicts that a learner will acquire and appropriately

use morphological tense-aspect marking for telic verbs (i.e. achievements

and accomplishments) before atelic verbs (i.e. states and activities)

(Salaberry and Shirai 2002, Andersen and Shirai 1996, Bardovi-Harlig

2000).

The AH therefore suggests that the distribution of tense errors can be

predicted on the basis of lexical aspect where we would expect a higher

occurrence of tense-aspect errors with verbs whose lexical aspects are

atelic, i.e. states and activities, than verbs whose lexical aspects are telic,

i.e. achievements and accomplishments. In this study, we formulate and



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test the hypothesis that aspectual classes of verbs can explain patterns of

errors in past tense and perfective marking.

The following are the research questions to the study.

1. What are the patterns of errors in tense and aspect in the

compositions of secondary school students?

2. What are the possible explanations to these errors in tense and

aspect?

3. What are the pedagogical implications for teachers in Singapore in

view of these types of errors in tense and aspect in the compositions

of secondary school students?

The present study is primarily motivated by an earlier study by Yip (2004)

along these same lines of investigation. Yips work however, revealed that

no significance in the patterns of tense and aspect errors along the line of

lexical aspect could be made. In this thesis, we aim to improve on this

study by

(a) Changing the corpus to a secondary school corpus to ensure that

the learners investigated are more stable language learners. This is

because Lenneberg (1967) proposed that there is a critical period

for language learning, he reasoned that lateralization for language

takes place by puberty and the brains left hemisphere is no longer

able to acquire language.



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(b) Enlarging the corpus considerably to yield more dependable results.

(c) Narrowing the focus of the study so that more attention is placed on

the statistical significance of lexical aspect.

1.2 Background and Rationale of the Study

According to Corders classic work (1981), studies concerning the teaching

of modern languages show that authors cursorily deal with the question of

learners errors and their correction simply as the unavoidable by products

of the process of learning a language. Corder (1981) noted three reasons

why the study of learners errors is important. Firstly, the study of errors is

significant to educators as it indicates how far toward the goal the learner

has progressed and what remains for the learner to learn. Secondly, the

study of errors is also significant as it provides evidence of how language is

learned and acquired. Finally, the study of errors is also important from the

perspective of the learner as learners can regard the making of errors as a

device to learn the language.

Corder (1981) also noted that much of linguistic and psychological theory

when applied to the study of language learning attributes learners errors in

language acquisition primarily to the interference in the learning of a

second language from the habits of the first language. Many studies

concerning Singapore English (SE) also attribute variations in grammar to

influences of base languages such as Malay, Chinese or even Singapore



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Colloquial English (Poedjosoedarmo 2000 and Deterding 2000, Gupta

1994 among many others).

One of the variations in grammar of SE that is well documented in the

literature is the absence of verbal morphology in the marking of tense and

aspect (Alsagoff 1998, 2001, Platt & Weber 1980, Tay 1979, Saravanan

1989, Ho & Platt 1993, Ho 2003 and many others). The lack of tense and

aspect marking in SE is usually attributed to the lack of verbal morphology

employed in the home or first languages (Platt & Weber, 1980 and Tay,

1979).

However, studies of tense and aspect errors, which include the Aspect

Hypothesis, suggest that the patterns of acquisition of tense and aspect

morphology are universal, systematic and predictable regardless of the

target language (Andersen & Shirai 1996, Bardovi-Harlig 2000, Salaberry &

Shirai 2002). Such studies have shown that languages as diverse as

Chinese, French, Russian, Italian and many others, demonstrate similar

patterns of acquisition in relation to tense and aspect. This study is

undertaken to determine if errors in tense and aspect marking of student

learners of English in Singapore are consistent with such universality

patterns as predicted in the Aspect Hypothesis. This study is a timely one

because a survey of local research literature reveals the lack of research

done on errors in tense and aspect marking in student writing other than

attributing such variation to verbal morphology to influence of the home or

first languages.



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There are, however, considerable amount of work done concerning the

writing of composition among student learners, phonological features of

speakers of English in Singapore, the teaching of spoken and oral English.

1.3 Significance of the Study

The study of grammar and semantics in English Language has traditionally

been modular in nature, where the study of grammar is confined to looking

at structure without considering semantic properties of words. This study is

significant because it attempts to explain a structural problem as in errors

in tense-aspect marking in compositions of secondary school students by

looking at the semantic properties of verbs in terms of their lexical aspect.

This study attempts to show that tense-aspect marking errors made by

students in the writing of English compositions are not simply due to the

interference or influence of the home or first languages but due to certain

inherent lexical semantic properties of verbs.

It is an empirical piece of research basing findings on a corpus of data

collected from a Singapore secondary school. The value of such an

approach is that it is able to concretely substantiate or refute claim made

by previous researchers of SSE about the tense and aspect errors. Thus,

in addition to the hypothesis made in this thesis, we are also able to assess

whether or not it can be definitely said that tense and aspect errors are a

result of home or first language interference.



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Patterns of errors discovered in this study will also have significant

pedagogical implications. This is because when learners are made aware

of errors made, these errors can serve as a device to learn the target

language (Corder, 1981). This is important because learners are

unconscious of their own errors. In the literature, errors in grammar (in this

case, in verbal morphology) are considered to be the incorrect use of

grammatical structures, unconscious to the learner, while mistakes are

regarded as slips that a learner makes during the production (usually

spontaneous) of language. When a mistake or slip is made, the speaker

would usually correct himself.

The patterns of errors discovered in this thesis can serve as a basis for the

systematic teaching of grammar focussing on areas where learners are

most likely to encounter problems.

1.4 Organisation of the Thesis

This thesis will be organised into six chapters. The present chapter,

chapter 1 introduces the study and provides the background and rationale

of the research as well as the significance of the study.

Chapter 2 is a review of the relevant literature. It first presents a discussion

of the role and status of the English Language in Singapore, followed by a

presentation of how various researchers have developed approaches to

explain SE, in particular, the Lectal Continuum (Platt & Weber, 1980),



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Diglossia (Gupta, 1994) and Expanding Triangles of English Expressions

(Pakir, 1995) models will be discussed. How variations in grammar of SE

are treated will also be discussed. An overview of what is tense and aspect

following the work of Alsagoff (2001) will also be presented. This is

followed by a review of studies related to tense-aspect marking in SE

(Saravanan, 1989, Ho, 2003 and others) as well as a recent study by Yip

(2004) who, among other approaches, also studied the past tense marking

errors of primary school students from a lexical semantic perspective. This

naturally leads to the review of the aspect hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai,

1996). Included in this review are its development, methods used for data

collection and analysis as well as other views concerning acquisition of

tense and aspect. This is important as this study examines data from the

perspective of the Aspect Hypothesis.

Chapter 3 will elaborate on the framework of this study as well as the

research methodology. In this chapter, the hypothesis for this study will be

first presented. This is followed by the introduction of the theoretical

framework used to analyse the data in this thesis. Here, how tense and

aspect are defined and classified is elaborated and discussed. Concepts

concerning grammatical and lexical aspect will also be explained and

discussed. Following this, tests used to classify lexical aspect are also

explained. Discussions as to how, where and from whom data is collected

and analysed in this thesis will also be presented. The statistical method

used in this study will also be explained in this chapter.



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Chapter 4 will provide an analysis of the data collected as well as a report

on the findings. The findings will include patterns of, 1) errors in tense-

aspect marking, 2) errors in past tense marking and 3) errors in perfective

aspect marking in terms of aspectual classes of verbs. Included in this

chapter are reports of the statistical significance to each finding.

Chapter 5 presents a discussion of the findings. This followed by exploring

the effects of telicity and completeness in relation to tense-aspect marking.

Here the study of tense-aspect errors is extended by looking at discourse

structures of narrative texts and its findings are compared with the findings

of the main study to arrive at a fuller explanation to variations in tense-

aspect marking in SE. Problems and limitations of the study are also

highlighted for the benefit of future research. The section recommending

future research includes a presentation of observable patterns of verbal

morphology variations from the corpus, which are not related to this study

but would be of interest to researchers.

The concluding chapter, Chapter 6, follows this where an overview of the

study and a special focus on the pedagogical implications to English

Language teaching in Singapore schools in the light of the findings will be

presented, followed by the conclusion.



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1.5 Conclusion

In summary, this chapter sought to present the background and rationale of

this study by situating it in the current studies concerning tense-aspect

morphology. The research questions as well as the significance of this

study were also presented. It is hoped that this study will reveal findings

that will give researchers as well as educators a fresh perspective to the

explanation of tense and aspect errors in SE.



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Chapter Two

Literature Review

2.0 Overview

In this chapter, a review of literature relevant to the current study will be

done. This chapter first focuses on English in Singapore. The chapter will

then go on to give an overview of studies related to the study of tense and

aspect in Singapore English. To situate this current study within the wider

language acquisition research community, we review literature on the

acquisition of tense and aspect. In particular, the Aspect Hypothesis

(Andersen & Shirai, 1996) will be discussed, as it will form the theoretical

basis of the framework adopted for this study as well as the analysis of

findings presented in chapters 3 and 4 respectively.

2.1 English in Singapore

In this section, a brief overview of the role and status of English in

Singapore will be presented. Also presented in this section, are

approaches pertaining to the study of the variation of Singapore English.



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2.1.1 Role and Status of English in Singapore Today

English has been called the de factonational language of Singapore and is

also seen as the main working language of the government, judiciary,

education and international business in Singapore (Llamzon 1977, Kuo

1988; Bloom 1986, Foley 1988, 2001). This has arisen from the rapid

globalisation of the world economy and the need for Singapore to be

plugged into the global economy. In order to participate in the global

economy, the ability to transcend cultures and communicate is especially

important (Heller 1999, Wee 2003). The English Language being spoken in

so many parts of the world is seen as the language that will give speakers

the natural edge in gaining access to the world (Foley 2001).

Singapores language policy adopts a pragmatic view. As Singapore does

not possess any natural resources, its survival depends on foreign

investments and gaining competitive edge in science and technology.

Therefore, English Language proficiency is seen as necessary for

attracting foreign investment and providing access to scientific and

technological know-how (Wee 2003). This view was also expressed by the

then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew as captured by Chua

(1995:65):



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Without the English Language, we might not have succeeded in

teaching so quickly a whole generation of the knowledge and skills

which made them able to work the machines brought in from the

industrialized countries of the West.

This view is also reflected in the national syllabus for English Language in

Singapore, which recognises English as the language of public

administration, education, commerce, science and technology, and global

communication, and it has become the medium by which most

Singaporeans gain access to information and knowledge from around the

world. The ability to speak and write English effectively, therefore, has

become an essential skill in the workplace, and a mastery of English is vital

to Singapores pupils (Singapores Ministry of Education English Language

Syllabus, 2001:2).

The importance of English is evidenced by the fact that English is

considered to be first language (L1) of instruction of every student in

Singapore since 1966, with students studying a second language (L2) in

either Mandarin (for Chinese students), Malay (for Malay students) and

Tamil (for Indian students) and these L2 languages are collectively called

Mother Tongue (MT) languages in Singapore schools (Gopinathan, 1998).

The role of such MT languages, as opposed to the English Language, is to

provide a link to Singaporeans traditional cultures and values and counter

any undesirable effects of Westernisation (Wee, 2003).



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English has become an important instrument for Singaporeans to gain

access to the world while the MT languages provide a link to ancient

cultures and values (Wee 2003). With this much value placed on English,

Foley (2001) noted that individuals in Singapore recognise that being

competent and fluent in English has its benefits, especially economically.

English has become an instrument for social mobility, as proficiency in

English would translate into getting better jobs and acquiring more

economic goods (Foley 2001).

With English Language being seen as such an important language, the

dominant perspective of English in Singapore, from the point of view of

business, government and education, is that it is the first language (L1) of

the people. English is also seen as a first language in Singapore because

English is the first medium of instruction in Singapore Schools.

Furthermore, L1 pedagogies are adopted in the national school system to

teach the English Language (Foley 2001). However, can and should the

prevalent view, both by society and the government, that English language

is first language in Singapore be translated into English Language being

seen as the first language of the people in terms of language acquisition?

Foley (2001) pointed out that the growing level of language proficiency in

English in society may lead to the establishment of a standard form of the

local variety. Furthermore, he put forward the argument that the developing

standard variety of English is being established primarily through the

school system. However, this is not something that will happen at a



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predetermined time, but will eventually emerge from the community itself.

Until such a standard emerge, this thesis takes the view that where English

is acquired as a first language by Singapore children, it is actually

Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) that is acquired rather than Standard

English (Gupta, 1994). Therefore, although the English Language is

perceived to be the first language of the nation in terms of it being the main

working language and the way it is taught in schools, English (i.e. Standard

English) will not be seen as the first language in terms of language

acquisition in this thesis. In the following section, whether or not learners of

English in Singapore are considered as first language (L1) or second

language (L2) learners will be further clarified with the analysis of the

various approaches to studying SE.

This has great impact on the study because whether English is seen as a

first or second language will affect the way the data is analysed and

pedagogies recommended to help students acquire target standard of

English.

2.1.2 Approaches to Explaining Singapore English (SE)

The view that English in Singapore can be viewed differently is something

that has been proposed by a number researchers. In this section, I will

consider the three primary models of the description of SE.



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- Lectal Continuum (Platt and Weber, 1980)

In this approach, variation within Singapore English (SE) is treated as

dependent on the social status and level of education of the speaker.

Whether or not an utterance or sentence is standard is judged against the

Standard British English (StdBrE) (Alsagoff 1998). According to Platt and

Weber (1980), SE can be divided into different levels. The most prestigious

being the acrolect, next being mesolect and the lowest being basilect. Platt

and Webers (1980) model, places speakers of SE along a scale according

to a range of linguistic features, correlating to the lectal continuum set up

by their education and socio-economic status. This approach does not

emphasise the internal rule-governed system of SE as it considers SE as a

non-native variety of English and focuses on how it differs from StdBrE

(Alsagoff, 1998). In this approach of analysis, learners are considered to be

second language learners of Standard English.

- Diglossia (Gupta, 1994)

The diglossic view of the English Language in the context of Singapore is

conceptually more appealing than the lectal continuum view (Bao, 2001).

This is because it overcomes the difficulty of setting the boundaries of the

various lects. This is especially so for mesolects. The diglossia approach,

put forward during the late 80s and early 90s, sees SE as a post Creole

continuum and views SE as a native variety and as a result, SE should be

analysed as an autonomous linguistic system (Alsagoff, 1998). It classifies



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the acrolect into the H form, which is also known as Standard Singapore

English (SSE), while basilectal and mesolectal varieties (also known as

SCE) are classified as the L form. As SE is viewed as a post Creole

continuum, there is a large group of people who command both SCE and

SSE. While SSE is used in formal contexts, SCE performs the different

function of socialisation and building camaraderie among friends.

This approach sees English as the L1 of the people and SE is made up of

SSE and SCE. For some, their L1 is SSE while for others the SCE is their

L1. Gupta (1994) notes that Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) is the

main variety of English at the home and in casual situations and that even

for children, who have acquired English from birth, are likely to have SCE,

instead of Standard English (Gupta, 1994:7). For those whose L1 is SCE,

they are considered to be L2 learners of English and SSE is the target

language.

- Expanding Triangle of English Expressions (Anne Pakir,

1991, 1995)

One problem with the diglossic view is that it does not allow the possibility

of differing levels of proficiency among speakers of the language (Bao,

2001). While accepting the diglossic view, Pakirs (1995) notion of the

expanding triangles put forward the view that within the lectal varieties

under the continuum view, there can be different proficiency level.



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According to Pakir (1995), SE speech continua are formed along two

dimensions: the cline of formality and the cline of proficiency. The cline of

formality ranges from Singapore Standard English (SSE) on the upper end

to SCE on the lower end. SSE is used for formal contexts while SCE is

used for informal situations. The cline of proficiency is divided into different

grades and these grades correlate with number of years of contact with

English in a formal setting such as a school.

The widespread use of English as a working language in Singapore has

produced a population that knows English at varying proficiency levels

(Pakir, 1995). Speakers who have lower proficiency of English (thus, low

on the cline of proficiency) will also find it difficult to move up the cline of

formality. Such speakers will continue to use the non-standard variety even

when the formality of the situation demands that SSE be used. Therefore,

they form smaller triangles. Speakers who are high on the cline of

proficiency, on the other hand, will have little difficulties adjusting their

speech to the different levels of formality as these speakers have full grasp

of the SSE as well as the knowledge of SCE. As proficiency increases,

bigger triangles are possible with shifts made for corresponding formality

levels (See figure 1 on page 18).



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SSE

Formal Advanced

Careful Adept

Consultative Intermediate

Casual Basic

Intimate CSE Rudimentary

Figure 1: Expanding triangles of English expressions

These speakers tend to be highly educated users of English and are found

at the top ends of both speech clines. Their movement along the clines is

fluid and far-ranging as compared to others less proficient. They are

capable of moving along the whole diglossic continuum, from top to bottom,

and yet cross over to the proficiency continuum, often remaining at the top

end and occasionally stretching down to the intermediate level or even

lower (Pakir, 1995:4).

The three views of SE presented above are relevant to this thesis because

they show how the study of SE has been done, both historically and

currently. Furthermore, it also clarifies how learners of English in

Singapore should be viewed. Under the lectal continuum model, the

comparative approach to the study of SE is used (Patt & Weber, 1980).

This approach compares SE with StdBrE and see how SE deviates from

StdBrE. Therefore, SE is seen as unsuccessful copies of StdBrE. In this



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case learners are considered to be L2 learners of SSE. Whereas, Guptas

(1994) Diglossia and Pakirs (1991, 1995) Expanding Triangles of English

Expressions see SE as an autonomous system, deserving to be analysed

in its own right. However, some learners are considered to be L2 learners

of SSE as their L1 is SCE instead of SSE while others are L1 speakers of

SSE with the ability to move along the cline of proficiency and formality

effortlessly (Pakir, 1991, 1995). For L1 speakers of SSE, variations in

spoken informal settings are treated as register and socio-linguistic shifts.

2.1.3 Errors in English

Under these three approaches, grammatical variations analysed in SE are

usually attributed to the interference and influence of base languages such

as Chinese, Malay and even SCE (Tay 1979, Gupta, 1994,

Poedjosoedarmo 2000, Deterding 2000 and others). However, Alsagoff

(2001) highlights the comments of Thomas (1996) in his observations that

learners of English tend to omit tense and agreement markings, whatever

their first or background language is. Thomas (1996) also notes that there

are dialects of British English, which do not mark, in a regular fashion, the

third person present tense. Thomas (1996) comment that learners of

English tend to omit tense and agreement markings, whatever their first or

background language is, suggests that the lack of tense marking in

students compositions, when the situation requires it, may be due to some

other factors other than interference from their first or background

language.



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This study aims to demonstrate that the patterns of errors committed by

students in Singapore are similar to the general patterns of acquisition of

tense and aspect morphology among learners of other languages, as

explained from the perspective of the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and

Shirai, 1996, Bardovi-Harlig 2000, Salaberry and Shirai 2002 and others).

In this thesis, variations in SE are seen as systematic creations of students

because SE is an autonomous linguistic system and SE is also made up of

SCE and SSE, both being at the extreme ends of a cline (Gupta, 1994,

Pakir, 1995). As this study focuses on formal written English (in students

compositions) and not spoken English, any variations that might occur in

students writings will be seen as errors. This is because in the formal

education context, SSE is the target. SSE is no different from the variety

used by educated speakers of English internationally (Pakir, 1995). As

students are taught SSE in the formal context, they are expected to

produce SSE in their compositions. In the context of this study, the corpus

is obtained from a neighbourhood school. Therefore, these students are

considered to be learners of English whose L1 is SCE and they are L2

learners of SSE and errors that occur might be strongly influenced by SCE.



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2.2 A Study of Tense and Aspect

In this section, an overview of tense and aspect will first be presented. This

overview includes literature on how tense and aspect is represented

morphologically in StdE and how morphological representation of tense

and aspect in SE differs from StdE. Studies related to tense and aspect in

SE is also discussed in this section.

2.2.1 Overview of Tense and Aspect (Alsagoff, 2001)

Alsagoff (2001) conducted a non-empirical survey of tense and aspect and

provided an overview of how tense and aspect are represented in Standard

English (StdE) and how tense and aspect marking in Singapore Colloquial

English (SCE) differs from StdE. Alsagoff pointed out that in English, tense

is different from aspect. This is because even when aspect remains the

same, tense can differ. Alsagoff also suggests that tense in SCE is very

different from SSE. Verbs in SCE tend to appear mostly in their bare form

without any overt tense marking and there is no morphological marking to

indicate past time (Alsagoff, 2001). The time and aspectual information that

the verbal inflection in StdE carries, is instead often borne by a time

adverbial, e.g., yesterday(Alsagoff, 2001).

In SCE, the use of time adverbials is also preferred over the morphological

marking of perfective aspect (Alsagoff, 2001). However, Alsagoff (2001)

noted that morphological markings for perfective aspect are not completely



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absent. It is also common for speakers of CSE to mark the perfective

aspect with a past tense verb followed by the adverbial already (Alsagoff,

2001).

Alsagoffs (2001) survey of tense and aspect in SE also noted the

systematic absence of tense and perfective marking while the progressive

marking is usually present. Alsagoff (2001) noted that even though tense

and perfective aspect tend not to be morphologically marked, the

progressive aspect is commonly marked in SCE. The main difference

between SCE and StdE is that SCE does not use the progressive auxiliary

be. However, the main verb is marked with theingsuffix.

Alsagoffs (2001) study of tense and aspect will serve as a springboard as

to how tense and aspect will be defined and analysed in this thesis. These

differences and approaches to studying tense and aspect will be further

elaborated and discussed in chapter three.

2.2.2 Studies investigating tense and aspect in SE

Ho (2003) studied past tense marking in SE based on data from a corpus

of university students written assignments. In her study, she found that

past tense marking were systematic and not random. Her findings are also

consistent with past research by Ho & Platt (1993) on past tense marking in

SE based on a spoken corpus. Ho & Platt (1993) found that non-punctual

verbs receive a low degree of marking for past while punctual verbs receive



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a high degree of marking for past while analysing a spoken corpus. In Hos

(2003) study, she classified the verbs in the corpus according to three

semantic categories: punctual, non-punctual and stative. According to Ho

(2003), a verb is used punctually if it refers to a single completed event or

transaction while a verb is used non-punctually if it refers to an action that

takes place over a period of time or to a habitual activity. A verb is used

statively if it describes a state of affairs rather than an action (Ho, 2003).

The data from her study revealed that only 23% of verbs used non-

punctually were marked for past while 56% of verbs used punctually are

marked for past. The non-punctual category included stative verbs as well.

This is because stative verbs are durative and non-punctual. A verb is

durative if an action that takes place over a period of time. Her study

shows that punctual verbs are more likely to be marked for past tense.

Ho (2003) also found that when discussing habitual tasks, learners tended

switch from the past to present tense. Ho (2003) also pointed out that the

same pattern of not marking verbs for past habitual actions is seen in the

written English texts of Navajo speakers as seen in studies by Bartelt

(1983).

In another study, Saravanan (1989) investigated tense and aspect in

Singapore Tamil English (STE). Saravanan (1989) noted that speakers of

STE tended to use verbal morphology as well as time adverbials to indicate

completive, durative and habitual action. This pattern is similar to patterns

observed in SE by other researchers (Platt & Weber 1980, Alsagoff 1998,



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2001). Saravanan (1989) suggested that whether or not a speaker of STE

perceives a situation as punctual or non-punctual may affect the marking

and non-marking of past tense verbs. Saravanan (1989) also noted that

speakers of SE often do not mark stative verbs, which are also non-

punctual, for past tense. In her study, Saravanan (1989) reported that

speakers tend to mark punctual uses of verbs more than verbs that carry

non-punctual references. However, she also noted that the differences are

less significant with speakers at the upper level of educational

qualifications. Saravanan (1989) noted that speakers with higher levels of

educational qualifications tend to have acquired near native level of

proficiency.

Another interesting finding by Ho (2003), who studied past tense marking in

SE based on data from a corpus of students written assignment, is that

she found that the copula be is frequently marked for past. Saravanan

(1989) also found that among speakers of STE, more statives are marked

for past tense than non-punctual verbs. This is interesting because

according to the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and Shirai 1996), stative

verbs being an atelic verb should be less likely to be marked for verbal

morphology.

Saravanan (1989) studied the use of progressive aspect qualitatively

focussing on specific verbs such as remember, forget, feel, and understand

used by speakers of STE. Her study showed that the stative verbs

mentioned above were used in a deviant manner in relation to the ing



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construction. Saravanan (1989) also pointed out that a common feature in

STE was the deviant use of have + ing to refer to the stative sense of

health, possession, and existential location. She also found that speakers

with lower levels of education tended to commit more of such errors while

speakers with higher levels of education have acquired near native level of

proficiency. She attributed this to the interference of the base language

Tamil because more educated speakers did not seem to have this problem.

Saravanans (1989) study did not investigate patterns in the morphology of

the perfective aspect, which this study attempts to undertake.

2.2.3 Past tense marking errors in compositions of primary schools

students Yip (2004)

In a recent study concerning tense morphology in Singapore English, Yip

(2004) investigated past tense errors in the English compositions of

primary school children by looking at three areas:

1) Aspectual Classes of verbs

2) Grammatical features of clauses in which verbs appeared

3) Morpho-phonological features of verbs

In her quantitative study, Yip (2004) wanted to see if any of the three areas

could be used to explain past tense marking errors amongst primary five

pupils.



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In her study, Yip (2004) analysed, in detail, compositions of 20 primary five

pupils narrative or factual recount compositions. For her analysis, all verbs

for each of the 20 compositions were tagged. All main verbs were assigned

an aspectual class according to Vendlers four-way classification, which is

a means to distinguish verbs in relation to their lexical aspect. The

grammatical features of clauses in which the verbs appeared were also

analysed in terms of embedded and non-embedded clauses, and whether

direct speech or time adverbials were used in the text. Morpho-

phonological features of verbs as to whether a verb was regular or irregular

and the final syllable cluster of each verb were also analysed.

Yip (2004) found that errors in past tense marking were not predictable

from aspectual classes of the verbs in any statistically significant way.

Grammatical features were also not significant factors in contributing to

patterns of past tense errors. Only morpho-phonological factors yielded

statistically significant results, and could therefore be used to predict errors

in past tense marking. She found that primary five pupils tend to make

more past tense marking errors with verbs which have base forms ending

in consonant sounds.

Yip (2004), however, did not provide an explanation for this finding. The

perceptual salience hypothesis (PSH) might provide an explanation for this

observation. The perceptual salience hypothesis (PSH) (following works of

Shirai & Kurono, 1998 and Man, 1990) states that a second language

learner will perceive and produce a syllabic grammatical suffix more



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accurately than a non-syllabic grammatical suffix because a syllable is

more perceptually salient than a consonant (or cluster of consonants).

Klein et al (2004) found that L2 learners overall performance is much

better on verbs requiring the syllabic allomorph [Id] than on verbs requiring

the non-syllabic allomorph [d], supporting the perceptual salience

hypothesis.

However, Yip (2004) did not distinguish syllabic vs. non-syllabic syllables,

as such we cannot assess the validity of PSH although Yips (2004) study

seems to show that primary school students are more likely to be

influenced by phonology of verbs.

Yips (2004) finding that the analysis of the aspectual classes of verbs does

not help in predicting tense and aspect marking is contrary to research in

the area of Aspect Hypothesis as reported in Andersen and Shirai (1996).

According to the Aspect Hypothesis, it is expected that learners first

acquire tense and aspect morphology in telic verbs (i.e. accomplishment

and achievements), which means that there is a direct correlation between

past tense morphology and telicity.

Several reasons can explain Yips (2004) finding that the aspectual classes

of verbs do not help in predicting tense and aspect marking errors in her

subjects writings.



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One of the reasons could be the relative small sample size of the study. In

her study, only 20 samples of primary five pupils writings were analysed.

Furthermore, the length of each composition tends to be short, about 150

words long. Therefore, the sample size of 20 compositions, with a corpus

of about 3000 words, may also not be significant enough for the data to be

generalised. Therefore in this research study, compositions from secondary

three students will be collected. 50 samples of writings, with a significantly

larger corpus of over 22,000 words will be considered. It is hoped that this

larger corpus will yield more significant and revealing findings.

Another reason could be the relative young age of her subjects as studies

by Lenneberg (1967) proposed that there is a critical period for language

learning, he reasoned that lateralization for language takes place by

puberty and the brains left hemisphere is no longer able to acquire

language. Therefore, Yips (2004) subjects might be too young to fully

master verbal morphology.

2.3 The Aspect Hypothesis (AH)

The Aspect Hypothesis is based on the study of lexical aspect (Bardovi-

Harlig 2000). Lexical aspect is different from grammatical aspect.

Grammatical aspect is concerned with the internal temporal constituency

of one situation (Comrie 1976: 5) while lexical aspect is concerned with

the semantics of verbs and their arguments (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000).

Definitions of some key terms relating to lexical aspect will be briefly



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presented here because the review will include these terms. Fuller

explanations of these terms will be covered in Chapter Three.

Lexical aspect can be viewed in terms of Vendlers (1967) four-way

classification whose four aspectual classes can be defined and

differentiated using binary semantic categories such as +/- telicity, +/-

punctuality +/- stative and +/- agentive.

Predicates that are telic have a natural end while atelic predicates do not

(Bardovi-Harlig 2000). Punctual Verbs such as dieoccur instantaneously

while non-punctual verbs like run and construct require duration in time

(Bardovi-Harlig, 2000). With a state, unless something happens to change

that state, then the state will continue. In a dynamic situation, the situation

will only continue if it is continually subject to a new input of energy (Comrie

1976). A verb that requires a causer for the event to occur is said to be

agentive (Kearns, 2000).

Vendler (1967) classified verbal predicates into four aspectual classes:

states, activities, accomplishments and achievements. According to

Vendler (1967), states denote situations where no change occurs (know,

love). In terms of binary semantic categories, state verbs are telic, -

punctual + stative and -agentive. Activities denote situations where a

change occurs but without manifesting any inherent ending for this change,

that is to say, atelic situations (run, walk). It is not that activities lack an

ending point, but rather that this ending point is only dependent on the



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causers will. When the causer decides to cease the action, the event

stops. In terms of binary semantic categories, activity verbs are telic, -

punctual - stative and +agentive. Accomplishments, on the other hand,

represent changing situations with in intrinsic natural culmination (build,

destroy). In terms of binary semantic categories, state verbs are + telic, -

punctual - stative and + agentive. Finally, achievements denote situations

where the inherent end is instantaneously achieved (explode, kill). In

terms of binary semantic categories, state verbs are + telic, + punctual -

stative and - agentive.

Having defined some key terms concerning lexical aspect, we can go on to

discuss the AH. The Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1996) states,

1. Learners first use past marking or perfective marking on

achievement and accomplishment verbs, eventually

extending its use to activity and then to stative verbs.

2. In languages that encode the perfective-imperfective

distinction, a morphologically encoded imperfective past, as

in the Romance languages, appears later than perfective

past, and imperfective past marking begins with stative and

activity verbs, then extends to accomplishment or

achievement verbs.



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3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive

marking begins with activity verbs, then extends to

accomplishment or achievement verbs.

Andersen & Shirai, 1996:533

The Aspect Hypothesis attempts to account for the observation that past

tense verbal morphology does not appear with all types of verbal

predicates at the same time and the emergence of past-tense verbal

morphology is guided by the lexical aspect of verb predicates (Bardovi-

Harlig, 2002).

The Aspect Hypothesis stated above, consisting three parts, need not be

seen as a single hypothesis. According to Bardov-Harlig (2002), the Aspect

Hypothesis can be broken down into four separate hypotheses.

1. Learners first use (perfective) past marking on achievements

and accomplishments, eventually extending use to activities

and statives.

2. In languages that encode the perfective/imperfective

distinction, imperfective past appears later than perfective

past, and imperfective past marking begins with statives,

extending next to activities, then to accomplishments, and

finally to achievements.



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3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive

marking begins with activities, then extends to

accomplishments and achievements.

4. Progressive markings are not incorrectly overextended to

statives.

Bardovi-Harlig 2002:130

The Aspect Hypothesis can be summarised by saying that the selection

and use of perfective and/or past marking are initially restricted to the

marking of telic predicates, that is, achievements and accomplishments.

The imperfective marking is initially restricted to marking atelic predicates

(states and activities), whereas progressive marking is restricted to marking

dynamic and atelic predicates (activities) (Salaberry and Shirai, 2002).

The first claim of the aspect hypothesis that achievement and

accomplishment verbs tend to be marked first for past and/or perfective

tense is central to this research. From this claim, we can extrapolate that

because learners tend to first acquire past tense and perfective marking for

telic verbs (achievements and accomplishments), learners should make

more errors in the marking of atelic verbs (activities and states) in terms of

past tense and perfective marking. By studying errors in tense and aspect

marking in terms of aspectual classes of verbs, an explanation as to why



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more errors are associated with certain lexical classes of verbs can be

obtained.

The next claim of the aspect hypothesis that imperfective marking is initially

restricted to atelic predicates (activities and states) will not be included in

this study. This is because the English language does not encode the

perfective/imperfective distinction like other European languages such as

French and Italian.

Errors in progressive marking are also not included in this study. This is

because from the review of literature, errors in the marking of progressive

aspect do not seem to be a common problem in Singapore English

(Alsagoff, 2001). In fact, it is noted that the progressive form is commonly

marked in SE, although the progressive auxiliary be might be left out

(Alsagoff, 2001). According to Saravanan (1989) who studied speakers of

SE, whose base language is Tamil, found that the incorrect use of

progressive marking is mainly confined to speakers of lower education

level. This is further supported by the corpus used in this study, which

reveals that such errors only make up about 0.3% of all errors in the

corpus.

Therefore, the most salient part of the aspect hypothesis to this study is the

first part of the aspect hypothesis, i.e., the selection and use of perfective

and/or past marking is initially restricted to the marking of telic predicates;

that is achievements and accomplishments (Andersen and Shirai, 1996,



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Salaberry and Shirai, 2002). In other words, in the process of acquiring

verbal morphology, a learner marks verbs for tense and perfective aspect

first among telic verbs (such as achievements and accomplishments)

before atelic verbs (such as states and activities). If the aspect hypothesis

is true, one can expect that tense and perfective aspect marking errors

occurring more frequently in verbs whose lexical aspects are atelic, i.e.

states and activities, and less frequently in verbs whose lexical aspects are

telic, i.e. achievements and accomplishments. This might be so especially

in texts that require the verbs to be written in the past tense such as

Narratives and Recounts.

The current Aspect Hypothesis, according the Bardovi-Harlig (2000) has its

genesis in the defective tense hypothesis following Weist et al (1984). The

defective tense hypothesis states that in the beginning stages of language

acquisition only inherent aspectual distinctions and not tense or

grammatical aspect are encoded by verbal morphology. The defective

tense hypothesis consists of three parts. Firstly only telic verbs receive past

tense inflections, secondly, tense distinctions are redundant and only

accompany aspectual distinctions and lastly, only references to immediate

past situation are made. However, it must be noted that Bloom et al (1980)

pointed out, earlier, that children do not necessarily only learn tense after

they have learnt aspect. Therefore, researchers such as Andersen (1989),

Shirai and Andersen (1995) and Andersen and Shirai (1996) put forward

that a relative interpretation of the defective tense hypothesis is more likely



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and can be better defended, thus giving rise to the Aspect Hypothesis

(Andersen & Shirai 1996).

Bardovi-Harlig (2000) notes that early work in support of the Aspect

Hypothesis, for example Kumpf (1984), Flashner (1989), Robison (1990)

and others were based on few individual learners. However, researchers

such as Meisel (1987) pointed out that studies based on few learners may

not accurately reflect the true patterns of acquisition of tense and aspect

morphology as the results may be skewed towards certain unique

characteristics of individual learners. Following this criticism, studies of

tense and aspect acquisition began working with larger sample sizes

(Bardovi-Harlig, 2000). Not only did the sample size of studies become

larger, researchers began to study learners from different levels of

proficiency. There was also a shift towards the quantification of the analysis

of results in order to test the hypothesis. There was also an expansion

concerning the type of data collected as well as techniques of linguistic

analyses. Tests for the determination of aspectual classes were also better

implemented to ensure better comparability between studies (Bardovi-

Harlig, 2000).

According to Bardovi-Harlig (2000) there are many methods used in the

study of tense and aspect morphology. Some researchers such as Van

Patten (1990), Robison (1993), Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom (1996) and

many others studied tutored versus untutored learners, while others

employed either cross-sectional or longitudinal design as well as a single



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level of proficiency in order to describe the relation between lexical aspect

and verbal morphology at a single point. Furthermore, as a result of the

expansion of sample sizes of studies, the elicitation procedures also

developed further. These tasks include oral and written personal and

impersonal narratives, written cloze passages, judgement tasks, telling and

retelling silent films, performing stories and use of picture stories.

The Aspect Hypothesis has also been tested against many languages with

positive results. Bardovi-Harlig (2000) noted the following examples of

target languages studied: Catalan (Comajoan, 1998), Dutch (Housen,

1993, 1994), English (Kumpf 1984, Flashner 1989, Robison 1990, 1995,

Bayley 1991, 1994, Bardovi-Harlig 1992, Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds

1995, Rohde 1996, Collins 1997 and many others), French (Kaplan 1987,

Bergstrom 1995, 1997, Salaberry 1998 and others), Italian (Giacalone

Ramat & Banfi, 1990, Giacalone Ramat, 1995c, 1997), Japanese (Shirai

1995, Shirai & Kurono, 1998), Portuguese (Leira 1994, Leira & Mendes

1995), Russian (Leary 1999) and Spanish (Andersen 1986, 1991, Ramsay

1990, Salaberry, 1997, 1999 and many others).

Weist (2002) suggests the reasons why it is important to investigate the

acquisition of tense and aspect. Firstly, it shows the early phrase of

temporal reference. Secondly, it is relevant to the question of how

morphological information is processed. Thirdly, it reveals elements of the

verb argument structure. Fourthly, it provides insights into the childs tacit



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knowledge of syntactic structure. Finally, it has comparative value for

research on L2 acquisition and non-typical L1 acquisition.

Although the view put forward above is from the language acquisition

perspective and many linguists would consider basing a study on Aspect

Hypothesis is within the purview of language acquisition and not the

analysis and explanation of patterns of tense and aspect marking errors,

the Aspect Hypothesis relevant to this study. This is because studies on

language acquisition of verbal morphology can provide explanations as to

why certain morphological errors occur among learners at a particular

stage in their language acquisition process.

In order to further illustrate AH, one of the experiments done in relation to

AH will be described. The description is based on a study by Bardovi-Harlig

(1998). This study addresses three claims of the aspect hypothesis that

pertains to English. That is the use of the perfective past, the distribution of

the progressive, and the (non) use of the progressive with states.

Data for this experiment was made up of a cross-sectional sample of oral

and written narratives from learners (university students) of English as a

second language, which was elicited by means of a film, retell task. In this

task, an 8-minute excerpt from the silent film Modern Timeswas used as it

contained a series of discrete, easily identifiable action sequences as well

as simultaneous actions and changes of scene.



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Learners watched the film excerpt in their Speaking-Listening classes. The

learners watched the film twice and were given opportunities to clarify

anything that they might not understand. These learners then met the

interviewer individually to record the retell of the story orally. Learners also

produced written narratives during their composition classes.

The participants in this particular study were all enrolled in at the Centre for

English Language Training at a university in the United States of America.

Learners of various proficiency levels were also selected and grouped

according to the prevalence of tense marking in their samples. A total of 74

oral and narrative samples from 37 participants were chosen. The learners

were drawn from five L1 backgrounds. There were 14 Arabic students, 10

Koreans, 6 Japanese, 6 Spanish and 1 Mandarin. Each verb in the

narrative was coded for use of a past tense form in past time contexts,

which include simple past, past progressive and past perfect. The non-use

of the past form in past time contexts was also coded. It was noted that the

occurrence of past perfect among the narratives was rare.

Each verb was also assigned to one of four aspectual classes according to

the tests established for aspectual categories by Vendler (1967). The tests

by Dowty (1979) were used to categorise these verbs. These tests will also

be elaborated on and discussed in chapter three of the current study.

In this study, it was found that in written narratives, achievement and

accomplishments show the highest rate of past-tense inflection. Activities



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also show greater occurrence of the progressive than any other aspectual

class. This finding is consistent throughout among learners of different

proficiency levels. The oral narratives also exhibit the same patterns as

written narratives.

Bardovi-Harligs (1998) study provides support for all claims of the aspect

hypothesis that applies to English. She found that achievement and

accomplishment verbs are more likely to be marked for the perfective past

and progressive marking occur more frequently in activity verbs than any

other aspectual classes and state verbs are not incorrectly marked for

progressive. The findings of her study are consistent with AH for both

written and oral narrative texts.

In the literature, it is noted that learners go through several stages before

employing verbal morphology. However, when learners are ready to

acquire verbal morphology, in particular tense-aspect morphology, the AH

can be applied to predict there patterns of acquisition.

Studies pertaining to language acquisition among L2 learners and learners

of foreign languages have shown that even before learners acquire verbal

morphology to express tense and aspect, learners have many other

linguistic devices at their disposal. Linguistic devices used by learners to

express temporality include pragmatic and lexical devices other than

morphological devices (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000).



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Housen (2002) investigated the development of tense aspect in English

as a second language and the variable influence of the lexical aspect.

Housen (2002) notes that the acquisition of tense and aspect among

second language learners occurs in stages. During the first stage, the

learner learns formulaic expressions such as I dont know. Here, the

learner learns formulaic clusters of words that typically hang together in

order to communicate something. During the second stage, the learner

uses verbs in the morphologically invariant form or unmarked stem form

(e.g. I eat breakfast this morning). This means that the learner is starting to

coin different lexical words together to form an utterance and is more

concerned with the lexical meaning of the utterance than the correct use of

tense and aspect marking, especially if the utterance is said in a past time

context. The learner will start to have some form of formal diversification

such as V + ing at the third stage. At this stage, the learner will be more

aware of the proper use of verbal morphology such as the use of tense to

point to events in relation to time. It is during this stage that the Aspect

Hypothesis seems to be able to predict the patterns of emergence of tense

and aspect marking.

Different learners go through different stages in the acquisition of verbal

morphology. In the context of Singapore, it seems that there is an

assumption that the stage of language acquisition among students at a

specific academic level or year is uniform. Therefore, so long as a student

is in a specific academic level, such as in secondary three, the syllabus



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requires students to employ specific grammatical devices such as the use

of verbal morphology to reflect tense and aspect in their writings in order

for them to be assessed favourably. The presence of tense and aspect

errors in students writings suggests that students are lagging behind in the

stages of acquisition of verbal morphology despite being in a specific

academic level or year.

Students in Singapore are also in a unique position when it comes to the

acquisition of Standard English. This is because in school, these students

are expected to acquire the standard (or internationally intelligible) variety

of the English Language (MOE EL Syllabus, 2001). However, studies in SE

have revealed that speakers of SE have devised creative ways to mean

what they say by employing linguistic strategies such as reduplication (Lim,

1996), Be-omission, redundancy (Low & Brown, 2003), the use of time

adverbial to signal tense and aspect (Alsagoff 1998, Platt & Weber 1980,

Saravanan 1989, Bao 1995 and many others) etc.

This situation is also made more complex by the fact that many mother

tongue languages that students are familiar with such as Malay and

Chinese languages do not posses a tense marking system and verbal

morphology. Consider the following examples.

Saya sudamakan. (Malay)

Wo chi le.(Mandarin)

I eat already. (SCE)



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learners of a language have other linguistic devises at their disposal to

signal tense and aspect whereas L1 learners do not. Therefore, these L2

learners may not initially use verbal morphology to signal tense and aspect.

However, as learners (L1 and L2) progress, they will eventually acquire

and use verbal morphology of the target language to signal tense and

aspect. Research in tense and aspect acquisition reveal that although L2

and L1 learners go through different experiences in acquiring a language,

they seem to exhibit the same patterns in terms of the acquisition of verbal

morphology to signal tense and aspect (Collins 2002, Housen 2002).

These patterns can be explained using the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen &

Shirai 1996).

The Aspect Hypothesis is a form-centred theoretical approach to the study

of tense and aspect morphology. According to researchers other factors

might also need to be considered. Salaberry and Shirai (2002) note that the

form-meaning correlation is only part of a larger picture. Other factors also

need to be considered such as L1 transfer, input data, formation of

prototypes, discourse functions, instructional varieties, cognitive as well as

universal constraints. Giacalone-Ramat (2002) also suggests that

prototypical semantic notions may be correlated with the frequency with

which some forms may be reflected in language (c.f. the Distributional Bias

Hypothesis, Andersen 1993; Andersen and Shirai 1994).

According to Weist (2002:69), the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology

evolves in a conversational context that requires the child to resolve deictic



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relations. But, more specifically, tense-aspect distinctions are made within

the domain of the verb morphology within the structure of a clause.

Therefore, it is also important to understand the acquisition of the clause

structures.

Shirai (2002) put forward a model of tense aspect acquisition. Shirai

(2002) notes that tense aspect acquisition can be associated with the

following mechanisms.

- form form association: whereby learners associate a certain

inflection with certain verbs. That is, the learner recognises

that certain verbs can only be inflected in a certain way.

- form meaning association: whereby learners associate a

certain inflection to a certain tense and aspect and will use

these inflections to convey the necessary tense and aspect

relation.

- L1 transfer: whereby the learner uses knowledge of the

grammar of the first language to guess and anticipate the

grammar of the target language.

- Universal prototype: learners taking into account of notions

that are universally grammaticizable (Shirai, 2002:472)

However, work by Collins (2002) reveals that the L1 influence in the

acquisition of tense and aspect morphology among Francophone L2

learners of English is very limited. It is only limited to a grammatical form

that is very similar between French and English and learners sometimes



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use these forms interchangeably. She found that, generally, adult

Francophone ESL learners use of tense/aspect markers in past contexts

supported the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis. She found that these

learners were significantly more successful in using simple past with telics

and struggled most with statives.

Housen (2002) also notes of the effects of the first language or the base

language on the second language acquisition. Housen (2002) speculated

that L2 learners approach the acquisition of the tense and aspect system

of their target language taking into account of their tense and aspect

distinctions in their L1. If there are any similarities found, it will be used as a

basis for reconstructing the target language system. However, if no

similarities are found, learners might resort to universal semantic

prototypes to help them process these unfamiliar tense and aspect

systems. In the case of SCE, Malay and Chinese, these languages do not

employ verbal morphology to signal tense and aspect (Platt and Weber

1980, Poedjosoedarmo 2000, Deterding 2000 and many others).

Therefore, there is a likelihood that learners of English in Singapore resort

to universal semantic prototypes to help them process these unfamiliar

tense and aspect systems which Housen (2002) spoke about.

The researcher recognises that there are many other factors, as listed

above, to be considered in the study of tense and aspect morphology. As

this research study is primarily concerned with the structural problem of

errors in the production of verbal morphology concerning tense and



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perfective aspect that students make while writing compositions, there is an

overt concentration on studying structural patterns in the errors in order to

device ways to help the students overcome their propensity for errors in

tense and aspect marking.

From the literature review, both Ho (2003) and Saravanans (1989) findings

are consistent, to a certain degree, with the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen

& Shirai 1996) in that punctual verbs, which are also telic, are more likely to

be marked for tense. However, due to the way Ho (2003) and Saravanan

(1989) categorised the verbs according to three semantic categories of

punctual, non-punctual and stative verbs, we cannot be sure that this

finding is entirely consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. This is because

Ho (2003) defines verbs that are used punctually as events that are

completed or fully transacted while, in terms of lexical aspect, telic verbs

are verbs with natural end points (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000). The lexical aspect

of verbs, such as telicity, typically remains constant regardless whether an

event is completed or not, therefore the semantic categories used in Ho

(2003) and Saravanans (1989) studies are not directly comparable to the

aspectual classes used in studies addressing AH.

As the Aspect Hypothesis provides a clearer framework for the analysis of

tense and aspect morphology, this study will also adopt a similar

framework by categorising verbs according to Vendlers (1957/67) four-way

classification. This will also ensure that the findings of the current study can

be compared with other studies related to the Aspect Hypothesis.



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Despite the differences in semantic categories used in the different

analyses, it is important to note that studies addressing Aspect Hypothesis

(Andersen & Shirai 1996) as well as studies undertaken by Saravanan

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