Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Editors
Anna Uhl Chamot
Wai Meng Chan
De Gruyter Mouton
Research Design
and Methodology
in Studies on L2
Tense and Aspect
edited by
M. Rafael Salaberry
Llorenc Comajoan
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-1-934078-14-3
e-ISBN 978-1-934078-16-7
ISSN 2192-0982
The authors gratefully acknowledge all the authors who contributed to the
volume for their own contributions and for acting as reviewers of other
chapters. We also acknowledge the substantive and useful feedback of
the reviewers commissioned by DeGruyter to review the entire volume,
as well as the critical reviews of readers of individual chapters: Michel
Achard, Robert De Keyser, Elena de Miguel, Alex Housen, John Norris,
Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux, and Jacqueline Toribio. The support by the
editors at De Gruyter was greatly appreciated for their usefulness and
good work. We especially need to mention the work of the late Cathleen
Petree, who accompanied us in the rst stages of the editorial process of
our book. After countless email exchanges with her, we especially remember
some of the lines of the quote that she used in her email signature: All
about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues. . . (from the poem Praise Song for
the Day by Elizabeth Alexander). Finally, we would like to acknowledge
the support of our families and academic institutions (the University of
Texas at Austin, the University of Vic, and the University Center for
Sociolinguistics and Communication at the University of Barcelona) for
their continued support.
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Introduction
Research design and methodology in L2 studies of tense and aspect . . 1
Llorenc Comajoan and M. Rafael Salaberry
Chapter 1
A Cognitive Grammar perspective on tense and aspect . . . . . . . . . . 11
Susanne Niemeier
Chapter 2
The Spanish preterite and imperfect from a cognitive point of view . . 57
Aintzane Doiz
Chapter 3
Frequency-based grammar and the acquisition of tense and aspect in
L2 learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Nick Ellis
Chapter 4
Generative approaches to the L2 acquisition of temporal-aspectual-
mood systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Dalila Ayoun and Jason Rothman
Chapter 5
Research design: A two-way predicational system is better than a
four-way approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Paz Gonzalez
Chapter 6
Research design: Operationalizing and testing hypotheses . . . . . . . . 187
M. Rafael Salaberry
Chapter 7
Research design: From text to task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
viii Table of contents
Chapter 8
Dening and coding data: Lexical aspect in L2 studies . . . . . . . . . . 271
Yasuhiro Shirai
Chapter 9
Dening and coding data: Narrative discourse grounding in
L2 studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Llorenc Comajoan
Chapter 10
Data analysis: Quantitative approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Robert Bayley
Chapter 11
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner
language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
Chapter 12
Integrating the analyses of tense and aspect across research and
methodological frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
Author biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Introduction
Research design and methodology in L2 studies of
tense and aspect
1. See Binnick (1991) for the history of how tense and aspect have been studied
from dierent perspectives; Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) on how dif-
ferent languages code time; and Bardovi-Harlig (2000); Slabakova (2001);
Salaberry and Shirai (2002); Ayoun and Salaberry (2005); Rocca (2007); and
Salaberry (2008) for SLA studies.
2 Llorenc Comajoan and M. Rafael Salaberry
The chapter is particularly useful because for every section of the discus-
sion it provides specic applications of cognitive grammar to the L2 class-
room to teach tense and aspect features. In the second chapter, Aintzane
Doiz discusses the various aspectual meanings of the Spanish Preterite
and Imperfect, also from the pespective of Cognitive Grammar. Thus, the
chapters by Niemeier and Doiz complement each other in the sense that
they apply the same theoretical apparatus to describe two tense-aspectual
systems, namely English and Spanish. In particular, both authors remark
the need to provide L2 learners with cognitive explanations that help them
relate how they view situations (cognitively) and the ways to express them
in the L2. Furthermore, both Niemeier and Doiz emphasize the power of
cognitive grammar in the way it handles exceptions to specic uses of
tense-aspect forms in English and Spanish. Finally, both authors agree on
the fact that further research still needs to fully investigate to what extent
cognitive grammar can help or hinder learners with the process of acquir-
ing a second language. In this view, the chapters by Niemeier and Doiz
will be of value to researchers who are also L2 teachers and may be inter-
ested in trying a cognitive approach to the teaching of tense and aspect.
In Chapter 3, Nick Ellis, provides a review of frequency-based grammar
(e.g., Construction Grammar) and examines the role of frequency in lan-
guage cognition and SLA. Ellis provides a review of how frequency and
learning are related by examining input frequency, form salience and per-
ception, and prototypicality and contingency of form-meaning mapping.
The second section of the article examines how such determinants of
learning were applied to the study of L2 tense and aspect in a study by
Wul et al. (2009). In the last section of the chapter, the author argues
for a dynamic model of usage that integrates all the factors that aect lan-
guage constructions; that is, he advocates for research that is not limited
to univariate analyses of data but that is rather multivariate and interac-
tive. The fourth chapter is devoted to a review of generative approaches
to the L2 acquisition of temporal-aspectual-mood systems. Dalila Ayoun
and Jason Rothman provide an in-depth introduction to the generative
theoretical approach in its current form and review current generative L2
literature by examining how dierent studies and methodologies in L1-L2
pairings have provided empirical evidence to support the dierent hypo-
theses advanced within this theoretical framework. Their critical review
highlights the rich body of empirical evidence accumulated by the eld of
generative linguistics in SLA. In their conclusion, Ayoun and Rothman
argue that, when taken as a whole, there is evidence for the position that
L2 adult learners are not impaired in their acquisition of functional cate-
Introduction 3
gories and their features (contrary to some of the hypotheses they have
reviewed in their chapter). Ayoun and Rothman contextualize their con-
clusion within the background of current and future work that deals with
the interface between syntax and other grammar components.
The second section of the volume comprises seven chapters, which can
be further subdivided into three subsections: (a) theoretical issues that
directly aect the research design of studies on tense-aspect (Chapters 5
and 6), (b) methodological factors that aect the analysis of tense-aspect
data (Chapters 7, 8, and 9), and (c) the use of qualititative and quantita-
tive types of analysis of data (Chapters 10 and 11). The rst two chapters
of this section (by Gonzalez and Salaberry, respectively) bridge the rst
and second section of the volume by focusing on the dierences in the
characterization of the theoretical construct of aspect for the development
of appropriate research hypotheses. In her chapter, Paz Gonzalez presents
a discussion of aspect in Spanish and argues that a two-way distinction of
predicational aspect (as opposed to the traditional, Vendlerian four-way
distinction) may be more accurate to describe the learners interlanguage.
More specically, Gonzalez argues that native speakers rely on the com-
positional aspect of verbal predicates (including arguments and adjuncts)
to the extent that they accept uses of Spanish preterite and imperfect that
isolated might be considered ungrammatical. Learners accept them because
they rely on creating a non-verbalized context. Using evidence from a
previous study, the author argues for the Predication-Eect Hypothesis,
whereby learners rely on two aspectual features (durativity and termina-
tivity) to make a dual distinction (preterite and imperfect). From this
perspective, the mapping of two features onto two morphological forms
may facilitate the learners understanding of the Spanish tempo-aspectual
system.
The chapter by M. Rafael Salaberry continues the discussion of the
compositionality of verbal predicates and its eect on the research design
of studies and their hypotheses. More specically, Salaberry focuses on an
aspectual distinction that has been little studied, namely the acquisition of
preterite and imperfect contrasts in Spanish to mark iterativity and
habituality. The chapter provides a detailed discussion of how such mean-
ings are dependent on the interaction between the use of perfective and
imperfective Spanish markers and the use of specic adverbs. Salaberry
argues that dierent authors interpretations of the role of adverbial adjuncts
have prompted dierent operationalizations of research hypotheses asso-
ciated with iterativity and habituality. The author further argues that such
distinct operationalizations are directly related to various methodological
conditions of the research design (e.g., in the design of language prompts)
4 Llorenc Comajoan and M. Rafael Salaberry
that learners at low levels use actionally underspecied verbs (contra the
Lexical Aspectual Hypothesis 2 ) and use other cues to mark actionality.
They argue that their results are not caused by frequency in the input,
but rather they seem to be general and not restricted to learners with
dierent L1s. In their conclusion, Giacalone-Ramat and Rastelli advo-
cate for the use of qualitative research to investigate closely the learners
semantic representations and posit hypotheses that then can be examined
in a quantitative way.
The volume closes with a chapter by M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc
Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez, in which the main themes of the volume
are discussed and related to matters of integrating research theories and
methodologies as well as language teaching. More specically, the authors
discuss four issues. First, they review the theoretical constructs discussed
in the volume and examine them from the perspective of the dependent
variable to be accounted for and the independent variables that contribute
to the acquisition of L2 tense and aspect. Second, they discuss the main
trends regarding methodology that have been addressed in the volume;
namely, the need for the use of multivariate and rigorous data analyses
that can allow for replication of studies. Third, the authors discuss the
advantages and drawbacks of adopting a multiple methods perspective.
And nally, a section on the eect of explicit instruction on the acquisition
of L2 tense and aspect is included, in which three guidelines for eective
instruction are provided. The article concludes with a call for further re-
search that creates links between theoretical approaches and methodologies
with the aim to establish stronger collaboration among researchers of L2
tense and aspect.
References
2. The terms Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) and Aspect Hypothesis (AH) are
used indistinctively by dierent authors in the chapters of the volume.
Introduction 7
Binnick, Robert
1991 Time and the verb: A guide to tense and aspect. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the lan-
guages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rocca, Sonia
2007 Child second language acquisition: A bi-directional study of English
and Italian tense-aspect morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Salaberry, M. Rafael
2008 Marking past tense in second language acquisition. London:
Continuum.
Salaberry, M. Rafael & Yasuhiro Shirai
2002 The L2 acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Shirai, Yasuhiro
1991 Primacy of aspect in language acquisition: Simplied input and pro-
totype. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA, Ph.D. dissertation.
Shirai, Yasuhiro & Roger Andersen
1995 The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype account.
Language 71. 743762.
Slabakova, Roumyana
2001 Telicity in second language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wul, Stefanie, Nick Ellis, Ute Romer, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig & Chelsea LeBlanc
2009 The acquisition of tense-aspect: Converging evidence from cor-
pora, cognition, and learner constructions. Modern Language
Journal 93. 354369.
Part I. Theoretical representations of tense and
aspect in L2 studies
Chapter 1
A Cognitive Grammar perspective on tense and aspect
Susanne Niemeier
1. Introduction
2. Basic CL assumptions
As mentioned above, CL (and as such also CG) sees all facets of language,
including grammar, as meaningful, and posits in contrast to other ap-
proaches such as Transformation Grammar that meaning is the most
important issue in language. Meaning is not only present in lexis, where
it is easily discernible, but also in grammar, albeit in a more abstract
Cognitive perspective 13
noun adds the extra meaning of plurality.1 CGs focus on the motivated,
meaningful connections between forms that are often ignored by other
theories of language is one more reason why a CG approach may be
useful to second language pedagogy, because what is motivated and mean-
ingful can be explained.
This means furthermore that so-called exceptions are no exceptions
after all, but that there are explainable reasons why they behave in a dif-
ferent way than the prototypical forms. Examples for this claim can be
found in Section 3.2, dealing with non-prototypical uses of aspect that are
treated as exceptions in many textbooks of English as a foreign language.
CL applications thus invite a change of perspective in that they do not
posit a clear borderline between rules and exceptions but instead refer to
language phenomena as situated within a radial network of meaning with
more prototypical instances at the core and more marginal instances on
the fringes, all of them related and explainable (Radden 1992; Tyler and
Evans 2004).
Learners should not be expected anymore to learn by heart seemingly
idiosyncratic exceptions, which they may not understand and which are
therefore hard for them to memorize, but to reconstruct them via the con-
nections to the prototypes. For example, as will be shown later on, the use
of the non-progressive with verbs of involuntary sensory perception as in I
see a bird y by is not to be treated as an exception but can be attributed
to the fact that the event of seeing is too short to zoom into and therefore
has no duration which could be focused on. Such an approach is also be-
lieved to be helpful for teachers as they can use the motivated connections
as explanatory tools. The main aim then is to make learners aware of the
motivation behind linguistic phenomena and to help them understand
how language works, as understanding is seen as a precondition for learn-
ing. This seems to be possible via the inherent explanatory power of CL
approaches. Furthermore, grammar and lexis are not seen as separate
from each other (at least in German EFL textbooks there is always a
distinction between grammar/structure and vocabulary/content), but
as two poles of a continuum, thus structured by the same organizational
principles. In the following sections, the above assumptions will be out-
lined using the English TA system as an example.
1. This is similar in pidgin and creole languages which often rely on reduplication
in order to indicate plurality, as the languages may not yet have developed a
specialized plural morpheme.
16 Susanne Niemeier
3. Aspect
situation from exactly the same perspective will be extremely rare. The
speaker encodes his/her subjectivity grammatically and the hearer decodes
it not necessarily in exactly the same way, which, at least from a con-
structivist point of view, is seen as an impossibility but the speaker has
at least provided the hearer with valid hints concerning his/her subjective
perspective, for example whether an action is seen as being in progress or
as completed. For instance, when a speaker says I am living in Paris, this
may indicate to the hearer that Paris is only the speakers temporary loca-
tion, as the use of the progressive with inherently unbounded verbs such as
to live indicates that the situation may change.
2. It may be mainly due to this dierence that aspect errors are the most frequent
errors committed by German learners of English (Niemeier and Reif 2008).
German verbs do not need to be marked for aspect, as aspect is either indi-
cated in various optional lexical ways or omitted altogether. Therefore, many
German learners of English tacitly assume that aspect is not an obligatory
category in English. Most EFL textbooks used in Germany do not explain this
to them either.
3. In Slavic languages, aspect is an important formal category marking imper-
fective and perfective construals of situations (see Schmiedtova and Flecken
2008).
18 Susanne Niemeier
in, although the distinction between events (which I prefer to call processes,
following Langacker) and states is not always a clear-cut one. Processes
can further be subdivided into durative and punctual processes, and states
can be subdivided into permanent and transitory states.
Starting with prototypical scenarios, situations can be classied into
two categories according to their inherent temporal structure: they either
refer to inherently unbounded situations (which Langacker calls imperfec-
tive, 2008: 147) or to inherently bounded situations (which Langacker calls
perfective). However, categorisation is exible and subject to subtle con-
ceptual inuence from a variety of sources (Langacker 2008: 148).
Langackers opposition between perfectives and imperfectives is dierent
from, but partly compatible with Vendlers categories (Vendler 1967), as
Langacker states that the imperfective class is equivalent to what Vendler
1967 calls states, his other three categories (achievements, activities
and accomplishments) are subclasses of perfectives (1987b: 79). While
Langacker is aware that activities designate processes that are easily con-
strued as being internally homogeneous (2009: 189) and thus bear some
resemblance to imperfectives, he claims that they are nonetheless conceived
as occurring in bounded episodes, and bounding is the critical property for
the perfective/imperfective contrast.
Inherently unbounded situations are internally homogeneous and not
susceptible to change (Niemeier and Reif 2008; Williams 2002); thus,
they are not expected to come to an end. This is not the same as saying
that they will never end, and they must of course have had a beginning at
some point in time, it is just . . . that the verb itself excludes them [i.e., the
beginning and the end] from what it puts onstage for focused viewing
(Langacker 2008: 147). Such situations can either be permanent states,
such as <BE BRITISH>, which according to our commonsensical world
knowledge is normally not going to change throughout the lifetime of
a person, or they can be potentially transient states, such as <LIVE IN
LONDON>, for which a change cannot be ruled out, but is neither prob-
able nor predictable and is thus not part of our viewing frame.
By contrast, inherently bounded situations are internally heterogeneous
and susceptible to change, because they allow internal development and are
expected to come to an end at some point. Inherently bounded situations
can either have explicit boundaries, such as <BUILD A SNOWMAN>,
which is by denition over once the snowman is nished, or they can
have implicit boundaries, such as <WANDER ABOUT THE PARK>, a
process that, although it does not have a xed endpoint, is very unlikely
Cognitive perspective 19
the default mode (i.e., with the non-progressive aspect).7 When used with
the progressive as in (3b), however, implicit boundaries are added to the
situation and it is no longer seen as a lasting, but instead as a temporary
state (i.e., construed as having implicit boundaries and as being susceptible
to change). Instead of defocusing the boundaries as it does with inher-
ently bounded situations as in (1b) and (2b) the progressive aspect with
inherently unbounded situations imposes boundaries.
Such a conversion from an indenitely lasting state to a temporary state
is often visible in the description of characters or of peoples behaviour:
(4) a. You are arrogant.
b. You are being arrogant.
When we utter a sentence like (4a), we are referring to a characteristic
quality of a person or to a persons general style of behaviour, whereas
when we use (4b), we are referring to the current, temporary behaviour of
a person, independent of their normal behaviour and character. They may
not be arrogant at all, but in this one special moment they are acting as if
they were.
In other words, we are dealing here with a cross-wise aspectual contrast
(cf. also Radden and Dirven 2007: Chapter 8). That is, the progressive
changes the default boundary situation, a view that diers slightly from
Langackers perspective. Langacker claims that the overall eect of a pro-
gressive is (. . .) to convert a perfective process into an imperfective one
(2008: 155), which coincides with the defocusing of boundaries for inher-
ently bounded situations. However, he does not mention the cross-wise
eect, namely that the progressive can impose boundaries on an inherently
unbounded situation but analyzes this latter phenomenon dierently: he
8. For EFL purposes, working with the concept of the cross-wise aspectual con-
trast has proven to be a lot more fruitful as learners can relate to it far better
than they can to Langackers interpretation. The concept of boundaries
along with the idea that the progressive changes the default setting of the
boundaries of a verbs meaning is apparently easier to understand than the
concept of (im)perfectivity (personal experience).
Cognitive perspective 23
9. That is, if they present aspect at all, because it is generally integrated into
the chapters on tense, most frequently without even making use of the term
aspect. Although it is debatable whether learners need the technical terms,
they should at least be aware of the concepts behind the terms and know the
dierence between them.
10. Ungerer et al. (1992) is a book-size learner grammar. Although it is as of
this writing one of the better grammar books for German schools and
although it acknowledges some cognitive principles, it still works with rules
and (unexplained) exceptions.
24 Susanne Niemeier
will be discussed, namely the use of the progressive with iterative pro-
cesses, the use of the progressive with verbs of involuntary sensory percep-
tion, and the use of the non-progressive with performatives.
11. I will use the term iterative here for simplicitys sake. If an event of no or
very short duration is meant, we should technically speak about a semelfac-
tive, whereas when this event is repeated, we speak of an iterative. This section
of the chapter will cover both concepts. Semelfactives have uniplex structure,
whereas iterative have multiplex structure (see Evans and Green 2006: 519 on
the concept of plexity). For a dierentiation between iteratives and habituals
from a Langackerian perspective, see Salaberry (2008).
Cognitive perspective 25
12. One example may serve as illustration: in the brand-new and widely distributed
textbook series Green Line for higher secondary schools in Germany (Gym-
nasien), we nd the following text in the grammar section of volume 5: Die
26 Susanne Niemeier
progressive form ist normalerweise nicht moglich bei Verben, die eine Sinnes-
wahrnehmung beschreiben wie to notice, to see, to hear, to sound, to smell,
to look (aussehen) etc.. (Horner et al. 2010: 118). Translation: the progres-
sive form is normally not possible with verbs describing sensory perception,
such as to notice, to see, to hear, to sound, to smell, to look (referring to out-
ward appearance), etc.. Not only does the book fail to distinguish between
voluntary and involuntary sensory perception, but it furthermore adds the
verbs to notice and to look to the category of sensory perception and most
lamentable of all it does not provide any reasons for the verbs deviating
behaviour nor does it explain what is meant by normally.
13. Such a lexical switch is not only to be found in English. Ibarretxe (1999) studies
the polysemy of perception verbs in English, Basque, and Spanish, basing her
research on the classication of perception verbs following Viberg (1984) and
Gisborne (1996), who claim that on the basis of the semantic role of their sub-
jects, perception verbs can be divided into three groups: experience, activity,
and percept. Not all languages ll all groups with dierent verbs, but when
a verb is used for more than one category, it is used with a polysemous
meaning. In German, we can nd a similar distribution of verbs of involun-
tary versus voluntary perception as in English, which is partly achieved via
prexation (sehen versus ansehen/betrachten; horen versus zuhoren; fuhlen
versus befuhlen, anfassen; riechen versus beschnuppern).
Cognitive perspective 27
treated like any other bounded situation that has a duration we can zoom
into for unbounding it. Although one might argue that such situations do
not possess a long duration, according to Langacker, stability and dura-
tion are relative and what matters is whether a situation is construed as
stable for the purpose at hand and whether this stability endures through
the stretch of time considered relevant (2008a: 149). If a sensation is pre-
sented as constant for the brief temporal interval in question, it can be
unbounded and used as an imperfective, as in I was feeling some pain in
my left knee this morning this is largely dependent on whether the object
noun accompanying the verb in question invites a punctual interpretation
(e.g., ash, gunshot) or not (e.g., light, music, pain).
On the other hand, we nd uses such as the one depicted in (6) below:
(6) She is seeing Peter tonight.
In this example, <SEE> metonymically stands for <MEET>, referring to
the complete scenario connected to meeting a person, furthermore hinting
at a touch of romance. <MEET> is a prototypical inherently bounded
verb, encompassing various subprocesses (e.g., going to a bar, seeing
Peter there, walking towards him, greeting him, having a drink with him,
etc.) and, therefore having a certain duration which can be zoomed into. If
verbs of involuntary perception are not being used in their basic, proto-
typical sense but in more marginal, mostly metonymically motivated
senses which no longer focus on the actual sensory perception in question
but rather on the complete scenario, they gain duration and can therefore
semantically accept an inner perspectivization, which in turn allows the
progressive aspect. The sensory perception then just serves as a metonymic
link.
3.2.3. Performatives
The third apparent deviation relates to the use of non-progressives with
performatives. Performatives explicitly name speech acts ( promise, admit,
swear, pronounce, sentence, apologize, etc.) and the speaker is always the
subject. They are always bounded and are always uttered in the present
tense as uttering them coincides with the notion of doing them, there-
fore we not only need to look at the (un)boundedness of such situations
but also at the notion of the present tense. When we use the present tense,
our speech time should temporally coincide with the situation time, but
with a vast majority of situations, this is not possible. A situation such as
<READ A BOOK> usually takes a lot longer than uttering the English
28 Susanne Niemeier
sentence *My son reads a book, and therefore the preconditions for the use
of the simple present are violated.14 Although <READ> is an inherently
bounded situation, it cannot be framed as bounded when used in the pres-
ent tense as it does not comprise both of the necessary boundaries the
starting point is included but the endpoint has not yet been reached. Rad-
den and Dirven (2007: 208) state that the conceptual boundaries of most
events do not neatly coincide with the temporal boundaries of uttering the
speech act describing the event, therefore the simple present cannot nor-
mally be used to describe bounded situations happening in the present
time.
If we use a performative speech act such as I promise to write the paper
next week, we avoid the above-mentioned dilemma, as this sentence does
not describe a situation but is the promise itself (i.e., by uttering the
sentence the speaker performs the act of promising). This means that there
is temporal identity between the utterance of the speech act on the one
hand and performing the act of promising on the other hand. Therefore,
situation time and speech time completely coincide. The verb to promise
is bounded and as the whole utterance contains the promise, the starting
point of the event as well as the endpoint fall within our viewing arrange-
ment. In Langackers terms (2001: 26), performatives not only tolerate
but actually require the present tense. The reason is that a performative
represents a special viewing arrangement in which the process put onstage
and proled is the speech event itself .
Performatives furthermore lack an epistemic problem that normally
arises with the use of the present tense, namely that of speaker knowledge.
If we want to speak about a situation in the present, we rst of all have
to identify it in order to be able to describe it. However, as such mental
processing may take some time, and as the utterance itself has to correlate
temporally with the situation when we use the simple present, the action is
frequently well underway before we can even start to talk about it. As
a consequence, we are dealing with a temporal incongruity relative to
the starting point of the situation.15 For example, when we see somebody
repairing their car, the act of repairing the car takes a lot longer than to
say *Peter repairs his car (the durational problem) and furthermore we
4. Tense
. . . our projection of events into the future always involves a certain amount
of uncertainty [. . .] Future situations are therefore very much subject to
peoples imagination. As a result, English has a number of future tense
forms expressing shades of (un)certainty about a future situation.
16. In his 1991a publication (332), Langacker still speaks about the future tense,
whereas from his 1991b publication onwards he seems to have changed his
views.
30 Susanne Niemeier
17. For a Cognitive Linguistic way of teaching English modal verbs to speakers of
other languages, see Tyler (2008) and Tyler, Mueller, and Ho (2010).
18. As the present chapter sees future as a modality, it will not refer to the various
types of future. Radden and Dirven (2007: 225) dierentiate the following
kinds of future: predicted future (Well have some sunshine), matter-of-course
future (Ill be seeing you), intentional future (Im going to get married ), con-
tingent future (Its going to rain), planned future (Im getting married next
month), scheduled future (My train leaves at six) and background future (If I
see him, Ill send him home).
Cognitive perspective 31
19. This distinction is very similar to Kleins distinction between time of utterance,
time of situation, and topic time (Klein 1994). However, the two models
do not coincide completely. According to Klein, tense serves to relate topic
times and not situations to utterance time. Klein claims that the situa-
tions themselves are not linked directly to utterance time, but only to topic
time. This linking is then done by aspect (Klein 1994, 1995). Relevance
time, on the other hand, refers to the speakers viewpoint, i.e., to the time
span for which the speaker sees the proposition of the utterance as relevant.
20. Radden and Dirven (2007: 202) use event time but I have decided to follow
Niemeier and Reif (2008), who use situation time, because in this context a
situation can refer either to a process or to a state, and I believe it is con-
32 Susanne Niemeier
to explain that as speech time is always in the present but situation time
may be in the past the use of the present tense always locates a situation
at or around or including speech time, whereas the past tense locates a
situation at a time earlier than speech time. The simple tenses furthermore
give information about the reality status of a situation. Whereas the present
tense gives information about the immediate reality of a situation, the
past tense gives information about what Radden and Dirven call known
reality and what Langacker calls conceived reality (2008a: 301), argu-
ing that our knowledge about reality is partial and also not necessary
infallibly accurate, and therefore can only be a part of factual reality.
What we consider as known by us we frequently simply embrace (. . .) as
established knowledge. For a particular conceptualizer, C, this constitutes
conceived reality. It is what C accepts as being real. Langacker (1991:
245) sees the canonical temporal distinction between present tense and
past tense as a proximal/distal contrast in the epistemic sphere. In the
following two sections, the two tenses with reality status will be briey
characterized.
34 Susanne Niemeier
21. This is called epistemic immediacy by de Wit and Brisard (2009: 4), who
argue that the simple present entails a notion of epistemic necessity and the
present progressive a notion of epistemic contingency in the speakers concep-
tion of reality. In his 2009 publication, Langacker agrees that he paid too little
attention to the modal import of the present tense and also speaks about
epistemic immediacy (Chapter 7) and recently (2011), he has devoted a com-
plete paper to the commonalities and dierences of the temporal-coincidence
approach (treating the English present as tense) and the epistemic-immediacy
approach (treating the English present as modality), arguing that temporal
coincidence provides the basis for epistemic immediacy, the former one being
the category prototype and the latter one being the more general and sche-
matic account.
Cognitive perspective 35
is reading a book. On the other hand, many uses of the simple present
tense do not refer to speech time, but to either the future, or the past, or
to so-called timeless situations or eternal truths. As Langacker (2001)
argues, these latter ones are extended uses of the true present. For him,
the present tense indicates that a full instantiation of the proled process
occurs and precisely coincides with the time of speaking (2001: 22).22
Langackers denition of the present tense also accounts for imperfec-
tive/unbounded situations such as He resembles his grandfather. Such a
resemblance is valid without boundaries and is therefore imperfective. It is
true at any time, thus also for the moment of speaking, and in using the
simple present, that portion of the resemblance is highlighted that is in
focus at speech time: since an imperfective process is internally homoge-
neous and not characterized in terms of bounding, any subpart singled out
for proling will itself constitute a valid instance of the process type in
question (Langacker 2001: 23).
A further use of the simple present is to be observed in the narration of
demonstrations, such as in cooking programmes on television: I put a
tablespoon of butter in the pan. It melts quickly. Now I put the llet in. I
cook it at low temperature for ve minutes . . . (Langacker 2001: 28).
Although uttering these sentences requires a lot less time than the prepara-
tions and the ve minutes of cooking, Langacker claims that the simple
present is not used here for the description of actual situations but instead,
it is to be seen as reading o entries from a list or scenario (i.e., it refers to
the virtual occurrence of the situation which then again coincides with the
time of speaking).
A similar explanation can be given for the so-called scheduled future
use of the present tense (My train leaves at six). Here again, we are refer-
ring to the representation of this situation on a virtual schedule in our
minds and not to the actual situation. Such scheduled future uses generally
incorporate a precise time expression (at six) and do not work for situa-
tions that cannot be scheduled (*I fall ill next week). Although a virtual
schedule belongs to the future, it is stable and reliable also at the present
moment of speaking and can thus be regarded as a representation of
an anticipated actual event and as a virtual occurrence of that situa-
tion which coincides temporally with the moment of speaking (following
22. Langacker only refers to English, other languages such as German, which
has no grammaticalized progressive form express not only the true present
and timeless situations but also actions at speech time with the simple present.
36 Susanne Niemeier
Langacker 2001: 31). The same virtual reading applies to stage direc-
tions as well as to the use of the historical present, where past situations
are retold using the simple present. In this latter case, a past situation is
virtually replayed, and the use of the present tense underlines its salience,
its still being vividly recalled by the experiencer. In this context, Langacker
speaks of . . . event representations. Even when these correspond in some
fashion to actual events, the represented events are the ones directly coded
linguistically and proled by the present tense verb (Langacker 2001: 33).
A further related non-prototypical use of the simple present concerns
so-called eternal truths and timeless situations, such as The kangaroo
is a marsupial. This utterance does not refer to any specic kangaroo
but to a virtual instance of a kangaroo. This virtual situation belongs to
an open-ended set of actual instantiations, distributed throughout the
time span during which the generalization holds (Langacker 2001: 33).
The use of the present tense indicates that the speaker is referring to a
sub-part of this eternal truth at the moment of speaking. The same is true
for habituals (I drive to work every morning), where the utterance does
not refer to any actual instance of driving I may even be uttering this
sentence on a weekend when I am not driving to work but to a virtual
instance of driving.
Again, we are not dealing with exceptions in the case of the simple
present but with explainable meaning extensions. In an EFL classroom,
the basic meaning of the simple present as referring to situations occurring
in the here-and-now should be introduced at a very early point and will
then form a basis for the explanation of the extended uses as listed in this
section. The actual or virtual coincidence between speech time and reference
time is easy to visualize, for example by using a time axis and drawing
reference time-circles as well as situation time-circles in dierent colours
the reference time-circles will always be identical to speech time, whereas
the situation time-circles may be larger (they will, for example, cover the
complete time axis in the case of eternal truths) but will always contain
speech time as well as reference time. The learners can then verbalize the
illustrations and thus via the commonalities between the various proto-
typical and extended instances of use develop and advance their con-
cepts of the meaning of the present tense.23
23. One example for research on teaching tense in the English classroom via
Cognitive Grammar is Meuniers project Cognitive Grammar and EFL
at the University of Louvain, which started in the summer of 2010 and for
which no results have been published so far (see http://www.uclouvain.be/en-
323144.html, last date of access: October 17, 2012).
Cognitive perspective 37
24. They are called complex tenses because in contrast to the deictic tenses they
involve two temporal relations: a deictic temporal reference point and either a
backwards or a forwards look from this reference point.
38 Susanne Niemeier
happen at a later time than at reference time. Anterior times are the present
perfect and the past perfect.25 They have in common that a situation is seen
as located before relevance time. In complex tenses, the speakers viewpoint
is of importance because two times spheres are concerned: the rst one is
located in one of the deictic times the past or the present and the second
one consists of a look backwards (anterior times) or a look forwards
(posterior times, i.e., uses of the future). In this way, the speaker locates
anterior (or posterior) events relative to the deictic reference time.
In the case of the present perfect, a situation has occurred before the
present time but it may still continue until now (I have never seen him
before, which remains valid until I see the person) or may still have
an impact on the present (see example (9)). According to Radden and
Dirven (2007: 205), the time conguration described by the present
perfect is unique among the anterior times in that it involves only one
time sphere and a relation from event time to speech time (. . .) The unique
status of the present perfect is due to its present reference time: its imme-
diacy makes the present the more prominent time. This ts in nicely
with the fact that the present tense has the meaning of proximity (5).
However, although Radden and Dirven claim that we are only dealing
with one time sphere in the case of the present perfect, the temporal rela-
tion to a situation in the past is still obvious and, especially for didactic
reasons, I would recommend to highlight the fact that in the case of the
present perfect the time sphere of the past is involved as well, as otherwise
learners might have problems dierentiating between the deictic tenses and
the complex tenses.
(9) Ive broken my leg, so it is dicult for me to go shopping right now.
In example (9), speech time is right now (i.e., in the present), whereas
the breaking of the leg happened in the past. Using the present perfect
indicates that the past event of breaking the leg is seen from the perspec-
tive of speech time as presently being an obstacle concerning everyday life
routines. The present relevance of the anterior situation is highlighted,
which is why it can be seen as part of the overall situation and can there-
fore be said to have not only a temporal but also an aspectual meaning
25. If the future was treated as a tense, we would also have to mention the future
perfect here (I will have passed my driving license by the time I turn 18). If the
future is not considered to be a tense, then we are dealing with a combination
of modality and the auxiliary have -ed.
Cognitive perspective 39
(Radden and Dirven 2007: 206) insofar as the left boundary of the inher-
ently bounded situation <GO SHOPPING> is extended into the past so as
to also include the anterior situation. This is not possible for past perfects:
(10) I had broken my leg, so it was dicult for me to go shopping during
the weeks following the accident.
This sentence can only be understood in a purely temporal sense speech
time is in the present, relevance time is in the past, and situation time is
before relevance time. The use of the past perfect relates the situation
time to the relevance time.
Although perfect tenses are analyzed by Radden and Dirven (2007) in
their chapter on tense, this view is not unanimously shared. Langacker,
for example, treats the perfect not as a grounding element but as a
grounded structure, because in contrast to tense and modals, the perfect
(have -ed ) is optional and not obligatory in a verb and can only appear
in non-nite clauses from which tense and modals are excluded (2008a:
300). I tend to agree with Radden and Dirven; that is, I tend to see the
perfect as a tense because just as the other tenses it has reality status and
it is (partly) marked directly on the verb. However, it is not a prototypical
instance of tense but has an aspectual meaning as well, because on the
one hand, the speakers viewpoint is involved and, on the other hand, the
perfect is built in a similar way to the progressive aspect (i.e., it is directly
marked on the verb but also requires an auxiliary verb: have in the case
of the perfect, be in the case of the progressive aspect). The perfect can
furthermore also have a modal meaning because in its anterior uses it
refers to the future, relative to the reference point taken (reference point
in the past: I was going to ask her out yesterday when suddenly . . . ; refer-
ence point in the present: Im going to ask her out; reference point in the
future: I will have asked her out before the end of the week).
For learners, it is important to realize how many time spheres are
involved. In the case of deictic times represented by the simple tenses
only one time sphere is referred to, whereas in the case of complex times
represented by the complex tenses two times spheres are concerned: the
rst one being located in one of the deictic times and the second one con-
sisting of a look backwards (anterior times) or a look forwards (posterior
times, i.e., uses of the future). This can be illustrated by using a time axis,
indicating the deictic reference points as well as including arrows pointing
into the direction of the speakers shifted viewpoint (i.e., pointing to the
left in the case of anterior times). Complex tenses may also be visualized
by referring to Mental Space Theory (Section 4.4) as this helps to show the
40 Susanne Niemeier
interaction between the dierent time spheres quite clearly. Learners can
be trained to focus on the three elements of speech time, relevance time,
and situation time and with their help, decode temporal structures without
being confused.
Figure 2. Mental spaces in the (slightly adapted) blurb of Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince
acts), which will all be described in the following sections. The temporal
use of tense morphemes does not primarily mean locating situations in
time, but rather indicates which time span is relevant for what we are
saying (i.e., the temporal use of tense and other morphemes is already
much more subtle than what has usually been understood by temporal
meaning). Furthermore, the same morphological forms can also be used
to encode non-temporal meanings. In the same way that, starting from
base space, we can open further reality-related spaces with past, present,
or future relevance time, we can also open up other mental spaces, as, for
instance, potentiality space. One kind of potentiality space is modality
space, others are hypothetical space or counterfactual space. Still further
possible spaces are, amongst others, interactive spaces such as narrative
space or politeness space.
The possibility that a hypothetical situation will become real is still given,
for example in the immediate future (11a) or in the more remote future
(11b). In terms of their reality status, the rst two situations in example
(11) are located either in the fuzzy peripheral area of base space (11a) or
close to the reality of base space, but already outside it (11b). If we are
dealing with an even higher degree of hypotheticality, such as in (11c),
where it is highly unlikely but not yet impossible that the person in
question will show up, the epistemic distance is greater. And if the episte-
mic distance to the reality of base space becomes still greater, we are deal-
ing with counterfactuality (11d), dened by Fauconnier and Turner as
forced incompatibility between spaces (2002: 230). A counterfactual
hypothetical statement indicates that it is impossible for the situation to
happen. The statements in (11c) and (11d) do not dier concerning the
events described or with respect to their times of occurrence, they only
dier with regards to their epistemic distance to base space. At the same
time, as the reality status of the situation changes, dierent relevance times
are involved, as illustrated by the use of the adverbs right now, straight
away, and then:
English past tense morphology clearly signals distance in two dierent
but related ways: it can either refer to temporal distance to base space (as in
One of the last times he saw the headmaster. . .) or it can refer to epistemic
distance to base space (as in example 11c) or it can refer to both temporal
and epistemic distance to base space (as in example 11d). These uses are
closely related, the second one may also be seen as a metaphorical exten-
sion of the rst one (epistemic distance is temporal distance). Both the
temporal and the epistemic uses can best be understood in their relation to
the double function of base space (i.e., its reality status function and its
relevance time function). Sentence (11d) illustrates how the interaction
between temporal and epistemic relevance is expressed grammatically:
since the situation is located in temporal as well as epistemic distance
from the base, a double backshift takes place grammatically, as can be
seen by the use of the past perfect in had shown up.
In example (11), the tense morphemes in both clauses coincide but this
need not be the case. In example (12), again accessing counterfactual
44 Susanne Niemeier
hypothetical space, the person talked about does not know, and in (12b)
the male protagonist has not told the truth. Although situation time in
(12a) is present time, the past tense is used to express epistemic distance
vis-a-vis the base. This example shows that past tense morphology cannot
only be used to indicate relevance time that is located anterior to (and thus
at a temporal distance from) the base, but also to express epistemic dis-
tance from the base. The same applies to (12b), where situation time is in
the past and where the situation itself is construed as a counterfactual one,
therefore the past perfect is used, indicating temporal as well as epistemic
distance from the base.
(12) a. If only he knew! (British National Corpus: AEB 3109)
b. If he had told her the truth, she would not have believed him.
(British National Corpus: HR8 858)
26. See Tyler and Evans (2001: 72): past tense signals background and support-
ing status and present tense signals foreground status.
Cognitive perspective 45
hearer as they are both drawn into the situation as if they had been
present as onlookers. Instead of creating distance a function of the past
tense the use of the present tense creates closeness. If such closeness is
aimed at, the use of the past tense is not possible. The use of the present
tense in narrations (of movies, plays, or books, etc.) has been discussed by
other scholars, and alternative reasons for its use have been proposed.
For example, in Fleischmans (1990: 15) view, the use of the present is
due to its atemporality, as such narrations can be revisited on multiple
occasions. Although Fleischman (1990) as well as Klein (1994) point out
that personal narratives in contrast to movie or plot narratives are
rather told in the past tense, the present tense is also used especially for
the lively oral narrations mentioned above, as the speaker virtually re-
lives the events s/he is talking about.27 The speaker as well as the hearer
know that base space has been left and narrative space has been entered.
Therefore, the use of the present tense does not create any temporal and/
or epistemic conict. The CG perspective on the present tense, however,
goes beyond Fleischmans strictly temporal view of tense by claiming that
in addition to indicating atemporality the abstract meaning of the
present tense is to indicate the speakers proximal perspective vis-a-vis his
or her utterances.
27. In his 2009 publication, Klein seems to see this slightly dierently: In the
narrative present, the whole action is in the past (. . .) but that at least some
of (sic) situations are presented as if they were present. There are two com-
mon interpretations of this use: the situations are felt to be present at the
time of utterance, or the speaker imagines himself to be present in the situa-
tion. Under the rst interpretation, the situations are somehow shifted in
time, and under the second interpretation, the deictic anchoring is shifted
(49). Klein does not further elaborate on this view.
46 Susanne Niemeier
28. Tyler and Evans account for the fact that time is associated with the spatial
concepts of proximity and distance by referring to the experiential correlation
between the two concepts. When we speak, we are in the here-and-now, which
functions as our deictic center: We cannot help but experience the present
moment in terms of our immediate physical surroundings and our sensory
perceptions of them (. . .) Traversing a certain distance inevitably correlates
with the elapse of a certain amount of time. Thus, elements of the spatial
domain, such as movement from one location to another and distance, have
become strongly associated with the elapse of time (2001: 81). In other
words, the concepts of space and time are so intertwined in human cognition
that they are frequently co-activated, which is amongst other phenomena
visible in the non-temporal use of temporal morphology, when we speak about
the past tense as signaling distance (a spatial concept) in various ways.
48 Susanne Niemeier
5. Conclusion
29. Boers (2004) claims that learners retain the meanings of metaphorical expres-
sions better if they can be made aware of their motivations, and that such
awareness raising works best for intermediate learners (beginners have too
little vocabulary at their disposal, advanced learners refrain too much from
taking risks) with an analytic and imager cognitive style. In Boers experi-
ments, analytic learners were clearly able to distinguish literal from gurative
usage, whereas learners with a more holistic style found it harder to identify
source domains of metaphors. Imagers were better than verbalisers because
they could associate novel gurative expressions more easily with mental
pictures or concrete scenes. There is no comparable research for grammar
teaching but as meaning stays the most important factor, one might assume
that also in grammar teaching, analytic and imager learners might benet
more than others.
50 Susanne Niemeier
example the past tense and conditionals; or aspect and the distinction
between mass nouns and count nouns). This will allow them to establish
meaningful neural connections and come up with grounded hypotheses
for the usage of these grammatical phenomena.
Combining Langackers approach to tense with Mental Space Theory
allows learners to trace the thought processes behind utterances as shown
before and to determine which mental space(s) the utterances refer to,
whether the meaning is temporal and/or epistemic and therefore arrive at
a correct interpretation, which should ideally also serve as a model for the
learners own future utterances in the foreign language. Learners should
start in the here-and-now, (i.e., in base space), and work their way up to
other mental spaces, while detecting the meanings of and the relations
between the various tense and aspect uses. Concerning the teaching of
aspect, the notion of boundaries may come in helpful, especially when
introduced via the teaching of mass and count nouns (see also Niemeier
2008).
Tense and aspect are present from the very beginning of ESL learning,
not necessarily in an explicit way but at least in the teachers language. As
soon as learners start producing their own utterances, they will use verbs
and therefore also tense and aspect. In other words, CG-oriented foreign
language instruction should ideally begin with the very rst lesson in the
foreign language because only then can it unfold its full potential.
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2010 Applying Cognitive Linguistics to instructed L2 learning: The
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56 Susanne Niemeier
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Acknowledgement
Aintzane Doiz
1. Introduction
1. The results presented in this paper are part of the research project IT31110
(Department of Education, University and Research of the Basque Govern-
ment) and the UFI11/06 (the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU). I
would like to thank the editors of this volume and two anonymous reviewers
for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. Any errors or mistakes
are, however, entirely my responsibility.
58 Aintzane Doiz
ations, and irrealis. Section 6 summarizes the main points of the analysis
of the IMP and the PRET proposed in the chapter.
In the rst part of this section, I introduce some basic notions that have
been developed within Cognitive semantics/Cognitive Grammar during
the last quarter century and which will be helpful for the understanding of
this chapter.2 In the second part, I provide a simplied description of the
characterization of the present and the past tense provided by Langacker
within Cognitive Grammar.
2.1. Prerequisites
Speakers may conceptualize and portray the same situation in dierent
ways; this ability is referred to as construal. Since every linguistic expres-
sion incorporates a particular way of construing the conceptual content it
evokes, construal is [. . .] part of the conventional semantic value of lexical
and grammatical elements (Langacker 2009: 14). Thus, from the Cogni-
tive semantics perspective, meaning is identied with conceptualization,
i.e., mental experience, which is ultimately to be explicated in terms of
cognitive processing (Langacker 1991: 5).
The notion of construal has four dimensions: specicity, perspective,
scope, and prominence. In this chapter we focus on two dimensions of
construal: scope an aspect of perspective and proling a kind of
prominence. Scope is the extent of the conceptual content an expression
invokes as the basis for its meaning (Langacker 2009: 14). For instance,
in order to conceptualize physical objects, the domain of space has to be
evoked since objects exist in space, occupy a space, and their size and
shape are also manifested in space. But only the spatial expanse sucient
for the object to manifest in it is required; we do not need to bring the
entire universe within our scope of conception. In the case of the notion
table, for example, the delimited spatial region invoked to support it is its
spatial scope or spatial domain as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 2. Maximal scope (MS), immediate scope (IS), and prole in the notion
elbow
60 Aintzane Doiz
Nouns and verbs prole dierent kinds of entities. Nouns prole a kind
of a thing in an abstract sense. By contrast, verbs prole an event, a rela-
tionship that unfolds through time.3 Relationships may designate a bounded
event or process, as in the case of perfective predicates, or an unbounded
process, as in the case of imperfective predicates (Langacker 2008, 2009).
Imperfective predicates correspond to stative verbs (e.g., to be, to love)
within Vendlers categorization. Imperfectives lack an intrinsic beginning
or ending, they are internally homogenous and contractible (any subpart
of the process is an instance of the process), and they are non-replicable
(when two instances of an imperfective are combined, a larger instance
of the process is obtained). Perfective predicates subsume the categories
of achievement, accomplishment, and activity verbs proposed by Vendler
(1967). They designate dynamic processes with natural boundaries. They
are non-homogenous, i.e., they have dierent stages: in the case of the
perfective predicate to write a letter, for instance, there are usually four
dierent stages: writing the name of the addressee, starting the letter,
writing some paragraphs, and nishing the letter. The stages are not con-
tractible (all the stages that constitute the process need to be present in
order to have an instance of the process) and they are replicable, that is
to say, two successive acts of the process designated by a perfective predi-
cate constitute two instances of the process type rather than a bigger or
longer instance of the process (e.g., two instances of letter writing result
in two dierent letters.)4
Figures 3a and 3b contain the representation of an abstract perfective
and an abstract imperfective predicate, respectively (Langacker 2008, 2009:
19). In Figure 3a, the perfective process is represented by the rectangle with
the heavy lines within the IS. In Figure 3b, the imperfective process is
represented by the proled section of the rectangle; the beginning and the
ending of the process within the IS are not proled. The two kinds of pro-
cesses develop through time as indicated by the arrow, the time line t.
5. These are the characterizations of the prototypical temporal uses of the English
present tense and past tense (Langacker 1991, 2001b, 2009). Langacker (2009)
and Brisard (1999, 2001, 2002) argue that a more general characterization of
the two tenses is epistemic.
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 63
On the one hand, perfectives do not usually occur with the English
present tense (e.g., *He writes a book). Langacker argues that the ungram-
maticality is due to durational and epistemic reasons. Firstly, the dura-
tional problem refers to the fact that processes designated by perfectives
are, generally speaking, too long to coincide with the speech time: a
sentence like He writes a book may be uttered in a very short time, but the
actual duration of the process it designates is longer than the time it takes
to be uttered. Secondly, the epistemic motivation derives from the fact
that by the time the addressee has heard enough of the utterance to be
able to recognize the process designated, it is too late to make the beginning
of the event coincide with its description at the speech event.6 On the other
hand, imperfectives may occur with the present tense (He knows Italian)
because any proled subpart of the process is equivalent to the other and,
consequently, the part of the imperfective process that coincides with the
speech time is in itself an instance of the process type (Figure 4a). Both,
perfectives (He wrote a book) and imperfectives (He knew Italian) occur
with the past tense. In the case of perfectives with the past tense, the entire
situation is contained within the IS, which means that the situation may be
apprehended or viewed as a whole from the speech time by the speaker
and the hearer (Figure 4b). There are no durational or epistemic constraints.
In the case of imperfectives with the past tense, the situation is designated
without its beginning or ending.
Like the past tense in English, the Spanish PRET and IMP impose an
immediate temporal scope that is prior to the time of speaking. However,
the PRET and the IMP construe the situations they modify in a dierent
way. I propose the following characterizations:7 (I) Predicates with the
PRET evoke the actual occurrence reading; they state that something
6. However, perfectives may occur with the present tense in the case of performa-
tives (I order you to go now) or schedules (The train leaves at 6.00) because
there are no durational or epistemic incompatibilities in these two contexts.
7. These characterizations dier in some respects to the ones proposed in Doiz-
Bienzobas (1995, 2002). However, the notions of actual occurrence versus
property do not dier from the original proposal. Leonetti (2004) also refers
to the notion of property for the characterization of the IMP.
64 Aintzane Doiz
happened or that something has changed. Hence, the PRET evokes the
occurrence of an actual bounded event which started and nished at some
point in the past, as illustrated in (1a). It may also designate a bounded
state in combination with some imperfective predicates (1b).
(1) a. Juan condujo muy rapido ayer.
Juan drove-PRET very quickly yesterday.
Juan drove very quickly yesterday.
b. Juan estuvo aqu (ya no).
Juan was-PRET here (not anymore).
(II) Predicates with the IMP evoke the property reading. Therefore, unlike
the PRET, the IMP construes the situation it modies as an unbounded
state of aairs or an unbounded property which is generally stated of
the subject of the sentence. In (2a) Juan had the property of being a fast
driver; in (2b) Juan had the property of being Swedish.
sically unbounded homogeneous state, may occur with the PRET or with
the IMP.
(3) a. La pelcula fue interesante (?por lo menos en teora).
The movie was-PRET interesting (?at least in theory).
b. La pelcula era interesante (por lo menos en teora).
The movie was-IMP interesting (at least in theory).
When the PRET is used (3a), the actual occurrence reading surfaces. The
sentence evokes the occurrence of an event, namely, the showing of the
movie, as conrmed by the unacceptability of adding the phrase at least
in theory, which explicitly negates the occurrence of the event (Doiz-
Bienzobas 1995, 2002). When the IMP is used (3b), however, there need
not be a showing of the movie, and consequently, the phrase at least in
theory is ne. The state of being interesting is construed as an unbounded
property of the subject, the movie.
Leonetti (2004: 497) derived the global property reading associated with
the IMP from the imperfective nature of the IMP.9 He argued that, since
the IMP construes the predicate it modies as an unbounded and homo-
geneous property (i.e., as an imperfective), it is unnatural to assign the
property to a part. Consequently, the property is stated of the whole tem-
poral frame in which the situation holds.
The characterization of the IMP that has been proposed here also ac-
counts for the so-called imperfecto narrativo (IMP of narration) and
its two variants, the imperfecto biograco (IMP of biographies) and the
imperfecto de ruptura (IMP of breakage).10 These uses of the IMP are
generally attested at the beginning and at the end of narratives, where the
function of backgrounding or the framing of the narration has greater
prominence (Fernandez Ramrez 1986). Consider the sentences in (8a) and
(8b), which illustrate the imperfecto biograco and the imperfecto de ruptura,
respectively:
(8) a. A los tres anos, el general mora de una forma misteriosa.
Three years later, the general died-IMP in a mysterious way.
b. Media hora despues la herida paraba de sangrar.
Half an hour later the wound stopped-IMP bleeding.
The use of the IMP results in the understanding of the predicate as a state
of aairs or a property predicated of a temporal topic: the temporal topic
of three years later in (8a) is characterized by the generals death; in (8b)
the temporal topic of half an hour later is characterized by a property of
the wound. The use of the PRET in these sentences would result in the
actual occurrence reading whereby the predicates state that something
happened at a particular time in the past.
pues que existe cierta concurrencia del imperfecto y del preterito. Pero esta
libertad esta limitada en la mayora de los casos y determinada por una
serie de factores que sera necesario jar caso por caso.11
According to grammar books and course books for students of Spanish,
imperfective predicates (i.e., states) tend to occur with the IMP and perfec-
tive predicates (i.e., activities, accomplishments, and achievements) with
the PRET. In other words, intrinsically unbounded situations (i.e., imper-
fectives) occur with the IMP because it portrays the situations it modies
as unbounded; intrinsically bounded situations (i.e., perfectives) occur with
the PRET because it portrays the situations it modies as bounded. Hence,
the unacceptability of the IMP or the PRET in certain contexts is attributed
to the clash between the intrinsic boundedness of the situation designated
by the predicate and the boundedness of the situation evoked by the PRET
and the IMP. Under this account, the predicate to be of age is unaccept-
able with the PRET in (9) because the PRET imposes some boundaries to
the intrinsically unbounded situation. By contrast, the perfective predicate,
to write a letter, is unacceptable with the IMP because the IMP portrays
the intrinsically bounded situation as unbounded (10).
Imperfective ?PRET/IMP
(9) Como ?fue/era mayor de edad, condujo el coche.
Since he was-?PRET/IMP of age, he drove the car.
Perfective PRET/?IMP
(10) Ayer escrib/?escriba una carta.
Yesterday I wrote-PRET/?IMP a letter.
However, the analysis of the compatibility of the IMP/PRET in context
in terms of boundedness does not account for the unacceptability of the
IMP with some imperfective predicates, and for the unacceptability of the
PRET with some perfective predicates. I consider these two cases in the
remainder of this section.
Imperfectives *IMP
As we have already seen, imperfective predicates may normally occur with
the IMP (2b and 9), but this is not always the case as illustrated in (11),
11. Hence, there seems to be some overlap between the IMP and the PRET. But
the possibility of using either form is limited in the majority of the cases and is
conditioned by some factors that need to be determined case by case (trans-
lation provided by the author of the chapter).
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 69
Perfectives *PRET
Counter to the predictions made by an analysis of the PRET in terms of
boundedness, sometimes perfective predicates may not be modied by the
PRET, as illustrated in (13):14
(13) La carta *dijo/deca lo mucho que le quera.
The letter said-*PRET/IMP how much he loved her.
When the PRET is used, the predicate said how much he loved her desig-
nates the occurrence of an event in which an agent did something: the letter
uttered some words in the past. Under normal circumstances, only people
may carry out this activity, so the unacceptability of the sentence in (13)
with the PRET, where the letter is responsible for the utterance, comes as
no surprise. When the IMP is used, however, the letter is not construed as
actually talking. The predicate designates a property, which is attributed
to the subject: the letter was characterized by having the message of how
much he loved her. This sentence portrays a pragmatically feasible scenario,
and hence, it is acceptable.15
Last but not least, the analysis proposed in this chapter accounts for the
general tendency for imperfectives to occur with the IMP and for perfectives
to occur with the PRET, as explained by the traditional analyses in terms
of boundedness. Consider (9) and (10), repeated here under (14) and (16).
(14) Como ?fue/era mayor de edad, condujo el coche.
Since he was-?PRET/IMP of age, he drove the car.
When the IMP is used, the predicate being of age is construed as a
property attributed to the subject, and this property explains his being
able to drive the car: since he was of age, he drove the car. The IMP is
acceptable. The PRET, on the other hand, construes the predicate being
of age as an actual occurrence (i.e., something happened: he became of
age). Therefore the reading of the sentence is: Since he became of age, he
drove the car. The lack of a coherence relation between the two proposi-
tions renders the PRET unacceptable. In order for the PRET to be accept-
able, a context where the predicate needs to be construed as an actual
occurrence is required, as in (15):
(15) Cuando fue mayor de edad, condujo el coche.
When he was-PRET of age, he drove the car.
When he became of age, he drove the car.
In (15), the temporal conjunction when marks the beginning of the situa-
tion becoming of age. The speaker states that the subject was able to drive
when something happened, namely, when the subject became of age (actual
occurrence reading). Consequently, in this case, the PRET is grammatical.
Finally, the so-called preference of perfectives to occur with the PRET
is also accounted for under the characterizations of the PRET and the
IMP provided here. In (16) the PRET is the preferred choice for the per-
fective predicate to write a letter: the perfective situation is perceived as
an actual occurrence. In order for the IMP be acceptable, the perfective
predicate has to be embedded in a discourse in which the property reading
is appropriate, such as in literary contexts where the narrative uses of the
IMP are found, as discussed in Section 3.1.
(16) Ayer escrib/?escriba una carta.
Yesterday I wrote-PRET/?IMP a letter.
As a summary, in this section I have discussed the dierences in the inter-
pretation of the sentences whose predicates take the PRET and the IMP,
and I have accounted for the acceptability judgements of the two forms
with various imperfective and perfective predicates. In both tasks, the
characterization of the PRET and the IMP in terms of the actual occurrence
reading versus property reading was crucial. In Section 4, I introduce the
distinction between virtual and non-virtual events proposed by Langacker
(2003, 2008, 2009), which will be shown to be relevant for the understand-
ing of the IMP and the PRET in Section 5.
On the one hand, the default viewing arrangement occurs when the speaker
and hearer observe and report on actual occurrences. On the other hand,
the special viewing arrangement is taken when what is linguistically coded
is not an actual or represented event but a representing or virtual event.
Scheduled future events, generics, and the historical present are all mental
constructions involving instances of virtual or representing events.
Generics, which include general truths, laws of nature, and established
social practices, such as the ones illustrated in (17) and (18) (sentences
from Langacker 2009: 28), describe how the world is supposed to work
(Goldsmith and Woisetschlaeger 1982; Langacker 2009). That is to say,
generics describe structural generalizations based on what is common to
actual occurrences; they do not describe the actual occurrences themselves.
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 73
The proled boxes (i.e., the boxes with the heavy lines) within the IS
represent the schedule, the knowledge or virtual situation the speaker has,
namely, the situation The plane leaves in ten minutes in the cases of (19)
and (20). This knowledge is accessible at the speech time when the present
tense is used, as in (19) (Figure 8), or at a time prior to the speech time
when the past tense is used, as in (20) (Figure 9). The boxes to the left
76 Aintzane Doiz
and to the right of the box in bold represent other potential virtual events,
which have not or were not accessed by the speaker. The boxes with the
dotted lines are the anticipated actual events which correspond to the
virtual events: in (19) and (20) they stand for the future situation, namely,
for the planes actual departure, which may or may not take place.16
It is important to bear in mind that genericity and scheduling are not
part of the meaning of the present tense or the past tense; they are not a
meaning of these tenses. Genericity and scheduling are mental constructs
found in a particular context that are coded in the present tense or in the
past tense in accordance to the prototypical temporal value of the tenses,
as discussed in Section 2.2. (Langacker 2009: 28).
In Spanish, habituals, generics, and schedules occur with the IMP. Simi-
larly, speakers expectations and the expression of irrealis are also coded
in the IMP. Drawing from the analysis of genericity and scheduling pro-
vided by Langacker (Section 4), I propose that the IMP is compatible
with virtuality.17
16. The participants of the situations and the relationship linking them (i.e., the
plane leaving in ten minutes) have not been represented within the proled/
non-proled boxes in Figures 8 and 9.
17. See Brisard (2010: 505) for an analysis of the French imparfait as a marker of
a kind of virtual reality: The French imparfait either shifts the viewpoint to
the past, thereby virtualizing it (making the viewpoint and situation virtually
available at the time of speaking), or shifts it to another space than the actual
one, also virtual (which may then be interpreted in context as hypothetical
etc.).
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 77
On the one hand, when the IMP is used (21a), the speaker is referring to
a generalization (i.e., to a virtual event) that is extracted from the com-
monality among the actual events in the past; the speaker is not referring
to a particular instance of the situation. On the other hand, when the
PRET is used (21b), the situation designated by the sentence is the actual
occurrence of an event in the past: the speaker is referring to a specic
time when a barber took out some back teeth. Since the generic/habitual
reading surfaces with the IMP, it is concluded that the IMP is compatible
with the linguistic coding of virtual events.
are virtual events with corresponding potential actual situations, the IMP
is used. Compare (25a) and (25b):
(25) a. ?
Donde estuviste ayer, Juan?
Where were-PRET you yesterday, Juan?
b. ?
Donde estabas ayer, Juan?
Where were-IMP you yesterday, Juan?
When the PRET is used (25a), the speaker wants to know where the
addressee, Juan, was at a specic point in the past. The speaker is access-
ing an actual past situation. In this case, the speaker does not have any
pre-conceived idea of where Juan was or should/could have been, and
she expects a straight forward answer such as I was at the movies, I went
shopping, etc. No further explanation is required or expected from the
hearer. By contrast, when the IMP is used (25b), the question posed by
the speaker is not a neutral question. In this case the speaker is referring
to her expectation regarding the hearers location at some moment in the
past; the question refers to some knowledge or a virtual idea. By question-
ing her knowledge or expectation, the speaker implies that the expectation
is not met and, consequently, she is asking the hearer to explain to provide
a reason. The process is something like:
The emergence of certain implications that are present when the IMP is
used is a desired eect that is exploited by speakers as illustrated by the
dialogue in (26a). Lets imagine that a crime has been committed. A police
ocer, speaker A, is conducting an investigation and is cross-examining a
suspect, speaker B. The choice of the IMP or the PRET reects a dierent
understanding of the situation, as reected by the police ocers attitude
towards speaker B. If speaker A uses the IMP, speaker B is the suspect of
some wrong-doing (26a); if she uses the PRET, speaker B is not a suspect
for the time being (26b). The answers provided by speaker B reect the
specic scenarios associated with the sentences with the PRET and the
IMP, respectively:
80 Aintzane Doiz
(26) a. ?
Speaker A: Que haca ayer a las 3 en el despacho?
( ! Por que estaba all?)
?
Speaker B: Tena que terminar un informe y me quede hasta tarde.
Speaker A: What did you do-IMP yesterday at 3 oclock at the
oce? ( ! Why were you there?)
Speaker B: I had-IMP to nish a report and I stayed late in the
oce.
b. ?
Speaker A: Que hizo ayer a las 3 en el despacho?
Speaker B: Termine un informe.
Speaker A: What did you do-PRET yesterday at 3 oclock in
the oce?
Speaker B: I nished-PRET a report.
When the PRET is used (26b), the ocer is enquiring about the specic
activities that the suspect carried out at his oce at a certain time. Speaker
B provides a straightforward reply. However, when the IMP is used (26a),
speaker A is accessing her expectations; she asks speaker B what he was
doing at the oce at a time when he should have been home (according
to her knowledge/expectations). The process is something like:
Yesterday you were at the oce at three in the night. I know that this is
unusual; people are usually at home at that time. So ! what were you doing
there that could not wait until the morning? ! Why were you there?
Intentions/Wishes
An intention is a volition that is intended to be carried out; a wish is a
hope or a desire for something. Frequently intentions are based on wishes,
and wishes are translated into volitions. For our purposes, it is not impor-
tant to draw a line separating one kind of event from the other. What is
important, though, is to acknowledge the virtual nature of the wish or
the intention designated.
In Spanish, present wishes or intentions occur with the present tense
(27a); and past wishes/intentions with the IMP (27b):
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 81
Irrealis
The mental constructs that have been analyzed in the preceding sections
(e.g., schedules, generalizations, expectations, and wishes) involve virtual
events that are part of the speakers accepted reality (Langacker 2009: 31).
In the remainder of this section, I consider the use of the IMP for the
linguistic coding of some virtual events that are not part of the speakers
reality, namely, hypotheticals, dreams, and childrens play games, which
all belong in irrealis.
The relationship between the past tense and non-actuality or irrealis has
been widely acknowledged in the literature (see Chapter 1; Brisard 2010;
Doiz-Bienzobas 1995, 2002; Fleishman 1989; Hutchison 1985; Langacker
1987; and Steele 1975, among others):
Distance in the past frequently serves to remove a real event from actuality/
reality, relocating it in a hypothetical world. It should therefore come as
no surprise to nd languages using the PAST to refer to (present or time-
less) situations predicated as occurring in explicitly hypothetical or imagi-
nary worlds, e.g., those of dreams and of childrens make-believe games
(Fleischman 1989: 14).
As a result, it has been argued that the basic meaning of the past tense
should be understood as distance from reality. Langacker (1991: 245,
2009), for example, provides a comprehensive account of tense in English
where the present and past tenses designate the proximal/distal contrast in
the epistemic sphere.18
In the case of languages with two past forms like Spanish, the IMP, and
not the PRET, is normally used to express irrealis. It has been proposed
18. Brisard (2010) provides an account of the French imparfait along the same lines
lines too.
82 Aintzane Doiz
that the choice of the IMP in this context results from the unboundedness
or imperfectivity of the situations designated by the predicates with the
IMP (Leonetti 2004),19 whereas others have attributed this correlation to
the backgrounding function of the IMP as opposed to the foregrounding
role of the PRET (Hopper 1979). I propose that the use of the IMP to
convey irrealis is accounted for by an analysis that proposes the com-
patibility of the IMP with virtuality. I will consider a few cases in the
remainder of this section.
a) Dreams
Dreams are part of irrealis and are in eect at a time prior to the speech
time. They are virtual (i.e., non-actual) events that are told through recall.
In Castilian Spanish, dreams are normally coded in the IMP, as illustrated
in (28):
(28) Sone que ganaba/*gane la lotera y que me compraba/*compre
una bicicleta.
I dreamed that I won-IMP/*PRET the lottery and that I
bought-IMP/*PRET a bicycle.
It should be noted that the retelling of a past event through recall does not
license the use of the IMP, as illustrated by the ungrammaticality of the
IMP to designate a real situation in (29).
(29) Ayer me acorde de que Juan hizo/*haca la mili en Madrid.20
Yesterday I remembered that Juan did-PRET/*IMP the compulsory
military service in Madrid.
Yesterday I remembered that Juan performed on the compulsory
military service in Madrid.
19. Leonetti (2004) proposes that the anaphoric value of the IMP, which derives
from its imperfectivity, requires the IMP to be anchored to a (temporal) refer-
ence point that has already been introduced in the discourse. Accordingly, the
use of the IMP in dreams, counterfactuals, and sentences such as the ones
I am discussing in this section is a side-eect of the anaphoric character of
the IMP: the predicate modied by the IMP is interpreted relative to a
temporal or other kind of frame which has already been introduced. In the
present cases, it could be a dream, a movie, or a hypothetical space. By con-
trast, the PRET is a non-anaphorical form. It introduces its own temporal
reference in reality.
20. The use of the IMP in (29) is grammatical when the sentence with the IMP
takes the scheduled future reading, that is to say, when it involves a virtual
situation. The grammaticality of this reading is predicted by the analysis pro-
posed here.
Cognitive perspective on Spanish 83
In (30a) and (30b) the fact that the lady is part of the dream is reected by
the use of the IMP in the copula to be. In (30a) the PRET is used to
designate an event that is part of reality, namely, the lady who brought
the book. This is an event that took place at some point in the past as
specied by the time adverbial the other day. By contrast, the IMP is
used when the event the lady who brought the book is stated to be part of
the dream. Accordingly, the event cannot be modied by the temporal
adverbial the other day (30b).
b) Hypothetical sentences
The use of the past tense morphology to refer to epistemic distance in a
hypothetical space accounts for the occurrence of the past tense in counter-
factual sentences in English (see Chapter 1; Langacker 2009). In Spanish,
the past subjunctive, a past tense, is also used in the protasis of counter-
factual hypothetical sentences. The verb in the apodosis is modied by
the conditional and/or the IMP, as illustrated by the sentence in (31):
Gomez 2002: 149; Hernandez 1996: 433) and has been referred to as
imperfecto ludico or the imperfecto de fantasa (35):
(35) ?Jugamos? Tu eras el polica y yo el ladron y entonces tu robabas un
banco. . .
Shall we play? You were-IMP the policeman and I the thief and
then you robbed-IMP a bank. . .
When children play pretend games, they do a lot of planning regarding
who plays which character and regarding the course of the events that
are going to be acted out. In other words, they have to provide a plan or
script that will have to be agreed on prior to their game. In fact, scripts
are very similar to schedules: a script is something like a schedule, one
dierence being that the represented events can occur at any time [. . .]
(Langacker 2009: 27). Scripts, like schedules, are also virtual situations,
and therefore, the IMP is used.
6. Conclusions
References
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2002 The preterite and the imperfect as grounding predications. In
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Ducrot, Oswald
1979 Limparfait en francais. Linguistische Berichte 60. 123.
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guage 13. 150.
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Cognitive perspective on Spanish 87
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Chapter 3
Frequency-based grammar and the acquisition of
tense and aspect in L2 learning1
Nick Ellis
1. The author thanks Rafael Salaberry and Llorenc Comajoan for their construc-
tive editing of this chapter.
90 Nick Ellis
mother like sister, but in a very dierent way. And we learn about these
families, like our own, from experience. Exemplars are similar if they
have many features in common and few distinctive attributes (features
belonging to one but not the other); the more similar are two objects on
these quantitative grounds, the faster are people at judging them to be
similar (Tversky 1977). Prototypes, exemplars which are most typical of
a category, are those which are similar to many members of that category
and not similar to members of other categories. Again, the operationalisa-
tion of this criterion predicts the speed of human categorization perfor-
mance people more quickly classify as birds sparrows (or other average
sized, average colored, average beaked, average featured specimens) than
they do birds with less common features or feature combinations like kiwis
or penguins (Rosch and Mervis 1975; Rosch et al. 1976).
Prototypes are judged faster and more accurately, even if they themselves
have never been seen before someone who has never seen a sparrow, yet
who has experienced the rest of the run of the avian mill, will still be fast
and accurate in judging it to be a bird (Posner and Keele 1970). Such eects
make it very clear that although people do not go around consciously
counting features, they nevertheless have very accurate knowledge of the
underlying frequency distributions and their central tendencies. Cognitive
theories of categorization and generalization show how schematic construc-
tions are abstracted over less schematic ones that are inferred inductively
by the learner in acquisition (Harnad 1987; Lako 1987; Taylor 1998).
users are sensitive to the input frequencies of these patterns entails that
they must have registered their occurrence in processing. These frequency
eects are thus compelling evidence for usage-based models of language
acquisition that emphasize the role of input.
strong tendency for one single verb to occur with very high frequency in
comparison to other verbs used, a prole which closely mirrors that of
the mothers speech to these children.
In natural language, Zipf s law (Zipf 1935) describes how the highest
frequency words account for the most linguistic tokens: the constitutes
nearly 7% of the Brown Corpus of English usage, to more than 3%; while
about half the total vocabulary of about 50,000 words are hapax legomena:
words that occur only once in the corpus. If pf is the proportion of words
whose frequency in a given language sample is f, then pf P f b, with b Q 1.
Zipf (1949) showed this scaling relation holds across a wide variety of lan-
guage samples. Subsequent research has shown that many language events
(e.g., frequencies of phoneme and letter strings, of words, of grammatical
constructs, of formulaic phrases, etc.) across scales of analysis follow this
law (Ferrer i Cancho and Sole 2001, 2003). It has strong empirical support
as a linguistic universal and has important implications for language struc-
ture, use, and acquisition.
Goldberg et al. (2004) show that Zipf s law applies within VACs too,
and they argue that this promotes acquisition: tokens of one particular
verb account for the lions share of instances of each particular argument
frame; this pathbreaking verb also is the one with the prototypical mean-
ing from which the construction is derived (see also Ninio 1999, 2006). Ellis
and Ferreira-Junior (2009a, 2009b) investigate eects upon naturalistic
second language acquisition of type/token distributions in the islands
comprising the linguistic form of English verb-argument constructions
(VACs: VL verb locative, VOL verb object locative, VOO ditransitive) in
the ESF corpus (Perdue 1993). They show that in the naturalistic L2
acquisition of English, VAC verb type/token distribution in the input is
Zipan and learners rst acquire the most frequent, prototypical and
generic exemplar (e.g., put in VOL, give in VOO, etc.). Their work further
illustrates how acquisition is aected by the frequency and frequency distri-
bution of exemplars within each island of the construction (e.g., [Subj V
Obj Oblpath/loc]), by their prototypicality, and, using a variety of psycho-
logical (Shanks 1995) and corpus linguistic association metrics (Gries and
Stefanowitsch 2004; Stefanowitsch and Gries 2003), by their contingency of
form-function mapping. Ellis and Larsen-Freeman (2009a) describe con-
nectionist serial-recurrent network models of these various factors as they
play out in the emergence of constructions as generalized linguistic schema
from their frequency distributions in the input.
This fundamental claim that Zipan distributional properties of language
usage helps to make language learnable has thus begun to be explored
Frequency-based grammar 95
for these three verb argument constructions, at least. Ellis and ODonnell
(2012) are exploring its generality across a wide range of VACs in 100
million words of English.
4.1.4. Recency
Language processing also reects recency eects. This phenomenon, known
as priming, may be observed in phonology, conceptual representations,
lexical choice, and syntax (Pickering and Ferreira 2008). Syntactic priming
refers to the phenomenon of using a particular syntactic structure given
prior exposure to the same structure. This behavior has been observed
when speakers hear, speak, read, or write sentences (Bock 1986; Pickering
2006; Pickering and Garrod 2006). For L2 acquisition, Gries and Wul
(2005) provided evidence (a) that advanced L2 learners of English showed
syntactic priming for ditransitive (e.g., The racing driver showed the helpful
mechanic) and prepositional dative (e.g., The racing driver showed the torn
overall . . .) argument structure constructions in a sentence completion
task, (b) that their semantic knowledge of argument structure construc-
tions aected their grouping of sentences in a sorting task, and (c) that
their priming eects closely resembled those of native speakers of English
in that they were very highly correlated with native speakers verbal sub-
categorization preferences whilst completely uncorrelated with the sub-
categorization preferences of the German translation equivalents of these
verbs. There is now a growing body of research demonstrating such L2
syntactic priming eects (McDonough 2006; McDonough and Mackey
2006; McDonough and Tromovich 2008).
4.3.2. Redundancy
The Rescorla-Wagner model (1972) also summarizes how redundant cues
tend not to be acquired. Not only are many grammatical meaning-form
relationships low in salience, but they can also be redundant in the under-
standing of the meaning of an utterance. For example, it is often unneces-
sary to interpret inections marking grammatical meanings such as tense
because they are usually accompanied by adverbs that indicate the tem-
poral reference. Second language learners reliance upon adverbial over
inectional cues to tense has been extensively documented in longitudinal
studies of naturalistic acquisition (Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Dietrich, Klein,
and Noyau 1995), training experiments (Ellis 2007; Ellis and Sagarra 2010),
and studies of L2 language processing (Van Patten 2006).
spread its use to dynamic verbs towards telic events. Conversely, progres-
sive marking is preferentially used with dynamic verbs (activities, accom-
plishments, and achievements) and it is rst used with activity verbs (atelic)
before it spreads to telic verbs. That is, progressivity is preferentially
marked rst with verbs that focus our attention on the process rather
than the end-state of the process.
This inuence of the inherent lexical semantics of verbal predicates on
the acquisition of morphosyntactic marking led to an important hypo-
thesis of TA acquisition in terms of cognitive psychological processes of
prototype formation (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996; Shirai and Andersen
1995). The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) (see Chapters 8 and 11; Andersen and
Shirai 1994) proposes that the abstract grammatical schema for perfective
past generalizes from more concrete beginnings close to the prototypic
centre in the clear exemplications of telic achievements and accomplish-
ments. Likewise abstract progressive morphology emerges from concrete
exemplars in the semantics of activities and states.
Andersens hypothesis was based on the analysis of L2 Spanish data
collected among adolescent learners in the natural (non-classroom based)
social environment of acquisition. Even though Andersen did not obtain
data to conrm all stages of acquisition of past tense morphology, he pro-
posed a sequence of acquisition of eight phases. The strong association of
the lexical semantics of verbal predicates was predicted to occur during
the initial four stages. Andersen argued further that the nal four stages
are necessary in the model to account for the fact that learners are even-
tually able to use both markers of past tense aspect with any lexical aspec-
tual class, thus breaking the categorical pairing of one lexical aspectual
class and one grammatical marker (e.g., states and Imperfect, achievements
and Preterite). The last four stages point to the fact that the appropriate
use of TA verbal endings brings about a level of discursive and semantic
complexity that accounts for the diculty L2 learners have in the process
of acquisition. That is, a comprehensive account of how L2 learners
approach the level of representation of TA meanings among native speakers
must eventually go beyond the level of lexical aspect (cf., input frequency
and prototypicality of meaning), incorporating in the process the variety
of cues that underpin the more complex representations underpinning
nativelike levels of grammatical aspect.
Aspect-before-tense phenomena also prevail in L2 acquisition (Ander-
sen and Shirai 1994; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Indefrey and Gullberg 2008;
Li and Shirai 2000). Adult language learners too are sensitive to the lexical
aspects of verbs, initially using combinations of lexical and grammatical
100 Nick Ellis
H1: Natural language data has a distributional bias whereby some verb
types occupy each TA construction much more frequently than others, the
distribution of the types constituting each construction being Zipan.
The eects described for English above are, by and large, also relevant for
the analysis of L2 Spanish data. However, the analysis of more advanced
Spanish data to be discussed below (from Salaberry 2011) brings about a
challenge for any constructionist approach operating only at a lexical level:
the distinction between the aspectual concepts of iterativity and habituality
as shown in sentences (1a) and (1b).
(1a) Cuando era nino, Lucas jugaba al futbol. [habitual]
When [he] was a child, Lucas played/used to/would (IMP) play
soccer.
(1b) Por anos, Lucas jugo al futbol. [iterative]
For years, Lucas played (PRET) soccer.
The main challenge for learners is that the use of the perfective form to
make reference to extended events in the past is predicated on the facts
that iterativity (a) is not very frequent in the input, and (b) it does not
represent a prototypical marker of iteration (i.e., the imperfective form is
the prototypical marker, as documented in one of the most traditional and
used rules taught to Spanish learners). On the other hand, learners can
benet from the fact that the grammatical marking of iterated events pro-
vides a direct mapping of form and function (i.e., iterativity is always
marked with the Preterite, whereas habituality is marked with the Imper-
fect). That is, L2 learners need to go beyond the realm of prototypical
pairings of lexical aspect and grammatical markings to learn some specic
aspectual meanings that are clearly marked in Spanish through the choice
of perfective or imperfective marker. To do so, however, L2 learners must
take into account broader pieces of discourse than would be required
to make decisions about straightforward lexical-grammatical pairings (as
discussed in the analysis of English data above).
If the challenge is to process ever-longer pieces of discourse to make
judgments on the aspectual representation of eventualities, one of the rst,
most immediate elements that has to be considered to mark aspectual con-
trasts is the role of adverbial phrases. For instance, Menendez-Benito (2001)
shows how adverbial phrases can change the prototypical meaning of the
perfective marker in Spanish (i.e., episodic meanings) to represent the itera-
tion of eventualities (i.e., an aspectual concept reserved for the imperfective
marker). The diculty brought about by the broader discourse prompted
by the computation of adverbials (on top of the analysis of external and
106 Nick Ellis
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Chapter 4
Generative approaches to the L2 acquisition of
temporal-aspectual-mood systems
1. Introduction
Explanation in formal linguistic theory has at least two main goals. The
rst is to specify a model for a universal faculty of language (i.e., UG)
and which of its properties come into play in dening the form of individual
linguistic systems, that is, the particular languages that people speak. The
second goal is to elucidate the course of linguistic development, isolat and
1. See a special issue of the journal The Linguistic Review (2002, volumes 1 and 2)
entitled A review of the poverty of the stimulus argument for a collection of
recent articles that address the debate inherent to this topic, as well as Rothman
and Iverson (2008), who use the criteria set forth in Pullman and Scholz (2002)
to demonstrate that poverty of the stimulus, at least for complex semantic
entailments derived via the acquisition of syntactic derivation, robustly exists.
Generative perspectives 123
2. We thank Roumyana Slabakova for the Bulgarian examples and her helpful
explanations.
3. The prex is a completive prex on the main verb. The verb with the prex is
perfective in (2), the one without the prex is imperfective in (1).
Generative perspectives 125
Meisel 1997) or in part (Beck 1998; Hawkins and Chan 1997). However,
others maintain that children and adults have the same access to UG, but
that previous linguistic experience, reduced processing resources, mapping
problems, physiological dierences, and other extra-linguistic factors, to
name just a few, play a role in determining how adult language acquisition
proceeds dierently and results in accented speech, production errors, and
possibly fossilization (see e.g., Lardiere 2009; Sorace 2005). As Slabakova
(2009: 158) suggests, the absolute question of L1/L2 fundamental dier-
ences must shift to understanding a more elaborate picture of the SLA
process. Even so, we take the position that there must be access to UG,
since evidence from adult knowledge of poverty-of-the-stimulus properties
exists, as reported in a signicant number of studies across several L1/L2
language pairing combinations (see Slabakova 2008 and Rothman 2008
for reviews of this literature). Some of these studies, which we review in
greater detail in what follows, involve the acquisition of new temporal and
aspectual features (see Section 4). Taken together, these studies demonstrate
that L1 properties transfer to the initial state of L2 acquisition creating an
inevitably dierent state from the underspecied initial state for L1 acqui-
sition, which alters the comparative learning task of arriving at the target
grammar for child and adult acquirers. However, evidence from advanced
learner grammars strongly favors the position that acquisition of new syn-
tactic and semantic properties is nevertheless possible in adulthood (see
Slabakova 2008).
and Rothman 2008).4 Yet, both languages have means to express and derive
the same semantic computations subsumed under the subjunctive morphol-
ogy of Romance languages; for instance, Spanish is assumed to project the
functional category MoodP (e.g., Kempchinsky 2009). Two other impor-
tant functional categories to account for the relationship between temporal
arguments and lexical aspect are the Inner Aspect Phrase (Travis 1992),
which represents lexical aspect (i.e., lexical perfectivity or telicity) and Outer
Aspect Phrase (Zagona 1994), which represents syntactic aspect (i.e., per-
fective or imperfective).
Regardless of how tense, mood, or aspect may be encoded in a language,
empirical studies of L2 acquisition from a generative perspective ask
whether learners can acquire the functional features within inectional
morphology and the aspectual semantic properties associated with the
relevant functional categories. The current literature oers two diametrically
opposed views on the adult L2 acquisition of functional categories and their
features. At one end of the spectrum is the view that (some) functional
categories cannot be acquired because adult L2 acquisition is no longer
constrained by UG in the same way as in childhood and/or is subjected
to a critical period (see various impairment hypotheses proposed by
Hawkins and Chan 1997, Hawkins and Liszka 2003 and representational
decit hypotheses, e.g., Hawkins 2003, Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou
2007). At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe that adult
SLA is constrained by UG and who support the Full Access/Full Transfer
hypothesis (e.g., Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996), which proposes that
the learners L1 grammar constitutes the L2 initial state (full transfer) but
that parameter resetting to the L2 values is possible (full access)). Others
believe that although adult SLA is constrained by UG, it is subjected to
external factors (e.g., Missing Inection Hypothesis, Haznedar and Schwartz
1997; Missing Surface Inection Hypothesis, Prevost and White 2000).
4. Iverson et al. (2008) tested whether or not American English speakers accept
sentences of the following types:
i) The doctor recommends that newborn children be fed every 3 hours.
ii) The doctor recommends that newborn children are fed every 3 hours.
They found that speakers in their late teenage years and early twenties either
preferred sentences like (ii) or only accepted such sentences, whereas older
individuals either highly preferred (i) or only accepted (i) as grammatical.
They used this to argue that younger American English speakers might not
have a MoodP instantiated at all in their grammar, at least in their non-
formal, colloquial dialect.
Generative perspectives 129
whereas the Chinese native speakers supplied the regular simple past tense
in about 62% of the obligatory contexts; however, they performed much
better with irregular simple past morphology by correctly inecting verbs
for simple past in roughly 84% of the obligatory contexts. Hawkins and
Liszka concluded that these results support the Failed Functional Features
hypothesis (Hawkins and Chan 1997), since only Chinese does not morpho-
syntactically encode tense. However, it is very dicult to make any general-
izable claims from such a small data set.
Campos (2009) claimed that L1 prosodic transfer might provide a better
explanation for Hawkins and Liszkas results since Chinese, similarly to
Spanish, does not allow for complex codas. Moreover, and although it is
not framed in a generative perspective, Yang and Yuan Huangs (2004)
study provided contradictory evidence to Hawkins and Liszkas study,
showing that 10 year-old to 19 year-old Chinese ESL learners (n 453 at
5 dierent levels of prociency, a much larger, and hence reliable, sample
than in Hawkins and Liszkas study) as instructed learners without expo-
sure to English outside the classroom achieved very high success rates
in marking past verbal morphology in the obligatory contexts (90.6% to
99.5%) of personal narratives.
In Gabriele, Martohardjono, and McClure (2005) (based on Gabriele
2005), native speakers of Japanese (n 83) at dierent levels of prociency
in L2 English intermediate (n 38) or advanced (n 45) were admin-
istered an interpretation task (Klein, Martohardjono, and Valian 1999)
designed to investigate whether Japanese learners interpretation of the
English past progressive would interact with L1 lexical semantics. Japanese
te-iru allows both progressive and perfective interpretations, depending on
the predicate, whereas English be ing always denotes a progressive inter-
pretation. Findings showed that the past progressive was more dicult
than the simple past for both activity and change of state verbs, even for
the advanced group learners. They allowed a perfective reading for the
English past progressive even when the L1 Japanese interpretation is pro-
gressive, leading Gabriele, Martohardjono, and McClure (2005) to suggest
that the perfective is a default interpretation in the mental representation
of te-iru.
Gabriele and Maekawa (2008) compared three groups of L2 English
learners native speakers of Chinese (n 32), Korean (n 18), and
Japanese (n 55) at dierent levels of prociency. Contrary to Japanese
and Korean, Chinese does not encode tense morpho-syntactically and pre-
sumably does not have a Tense projection (Lin 2005). The participants
completed an interpretation task with short stories focusing on the present
132 Dalila Ayoun and Jason Rothman
and past progressive in English as well as regular and irregular past tense
forms as distractors. The Chinese learners in the high prociency group
correctly distinguished the present from the past progressive, but the inter-
mediate prociency group was not as successful. The L1 Japanese and L1
Korean learners performed well as expected. Gabriele and Maekawas
(2008) ndings provide evidence against Hawkins and Liszkas (2003) pro-
posal of a permanent syntactic decit in the L2 when a feature such as
[epast] is not instantiated in the L1.
In Gabriele (2009), Japanese speakers (n 101) L2 English learners
at low, intermediate, and high levels of prociency performed a story com-
patibility task which targeted telic predicated with simple past (as a control),
present progressive, and past progressive morphology. Then, English native
speakers (n 33) L2 Japanese learners at two levels of prociency (low
and high) performed the Japanese equivalent of the story interpretation
task to test for the acquisition of the simple past marker -ta and the pro-
gressive marker te-iru with telic predicates. Both L2 Japanese and L2
English learners performed well on accomplishments with the progressive
and on achievements with simple past, but not as well on achievements
with the progressive -ing or imperfective marker te-iru. Moreover, the L2
English learners performed poorly on the preemption (i.e., L1 interpre-
tations) context at all prociency levels by accepting sentences in which
the present progressive referred to complete events. Preemption was less
dicult for L2 Japanese learners although some learners in the low-
prociency group allowed the imperfective marker te-iru to refer to ongo-
ing events. Gabriele (2009) suggested that the complexity of the semantic
computation and the (lack of ) transparency of input cues may explain
why preemption appears to be so dicult.
Liszka (2006) investigated the implications that a representational decit
approach may have on pragmatic processes from a Relevance theoretic per-
spective (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95) by asking French-speaking learners
of L2 English (n 8) to perform one written task (a narrative to elicit
events and states) and two oral tasks (description of a video and picture
clip to elicit states and ongoing events and a contextualized dialogue).
The focus was on the L2 acquisition of the distributional and interpreta-
tional properties of the English present simple and present progressive;
the latter is not grammatically encoded in L1 French. Following Al-
Hamad et al. (2002: 55), Liszka assumed that the dierence in temporal
interpretation between habitual and event in progress is directly con-
nected to whether the verb raises overtly to T(ense) in the syntax. Strong
uninterpretable features in French lead to overt verb raising whereas only
auxiliaries raise to T in the present progressive English. Results show that
Generative perspectives 133
6. Salaberry (2008: 165170) argues that by rejecting the eect of adjuncts, the
eects of inner and outer aspect are conated into one single construct that is
methodologically dicult to tease apart.
Generative perspectives 135
7. But see Salaberry (2008: 177184) for a critique of this studys methodology.
8. More generally speaking, in my view, lexical aspect can depend on anything
that is in the VP, I mean the type of verb, arguments and adjuncts as in to go to
the park versus to go toward the park (Slabakova, personal communication).
136 Dalila Ayoun and Jason Rothman
ments that include several factors that can aect the outcome in each con-
text. That is, there may be interaction eects with other variables at play
(other than just pedagogical explanations). In fact, qualitative and quanti-
tative dierences in the input that naturalistic and classroom learners are
likely to have received, are variables that could be just as, if not more
explanatory, for the dierences Rothman discusses. However, we should
keep in mind that both groups of L2 learners are of highly advanced pro-
ciency and although the classroom learners were instructed learners, they
had more than mere classroom exposure over the course of time it took
for them to achieve their high prociency level. The point to be made is
that the two experiments were designed to focus on uses where pedago-
gical descriptions do not conict with naturalistic input and one where
pedagogical simplication does. The results across the two groups show
that it is reasonable to conclude that pedagogical rules play a role in the
performance on the tasks. Thus, even if other co-occurring variables are
at play, Rothmans conclusions remain reasonable.
Following impairment hypotheses according to which uninterpretable
features not present in the L1 are not acquirable in the L2, Diaz, Bel, and
Bekiou (2007) assume that only L2 Spanish learners whose L1 encodes the
[eperfective] aspectual distinction morpho-syntactically are able to acquire
the Spanish preterite-imperfect contrast. Specic learnability predictions are
made for each L1 language background or type (Romance, Modern Greek,
Chinese, Japanese, and Slavic). Seventy participants at intermediate and
advanced levels of prociency (but few participants per language group
and prociency level, from 5 to 12) completed three written stories by pro-
viding the appropriate verb form in the past. Findings show that: (a) the
presence of the [eperfective] feature in L1 helps the Romance and Greek
L2 learners; (b) eects of morphological contrast with Spanish were found
mostly for the Slavic group but also the Asian group; and (c) eects of the
Aspect Hypothesis (Aspect before Tense) are conrmed only for states and
achievements. Finally, it is argued that diculties encountered across
language groups with activities and accomplishments, the two aspectual
classes that are sensitive to the cardinality of the DP object, appear to
spring from the interaction between interpretable and uninterpretable fea-
tures (507).
Hsien-jen Chin (2008) is another study investigating the acquisition of
the [eperfective] contrast between the Spanish preterite and imperfect by
Chinese- and English-speaking learners. Both English and Spanish overtly
mark tense morphology whereas Chinese uses aspectual markers for the per-
138 Dalila Ayoun and Jason Rothman
while stative passives are marked with estar, which expresses the perfective.
Both copulas mean to be. In English, the aspectual distinction between
eventives and statives is not marked in any specic way, hence the diculty
for Anglophone native speakers to make the appropriate selection between
the two Spanish copulas. The ndings are mixed in that the L2 learners
performance on both tasks showed that they distinguished between the two
copulas followed by adjectives, but on the sentence selection task, their
performance with regards to the interpretation of the subject was random.
It is likely that, as suggested by de Garavito and Valenzuela (334), the
problem is related to processing at the interface between semantics and
syntax (see also Sorace 2006).
Space limitations being what they are, we are unable to cover in absolute
depth or even exhaustively all the available studies examining the L2
acquisition of TAM from a generative perspective. However, what we
have been able to show in the selection of studies we have reviewed are
the wide variety of language pairings and the depth of the questions that
comprise the research of L2 TAM acquisition within the UG paradigm.
As is true of all L2 studies from a UG perspective, in addition to their
earnest attempt at documenting and explaining the developmental route
of TAM acquisition in a way that meets descriptive and explanatory ade-
quacy, these studies also contribute to theory internal questions of a larger
remit as well as provide important data sets towards larger questions of
great relevance to SLA research more generally. These studies combine
to inform questions pertaining to the age-of-acquisition and critical period
for L2 acquisition debates. They provide crucial evidence towards whether
or not and the extent to which the same mechanisms implicated in
child acquisition remain available to adult learners in the course of L2
acquisition. Because UG based studies on L2 TAM acquisition adopt
formal theoretical proposals as their point of reference, they are also able
to provide a unique testing ground for theoretical proposals of formal
syntax and semantics.
As it relates to the whole of the data that we have reviewed, there is a
noticeable developmental trend showing that learners in foreign language
instructed settings show gradual improvement from the beginning to more
advanced prociency levels to eventually successfully acquiring the tense/
aspect systems of their respective L2s. The studies that tested near-native
speakers also arrived at the conclusion that ultimate attainment was possible,
while stressing that TAM appears to be a sensitive domain of L2 language
acquisition that may be subjected to some critical period and/or learnability
eects, be it for bilingual speakers of heritage languages (Montrul 2002,
2007), or for English-American Russian bilingual speakers who become
dominant in English before puberty, and fail to be exposed to Standard
Russian (Pereltsvaig 2002). Even studies which set out to test permanent
144 Dalila Ayoun and Jason Rothman
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Part II. Research design and methodology in L2
studies of tense and aspect
Chapter 5
Research design: A two-way predicational system is
better than a four-way approach1
Paz Gonzalez
1. Introduction
1. I am very thankful to Henk Verkuyl for his invaluable help with the clarica-
tion of the used terminology, and to Huub van den Berg for his help with the
analysis of the ndings of the two empirical studies presented here. I would
also like to thank Rafael Salaberry and Llorenc Comajoan and the external
reviewer for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. However,
I am the only one responsible for any inaccuracies or shortcomings of this
chapter.
160 Paz Gonzalez
2. Aspect
2. Some authors use the term eventuality description to refer to the same notion
(De Swart 1998).
162 Paz Gonzalez
The dierence between the two past forms can only be understood by
assuming that certain tense forms express aspectual information. This
aspectual information is called grammatical aspect and is encoded between
the tenseless level where predicational aspect is determined and the
past temporal level. In particular, grammatical aspect characterizes the
domain in which the eventuality of the predication takes place either
as perfective as in (3), or imperfective as in (4). The notion of domain
Two-way predicational system 163
cations are the marked case, as opposed to the durative predications, which
are unmarked and thus more common in language production.
Aspectual value
(6) a. Teo write a letter
[sqa] [addto] [sqa] ! terminative
b. Teo write letters
[sqa] [addto] [sqa] ! durative
c. Children write a letter
[sqa] [addto] [sqa] ! durative3
d. Teo expect a letter 4
[sqa] [addto] [sqa] ! durative
Gonzalez and Verkuyl (2003) showed that the Plus Principle is also a valid
tool to characterize Spanish predicational aspect and that both operators
receive the same values regardless of the fact a sentence is produced in
Spanish or in Dutch.
In sum, the Plus Principle turns out to be a useful tool for drawing
attention to the contribution of the predication as a whole to aspectual
information, because it expresses the requirement that all atomic entities
involved in the aspectual composition at this level have to have a positive
value in order to derive a terminative predication.
way a domain in the past in which the eventuality is located as to its being
bounded or not, so that information can be obtained about the way which
the eventuality is presented.5
Grammatical aspect in Spanish is morphologically marked in a systematic
way by means of specic morphemes: it is visible in the alternation of aspects
in the past, since the morphological encoding of grammatical aspect is
only obligatory in the past tense (imperfective-perfective). The perfective-
imperfective distinction in Spanish is inectional, which means that every
verb has both a perfective and an imperfective past form. Spanish has two
simple past tense forms, both of them introducing aspectual as well as
temporal information together with the verb form itself. Table 1 provides
examples of terminative and durative predications and shows how they
interact with the two Spanish simple past tenses.
The terminology used in Table 1 deserves some clarication. In 1931,
the Real Academia Espanola (ocial institution responsible for regulating
the Spanish Language) reected on the terminological problem of consider-
ing the perfective forms as perfect forms (see Rojo 1988). Spanish distin-
guishes the perfect verb forms from the non-perfect ones, and it has two
parallel complete series of tenses to express them: the perfect and the
imperfect. The correspondence could not be more exact: every simple
tense or imperfect form corresponds in a one-to-one way to a compound
tense or perfect form. To treat the past perfective as a past perfect form
would completely break the system, because it would be a simple form
but yet perfect in meaning. Because of this, the Academia resorted to
considering the past perfective a preterito indenido basing this nomen-
clature on the fact that it expresses sometimes the eventuality as incipient
and sometimes as nished. However, to call it preterite was confusing,
as it just means past. To solve the disputed point of whether the perfective
forms should be treated as perfect or not, the following terminological
proposal is suggested: the preterito indenido or preterito perfecto
simple is here called preterito perfectivo; and the preterito imperfecto
is in the same manner here called preterito imperfectivo.
5. However, aspect is also been dened in deictic terms by Klein (1994) and
Doiz-Bienzobas (1995). According to Klein, any given utterance is composed
of two components, one nite and one non-nite. The non-nite component is
what carries lexical content, the nite component is the Topic Time, which is
the time for which the claim about the situation has been made.
166 Paz Gonzalez
Put very simply, the imperfective forms in examples (7a) and (7c) in
Table 1 imply that the period of time or domain hosting the eventuality
described by the predication is of an incomplete nature (it does not have
a right boundary), whereas the perfective forms in (7b) and (7d) imply
that the domain hosting the eventuality described by the predication is
closed o. This causes the process of Luca singing in example (7b) to be
presented as bounded. In this sense, there are two sorts of completion in
(7d). One is expressed by the terminative nature of the predication, whereas
the other is the completion of the domain in which the eventuality is hosted.
The dierence between imperfective and perfective taken in this sense is not
stated in terms of the temporal location of the eventuality itself, which is, in
both cases, the past tense, nor in terms of the aspectual properties of the
eventuality. What matters here is the representation of the temporal domain
where the eventuality takes place.
The question of whether the dierences between perfective and imper-
fective forms are temporal or aspectual has attracted much discussion in
Spanish linguistics. The idea that the dierence is temporal was rst pro-
posed by Bello (1847), who dened the imperfective form as a co-preterite,
treating it as a present in the past. Therefore, the imperfective form, in
Bellos theory, had its own temporal characteristics. However, the aspec-
tual description of the two simple past tenses in Spanish can be better
described as, in accordance with Garca Fernandez (1998), a past imper-
fective (combination of past tense and imperfective aspect) and a past
perfective (combination of past tense an perfective aspect) (Table 1).
All the sentences in (8)(11) are grammatical, which indicates that the two
levels of aspectual representation interact without transforming internal
values in those languages where the distinction perfective-imperfective
is formally present. Hence, aspect needs to deal simultaneously with the
characterization of the predicational aspect and with the question of
whether the period of time in which the predication is situated is left as
open or closed o. This task of dealing with two aspectual levels may
lead to aspectual combinations within sentences, which may look like
incompatibilities, as is the case in sentences (9) and (10), in which the
senses of completion of the sentence and the predication it contains are
reversed.
The possible incompatibilities with imperfective verbal forms are reviewed
rst (see Chapter 1). The combination of imperfective marking and durative
predication, as the more natural combination of two incomplete levels,
does not present any complications. That is, a sentence that features an
imperfective form, implying that the temporal domain hosting the described
eventuality is not complete, does not conict with the fact that the eventu-
ality is durative, because both aspectual levels are dened as non-complete
168 Paz Gonzalez
7. For another theoretical standpoint on the interaction of the two aspectual levels,
see de Swart (1998). De Swart describes what she calls aspectual shifts and
coercion, proposing the idea that perfectives only describe events, whereas
imperfectives only describe states and processes.
8. In this context, a connection can be made again to Kleins Topic Time (1986).
According to Klein, the relationship between Topic Time and Time of the
Situation (lexical aspect) represents imperfective aspect.
9. Examples (17a), (17b), and (17c) are in English to show that the quality of
these predications is not language specic.
Two-way predicational system 171
varied, even though there were some patterns that stood out. Sentences
including extra information pointing to some sort of repetitive, habitual,
or progressive meaning were logically accepted with the imperfective form.
For instance, sentences (18) and (19) only dier aspectually in the form of
the verb.
(18) Los barcos llegaban cada media hora.
The ships arrive past imperfective every half hour
The ships arrived every half an hour.
(19) Los trenes llegaron cada media hora.
The trains arrive past perfective every half hour
The trains arrived every half an hour.
These sentences have extra aspectual information that points to repetition
(every half an hour). Thus, sentence (18) with the imperfective form
was judged grammatical by the majority of the informants. On the other
hand, nearly half of the informants found (19) also grammatical. The
native informants seemed to have created a situation where the sentence
is also acceptable with the perfective form, and this is achieved by (im-
plicitly) adding another layer of aspectual information, in this case some-
thing like (20).
(20) (Ayer) los trenes llegaron cada media hora.
Yesterday the trains arrive past perfective every half hour
(Yesterday) the trains arrived every half an hour.
Yesterday limits the time, and it provides a beginning and an end to the
event, making the temporal domain complete. Therefore, in this case, the
perfective is also an acceptable form. This may lead us to think that aspec-
tual choice is not only a predicational phenomenon, but also a sentential,
even contextual, discourse phenomenon (Chapter 6; Fleischmann 1985;
Silva Corvalan 1983).
Sentences including extra information pointing to some sort of limita-
tion of time were logically mostly accepted with the perfective form. Sen-
tences (21) and (22), again, only dier in the form of the verb.
(21) Ayer por la manana Ana compro el periodico.
Yesterday in the morning Ana buy past perfective the
newspaper
Yesterday morning, Ana bought the newspaper.
Two-way predicational system 173
10. The repetition is not of the eventuality, but of the hosting domain. This is why
Ayer por la manana Ramon compraba tres revistas (Yesterday morning Ramon
bought imperfective three magazines) is ruled out without the help of
extra contextual information.
174 Paz Gonzalez
accepted (22). In her view, the imperfective in this context is used to desig-
nate the concluding event of a series of events, to express emotions and
make judgements, and to create a temporal setting.
For sentences with no additional aspectual information, both options
(perfective and imperfective) are equally acceptable. An example of this
type of pair of sentences is given in (24) and (25).
(24) Por la noche contabamos cuentos.
During the night tell 1stp pl past imperfective stories
At night time we told stories.
(25) Por la noche contamos cuentos.
During the night tell 1stp pl past perfective stories
At night time we told stories.
If aspect were an intra-sentential phenomenon, it would be expected that
one of both sentences would be more acceptable than the other (according
to the predicational aspect of the sentence). This is not the case. Both
sentences were equally accepted because the predication in itself does not
give enough information as to which aspectual form the verbs need to
take. Thus, it was easy for the informants to imagine the two required
contexts, one for the perfective form and another one for the imperfective
form.11
In sum, from this section, two main conclusions can be reached. First,
the predicational level oers no aspectual information that may interfere
with the choice of past tense for L1 speakers, and, therefore, predicational
aspect and grammatical aspect do not interfere with each other. Second,
sentential and contextual aspectual information is crucial to properly under-
stand how grammatical aspect is used by native speakers (see Chapter 6).
11. A reviewer pointed out that por la noche is ambiguous, as it can mean
every night or during that period of time and therefore both interpreta-
tions are possible.
Two-way predicational system 175
(e.g., Li and Shirai 2000; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; and Salaberry 2008). More
specically, Spanish has aspectual morphological verbal markers, which
do not have a counterpart in languages from the Germanic family. This
fact may have contributed to the interest in the study of the acquisition
of tense and aspect by L2 learners of Spanish who have a Germanic lan-
guages as their L1, as the latter face one of the most signicant challenges:
the notorious distinction between the two simple past tense forms and the
mismatch in aspectual representations between their L1 and L2 (Salaberry
2008).
The goal of the present section is to characterize the initial stage(s) of
the acquisition of the L2 Spanish aspectual system. Two theoretical views
are discussed. First, the aspectual division on verb classes (Vendler 1957,
described in Section 2.2) is applied to a description of the distribution of
interlanguage past tense morphology of beginning learners. Second, a
two-way predicational-aspectual analysis, that is, a division into termina-
tive and durative predications, is considered as a possible tool for an
optimal description of what happens in the interlanguage of Dutch L2
learners of Spanish. Moreover, other pragmatic-discourse factors will also
be taken into account as they may add relevant clues to the characterization
of the distribution of morphological markers in L2 Spanish. Following
Salaberry (2008), several characterizations of the initial state of the acqui-
sition of temporal systems in a L2 are discussed. Although these character-
izations do not follow the same theoretical framework, reviewing them
jointly can be important in building an adequate model of tense-aspect
acquisition. The theoretical perspectives to be summarized are the follow-
ing: Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen 1991), the Default Past Tense
Hypothesis (Salaberry 2000), and the Predication-eect Hypothesis (see
Section 2).
Note: A hyphen indicates that no past morphology is used, that is, present or base
forms are used; i: imperfective forms; p: perfective forms; ip: imperfective and perfec-
tive forms.
12. The Aspect Hypothesis makes two more claims that are not considered rele-
vant for the purposes of this description (in languages with progressive aspect,
it emerges in activities, then accomplishments and achievements; progressive
markings are not incorrectly overextended to statives).
Two-way predicational system 177
The rst atelic verbs that are found with perfective are activities; the rst
telic verbs found with the imperfective are accomplishments. Finally, both
forms are found with the four types of predicates (Table 2). When verbal
morphology emerges in the learners interlanguage, it appears as if it is in
complementary distribution to the aspectual class of the verb.
A number of studies have provided evidence in favor of the AH
(Hasbun 1995, Bergstrom 1995, Cadierno 2000; for a review of studies
see Bardovi-Harlig 2000 and Salaberry 2008). However, some important
weaknesses qualify its claims. As Salaberry (2008: 104) pointed out, the
LAH does not oer a theoretical account for what happens after lexical
aspect alone can no longer determine the choice of perfective or imperfec-
tive. Moreover, it also contains methodological limitations that prevent
adequate generalizations (see Chapters 8 and 11). However, despite these
weaknesses, as Shirai and Kurono (1998: 284) argued, studies on the
acquisition of verb morphology that systematically investigated the rela-
tionship between verb morphology and inherent aspect have consistently
indicated that (. . .) adults acquiring an L2 are strongly inuenced by the
inherent aspect of the verb to which the morphology is attached.
overgeneralize the use of past tense markers associated with specic lexical
aspectual classes (the prototypical cases). Salaberrys explanation for this
unexpected overgeneralization was that the degree of association between
lexical aspectual classes and inectional morphology increases with time
to the point that it overgeneralizes to a level that surpasses the target
language distribution. Finally, in stage 4, students were able to focus on
language-specic discursive-pragmatic factors that provided them with
information about when to use both markings of verbal morphology.
There are two main dierences between Salaberrys stages of acquisi-
tion of L2 tense-aspect morphology and those presented by Andersens
original AH. First, Salaberrys rst stage, which presents the perfective as
the default past tense in beginning stages of interlanguage, was not pre-
dicted by the AH. Second, studies supporting the AH have not found data
where the more procient students over-generalized the prototypical asso-
ciations of verbal morphology and aspectual category (Salaberrys over-
generalization stage). Finally, a few studies have disputed the claims of
the DPTH arguing that it is not clear that beginners use perfective mor-
phology across all aspectual categories (Comajoan 2009) and that beginners
do not only use perfective morphology (Bergstrom 1995; Camps 2002; and
Comajoan 2001).
13. This is where the Discourse Hypothesis or the interaction of the Aspect and
Discourse hypotheses come into play (see Chapter 9; Comajoan 2000; Salaberry
2008; and Rosi 2009, among others).
Two-way predicational system 181
5. Conclusion
between the two inected aspectual forms according to the contextual dis-
course information, not according to the atemporal predicational informa-
tion. Section 4 has analyzed the distribution of the two past tense forms in
Spanish in the learners interlanguage. The AH and the DPTH have been
described and a dierent approach to the L2 acquisition of grammatical
aspect has been proposed, namely, the Predication-eect Hypothesis.
Second language acquisition research involving the acquisition of
grammatical aspect conrms the juxtaposition of grammatical aspect and
inherent aspect. According to most studies on the matter, L2 verbal mor-
phology is closely related to lexical aspect, as when L2 verbal morphemes
emerge in interlanguage, they are not uniformly distributed across all
verbs, but rather are distributed according to the lexical aspectual cate-
gories of verbal predicates (AH). Nevertheless, although the line of thought
started with the AH has denitely hinted in the right direction, it could be
more accurate. Considering the lexical meaning of the verb as the carrier
of all inherent aspectual information is a rst step, but it does not cover
the relevance of the semantics of internal arguments for the overall mean-
ing of the bare aspectual level. Thus, it is not the lexical semantics of the
verbs what partly inuences the verb choice but predicational aspect. The
two-way distinction of the Predication-eect Hypothesis is eective because
it maps not only into the perfective-imperfective division in number but
also in meaning (both presenting their own understanding of completion).
To sum up, essentially, it makes more sense having two types of aspect,
at a predicational level and at a grammatical level, which can have
conicting meanings in the minds of the learners if each level has the
same division type, namely a two-way partition. If an aspectual system is
described with two levels (one predicational, one grammatical) and in
each level only one opposition, it seems to provide a more powerful expla-
nation to imagine the two levels conicting than when one of the levels
contains four values and the other one only two.
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1991 Developmental sequences: the emergence of aspect marking in
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Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen
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2000 The acquisition of Spanish grammatical aspect by Danish ad-
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2002 Aspectual distinctions in Spanish as a foreign language: The
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Comajoan, Llorenc
2009 The early L2 acquisition of past morphology: Perfective mor-
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1995 The preterite and the Imperfect in Spanish: Past situation versus
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Doiz-Bienzobas, Aintzane
2002 The preterite and the imperfect as grounding predications. In F.
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Fernandez Lagunilla, Marina & Elena de Miguel
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Chapter 6
Research design: Operationalizing and testing
hypotheses
M. Rafael Salaberry
1. Introduction
There are, however, other aspectual notions that have an impact on the
native-like selection of past tense morphology. For instance, Filip (1999:
119, emphasis added) specically states that (p)luralities of eventualities,
which are expressed by iterative and habitual sentences, belong to a dimen-
sion of conceptualization that is orthogonal to the classication of verbal
predicates and sentences into states, processes and events.1 Bertinetto
(1994) makes a similar argument stating that habituality belongs to the
subdomain of aspect, whereas lexical aspectual classes belong to the sub-
domain of actionality.
Overall, situations that are repeated in time (cf. iterated eventualities)
are represented as either iteratives or habituals.2 Comrie (1976: 27) justies
the theoretical contrast between habituality and iterativity, because the
repetition of an event is not enough to make it a habitual.3 That is, all of
the repeated instances of the event can be viewed as a single situation,
albeit with internal structure, and referred to by a perfective form. Binnick
(1991: 155) proposes further that the imperfective may convey habituality
(repetitive episodes somewhat distantly spaced in time are viewed as a
unit) whereas the perfective conveys iterativity (repetitive episodes rather
closely spaced in time and viewed as a unit). For instance, in Spanish and
Portuguese, both single and iterated telic events can be conveyed with the
use of Preterite (PRET) in (1a), whereas habituality is typically expressed
with the use of the Imperfect (IMP) in (1b). On the other hand, the con-
cept of iterativity is expressed with the Preterite in (1c).
6. Examples (2a) and (2b) are numbered (39a) and (39b) respectively in Smith
(1997).
192 M. Rafael Salaberry
(2) a. [Famous movie stars] discovered that little spa for years.
[atelic]
b. [A famous movie star] discovered that little spa.
[telic]
Note that if we added the same adverbial phrase used in (2a) to sentence
(2b), we would be shifting the telic nature of that sentence (without chang-
ing the external argument) to an atelic one.
(2) c. A famous movie star discovered that little spa [for years].
[atelic]
That is, in (2c) one single movie star visited the same spa over several
years (metaphorically discovering it each time).
Smith does not make a principled distinction among dierent types of
iteration of eventualities (for a discussion of the problem of subsuming
perfectivity within habituality, see Lenci and Bertinetto 2000).7 Essentially,
Smith proposed that in the context of a frequency adverbial, almost all
verb constellations can be taken as habitual (35, emphasis added). And,
in the case of sentences without an explicit frequency adverbial, Smith
argued that our world knowledge leads us to interpret sentences as habitual.
For instance, Smith states that [g]etting up and reading the newspaper are
ordinary and likely to be taken as habitual.8
(3) a. Eva got up at noon last summer.
(4) a. Mary read the newspaper last summer.
Interestingly, however, the Spanish translations of the sentences above
are more naturally expressed with the imperfective and perfective forms
respectively.
(3) b. Eva ?se levanto/se levantaba al medioda el verano pasado.
Eva got up (PRET/IMP) at noon last summer.
(4) b. Mara leyo/?lea el periodico el verano pasado.
Mary read (PRET/IMP) the newspaper last summer.
like (10) (373, emphasis added). That is, sentences with the imperfective
(11) convey the notion of non-accidental generalizations (law-like) and
sentences with the perfective (12) convey the notion of accidental general-
izations. Menendez-Benitos argument leads us to conclude that accidental
generalizations are exceptional in the sense that they are restricted to the
specic time frame in which they happened: they are equivalent to the
exceptional circumstance that all coins in my pocket happen to be made
of silver.
(11) Siempre que vena a mi casa, Juan fumaba.
Whenever he used to/came to visit (IMP), Juan used to/smoked
(IMP).
(12) Siempre que vino a mi casa, Juan fumo.
Whenever he came to visit (PRET), Juan smoked (PRET).
To substantiate the proposed correlation with Goodmans proposal,
Menendez-Benito argues that accidental generalizations make reference
to stage-level predicates, whereas non-accidental generalizations make
reference to kind-denoting subjects.13 For instance, she states that (13a)
conveys the meaning that the price of the book was $40, whereas (13b)
conveys the meaning that, for instance, someone bought the book and it
cost $40.
(13) a. El libro costaba $40.
The book cost (IMP) $40.
b. El libro costo $40.
The book cost (PRET) $40.
This argument is problematic given that Menendez-Benito concedes that
there are contexts in which a perfective verb may get an individual-level
interpretation as in (14).
14. One reviewer questioned the grammaticality of sentence (14). I believe that
Menendez-Benito is right to consider it grammatical/acceptable in the context
of a non-prototypical interpretation. For instance, one possible context that
would license this sentence is one in which the time-frame that serves as back-
ground information is one in which Juan spoke French as a second or third
language, and then, after a long period of absence from the French-speaking
scene, he is no longer able to keep up with a language that he no longer uses
regularly.
198 M. Rafael Salaberry
16. Comrie (1976: 29) argues that habituals no longer hold only as a result of an
implicature, which is weaker than an implication: if denied, the situation no
longer holds, but if not denied, or suspended by an explicit remark from the
speaker to the eect that he does not know whether or not it holds, then it will
be taken to hold.
200 M. Rafael Salaberry
The results revealed that the L2 learners accepted the prototypical com-
binations of the Preterite with punctual eventualities and the Imperfect
with habitual eventualities. However, learners failed to reject the (ungram-
matical) use of the Imperfect with both implicit and explicit iterated events
(21b and 22b). Perez-Leroux et al. attribute the outcome of their study to
the eect of instruction. They argue that [g]rammatical instruction does
not distinguish between these senses, it merely states that repetition in
the past is expressed in the Imperfect form (434).
Finally, Salaberry (2012) expanded the analysis of previous studies based
on sentence-based prompts with the use of more extended discourse-based
prompts that contextualized the aspectual choices, thus maximizing the
probability that participants would focus their attention on the target
aspectual construct. His ndings replicated the results of previous studies
pointing to a clear dissociation in the interpretation of iterative and habitual
choices. That is, advanced L2 speakers (cf. teaching assistants) paralled
the choices of native speakers with regards to the preferred aspectual
marker to signal habituality, but failed to mark the contrast signalled by
iterative sentences as distinct from habitual choices.
17. Iverson and Rothman (2008) is a smaller study that precedes and is subsumed
by the one published in Rothman and Iverson (2008).
18. Of the 17 advanced learners, three were not part of the main pool of partici-
pants (i.e., American university students studying in a summer language pro-
gram), but rather natural learners who had acquired Portuguese while living
in Brazil. Rothman and Iverson do not justify why they added these learners
to their pool of subjects, especially considering that the prociency tests had
already divided the participants into an equal number of intermediate and
advanced learners (i.e., 14 and 14).
19. Menendez-Benito (2002) proposes that the imperfective allows both types of sub-
ject DP readings, whereas the perfective allows only group denoting readings.
204 M. Rafael Salaberry
1. Tem uma garota na minha classe que conversa muito. O nome dela e
Jimena. O problema com ela e que, como fala tanto, ela nunca me deixa pre-
star atencao. Entao, trato de ir a biblioteca em horarios nao muito comuns
para nao encontrar ela. Mesmo assim, as vezes nao dou sorte e na semana
passada . . .
20. This was true across all three tests, with the only exception of contexts show-
ing non-accidental generalizations presented in the rst sentence-conjunction
test.
21. Not only are all three types of tests focused on assessing the same type of
knowledge (cf. the grammatical marking of iterated eventualities), but they
also use variations of the same linguistic triggers. In particular, most contexts
are represented with variations of the use of the adverbial sempre (always)
with a limited number of time frames (last year, last week, etc.).
Operationalizing hypotheses 205
Theres a girl in my class who talks a lot. Her name is Jimena. The problem
with her is, as she talks so much, she never lets me pay attention. Therefore, I
try to go to the library during unusual times so I dont see her. Even so,
sometimes I dont have luck and last week . . .
a. empre que eu ia a biblioteca, eu encontrava com ela.
every time I went-IMP to the library, I saw-IMP her.
b. sempre que eu fui a biblioteca, eu encontrei com ela.
every time I went-PRET to the library, I ended up seeing-PRET her.
2. Lorenzo ama produtos lacteos. De fato, ele os cosome todos os dias. Ele
gosta desde o queijo camembert ate o iogurte sem sabor. No ano passado ele
cou na minha casa para uma visita e . . .
Lorenzo loves dairy products. In fact, he has them every day. He likes
everything from camembert cheese to unavored yogurt. Last year he stayed
in my house while visiting and . . .
a. sempre que eu servia pao, ele pedia queijo.
every time I served-IMP bread, he asked for-IMP cheese.
b. sempre que eu servi pao, ele pediu queijo.
every time I served-PRET bread, he asked-PRET for cheese.
22. Rothman and Iverson (2008: 297) underline that this is exactly what Menendez-
Benito claims. However, as discussed above, these data can also be reanalyzed
from a dierent theoretical perspective, in which case the data are not easily
accounted for as stated above.
206 M. Rafael Salaberry
Indeed, the context that precedes the target sentences provides linguistic
cues that may generate unintended artifacts. That is, options (a) and (b) in
the text prompts (1) and (2) above are dierentiated according to factors
other than the intended independent and dependent variables. In particu-
lar, I note two linguistic contrasts that may lead to inconsistent results: (a)
the type of adverbial, and (b) the recency of the time period. First, the use
of the adverbial sempre (always) is not as conducive to triggering the
notion of iterativity, as the use of the adverbial cada vez (each time)
would be. In fact, Menendez-Benito (2002: 374) explicitly makes this point
when she argues that the use of cada vez in sentence (23b) below sounds
more natural than sentence (23a) in which sempre replaces cada vez.
Menendez-Benito argues further that the adverbial cada vez in sentence
(23b) puts emphasis on the accidental character of perfective sentences.
(23) a. En la clase de ayer, siempre que un chico hizo una pregunta,
una chica le dio la respuesta.
In yesterdays class, whenever a boy asked (PRET) a question,
a girl gave (PRET) him the answer.
b. En la clase de ayer, cada vez que un chico hizo una pregunta,
una chica le dio la respuesta.
In yesterdays class, every time a boy asked (PRET) a question,
a girl gave (PRET) him the answer.
Second, the contexts that accompany the sentences that are expected to
be marked with the imperfect (non-accidental) consistently use adverbial
phrases rmly placed in a more remote past tense than is the case for the
ones that are expected to be marked with the preterite (accidental): no ano
passado (last year) versus na semana pasada (last week) respectively.
For instance, notice that in the following pairs of sentences, the selection
of the more remote past tense period in (24) favors the use of the Imperfect
in (24a). In contrast, the use of a more recent time period in (25) favors the
use of the preterite (25b).
(24) a. Cuando Julian era estudiante universitario, cada vez que le
preguntaban saba la respuesta.
When Julian was a university student, each time they asked
(IMP) him a question, he knew (IMP) the response.
b. ?*Cuando Julian era estudiante universitario, cada vez que le
preguntaron supo la respuesta.
When Julian was a university student, each time they asked
(PRET) him a question, he knew (PRET) the response.
Operationalizing hypotheses 207
5. Discussion
the analysis of the role of theoretical frameworks and the empirical imple-
mentation of the tenets of such theoretical models through research design
(e.g., the design of linguistic prompts) for the purpose of understanding
the process of theorization about the acquisition of aspectual knowledge.
The focus of this section is restricted to the analysis of three theoretical
conclusions that one may, arguably, draw from the previous analysis of se-
lected theoretical and empirical studies. First, the representation of aspec-
tual knowledge is distributed across several layers of information spanning
a broad discursive continuum. Second, among the most immediate layers
of meaning that have an eect on aspectual composition, the eect of
some frequently used adverbials (e.g., durante, during/for, siempre, always)
seems to be among the strongest and most obvious ones. Third, there
seems to be some default selections of morphological markings in associa-
tion with adverbial phrases to mark iterativity and habituality.
Against this theoretical claim, however, the empirical data show that native
speakers, as a group, seem to have distinct responses that dier from the
ones that non-native speakers select as a group (or various groups depend-
ing on prociency). Clearly, there is some type of knowledge that con-
sistently underlies the decisions that each population of speakers makes.
Ultimately, this knowledge is systematic, and that systematicity requires
some type of representation in the overall grammatical system of both
native and non-native speakers.
5.2. Constructions
As mentioned above, among the layers of meaning that have an eect on
aspectual composition, some frequently used adverbials seem to be strong
predictors of aspectual selection. For instance, in the following variation
of the sentence reviewed above, the durational adverbial (durante dos
anos, during two years) triggers the use of the perfective.
Michaelis (2004: 7) argues that the adverbial in (28) coerces the basic
meaning of one time event associated with the use of the Preterite, shift-
ing it to several, many instantiations of the event. Thus, Michaelis states
that [c]oercion eects, rather than representing a special form of com-
position are by-products of the ordinary signications of constructions.
As a consequence, constructions can alter what words (and their syntac-
tic projections) designate (30). That is, the specic meanings of lexical
items (from the verbal predicate to the adverbial adjunct) cannot over-
come the combination of meanings of all lexical units above and beyond
each one of those meanings separately (cf. the construction). More spe-
cically, Michaelis proposes the Override Principle: If a lexical item is
semantically incompatible with its syntactic context, the meaning of the
lexical item conforms to the meaning of the structure in which it is
Operationalizing hypotheses 211
embedded (25). Thus, aspectual encoding is, by its very nature, an ad hoc
categorization of aspectual meanings.23
It is important to note that, within Michaelis model of constructions,
the eect of adjuncts (adverbials) on the aspectual interpretation of even-
tualities is not to be regarded as pragmatic, but rather as part of the gram-
matical representation of the language. That is, coerced meanings will
never contain anything that the rule of morphosyntactic combination does
not (30). In line with Michaelis proposal about constructions, we have
seen that Menendez-Benito (2002) shows that Spanish perfective and imper-
fective behave dierently with respect to generic adverbs (e.g., normalmente
normally, tpicamente typically) and durational phrases (e.g., durante dos
anos for two years). For instance, as argued by Menendez-Benito, generic
adverbs are more likely to combine with the imperfective, but not with the
perfective:
(29) a. ?El ano pasado, Lucas normalmente fue al cine.24
Last year, Lucas normally went (PRET) to the movie theater.
b. El ano pasado, Lucas normalmente iba al cine.
Last year, Lucas normally went (IMP) to the movie theater.
Note, however, that given the right contextualization, generic adverbs are
actually quite felicitous with the use of the perfective form in Spanish, as
shown in (29c).
(29) c. El ano pasado, Lucas normalmente fue al cine de la calle
Montevideo.
Last year, Lucas normally went (PRET) to the movie theater
of Montevideo Street.
A second problem with the argument about the incompatibility of the use
of generic adverbials with the Preterite is that not all generic adverbials
are the same. Some of these adverbials, such as normalmente normally,
23. For reasons of space, I will not discuss any specic type of constructions.
Michaelis discusses in detail constructions with frame adverbials and fre-
quency adverbials.
24. Although Menendez-Benito qualies sentences like (29a) as ungrammatical
with an asterisk, it is probably more accurate to use a question mark to signal
the apparent preference for the use of the Imperfect. That is, we cannot neces-
sarily reject the possible use of the version with the Preterite.
212 M. Rafael Salaberry
The above discussion about the problems with the variability of aspec-
tual meanings brought about by the use of adverbials that are supposed to
convey a consistent interpretation (i.e., generic adverbials are incom-
patible with the Preterite) leads us to the analysis of correlated problems
with the design of linguistic prompts in acquisition studies. One such prob-
lem is the possible inuence of the selection of one particular adverbial as
opposed to another one. For instance, Menendez-Benito notes that the
adverbial sempre (always) is likely to trigger the use of the imperfective
(non-accidental or habitual depending on the chosen theoretical frame-
work of reference), whereas the use of the adverbial cada vez que (each
Operationalizing hypotheses 213
25. I should note, however, that these are tendencies, and thus, it is possible that
these selections are somewhat interchangeable.
214 M. Rafael Salaberry
26. The analysis of the (mis)use of the Preterite can be done along similar lines:
the Preterite, as a basic tense marker that conveys that specic instances of
reading happened in the past (cf. Doiz-Bienzobas 1995, 2002) is now incom-
patible with a mostly homogeneous, non-quantized event (cf. Michaelis 2004).
Operationalizing hypotheses 215
In sum, we can argue that there are some invariant aspectual mean-
ings (Salaberry 2008) associated with the Spanish Preterite and Imperfect
that may trigger incompatibilities with constructions that would other-
wise convey consistent meanings. The Imperfect has a strong and invariant
meaning associated with the discursive function of backgrounding narrative
information. Thus, it may clash with the use of constructions that do not
allow to convey the notion of background information. Similarly, the
Preterite has a strong and invariant meaning associated with the function
of conveying episodic narrative information. Thus, its default meaning
may clash with the use of constructions that trigger habitual meanings as
opposed to iterative meanings.
6. Conclusion
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1999 The prominence of tense, aspect and mood. Amsterdam/Philadel-
phia: John Benjamins.
Binnick, Robert
1991 Time and the verb. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bonomi, Andrea
1997 Aspect, quantication and when-clauses in Italian. Linguistics
and Philosophy 17. 57108.
Brisard, Franc
2010 Aspects of virtuality in the meaning of the French imparfait.
Linguistics 48(2). 487524.
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1976 Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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1987 Competence dierences between native and near-native speakers.
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de Swart, Henriette
1998 Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic
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1995 On the necessity of distinguishing between (un)boundedness and
(a)telicity. Linguistics and Philosophy 18. 119.
Doiz-Bienzobas, Aintzane
1995 The preterite and the imperfect in Spanish: Past situation versus
past viewpoint. San Diego, CA: University of California-San
Diego, Ph.D. dissertation.
Doiz-Bienzobas, Aintzane
2002 The preterite and the imperfect as grounding predications. In
F. Brisard (Ed.), Grounding: The epistemic footing of deixis and
reference, 299347. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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1999 Aspect, eventuality types and nominal reference. New York:
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1988 The value of contrast: Contrasting the value of strategies. IRAL
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1947 The problem of counterfactual conditionals. Journal of Philosophy
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2008 Adverbial quantication and perfective/imperfective interpretive
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2000 Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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2009 Investigations in Cognitive Grammar. Berlin/New York: Mouton
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2000 Aspects, adverbs and events: Habituality versus perfectivity. In
J. Higginbotham, F. Pianesi & A. Varzi (Eds.), Speaking of
events, 245287. New York: Oxford University Press.
Menendez-Benito, Paula
2002 Aspect and adverbial quantication in Spanish. Paper presented at
the Proceedings of the 32nd North Eastern Linguistics Society,
Amherst, MA.
Michaelis, Laura
2004 Type shifting in Construction Grammar: An integrated approach
to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 15. 167.
Perez-Leroux, Ana, Alejandro Cuza, Monika Majzlanova & Jeanette Sanchez
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2007 Non-native recognition of the iterative and habitual meanings of
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2008 Beyond morphological use: What semantic knowledge tells us
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1999 The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom
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2003 Tense aspect in verbal morphology. Hispania 3(86). 559573.
218 M. Rafael Salaberry
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Chapter 7
Research design: From text to task
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
1. Introduction
In the study of second language (L2) tense and aspect as in other areas
of research the best task is the task that best addresses the research ques-
tion. In the absence of a specic research question, it is dicult to weigh
the costs and benets of particular approaches because the costs that a
researcher is willing to incur depend heavily on what benets are to be
gained in the context of a given problem. Nevertheless, in the spirit of
addressing the most general question of how we study development in L2
tense-aspect systems, this chapter discusses the use of open-ended tasks.
Open-ended tasks are designed to encourage learners and native speakers
to produce the kind of language that they produce naturally, that is, to tell
stories and recount events, to describe and to argue, to predict and hypoth-
esize, and to have conversations. Compared to other elicitation tasks, re-
searchers exert only a light touch on language production, guiding learners
subtly to the construction of texts. Because dierent types of texts have
dierent tense-aspect proles, understanding the dierence among text types
and what they can contribute to tense-aspect research is a necessary rst
step to determining method. To that end, this chapter is organized by
types of spoken and written discourse.
Open-ended tasks can be contrasted with controlled production tasks
such as cloze passages and other tasks (see Bardovi-Harlig 2000, for a
discussion of the range of tasks used in tense-aspect research). As in other
areas of investigation in second language acquisition (SLA) research, the
study of communicative language may need to be supplemented by planned
elicitation to assure the balance and contrast of verb types, tenses, gram-
matical aspect, lexical aspect, and adverbials (to name a few linguistic
devices used in the expression of temporality; see Bardovi-Harlig 2000,
2005 for a discussion of the distribution of aspectual categories in dierent
types of texts and tasks). After reviewing general considerations in SLA
research that favor the selection of communicative production (Section
220 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
1.1), task characteristics (1.2), and talk and text (1.3), this chapter considers
conversations as dyadic discourse (Section 2) and extended monologic dis-
course. Narratives are discussed in Section 3 and nonnarratives in Section
4. Nonnarrative texts are further divided into description, argument, and
hypothetical or future-oriented texts. Each section ends with specic elici-
tation tasks that have been used successfully in the literature.
Table 1. Usage patterns across speaker turns and likely knowledge sources
Usage pattern across speaker turns Interpretation
The learner uses the target tense-aspect The learner demonstrates the tense-
form independently (no use by the aspect form-meaning association
interviewer, no prompting)
The learner uses the target tense-aspect The learner knows the tense-aspect
form after the interviewer or a prompt form and usage well enough to accom-
modate, but does not demonstrate
independent use.
The learner does not use the target Learner demonstrates comprehension
tense-aspect form in an environment and in some cases co-occurrence
which the interviewer creates, but restrictions
instead uses the appropriate adverbials
in a short answer
The learner does not use the target Two interpretations are possible: the
tense-aspect form in an environment learner under-uses the tense-aspect
which the interviewer creates, but uses form or the interlocutor has set up a
an alternative verb form time-frame that the learner overrides
The learner does not use the targeted The learner demonstrates lack of
tense-aspect form in an environment comprehension of the form-meaning
which the interviewer creates and correspondence
furthermore indicates noncomprehen-
sion of the form.
or when their responses were very short. She also noted that this standard
interview procedure was also used with native speakers. Bardovi-Harlig
(1997b) explored the relation of interlocutor turns to learner production
in conversational interviews. Learner production of a tense-aspect form
can be evaluated vis-a-vis interlocutor turns in at least ve ways (Table 1):
independent production by the learner (Examples 23), repetition (Exam-
ples 45), use of relevant adverbials (Example 6), use of an alternative
form (Example 7), and nonuse with noncomprehension (Example 8). Ex-
amples (46) and (8) are from Bardovi-Harlig (1997b).
(4) Repetition [SA, L1 Arabic]
L: Its uh, I think small city.
I: From what I hear. // // I mean I dont, Ive never been.
L: //Yeah.//
L: Me too. Ive never been there.
226 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
3. The ve domains are not exhaustive; conversation and procedural texts are
excluded (Smith 2005: 223237).
230 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
even the youngest children, the 910 year old grade-schoolers, make a clear
distinction between the two types of texts [narrative and expository] in con-
tent and linguistic means of expressions. . . . But the mastery of expository
text production in the sense of a coherent set of core propositions, express-
ing key ideas elaborated by relevant illustrative and motivational material
is not manifested until much later, usually only in high school.4
These considerations contribute to the fact that narratives are the more fre-
quently studied type of extended monologic text in tense-aspect research.
forward (Dry 1981, 1983). The temporal point of reference of any one event
in the foreground is understood as following that of the event preceding
it. So important is the concept of sequentiality that foreground clauses may
be dened by the interpretation of their order: if a change in the order of
the two clauses results in a change in the interpretation of what actually
happened, then those two clauses are narrative [i.e., foreground] clauses
(Schirin 1981: 47; see also Labov 1972; Labov and Waletzky 1967; Fleisch-
man 1985; Hopper and Thompson 1980; Reinhart 1984; von Stutterheim
1991) Narrative foreground will carry perfective past.6 Narrative excerpts
(10) and (11) show a sequence of events reported as foreground in narra-
tives by learners of English as a second language (Bardovi-Harlig 1995).
The numbers in the square brackets represent the order of the foregrounded
events. (Learner spelling in written narratives has been preserved.)7
(10) Oral Modern Times narrative excerpt (L1 Japanese)
Foreground Background
[1] Then she, stole the bread.
[2] And the- she ran away
[3] and she . . . hit the Chaplin . . .
I: Mm-hm. S: . . . and uh, dierent woman
saw the, she stole the, uh,
[4] . . . and uh, and cried, bread . . .
[5] and chased her, I: Mm-hm.
[6] and the employer caught her,
[7] and, but Chaplin said,
I did it, you know, I . . . stole . . . the breads.
Foreground Background
[1] she stol abread
[2] and they cutch her
[3] she met charlie the nice man who was trying to helpe her
[4] when he said
she didnt sleel the bread I did that
Foreground Background
Orientation And then, in another situation, in
another place, there is a old lady that
is really hungry is starving- She is
starving. She is starving and so a- a
business of bread, loaf of bread, [. . .]
[. . .] to support it.
Foreground [1] And she decided to
hope to take out the
the loaf of bread.
Evaluation And although this was a wrong thing.
Text to task 233
Foreground Background
Orientation This movie talk about
the man and the women.
One day the women was
too hungre,
Action [1] so she stole a big piece of bread
[2] but when she was ranning
[3] she hit the man
Identication who is Charlie Chaplin.
Although the man
Identication who is a Baker
[4] he said to the policeman that
there is women who stole his bread,
[5] so the policman go after the women.
63 I: whew
64 S: and ((laugh)) too much too much just . . .
65 I: ((laugh)). Yeah you do have to be careful in, you
66 cant spend all your time in your
67 S: yeah ((laugh))
68 I: car and then, no time in your books.
The learner is obviously comfortable speaking, and the learner and inter-
viewer have developed a rapport during his time in the English program.
The learner nominates topics and requires very little prompting from his
interlocutor. The conversation, and the narratives that occur in it, is a rea-
sonable length to provide a usable language sample.
interlocutor. Thus as writers, learners must fully specify the scene, includ-
ing temporal reference; this is seem in the way in which YJ and HK set the
scene when telling about their respective trips in their journals.
may have a sense of not taking too long to tell a story.) On the other
hand, conversational motivation for telling a story is removed, and a new
one has to be invented and conveyed in the course of the data elicitation.
Sucient rapport has to be established for the potential narrator to want
to tell the narrative. In some cases, L2 data collection benets from learners
wanting to say as much as possible in the second language and being able
to do so without fear of losing their turn at talk.
Although most of the personal narratives collected in L2 tense-aspect
research have been oral, written narratives are valuable as well. Written
narratives are more likely to be planned than oral narratives, but time
constraints on the writing tasks can limit the amount of explicit knowledge
brought to bear on narrative production. Writing may also reduce anxiety
concerning oral skills and mediate nontargetlike pronunciation. Written
and oral narratives may often be elicited by the same techniques.
Questions asked of learners should be formulated with some sensitivity
to what they might be willing to talk about. Not everyone wants to tell a
stranger about their most embarrassing moment, for example. If it was
embarrassing in the rst place, it will be embarrassing in the retelling.
Topics should be chosen carefully with an eye toward what students are
likely to have experienced. For example, Jourdenais (1998) asked students
about their initial experiences during their rst job, during their rst few
days of college, and as they began to learn Spanish. Choosing topics care-
fully is even more important when learners and researchers have no rela-
tionship beyond the single elicitation event.
One way around the issue of determining the topic of a personal narra-
tive (so much of a persons life may not be the business of a researcher,
after all) is to avoid a specic selection, and instead to let the learner
choose from a short list of topics. The use of emotion cards (rst used by
Collier, Kuiken, and Enzle 1982, and Davitz 1969) were introduced to
L2 research by Rintell (1989) to elicit language expressing emotion and
adopted for tense-mood-aspect elicitation by Salsbury (2000) and Comajoan
(2001). Following Rintell, learners are presented with a set of emotion cards,
with one emotion written on each card (e.g., happy, sad, angry) and asked
to select an emotion that they are willing to talk about. They are then
prompted to tell about a time that you felt sad. The advantage is that
the stimulus is very minimal and that the emotion is selected by the
learner. This lessens the comparability somewhat in that learners do not
all respond to the same prompt, but they may ultimately produce longer
narratives because they chose the topic. Salsbury used longer prompts as
242 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
The use of still pictures to elicit narrative has to be done with some care
to have the learners rst read the pictures, after which the researcher
removes the pictures and the learners tell the story. This increases the
focus on the action. Learners have a tendency to describe a picture that is
in front of them. This can be turned into an advantage for the elicitation
of descriptions discussed later.
9. Smiths (2003) analysis is a bit dierent. For Smith, descriptions are located in
time, but static. Movement of time would trigger a side sequence.
10. An examination of learner texts crosslinguistically is beyond the scope of this
chapter.
250 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
4.1. Description
Smith (2003: 20) characterizes descriptions as being located in time (which
is static) focusing on specic objects, people, mental states, and ongoing
events. Descriptions may be oral or written and may occur as part of the
background of a narrative as in (1) and (12) or an independent text as in
(22) and (23).
Independent descriptive texts have the potential of being longer than
descriptions found in narrative background (in learner texts) and may be
more fully developed (the dierence in oral-written modes may be a con-
found here). In Excerpt (22) from an essay describing the qualities of a
good leader (Ewert 2006: 198), the use of present and modal can maintain
the time frame. Original learner spelling is maintained.
(22) Description essay (Ewert 2006: 198) (In the excerpts that follow,
means paragraph.)
I think
karizma [charisma] is one of the most important quality in being a
leader.
Secondly, I think
that the good leader can persuade other people who against their
bill or idea.
Without any violence, the leader can change the opposive sides
thinking.
By speech, Lincon or Washinton can move the public.
This ability is the necessity of good leader.
which can persuade other people
(23) Description essay with narrative side structure (Ewert 2008: 20)
First, they have the constant will or passion.
In their life time, they were attacked so many times,
but no one can defeat them,
Because they attracted the people,
so the people was alway their side.
Nelson Mandela was arrested
Text to task 251
4.2. Argument
Arguments put forward a claim, comment, or position and support it in
some way. Smith (2003) describes arguments as atemporal. Arguments
are a typical academic text type and unlike the other text types considered
in this chapter are primarily written, although the arguing of positions can
also be found in conversation, and formal oral debate. Ewert (2006, 2008)
elicited written texts and compared arguments to description and narra-
Text to task 253
tive. So far, the use of arguments has only been minimally exploited in L2
tense-aspect research.
Example (24) shows an excerpt from an argument essay that takes the
stand that technology enhances the quality of education.
The use of argument in L2 tense-aspect research has not yet been fully
exploited. The use of argument prompts are well developed in the teaching
of composition and oral debate, and can be utilized in L2 tense-aspect
research with additional piloting and adjustment for specic purposes.
Ewert (2006) used a prompt related to technology and education, a topic
of relevance to her subject population: ArgumentTechnology and the
Quality of Education: Discuss your opinion on how technology (calcu-
lators, computers, television, video, etc.) aects the quality of education.
Use specic details and examples to support your ideas.
In a crosslinguistic study of the development of text production of L1
speakers from 4th grade (910 years old) to University graduate students
(2030 years old), Berman and Verhoeven (2002) collected oral and written
texts about problems between people. Subjects viewed a three-minute lm
depicting short unrelated scenes about social, moral, and physical conict
at school. No scene presented a resolution and no scene was related to the
other to make sure that the lm did not predispose the viewers to narra-
tive. The subjects were asked to give a talk in class and to write a com-
position about problems between people. They were further instructed
not to tell a story.
11. Once future is introduced in any discussion of tense-aspect, the gate to modality
is open. Due to length restrictions, this chapter does not review data collection
in studies of L2 modality. The reader is referred to Giacalone Ramat and
Crocco Galeas (1995), Salsbury (2000), and von Stutterheim (1993).
Text to task 255
1982). In fact, Dahls crosslinguistic survey shows that the most typical
uses of future involve actions that are planned by the agent of the sentence
(1985: 105), whereas cases of pure prediction are less frequent. The prac-
tical outcome of this observation is that most future texts will be rst
person. The tendency to rst person in future-oriented texts or passages
can be seen in Example (26) produced in response to a writing prompt
asking learners to consider life ve years from the time of writing (which
was in 1990, hence the references to 1995).
(26) Five Years from Now
a. Five years from now, I will be twenty eight years old at 1995.
It is very dicult for me to guess what I will be doing. . . .
(HK, Written, L1 Japanese)
b. I hope in 1995 I will graguet [graduate] from university in
seecced [and succeed] if I did it I will work in the caverman
[government] in my cantery [country] and I want to make a
privet pesness [private business] . . . (MA, Written, L1 Arabic)
Future and hypothetical texts are not only written. In Example (27) the
learner was asked by the interviewer to describe a fantasy (dened by the
interviewer as something that could probably never happen; Salsbury
2000).
(27) As you know, the computer will be like, like ten years the future,
will be most things in your life . . . so many the computer will solve
will solve a lot of problems, like maybe the computer will gonna,
like help them how to see the, like farthest place in the universe,
they found life or something, maybe he can like, imagine, like,
maybe they can bring something from other planet computer can,
like translate it or imagine it.
(28) Irrealis passage from Modern Times
[16] and imagined a future of them
Chaplin is the womans husbund. It is deal. There are many food in
their home. They look like very happy.
[17] but the polise man came
An irrealis passage may also appear in other text types including narra-
tives. Modern Times contains a day-dream sequence introduced by the
title Can you imagine us in a little home like that? which encourages
narrators in the construction of irrealis text. Learners use bounding state-
256 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
ments as in (28), Imagined the future of them and the polise man
came and in between set up the irrealis passage morphologically by using
present, thus distinguishing it from the foreground of the narrative which
occurred in past (Bardovi-Harlig 1995).
either very young learners or adults with low literacy skills; on the other
hand, these same texts are common in academic writing and can be easily
elicited in instructional settings.
5. Concluding remarks
References
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268 Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
Yasuhiro Shirai
1. Introduction
This chapter discusses issues surrounding the use of lexical aspect categories
in research on tense-aspect markers, mainly in second language acquisition
(SLA). I will rst discuss the issue concerning the optimal number of lexical
aspect categories to be distinguished, and the issues surrounding the dis-
crepancies of lexical aspect categories across languages. Then, I will present
the details of a classication procedure to provide a better sense of how
verb classications are conducted and the issues involved in classifying
problematic cases.
Since the 1970s, research on the relationship between tense-aspect markers
and characteristics of verb semantics in rst language acquisition has un-
covered an important correlation now known as the Aspect Hypothesis
(e.g., Andersen and Shirai 1994). Early studies such as the ones conducted
by Antinucci and Miller (1976), Stephany (1981), Aksu-Koc (1988), and
Bloom, Lifter and Haz (1980) used dierent methods to determine the
relevant verb semantic categories, and thus there were issues of replicability.
Weist et al. (1984) was the rst study to systematically use operational
tests based on Vendlers (1957) verb classication. Since then, many re-
searchers investigating the relationship between tense-aspect marking and
temporal semantics of verbs both in L1 and L2 acquisition have used
linguistic tests systematically so that studies can be comparable and repli-
cable. Yet, there are still discrepancies that need to be addressed to reach
even higher levels of systematicity.
Vendlers (1957) model of lexical aspect, which has been the most inuen-
tial both in linguistics and acquisition research, consists of four classes:
States, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. States (e.g., love)
describe a situation that is viewed as continuing to exist unless some out-
side situation makes it change. Activities (e.g., run) describe a dynamic
272 Yasuhiro Shirai
and durative situation that has an arbitrary endpoint, i.e., it can be termi-
nated at any time. In contrast, accomplishments (e.g., make a chair)
describe a situation that is dynamic and durative, but has a natural end-
point after which the particular action cannot continue (i.e., they are telic).
Finally, achievements describe an instantaneous and punctual situation;
that is, it can be reduced to a point on a time axis (e.g., die). States are
[dynamic], [telic], [punctual]; activities are [dynamic], [telic],
[punctual]; accomplishments are [dynamic], [telic], [punctual];
achievements are [dynamic], [telic], [punctual]. The following is a
graphic representation of these four categories.
State ______________ love, know, belong, think that . . .
Activity PPPPPPPPPPP run, walk, swim, think about . . .
Accomplishment PPPPPPPPPPP x paint a picture, make a chair,
walk to school
Achievement x fall, drop, win the race, die
Although Vendlers model is often taken as the standard, there are
other variations of lexical aspect categories in linguistic analysis. For
instance, Smith (1991, see also 1997) proposed a 5-way classication add-
ing another category: semelfactive, which is punctual but not telic (e.g.,
jump, knock). Verkuyl (1989), in turn, argued that the distinction between
achievements and accomplishments is not necessary. Furthermore, even if
dierent researchers use the same four-way distinction, they dier with
respect to how the four categories are operationalized; that is, they dier
in terms of the identicatory criteria used. For example, some researchers
take punctuality as a dening feature to distinguish accomplishments from
achievements (Smith 1991), whereas others (Van Valin 1993) do not (see
Shirai 1996).1
Why are there so many dierent proposals? We should remember that
verbal semantics (or language itself for that matter) is not such an entity
that can be classied into one, two, or three discrete categories by a small
1. Shirai (1996) pointed out that there are two approaches to lexical aspect, one
relying on temporal features (especially duration) which he called the temporal
approach, represented by Smith (1991), and one relying on logical structure
(e.g., VanValin 1993), which he called the decompositional approach. They
dier greatly in how they classify achievements and accomplishments. Essen-
tially, the latter position treats causative verbs as accomplishments regardless
of duration, and therefore walk the dog (activity in the temporal approach)
and throw the hat on the table (achievement in the temporal approach) are
accomplishments.
Lexical aspect 273
set of linguistic tests. It is well known that linguistic tests which are sup-
posed to give the same distinction (such as stative versus dynamic), often
give dierent results when applied to the same predicate (Parsons 1989).
For example, the linguistic test often used to determine whether a verb is
stative or dyanamic is incompatibility with progressive marking. If a
verb cannot be progressivized, it is stative. This test yields that [live] is a
dynamic verb since one can say I am living in Tokyo. However, another
linguistic test for stativity, such as no habitual reading in simple present
tense, yields that it is a stative verb. If a verb is dynamic, simple present
tense yields habitual reading. (I run three miles means that this person runs
three miles habitually, say every day). Since one can say I live in Tokyo
without any repetition involved, this tests yields [live] is stative, which con-
tradicts the progressive test mentioned above.
To make matters more complex, we cannot assume one classication
system is optimal for all languages, although lexical aspect categories are
often considered to be universal categories rooted in basic ontological
conceptual distinctions. For example, Smith (1991) proposed a universal
system of aspectual phenomena applicable to her 5-way classication to
English, Russian, French, Chinese, and Navajo. She did, however, modify
her system of lexical aspect in accounting for the aspectual system of
Navajo. Given these observations, it is not easy to evaluate which classi-
cation system is best for linguistic analysis, and it is beyond the scope of
this chapter to do such an evaluation. In what follows, I will focus on the
evaluation of dierent categories/classications used for second language
acquisition research.
Roger Andersen was the rst to investigate the eect of Vendlerean
lexical aspect in second language acquisition of tense-aspect morphology
(e.g., Andersen 1986, 1989). Although he did not publish his linguistic
tests, he was using them in analyzing data, and discussed such tests exten-
sively in his seminars at UCLA, which inuenced his students works, in-
cluding Shirai (1991). Robison (1990), who was Andersens student, was the
rst to publish a study that used a classication system based on linguistic
tests in SLA. His study on naturalist acquisition of English as a second
language by an immigrant, which was inuenced by Bickertons (1981)
Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, was therefore slightly dierent from
the standard Vendlerean four-way classication. He focused on the state-
process and the punctual-nonpunctual distinctions proposed by Bickerton,
and therefore, he did not distinguish between activities and accomplish-
ment, that is, the telic-atelic distinction. Robison (1993, 1995) added punc-
tual activity (i.e., semelfactive) and punctual state (which generally consists
274 Yasuhiro Shirai
2. See Salaberry (2000: 3235) for his argument for collapsing two telic categories.
3. There are other studies that use the categories from Vendler, but not all such
studies report how linguistic tests are used. Wiberg (1996) and Collins et al.
(2009) used a 3-way, and Montrul (2002) used a 4-way classication but did
not report which tests were used to classify verbs. Rohde (1996) reported only
the tests for telic versus atelic distinction. Lopez-Ortega (2000) used a 4-way
categorization but she only stated that Robisons (1995) classication test was
used, which in fact was a 6-way classication, and therefore it is not very clear
how the verbs were classied into 4-way categories.
Lexical aspect 275
English
Robison (1990) state versus process; punctual versus non-punctual
Robison (1995) 6-way (4-way punctual activity, punctual state)
Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom (1996) 4-way
Bardovi-Harlig (1998) 4-way
Gavruseva (2002) 4-way
Ayoun & Salaberry (2008) 3-way (state, activity, telic)
French
Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom (1996) 4-way
Japanese
Shirai (1995) 4-way
Shirai & Kurono (1995)
Spanish
Salaberry (1999) 3-way (state, activity, telic)
Camps (2002) 4-way
Korean
Lee & Kim (2007) 4-way
Catalan
Comajoan (2006) 4-way
(1995) used a four-way classication, and they reported that about 10% of
both progressive and past markings were used with accomplishment verbs.
Therefore, it is likely that in Collins et al.s study too, both progressive
and past markers are attached to their prototype (i.e., activity verbs and
achievement verbs, respectively) around 60% of the time had they used
the four-way classication. In other words, the choice of three versus four
categories determined the outcome.
The choice of collapsing two telic categories (i.e., achievements and
accomplishments) is also inuenced by the target structure under investi-
gation. When the past or perfective category is the target, achievements
and accomplishments behave largely identically in terms of the meaning
they denote (change of state), whereas when they are used with imperfec-
tive aspect there is a substantial dierence in meaning between achievements
and accomplishments. For example, progressive aspect, which is dynamic
imperfective, generally yields action in progress meaning when it is used
with accomplishment verbs (e.g., He is making a chair). When the progres-
sive is attached to achievement verbs, however, it denotes the meaning
of preliminary stages of an event (Smith 1991), such as He is leaving or
He is reaching the summit. Thus, overall one would predict dierential
behavior between accomplishments and achievements. In the same vein,
when Japanese imperfective -teiru is attached to achievements it denotes
resultative state as in (1), whereas when it is used with accomplishments,
it denotes action in progress, as in (2).
When we talk about a Vendlerean category, it is often the case that its
universality is emphasized. This is understandable because the attraction
of Vendlerean categories is the observation that in almost all languages
being studied these lexical aspect categories show very similar properties
and that their interaction with grammatical aspect can predict the aspec-
tual meaning of sentences (Smith 1991; Shirai 2000). These categories are
thus considered covert grammatical categories, and sometimes even con-
sidered innate (Smith 1991). Given the importance ascribed to the universal
nature of lexical aspect categories, it is not surprising that crosslinguistic
variations have not gured prominently either in linguistic analysis or
acquisition. However, it has been acknowledged that dierent languages
lexicalize similar notions dierently (e.g., Rothstein 2004; Tatevosov 2002).
For instance, the verb to know in English is stative, whereas its counter-
part in Italian is an activity (Giacalone Ramat 1997). Japanese does not
have a verb that corresponds to the meaning of the verb to know in these
languages, but the equivalent notion of knowing something or someone is
denoted by combining achievement verb siru come to know with the
imperfective aspect marker -teiru (Li and Shirai 2000).
This crosslinguistic variation in lexical aspect may have an important
implication for the study of tense and aspect acquisition. Although the
study concerning the Aspect Hypothesis has generally emphasized the uni-
versality observed in tense-aspect acquisition, eects of learners L1 have
been observed. Although an increasing number of studies have begun to
look at the eect of learners L1, they are only concerned with the L1
eect at the level of grammatical tense-aspect, and how it interacts with
lexical aspect (e.g., Rocca 2002; Collins 2002, 2004; Sugaya and Shirai
2007; Izquierdo and Collins 2008; Gabriele 2009; Gabriele and McClure
2011) without regard to the discrepancy at the level of lexical aspect.
Shirai and Nishi (2002) pointed out the possibility of the discrepancy at
the level of L1 and L2 lexical aspect having an inuence on the learners
form-meaning mapping. Nishi and Shirai (2007) tested this possibility by
investigating L1 English learners of Japanese, and found that when the
lexical aspect diers in the learners L1 and the target language, L2 learners
have diculty at the lower prociency level, indicating that initial form-
meaning association in aspect acquisition is constrained by L1 transfer.
More specically, students had signicantly lower scores in acceptability
judgment tests on the sentences involving imperfective -teiru with verbs
that are stative in English but achievement in Japanese (e.g., to know), com-
pared with verbs for which both languages have the same lexical aspect
(e.g., to fall ).
The L1-L2 discrepancy in lexical aspect has been discussed from meth-
odological perspectives as well. Lardiere (2003) pointed out that learners
L2 production of a particular verb may not be what researchers believe it
to be. When the learners L1 has a dierent lexical aspect than the target
language, even if the researcher classied a particular verb produced
according to linguistic tests, there is no guarantee that the learner is using
it with the same lexical aspectual value, in particular when the L1 and the
L2 have dierent lexical aspectual representations.5
Most of the L1s have corresponding past or perfective marking, for which
the prototype is telic and punctual (cf. Dahl 1985), which may transfer to
L2 learning of past or perfective marking. This may facilitate early acquisi-
tion of past tense with telic verbs. Likewise, acquisition of progressive mark-
ing with activities may be facilitated because in most languages, progressive
marking marks action in progress that is obtained when imperfective aspect
marking is combined with activity verbs, but other meanings (such as habitual,
futurate) are not always present (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994).
and thus they treat Spanish Preterite as if it were an English past tense
marker. In naturalistic settings, in turn, this past tense marker can be
more freely applied to atelic verbs and given that learners are more expe-
rienced with the target language, they begin to create semantic proto-
types.6 A recent study by Martelle (2010, 2011) on Russian as a foreign
language shows that learners treat the imperfective past tense form as
a marker of default past. This may plausibly be due to the fact that in
Russian the imperfective is morphologically unmarked and it is also
taught rst, thus learners may associate it with English simple past tense
marking.
The eect of the L1 is not always apparent because when L1 semantics
is a subset of L2 semantics, it does not result in errors. It may, however,
covertly inuence the learners form-meaning mapping. Only through
careful comparison of L1-L2 mappings in lexical aspect, grammatical
aspect (and tense), and the interaction between the two can we notice subtle
L1 eects. In sum, the crosslinguistic discrepancy of lexical aspect (Shirai
and Nishi 2002; Lardiere 2003) is an area that calls for more attention
and further research.
Although many studies (see Table 1 above) report operational tests for
classifying verb tokens into lexical aspect classes, it is rare that they discuss
the detailed procedures to generate those classications. However, as those
who have tried actual coding of verbs know well, even if one uses linguistic
tests, there are many cases in which it is not easy to make coding decisions.
This is not surprising because linguistic semantics cannot be neatly classi-
ed into distinct categories given that linguistic categories have prototype
structures (e.g., Lako 1986), and because it is not easy to determine the
exact reference that speakers, especially L2 learners, have in mind.
6. Not just learning environment, but task type may also inuence the adherence
to the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis (AH). The use of naturalistic tasks
(such as open ended conversation) give results that are more consistent with
the AH, whereas data prompted with the use of elicited narrative are less con-
sistent with the AH (Bonilla, in press).
Lexical aspect 281
9. I am aware that the distinction between the two can be murky. See Salaberry
(2008: 8185) for further discussion.
Lexical aspect 283
below). Finally, the third stage of the classication process requires that
we remove grammatical aspect/tense from the sentence, and then apply
the following operational tests (outlined in Steps 1 to 3) to determine its
lexical aspect.10
Operational tests for lexical aspect (Each test is used only in the clauses
remaining after the preceding test):
Step 1: State or non-state? Does it have a habitual interpretation in simple
present tense?
If no ! State (e.g., I love you.)
If yes ! Non-state (e.g., I eat bread.) ! Go to Step 2
Step 2: Activity or non-activity? Does X is Ving entail X has Ved
without an iterative/habitual meaning? In other words, if you stop in the
middle of Ving, have you done the act of V?
If yes ! Activity (e.g., run)
If no ! Non-activity (e.g., run a mile) ! Go to Step 3
Step 3: Accomplishment or achievement? If test (a) does not work, apply
test (b), and possibly (c).
a) If X Ved in (Y time; e.g., 10 minutes), then X was Ving during
that time.
If yes ! Accomplishment (e.g., He painted a picture)
If no ! Achievement (e.g., He noticed the picture)
It needs to be noted that it is possible to say X was Ving even right
after X began the action that led to the goal.
10. What needs to be coded is lexical aspect, not lexical aspect combined with
grammatical aspect. That is, morphology needs to be removed. Let us take
an obvious example from Japanese discussed above. In example (1), sin-deiru
be dead refers to a state of someone being dead, but that is not what needs to
be coded. What needs to be coded is sin(u) to die, i.e., the verb stem without
grammatical aspect markers, which is an achievement. Thus, in the context of
English, if the learner says hes walking to school we apply the tests (Steps
1,2, and 3) to the verb constellation [he walk to school].
284 Yasuhiro Shirai
11. This may be due to the fact that in our everyday life we do not make a gram-
maticality judgment, whereas we always have to interpret sentences.
286 Yasuhiro Shirai
If the speakers goal is just to assert the fact that Mary ran (yesterday), (4)
will suce. If he wants to add more dynamicity/vividness to the assertion,
he can choose to impose a viewpoint aspect (in this case, progressive), as
in (5).12 If he wants to additionally assert that Mary was in the process of
running a mile, he can choose (6). The speaker makes these choices instan-
taneously. The point here is that verbalization, if the utterance contains a
verb phrase, involves (at least) two aspectual choices: which words to use
(lexical aspect), and which verbal morphemes to use (viewpoint aspect). In
terms of lexical aspectual choice, (4) and (5) are the same (activity), while
in terms of viewpoint aspectual choice, (5) and (6) are the same (progres-
sive). The hearer, then, uses the utterance and contextual information
(both linguistic and extralinguistic information) to interpret the utterance.
This process, leading to the formulation of the utterance and its interpre-
tation, is schematically represented in Figure 2.
Given the above structure of the speakers aspectual choices and the
hearers interpretation, how are we to code sentences (4)(6)? What we
need to code is the lexical aspect that describes the real world situation.
Therefore, it is irrelevant that the situation being described is the same
for (4) to (6); what matters is the kind of aspectual choices made to
describe the situation. The choice made by the speaker as to what lexical
items should be used to describe the situation is important, and this is
what we need to code. We can use [Mary run] for (4) and (5) and [Mary
run a mile] for (6) as default values without grammatical aspect marking.
Then operational tests can be applied to these default values.
12. It is also possible to say that in (4) the speaker is choosing a viewpoint aspect,
which is the default (ran: simple non-progressive past).
Lexical aspect 287
13. Verkuyl (1989) used these examples to argue that the achievement versus accom-
plishment distinction is not useful. This is too static a view of lexical aspect.
He considers that it is not necessary to make a linguistic distinction between
walk a mile and walk a foot in view of the fact that each can be an achieve-
ment or an accomplishment depending on the actor (dwarf versus giant). In
my scheme, walk a mile changes its lexical aspectual value depending on the
actor because what is linguistically important is lexical aspect that describes a
situation.
288 Yasuhiro Shirai
14. One can also remove morphology from transcripts and just look at morphology
when it is necessary to disambiguate (Chapter 9; Comajoan 2001). I think this
is a reasonble approach as well. In any case, it is not easy to determine which
is a more serious threat to the study the danger of misinterpretation (by
removing morphology) or the bias in coding of lexical aspect (by keeping
morphology).
15. Talmy (1988: 183) points out that the time adverbial at exactly midday
(e.g., She climbed a ladder at exactly midday) involves a cognitive operation
of reduction whereas as we watched (e.g., She climbed a ladder as we
watched ) involves magnifying.
16. Of course, time adverbials were included in the interpretation of discourse. It
is just that they are not included in the verb constellations to be coded.
Lexical aspect 289
discourse. This, however, must be quite dierent for adult second lan-
guage acquisition, because L2 learners are known to establish temporal
reference using lexical information (Bardovi-Harlig 2000).
17. See also Talmys (1988: 176) notion of plexity. Uniplex corresponds to uni-
tary, and multiplex to repeated, though his notion encompasses nominal
categories too.
290 Yasuhiro Shirai
18. Comrie (1976: 27) stated that a situation can be referred to by a habitual
form without there being any iterativity [i.e., repeatedness in my terminology]
at all, citing examples such as Simon used to believe in ghosts. It should be
noted that all the examples he gave to support his point involve stative verbs.
This suggests that statives can be habitual without repetition. In my classica-
tion, however, I chose to regard states that last over an extended period of
time as unitary, because my focus is not on extendedness of a situation, but
on whether there is repetition or not.
19. Camps (2002), for example, classied multiple event activities as activities.
Lexical aspect 291
Come/go. Another major problem concerns the coding of the deictic verbs
come and go. If what is coded is the situation, come/go to X, it might as
well be coded as an accomplishment because there is duration between
leaving the starting point and reaching the goal of coming and going. But
again, what is being coded is lexical aspect; thus, it is necessary to go
through the accomplishment/achievement tests. Because tests (a) and (c)
do not work (He went to the beach in 10 minutes, as discussed above, is
not acceptable for many native speakers of English), we can only rely on
test (b).
Test (b): He almost went to the beach. This has only one reading: He
almost decided to go to the beach, but he did not after all. He almost went
to the beach cannot mean that he almost got to the beach. It appears that go/
come to the beach reduces the action of going to the beach to a single point
in time. Therefore, test b shows that go to the beach is an achievement.
I tried three additional tests often used as tests for durativity: stop
Ving, nish Ving, and studiously/attentively/carefully Ved, which are
not compatible with punctual verbs because these tests requires some
duration (Dowty 1979). For example, one cannot stop doing something
unless there is some duration in this particular action. All these tests,
therefore, should result in anomalies for an achievement, but not for an
accomplishment. In fact, come/go to the beach results in an anomaly in
all three of them. Therefore, they should be taken as achievements, at least
in terms of classication.21
21. These three additional tests were used only when a classication was dicult
after applying the three regular tests, and they were not used very frequently.
These tests were not included in the regular tests, because they are accept-
ability judgment tests. As additional means for classication, however, they
are useful.
296 Yasuhiro Shirai
22. Therefore, say used in such a sentences as What does it say? when refer-
ring to the instructions on a pamphlet for a toy, etc, is not treated as habitual,
as it does not actually say anything verbally. It is interpreted as indicate,
which is state.
Lexical aspect 297
know it!) except that it shows entry into an activity.23 Let us review the
following pairs of examples:
(11) a. He looked at the table.
b. He is looking at the table.
(12) a. He touched the wall.
b. He is touching the wall.
(13) a. He kissed the girl.
b. He is kissing the girl.
In all these pairs, the past form describes a punctual event, whereas the
progressive form expresses the activity or state that has arisen as a result
of the punctual event.24 It should also be pointed out that these pairs can
be conceptualized as iteration of punctual events (especially 12.b and
13.b), because if somebody is kissing somebody, it could be interpreted as
an iterative event (multiple kisses). This argument depends entirely on the
real world situation. For example:
(14) *MOT: Nomi-is touching the recorder.
(Naomi, 2;1)
This utterance, by the mother of Naomi in Sachs (1983) data, is coded as
an iterative of an achievement verb, not as an activity, because Nomi
(Naomis nickname) must have touched the recorder several times, in
dierent ways, out of curiosity. If Nomis hand is static on the tape
recorder, it should be coded as an activity in that it passes the test of an
activity (If you stop in the middle of touching, have you touched, without
iteration?). In the same vein, he touched the wall should be coded as activity,
unless there is no indication that he touched the wall time and again.25
Another problem for this class was pointed out by Talmy (1985) with
the following sentences (Talmys 39.a and 39.b):
(15) a. He hid in the attic for an hour.
b. He hid in the attic when the sheri arrived.
23. For a more theoretical discussion of this class of verbs, see Shirai (1998b) and
Onozuka (2008).
24. Actually, sentence (a) of each pair can be an activity, for example, if for X
time is attached. But by default, the interpretation should be that of a punc-
tual event of entry into the resulting activity.
25. The verbs that belong to this class include: hang, look (at), sit (down), stand
(up), touch, hold, lie (down), hurt, hug, point to, stand up, and kiss.
298 Yasuhiro Shirai
This example shows that a particular term [hide in the attic] can be used
eectively to describe situations with dierent aspectual values: an activity
in (15a) and an achievement in (15b). However, since time adverbials are
excluded from coding, and only he hid in the attic is applied to the opera-
tional test, the above examples are coded in the present schema both as
activities.
This appears to create a problem if we are coding real world situations
for the purpose of investigating how learners encode the mapping between
real world situations and grammatical tense/aspect morphology. How-
ever, what we are coding is lexical aspect. To examine the consequence of
the decision to code lexical aspect only at the level of language, it is neces-
sary to separate two closely related, but dierent research questions in
relation to the Aspect Hypothesis. They are:
(16) Do learners use past marking more often to describe punctual verbs?
(17) Do learners use past marking more often to describe punctual
situations?
Sentence (16) investigates the relationship between verb morphology and
lexical aspect, whereas (17) investigates the relationship between verb mor-
phology and real world situations.26 Intuitively, the results should be very
similar, because punctual events are most probably described by inherently
punctual terms. The problem arises when we have a discrepancy between
real world situations and lexical aspect. For example, he looked at me
when I screamed is punctual (i.e., instantaneous shift of look) in terms of
real-world situation, whereas its lexical aspect is an activity. The frequency
of such discrepancy cases determines the degree of condence to which we
can extend the results of the study which concerns (16) (the relationship
between verb morphology and lexical aspect) to the research question in
(17) (the relationship between verb morphology and situational character-
istics). If such discrepancy cases are not frequent, we can safely extend the
answer for (16) to (17); if not, we need to be cautious.27
To see the eect of discrepancy between the two, it is necessary to code
cases when such discrepancies are found. Shirai (1991) used the following
denitions to classify the temporal characteristics of the situation:
26. It appears that the disagreements among researchers (Bickerton 1989; Cziko
1989; Weist 1989) stem from the lack of a distinction between the two, at least
in part.
27. Such discrepancies may be more frequent in other languages. For example, in
Japanese speakers often refer to stative situations by attaching imperfective
-teiru to achievement verbs (Shirai 2000), as noted above.
Lexical aspect 299
28. Most SLA studies are concerned with the rst question: the relationship
between morphology and lexical aspect, not situational characteristics.
29. In fact, many scholars point out the fact that activities involve repetition of
small units of component activities (e.g., McClure 1993). The issue is how
each language lexicalizes these units as unitary. Walking is conceptualized as
unitary activity, and one cannot normally say He walked if one makes one
step. One might argue if we are talking about a man who lost his ability to
walk and one day suddenly moved his feet, one step can be conceived of as
walking, hence it is possible to say He walked! However, this is a stretch, or
exibility of language being used in context, and normally one cannot say He
walked if he just made one step. Thus, asking questions such as Can you
wave once? or If someone moves his hand left to right in a waving fashion,
can you say he waved? is pertinent to test whether a particular verb is an
activity or an achievement.
300 Yasuhiro Shirai
5. Conclusion
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Chapter 9
Dening and coding data: Narrative discourse
grounding in L2 studies
Llorenc Comajoan
1. Introduction
1. This chapter does not address the results of studies focusing on the DH, but
rather its methodology of research. For a discussion of results within the DH,
see Bardovi-Harlig (2000), Comajoan (2005), Salaberry (2008, 2011), and the
studies summarized in Appendix 3.
310 Llorenc Comajoan
2. Narrative discourse
2. For all intents and purposes, the terms text and discourse are used synony-
mously and interchangeably in this chapter.
Coding Grounding 311
A more basic distinction that cuts across various text types is that between
narrative and nonnarrative discourse. Georgakopoulou and Goutsos (1997:
52) provided the characteristics of narrative and nonnarrative discourse
displayed in Table 1.
The two distinctive features of their denition were temporal order and
the double function of narratives. Two clauses are in temporal order when
their textual/discourse order of mentioning follows the temporal sequence
in which the events took place. In contrast, two clauses are not in tem-
poral order when they can be moved around without altering the inference
of the order of the series of non-linguistic, real-world events that they
encode. The sequentiality of clauses is exemplied in Appendix 1, a sample
narrative from a conversation between Barbara (B), an L1 English learner
of L2 Catalan, and the researcher (L) (Comajoan 2001). The narrative in
Appendix 1 is presented in Table 2 without the interaction of the inter-
locutor in order to distinguish the narrative, temporally ordered clauses
(marked as N) from the non-narrative, non-temporally ordered clauses.
Narratives are not always told in the strict chronological order of the
real-world events that they refer to. For instance, in lines 3839 and line
41 (Appendix 1) (1314 and 16 in Table 2) the speaker refers to situations
that are not in order with the previous clause. In these cases, pluperfect
morphology is used to mark deviance from chronological order. However,
nonchronological order is not always explicitly marked (through linguistic
devices), and languages dier in the amount and manner of such marking.
314 Llorenc Comajoan
4. Fleischman (1990) used the term texture to refer to the fact that some events
in a narrative have more relevance or are more salient than others from the
perspective of the speakers communicative goals, and thus the speaker may
mark them dierently in terms of grounding.
Coding Grounding 315
Three general comments can be made with respect to the early deni-
tions of F and B. First, the most oft-cited and inuential paper for their
denition is Hopper (1979), who characterized the F and B constructs as
follows:
1. Discourse grounding is a universal of narrative discourse: The fore-
ground is the actual story line, and the background is the supportive
material.
2. The dening property of the foreground is sequentiality, that is, icon-
icity between the order in which events took place in the real, non-
linguistic world and the way they are narrated. Other properties of
foreground can be derived from sequentiality (e.g., focus structure,
punctual verbs, contingency, and narrativity).
3. Discourse not the linguistic forms or categories of language is
primary, that is, linguistic categories emerge within discourse.
4. Grounding can be accomplished through dierent linguistic devices,
including tense-aspect morphology, word order, and voice.
Hopper (1979) provided some evidence for all characteristics, but in most
cases it was based on very few data and languages, and thus most of the
statements were open to further investigation (e.g., whether discourse
grounding is a universal feature of narrative discourse or not, or the dierent
linguistic devices that can be used to mark grounding).
Second, earlier studies already pointed out that the F and B were two
extremes of one continuum rather than two distinct categories. For instance,
Jones and Jones (1979) used the metaphor of a string of beads of dierent
sizes (prominence) to refer to the dierent degrees of prominence events
are given in language. Thus, they rejected a bipartite structure (F versus
B) and posited what they called the multiple-level hypothesis, whereby
discourse includes multiple levels (they mentioned ve) of signicant infor-
mation, which may be marked by specic grammatical devices in various
languages.
Finally, already from the beginning, the denition of F and B has been
a challenge for researchers in the study of discourse, because both con-
cepts are intricately related to other linguistic notions. For instance, Givon
(1984: 288) provided the linguistic correlates of foreground and back-
ground displayed in Table 5. The dierent features that characterize F
and B point out that verbal morphology is just one of the devices that
can be used to mark grounding. Other linguistic devices that contribute
to the marking of F and B are those reminiscent of the expression of
temporality (cf. Dietrich et al. 1995; Klein 1986, 1994b; Noyau 1990,
Coding Grounding 317
All three denitions refer to the same concepts but emphasize dierent
issues. The denition in (1) is the most general and focuses on the function
of the F-B distinction: The F expresses the main point according to the
speakers goal, whereas the B comments on it. The denition in (2) focuses
on the composition of the two parts: The F is made up of single-point
events that are sequentally ordered, whereas the opposite is true of the B.
The denition in (3) retakes the notion of sequentiality from the denition
in (2), but it emphasizes the notion of contrast and interpretation, indicat-
ing that the B is no less important than the F, because without B there
could be no contrast, and consequently the F could not exist.
After the early denitions of F and B, several papers critically examined
both constructs, attempting to nd clearer criteria for their denition and
examining problematic cases. For instance, Givon (1987) titled his work
Beyond foreground and background and Dry (1992) titled hers Fore-
grounding: An assessment. Two basic conclusions can be drawn from
these studies: (a) dening F and B is problematic, because too many factors
intervene in their denition; and (b) consequently, no single dening charac-
teristic can be found for the characterization of F and B, and thus a proto-
typical approach may be more appropriate than a categorical approach.
Givon (1987) attempted to overcome the F and B dichotomy by tack-
ling four main problems of their denition. Specically, he showed that
discourse grounding is dynamic rather than static in the sense that it pre-
supposes an online interactive model of text production in which what is
produced by a speaker is F because it is asserted or is pivotal, and it be-
comes B when it is a shared presupposition by the speaker. In other words,
online production of linguistic material does not allow for a straight-
forward classication; only after-the-fact analyses allow for this. The
second problem was that the correlation between B, presupposition, and
old information was not clear. This problem became a major focus of
investigation in other studies, which showed that subordinate clauses can
Coding Grounding 319
Finally, some of the problems with dening F are due to the application of
one discipline to another (e.g., from linguistics to literary analysis), and
for this reason, clear denitions and assumptions for each discipline are
needed.
From Givons and Drys studies reviewed here and from others that
examined F and B (e.g., Couper-Kuhlen 1987; Depraetere 1996; Dry 1992;
320 Llorenc Comajoan
There are currently two strands of research that investigate how learners
structure discourse, which can be seen as a continuation of meaning-
oriented and form-oriented studies, respectively. On the one hand, meaning-
oriented approaches, represented by studies such as Carroll et al. (2000),
Carroll and von Stutterheim (2002), von Stutterheim and Lambert (2005),
Hendriks (2005), and von Stutterheim, Carroll, and Klein (2009), study
learner varieties at large and how texts are produced. These studies have
mostly focused on narrative, descriptive, and conversation texts. The main
question addressed by such studies is the extent to which language-specic
preferences in information structure are driven by grammaticized means.
More specically, it investigates the extent to which . . . L2 learners apply
the principles of information structure of their target language, as con-
trasted with their native language (L1), in producing stretches of connected
discourse as telling a story, giving route directions, or describing the layout
of their home (Carroll and Lambert 2006: 54).
The meaning-oriented studies to L2 text production have the following
theoretical bases. First, information structure is to some extent language-
dependent, which means that events are structured temporally and dis-
coursively in dierent ways in dierent languages. That is, narratives or
descriptions are structured dierently in, for instance, German, Spanish,
and Arabic (e.g., more or less focus on endpoints of actions, more or less
emphasis on location of objects, etc.). Second, and as a consequence of
the previous statement, the acquisition of a L2 can be a challenge for
adult and young learners, because they may not be aware of the subtle dif-
ferences in text production in dierent languages. Thus, meaning-oriented
studies have tended to investigate the process whereby learners may (or
may not) attain native-speaker competence in text production and at
what stage of text production the dierences between learners and native
speakers can be explained (conceptual level, selection of information, or
selection of linguistic forms). Finally, this research approach is multi-
variable. That is, dierences in L2 text production cannot be explained
by a single feature, but rather by the conuence of several variables (e.g.,
temporal concepts, the role of the syntactic subject, and word order con-
straints), which at the same time have dierent roles in the learners L1.
On the other hand, current form-oriented studies have focused on the
interrelationship between the use of a selected linguistic device to encode
tense and aspect (most frequently, verbal morphology, but also other
lexical devices, such as temporal adverbs) and discourse grounding (emer-
324 Llorenc Comajoan
7. Form-oriented studies have also begun to study the relationship between the
DH and the AH and have searched for an answer to the following question:
Do the two hypotheses make the same predictions, and if so, which one
best describes L2 development at dierent stages of acquisition? For a dis-
cussion of the relationship of the two hypotheses, see Bardovi-Harlig (2000);
Comajoan and Perez Saldanya (2005); Rosi (2009); and Salaberry (2011).
Coding Grounding 325
major published studies that directly address the DH (see Appendix 3),
and, for ease of presentation, they have been divided into three periods.9
In the early period, exemplied by studies such as Kumpf (1984),
Flashner (1989), Bardovi-Harlig (1992), and Housen (1994), the main
focus of research was to study the development of the learners interlan-
guage as an autonomous system (Andersen 1984) and, more specically,
how tense-aspect morphology developed in the F and the B. The main
characteristic of these early studies, as far as the denition of F and B
and their coding is concerned, was that the denitions and methodology
were based on works of functional linguistics, namely Hopper (1979) and
Givon (1982). Briey, the F sections were those parts of a narrative that
pushed events/the story line forward, and B those that did not.
Early studies deserve special attention for two main reasons. First, some
of the studies provided microanalyses of narratives and the way learners
used their resources for the construction of narratives. For instance,
Kumpf (1984) conducted a detailed analysis of one learners interlanguage
in conversations and narratives, coded the data for seven variables (dis-
course type, aspect, verb type, verb form, clause type, time reference, and
other), and she showed that tense-aspect morphology was not distributed
equally in the F and B. Bardovi-Harlig (1992) observed that lower-level
learners already use the few resources they have to mark the story line,
suggesting that level of acquisition is an important variable to take into
account. Second, already at this early period, researchers, such as Housen
(1994), noted the diculty of coding discourse grounding mainly due to
two reasons that further research will continue to mention: rst, the
researchers subjectivity in coding for F and B; and second, the use of a
priori formal and functional categories for data coding, which does not
provide an analysis of the development of interlanguage, but rather a
purely linguistic analysis (Box 1).
The second period of research in discourse grounding in L2 is charac-
terized by the establishment of the DH per se, mostly in studies by Bardovi-
Harlig (1998, 1999, 2000) that reviewed a number of studies in the acquisi-
tion of temporality and posited that the AH and DH may conspire in the
emergence and development of tense-aspect morphology. In terms of
methodology and the denition of F and B in L2 data analysis, this period
Denition of F and B:
e Based on Hopper (1979), Hopper and Thompson (1980), and Givon (1982).
e F: primary narrative information, pushes forward the story line.
e B: elements that do not directly contribute to the speakers primary
communicative goal but which merely comment, modify, or assist
(270).
Methodology:
e No specic coding methodology in the method section, but coding was
done independently of verbal morphology.10
e The last section of the paper, titled Methodological considerations,
mentioned the diculty of assigning categories to learners production
because of the researchers subjectivity. The author suggested asking the
learner what he or she meant in retrospect, but this may be too dependent
on the learners metalinguistic skills. The second diculty is using a priori
categories to code data.
added newer studies that contributed to the denition of the two con-
structs, namely Reinhart (1984) and Dry (1992), which would be the basis
for denition of F and B from then on (Box 2).
Denition of F and B:
e Based on Hopper (1979), Dry (1981, 1983, 1992), Fleischman (1985), and
Reinhart (1984).
e F: from Reinhart (1984): narrativity, punctuality, and completeness.
e B: multifunctional, supporting the F. Importance of tense-switching as a
device to produce narratives with discourse ground.
Methodology:
e F: clauses that moved the narrative time forward.
e Coding was done independently of tense-aspect morphology.
e Direct speech was excluded, but the verbs that introduced it were coded as
F if they were sequenced with other verbs.
e Interrater coding for reliable analysis (with a second experienced coder).
10. A specic section on coding methodology was cut by the editors of Housen
(1994) (Alex Housen, personal communication, 10 April 2010). In contrast
with Housen (1994), Housen (1995) provided a detailed discussion of coding
grounding (260266) and limitations of the coding (234235).
328 Llorenc Comajoan
The third period is one of consolidation of the study of the DH, and is
characterized by two factors: studies take Bardovi-Harlig (2000) as the
basis for the denition of grounding and apply it to other learners and
languages, and data coding becomes more sophisticated with the establish-
ment of learner corpora (Rosi 2009) and the use of statistical analyses
(Salaberry 2011). In this period, research more openly discusses method-
ological problems, such as the interpretation of data in coding F and B
(e.g., Salaberry 2008; Rosi 2009; see next section) (Box 3).
Denition of F and B:
e Based on Hopper (1979) and Dry (1992) with emphasis on syntax (main versus
subordinate clauses).
e Denition of the DH and F and B from Bardovi-Harlig (2000, 2002).
Methodology:
e Establishment of an annotated corpus of learner data.
e Coding for specic features, among them discourse grounding (others that
may be relevant to grounding were lexical aspect, grammatical aspect,
syntax, target and nontarget like forms).
e The following grounding features were coded and analyzed: F, B, predicates
of completive clauses depending on the F main clause, predicates of
completive clauses depending on the B main clause, predicates of incidental
clauses, metanarrative predicates (outside the story) (e.g., the scene begins
with . . .), and syntactic roles of the clause (main versus subordinate).
e The author acknowledged that coding the discourse functions of predicates
can be subjective (e.g., examples with the verb vedere to see and subordinate
clauses, 7475).
In sum, in the three periods of study of the DH, there has been an evo-
lution from dependence on references from studies and theories of func-
tional linguistics to an increasing discussion of how such theories apply to
research in SLA. This is of course related to the development of SLA as
a eld itself and to the development of research programs led by specic
research teams. With regard to the denition of F and B, there is still a
reliance on early references (e.g., Hopper, Dry, and so on), but current
research has advanced by critically reviewing previous works and rening
some denitions as they apply to L2 studies. In addition, some important
issues such as subjectivity in coding have emerged as central in regard
Coding Grounding 329
to the coding of the learners interlanguage. This issue is not specic to the
DH, as it also aects meaning-oriented studies. Two possible solutions can
be adopted. First, learner data can be compared to native-speaker data (as
in most current meaning-oriented studies), or they can be interpreted by the
researcher and investigated on their own, with references to interlanguage-
internal dynamics and mechanisms (without comparing them to native-
speaker data), following Andersens (1984) call for the autonomous analysis
of interlanguage data. The two approaches are complementary even though
they are often related to dierences in theoretical perspectives.
Finally, studies in the acquisition of L2 tense and aspect (and the DH)
have also advanced in their adoption of innovative methodologies to
tackle some of the complex issues in analyzing L2 text production. For
instance, Rosi (2009), Li and Shirai (2000), and Li and Zhao (2009) used
computational models of aspect to examine whether such models resemble
child and adult language acquisition; that is, whether the networks could
learn the oft-cited associations found in learner data (e.g., telic predicates
with perfective morphology in the F). The results are promising because
they show that simple but biologically plausible computational principles
in self-organizing neural networks can account for empirically observed
patterns in childrens acquisition of lexical aspect and grammatical mor-
phology, without a priori stipulations about the structure of meaning or
concept (Li and Zhao 2009: 266). These studies have shown that the
networks do learn the prototypical associations of verbal morphology,
lexical aspect, and discourse grounding, even though the L1 has an impor-
tant eect (i.e., associations are stronger in networks trained with Spanish-
Italian data than in German-Italian) (Rosi 2009) (see also Chapter 3). A
second type of innovative methodology is based on the use of eye tracking
in the acquisition of L2 tense and aspect. For instance, Stutterheim, Carroll
and Klein (2009) studied how learners attend to dierent types of events
(as on-going or not on-going) while watching a videoclip and by the use
of eye tracking data they found that there was a direct relationship
between having grammaticalized means to express an endpoint in the
speakers L1 and how the event was tracked (e.g., German speakers attended
more to on-going events than English speakers because German does not
grammaticalize ongoingness as overtly as English). Finally, a third type
of innovation is the design of experimental studies to test the AH and
the DH that allow for the use of data that can be analyzed statistically
(Salaberry 2011).
330 Llorenc Comajoan
Finally, researchers need to collect dierent types of data and test the
eect of discourse type in the use or nonuse of specic linguistic devices.
For instance, to examine the relation between grounding and syntactic
subordination, Tomlin (1985) used online descriptions of narratives that
participants watched on a television, oral-delayed narratives of the cartoon
they had watched, written-delayed narratives, and written-edited narratives
(the participants watched the cartoon, were allowed to take notes and
were allowed to edit their narratives in a period of four days).
Tomlin (1985) described what could be considered the ideal type of
coding, and it seems warranted that L2 studies should attempt to fulll
all four recommendations. However, some of them especially the rst
one may not always be possible, as discussed in the following section.
The second and third recommendations will also depend on the theoretical
perspective adopted by the researcher (somewhere on the quantitative-
qualitative continuum, see Chapter 11). Regarding the fourth recommen-
dation, since use of verbal morphology as well as other linguistic devices
is well known to depend on type of text, it is important to give it special
attention (see Chapter 7). Taking Tomlins (1985) recommendations as a
point of departure, four issues are discussed below regarding diculties
in coding F and B in L2 data, namely morphology-independent coding,
syntax-independent coding (subordination), coding in dierent types of texts,
and interpretation of the learners intended meaning (for lexical aspect
coding, see Chapters 8 and 11).
Ideally, one would want to apply the denitions of F and B without
being biased by morphology. This problem has been mentioned by several
researchers (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Housen 1995), and in some re-
spects it may well be impossible to solve in a completely satisfactory way,
because both verb morphology and syntax contribute to the marking of F
and B. In other words, F and B are discourse-pragmatic phenomena, not
real-world phenomena, and they do not exist independently of their mark-
ing in language (including their morphosyntactic marking). Thus, one pos-
sible solution may be to carry out two codings, the rst one just looking at
the propositional content (verbs without morphology) of predicates, and a
second one with morphology. In this case, one avoids the bias of morphol-
ogy but not that of syntax, which is completely unavoidable. For instance,
Comajoan (2001) carried out both types of coding. When the two types of
coding are done, it is possible that dierences arise (e.g., one clause with
propositional content without verbal morphology is coded as F, and the
332 Llorenc Comajoan
11. In cases where coding of grounding diered in the clauses with verbal mor-
phology and those without, Comajoan (2001) adopted the coding obtained
from the clauses with verbal morphology (thus, favoring to some extent what
the learner had intended to produce).
Coding Grounding 333
3. L: no?
L: no?
4. D: no
D: no
5. D: per Nadal #ahm# #ah# he, s, s vaig anar a #ahm# la
la casa a la meva casa
D: For Christmas yes yes I went home
6. L: #mhm#
L: mhm
7. D: amb [or #ahm#] la meva mare i el #ahm# avui i unes
#ah# a// avies/ no unes #ahm# ties tambe
D: with my mother, grandfather and grandmothers, no,
I mean aunts also
8. L: #mhm#
L: mhm
9. L: #mhm#
L: mhm
10. D: i # i con [hard to understand] s, anem # co// s,
anem menjar?
D: and yes and we ate?
11. L: #mhm#
L: mhm
12. D: #ahm# el pernil dolc, the honey baked ham [en]
D: honey baked ham
13. L: [laughing] es bo, no?
L: it is good, right?
14. D: una vegada mes, s, i les patates/ #ahm# com se diu
#ahm# amb miel [sp]
D: once more, yes, and the potatoes with how do you say
honey?
15. L: #mhm#
L: mhm
16. L: amb mel
L: amb mel
338 Llorenc Comajoan
5. Conclusion
The study of the concepts of F and B has gone a long way from the early
straightforward application of functional linguistics to current discussions
of the denition and coding of F and B. Researchers interested in embark-
ing upon research in the DH or studies related to (narrative) discourse
grounding are encouraged to consider the following questions to guide
their research, some of which are similar to any kind of SLA study and
some of which are specic to research related to the study of F and B
and become particularly relevant when investigating the DH.
Regarding the theoretical approach to be adopted, a set of questions
needs to be considered: What is the objective and the general research
question under investigation? Which analytic framework or approach is
the most appropriate for pursuing this objective? Is the overall aim to
investigate how the learners use and acquisition of verbal morphology
may be inuenced by discourse grounding (form-oriented approach) or,
rather, how learners build and structure (narrative) discourse (using a
variety of pragmatic, lexical and morphosyntactic devices)? The role of
the learners L1 also plays an important part in choosing what framework
is more appropriate to explain the learners interlanguage. Thus, whereas
current studies in the meaning-oriented approach (e.g., in studies by
Carroll and von Stutterheim) give a prominent role to the L1 and attempt
to describe and explain how the learners interlanguage functions and
develops, other studies (e.g., those investigating the AH and DH) do not
focus on the L1 as much.
Coding Grounding 341
12. Rosi (2009) may be a good example of a database that allows the researcher
to study how dierent variables interact in the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect
morphology.
342 Llorenc Comajoan
the teaching of tense and aspect features and how they relate to the pro-
duction and understanding of narratives (see also Chapter 12). No doubt
this would highly contribute to a better understanding of how classroom
learners develop in their interlanguage and to the development of SLA
research in general.
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guages. In W. Klein & P. Li (Eds.), The expression of time,
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von Stutterheim, Christiane & Wolfgang Klein
1987 A concept-oriented approach to second language studies. In C.
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350 Llorenc Comajoan
Appendix 1. Sample narrative between Barbara (B, English L1, Catalan L2) and
the researcher (L). For transcription codes, see Appendix 2.
Robert Bayley
1. Introduction
2.1. Coding
For any analysis of natural language data, coding is among the most
important and at times the most tedious of steps, particularly when large
quantities of data are involved. In the case of L2 speech, additional com-
plications may arise. For example, when we study fully procient native
speakers, we can assume that the surface meaning is the intended mean-
ing. Thus, we are safe in assuming that a present tense form refers to the
present. However, such an assumption can break down when we examine
interlanguage production, particularly the speech of less procient learners,
as I found when conducting a study of interlanguage tense marking (Bayley
1991). In an interview with an intermediate speaker of English, I asked
about the participants family. The speaker oered a long account about
his grandfather, a government ocial in China. All of the verbs in the
account were unmarked for tense, that is, they appeared to be present
tense. I then asked: How old is your grandfather? The speaker responded:
Oh, he die in 1969. It was fortunate that I thought to ask about the
grandfathers age. Otherwise, the unmarked past tense forms would simply
have been coded as present-tense forms, with 3rd person singular -s missing.
Geeslin and Gudmestad (2010) provide a further example of the diculty
in interpreting non-native speaker utterances. In Spanish, the verbs ser to
be and estar to be both occur with adjectives and alternate depending
on the intended meaning:
are you?, by Spanish 9 year-olds and adults.3 The past was the dominant
tense only in the narratives produced by the Spanish 4 and 5 year-olds.
However, a study of Frog narratives produced by Mexican American
and Mexican immigrant children in Texas, Bayley (1999) found that the
past was the dominant tense in the narratives produced by children from
6 to 12 years old, while the 4 and 5 year-olds were nearly evenly divided in
their use of the past and mixed tenses. Table 1 compares the results from
the two studies.
There are a number of plausible reasons for the dierences between the
two studies, including dierences in elicitation technique (Bayley 1999) as
well as the possible inuence of English narrative style on the Mexican
background children.4 That issue is beyond the scope of this chapter.
However, as Berman and Slobin observe, although the past is the unmarked
tense for telling a narrative in English, speakers may choose to depart
from this tense by adopting the more marked narrative or historic use of
present tense for the main thread of their narrations (1994: 131). Given
the variability in native speech, how can we know that a language learner
did not intend to use the narrative present? That is, how do we know that
what appears at rst glance to be a missing past tense form is not an
attempt by a learner to use a rhetorical device that is found in native
speech? (Wolfson 1982).
Two answers are possible. First, we might simply posit that we are
examining learners use of their verbal morphology to express temporal
states. Hence, if a certain number of verbs with past temporal reference
are either unmarked or marked for present tense, we simply report that
fact, presumably along with aspectual categories. However, as suggested
in the latter part of this chapter, multivariate analysis provides a more
satisfactory answer at the level of the individual speaker if not at the level
of the individual token. If we code not only for temporal reference and
aspectual class, but also for potential inuences, such as the saliency of
the dierence between the past and present tense forms, and in the case of
English regular verbs, for the phonetic features of the following segment,
we can determine whether speakers are indeed using the narrative present,
as Bayley (1996) did in a study of past tense marking and consonant cluster
reduction by Chinese learners of English. In that study, speakers marked
more past reference verbs as past in elicited narratives than in relatively
informal interviews. For example, speakers marked 53% of regular verbs
in the elicited narratives, but only 35% in the conversational sections of
the interview. Had the learners been using the narrative present, we would
expect the opposite result.
To summarize, although interlanguage production data are inuenced
by a wide range of factors and we cannot always be certain what a learner
intended in any particular instance, an examination of overall patterns
across a range of styles, produced in response to a range of tasks, can
provide reasonable assurance about the speakers internal system. In L2
English, for example, the patterning of regular verbs that are subject to
consonant cluster reduction (e.g., [mist] can be reduced to [mis] before a
consonant), provide an especially useful diagnostic because the phonological
processes involved are independent of temporal or aspectual categories.
We turn now to issues involved in coding for aspect.
2.2. Coding for aspect
Most studies of the Aspect Hypothesis have used Vendlers (1967) cate-
gories and many, although certainly by no means all, have focused on the
relationship between lexical aspect and past tense marking (e.g., Anderson
1991; Bardovi-Harlig 1994, 1998, 2000; Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds 1995;
Bayley 1999; Collins 2002; Salaberry 2000). Table 2 summarizes the fea-
tures of Vendlers categories, which are also illustrated in examples (2) to
(7), taken from the Spanish data used in Bayley (1999). Note that the data
come from working-class Mexican American children and do not always
follow the prescriptive norms of Spanish grammar.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 363
5. In Spanish, the preterite is most frequently used to mark telic events, i.e.,
events that have an inherent endpoint, and punctual events, i.e., events that
take no perceptible time. The imperfect is more often used to mark past states
or activities that have no inherent end point. Many Spanish imperfect tense
verbs may be translated into English using the progressive, e.g., estaba pescando,
he was shing. However, verbs of all lexical classes may occur with both
the preterite and the imperfect tenses, even if non-prototypical examples are
comparatively rare.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 365
Note: The listed studies are intended as examples only, not as a comprehensive
list. Other studies have treated some of the same inuences mentioned here and
other inuences have also been proposed.
Tajika (1999) used Varbrul to analyze her data. The independent variables
examined included the foreground-background distinction, lexical aspect,
and perfectivity-imperfectivity. Of these three independent variables, she
reported that only grounding achieved statistical signicance, with verbs
366 Robert Bayley
in foreground clauses more likely to be marked for past tense than verbs
in background clauses. Overall the analysis appears sound, but there is
a potential problem. Foreground clauses are more likely to be perfective
and background clauses imperfective. Similarly, foreground clauses are
more likely to contain achievement or accomplishment verbs, i.e., they
are more likely to be events, while background clauses are more likely
to contain stative or activity verbs. That is, the three independent variables
are likely to interact. Tajika did not give measures of goodness-of-t in her
tables, that is, she did not provide information about how well the statistical
model t the data, nor did she provide cross-tabs that would allow us to
judge whether in fact there was interaction among these variables. It
would be surprising, though, if there were no interactions. Clearly, then
we need to consider a range of alternative analyses, and include or control
for possible sources of interaction. As shown in Table 3, numerous other
factors have been found to constrain L2 learners use of tense and aspect
morphology. Some, such as the position of the perfective aspect marker -le
in Mandarin, may be language specic, while others, such as frequency, if
indeed they apply, should have a similar eect across languages.
In analyzing interlanguage data for tense and aspect, not only are we
faced with numerous possible linguistic inuences, we also need to account
or control for numerous social factors and characteristics of the learner.
These include the rst language and any other languages spoken, pro-
ciency level, the conditions under which the language was or is being
acquired (formal classroom or untutored acquisition), age at which acqui-
sition began, and the learners social network(s) (predominantly or exclu-
sively native-language speakers or speakers of the target language). Finally,
we need to consider the discourse context and task type, both of which have
been shown to aect L2 speakers use of target-language forms (Bayley
1994, 1996; Tarone and Liu 1995; Tajika 1999). In the following section,
I illustrate some of the ways that the numerous potential inuences on
learners use of tense and aspectual forms may be analyzed, using methods
drawn from sociolinguistics.
3. Multivariate analysis
with pinyin supplied when necessary.6 Thus, we had both relatively free data,
with tokens distributed unevenly, as well as the type of controlled data
typical of experimental studies. We will focus on the procedures used for
the analysis of the narrative data.
6. The 12 lowest level students were excluded from Tasks 2 and 3 because they
had not yet acquired sucient skill in reading Chinese characters.
7. The following abbreviations are used in the mopheme-by-morpheme glosses
in the Chinese examples: CL, classier; CRS, Currently Relevant State (le);
NOM, nominalizer (de); PFV, perfective aspect (-le); 1pl, rst person plural
pronoun; and 3sg, third person singular pronoun.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 369
To examine childrens use of -le, we coded the frog narratives for a wide
range of factors, or independent variables, all of which had been shown to
have some inuence in one or more studies:
Dependent variable:
-le used grammatically, -le used ungrammatically, -le absent where expected
or allowed. Two Mandarin native-speaking graduate students with strong
backgrounds in linguistics conducted a reliability check and achieved an
inter-rater reliability rate of over 95%.
The optional -le occurs after the verb climb in the above example, which
is grammatically acceptable when the action took hold follows as part
of the series of actions (for a similar example, see notes in Du and D. Li
2002).
(3) Lexical aspect: punctual; telic-stative; semelfactive; activity; stative.8
(4) Grounding: foreground; background:
na nanhai shuizhao -le xiao qingwa pao -le
that boy sleep PFV little frog run PFV
The boy fell asleep while his frog ran away.
Here, the verb fell asleep is background, while the verb run away is
foregrounded.
(5) Birthplace/age of arrival of student: U.S.; China, arrived in U.S.
at age 5 or younger (that is, while they were still acquiring major
features of their L1 grammatical system); China, arrived in U.S.
at age 6 or older.
(6) Age of student: 57; 810; 1113; 1415.
(7) Number of years at the Chinese Heritage Language School: 1, 2, 3
or more.
(8) Language use at home (student): Mandarin primarily or exclusively;
Mandarin and English; English primarily or exclusively.
(9) Language use at home (parents): Mandarin primarily or exclusively;
Mandarin and English.
In distinguishing between perfective aspect marker -le and CRS sentence-
nal particle le, we followed Li and Thompson (1981), who distinguish
between the two homophonous forms on the basis of use.
All recent implementations of Varbrul enable the researcher to test
the signicance of factor groups (or independent variables) through the
step-up step-down procedure, analogous to step-wise regression in com-
mercial implementations of logistic regression. During the step-up proce-
dure one factor group at a time is added to see if the model improves
signicantly (with .05 as the alpha level). The reverse procedure is followed
in the step-down procedure. The program then generates output indicating
the best model from each procedure. Normally these are the same.
Varbrul assumes that factor groups are independent of one another.
In most cases, this is not a problem with well-dened linguistic factors,
particularly in phonology (although see Howard 2004 and Sigley 2003).
However, non-linguistic factors often interact. For example, we might
well expect childrens patterns of language use to change as they spend
more time in the target language community. In fact, we found that age
and birthplace interacted in our data. Therefore, following the procedure
outlined in Young and Bayley (1996: 279280), we recoded the data to
combine the factors from these two groups. That is, we combined the two
factor groups for age and birthplace into a single factor group consisting
of the following factors: age 57, born in China; age 57, born in the
U.S., etc. In addition, to produce the most parsimonious model that still
accounted for the observed variation, we combined factors within groups
that did not dier signicantly from one another.
Table 4 shows the results of the nal analysis. The results may be inter-
preted as follows. A weight, sometimes loosely called a probability, of
between .5 and 1.0 indicates that the factor favors the application value,
in this case the appropriate use of -le. A weight between 0 and .5 indicates
that the factor disfavors the application value. The results, however, must
be interpreted in light of the input value, or corrected mean. In the study
under discussion, aspectual marker -le was supplied in 58% of the cases
where it could be used, resulting in an input value of .603. When -le is
not sentence nal, it has a weight of only .327, although -le is used appro-
priately in 43% of such cases. This is because the rate of -le use in such
cases is considerably lower than the overall rate of use, with a corrected
mean of .603.
Note that only four factor groups achieved statistical signicance at the
.05 level: the position of -le in the sentence, optionality, age by birthplace,
and the childs home language use. In contrast to our expectations and to
the results reported in Wen (1997), lexical aspect did not reach signicance.
This lack of signicance may stem from the fact that the study examined a
relatively small number of tokens, only 549. However, it does serve to point
out that studies of L2 aspect and tense need to consider the role of other
potential inuences in their design.
Our analysis for the other two tasks was much more straightforward.
With a controlled number of observations, we were able to use one-way
ANOVAs. Because ANOVA is covered extensively elsewhere (see e.g.,
Reitveld and van Hout 2005; Larson-Hall 2010), those results will not be
illustrated here. Interested readers may refer to Jia and Bayley (2008) for
details.9
Table 5 shows the factor weights for the 9 speakers who participated in
the study. Using the log-likelihood test summarized above, we combined
data from speakers whose accuracy level did not dier signicantly from
one another. This procedure resulted in four groups of two plus one highly
advanced speaker. We then ran separate analyses for each group. While
running separate analyses did result in rather small samples and in the
loss of some tokens that were either categorically marked or unmarked
for native-speaker usage, as well as some statistical uctuation due to small
sample size, it had the advantage of allowing us to determine which factors
had the strongest inuence for speakers of dierent prociency levels. We
were also able to investigate whether factors had the same eect on all
learners, regardless of prociency level, or whether learners at dierent
prociency levels were constrained by dierent types of inuences. The
results of these analyses are shown in Table 6.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 375
1 Xiao Wang 124 89 .923 Verb type (other, .729; regular, .238)
2 Zhou, Chang 108 56 .631 Verb type (frequent, .789; irregular
and -ik, .677; regular, .208);
Tense (present, .629, non-present, .137);
Deniteness (denite, .725; indenite,
.252)
3 Ai Hua, Liu 216 36 .299 Verb type (vanni, .938; tudni, .698;
irregular and -ik, .518; regular, .211);
Person/number (1 sg, .609; 3 sg, .391;
other, .365);
Tense (present, .611, non-present,
.293); Deniteness (denite, .656;
indenite, .362)
4 Lan, Xiao Hong 277 31 .277 Verb type (vanni, .938; irregular and
-ik, .568; tudni, .525; regular, .287);
Person/number (1 sg, .615; 3 sg, .351;
other, .293);
Deniteness (denite, .658; indenite,
.392)
5 Pan, Mei 113 25 .189 Verb type (tudni, .855; vanni, .554; all
other verbs, .348);
Person/number (3 sg, .751; 1 sg, .558;
other, .129)
are similar to their eects for speakers at the lowest level. Continuing up
the prociency scale, tense begins to have an eect with Ai Hua and Liu,
with the present tense favoring native-like usage. At the next highest level,
tense continues to be signicant, as are verb type and deniteness. Person/
number is no longer signicant, but that may be an artifact of the smaller
number of tokens for Chang and Zhou compared to Ai Hua and Liu.
Finally, when we reach the most procient speaker, Xiao Wang, whose
corrected mean, .923, has reached the usual criterion for acquisition, we nd
that only the distinction between regular and irregular verbs is signicant.
These results suggest that, given sucient data, we can use Varbrul and
other implementations of logistic regression to trace individual patterns of
acquisition.10 Indeed, as Berdan (1996) shows in his reanalysis of Schumanns
(1978) data on negation by Alberto, such analysis can even enable us to
correct long-held misconceptions. Although he does not deal with tense and
aspect, Berdan does show clearly that Alberto, although he certainly was not
a rapid acquirer, was making some progress in acquiring the English system
of negation during the time Schumann recorded him. Finally, although I
have used GoldVarb to illustrate the advantages of multivariate analysis, as
noted above, commercial implementations of logistic regression produce
equivalent results, as Morrison (2005) demonstrates.11
10. Paolillo (2002) estimates that we need at least 100 tokens for a Varbrul analysis,
although more tokens are obviously better. Guy (1980), using English native-
speaker data to examine coronal stop deletion, suggests that individual and
group patterns converge once we reach 20 tokens per cell for each speaker.
11. For an example of how to convert GoldVarb output into the regression coe-
cients produced by the logistic regression module in SPSS, see Morrison (2005).
See Rietveld and van Hout (1993) for a clear discussion of the interpretation
of the output of the logistic regression module in SPSS.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 377
Overall, the results show a clear eect for grounding, particularly in the
written narratives. The more advanced the learners, the greater the use of
the past tense and, in both written and oral narratives, learners used more
past tense forms in foreground than in background clauses (see Bardovi-
Harlig 1998: 489). However, as we see in Table 7, tokens were very un-
evenly distributed. For example only 1.85% of the verbs in foreground
clauses were statives and only 21.5% of the verbs in background clauses
were achievements.
To deal with this case of interaction, or conspiring factors, Bardovi-
Harlig (1998) presented separate analyses by level, grounding, and aspec-
tual class. Although there is some uctuation, particularly in the oral
narratives, the results show clearly that both grounding and aspectual
class constrain tense marking. Table 8 summarizes the results for all levels
by grounding, modality, and aspectual class (with statives excluded).
On the basis of results such as those presented in Table 8, which are
presented in much more detail in the original article, Bardovi-Harlig con-
cludes that achievements are the most likely verbs to be inected for
378 Robert Bayley
Table 9. Implicational scale for the Jamaican creole continuum (Adapted from
DeCamp 1971: 356 by Rickford 1991)
Variables
Speakers A B C D E F
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Key: Minus (): nyam nanny no ben pikni /t/ /d/
Plus (): eat granny didnt child /tPy/ /dP/
SF03 Friend
SF05 Friend
SF12 Frog
SF13 Friend
SF15 Friend
SA15.2 Friend
SAN2 Friend
SAN11 Frog
PK08 Frog
PK11 Friend ()
SF07 Friend ()
SF08 Frog ()
SF09 Frog ()
SAN1 Friend ()
SA03 Friend ()
PK13 Frog ()
SF02 Frog
SF17 Friend
SF06 Frog
PK07 Frog
SAN3 Friend
SAN8 Friend
SAN9 Frog
SAN12 Friend
SF10 Frog
SF01 Friend
SF16 Frog
SF18 Frog
SA01 Frog
SA04 Friend
SA09 Friend
SA15.1 Frog
SA21 Friend
PK02 Frog
PK09 Friend
SAN5 Friend
SAN7 Friend
SAN10 Friend
SF11 Friend
SF19 Friend
SF20 Frog
SAN4 Friend
SA16 Friend
PK01 Friend
PK05 Friend
PK06 Friend
PK10 Friend
PK12 Frog
SA02 Frog
Notes: IR .964; cells that do not scale are in parentheses; SA - San Antonio 1012 year
olds, SF - San Francisco 1012 year olds, SAN San Antonio 67 year olds, PK San Antonio
45 year olds.
382 Robert Bayley
6. Conclusion
This chapter has provided examples of three ways of analyzing tense and
aspect in learner production: logistic regression with Varbrul, analysis by
separate factors, and implicational scaling. These types of analysis are use-
ful primarily for studies that rely on production data, particularly data
collected in interviews and in narrative elicitation tasks. For controlled
experiments, including cloze tests, where the distribution of verbs of dier-
ent aspectual classes can be controlled to deal with the distributional
imbalance that characterizes natural language, more conventional statisti-
cal methods such as ANOVA are preferred. Finally, to paraphrase Allan
Bell (1984), we have the issue of statistics as audience design. Although
Varbrul has been used in a variety of implementations for more than
three decades and a number of recent articles in the major SLA journals
have used the program to analyze their data (e.g., X. Li 2010; Rau, Chang,
and Tarone 2009), it is unfamiliar to many outside of sociolinguistics.
Therefore, we might be advised to use the logistic regression modules in
commercial packages or in R when we address audiences who are likely
to be more familiar with the type of output those programs produce.
Data Analysis: Quantitative approaches 383
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Salaberry, M. Rafael
2011 Assessing the eect of lexical aspect and grounding of L2 Spanish
past tense morphology among English speakers. Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition 14. 184202.
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388 Robert Bayley
and the use of an item (e.g., the inectional morphology) on one side and
the development of the representation of the corresponding abstract cate-
gory (e.g., Tense or Aspect) on the other side is not a direct one. In other
words, what a learner produces does not necessarily coincide with what
that learner meant to say and the recoverability of the learners intention
may be quite a dicult task to accomplish (401). Lakshmanan and
Selinker suggested that we need more rigorous criteria if we want to
avoid the comparative fallacy, which consists of super-imposing the target-
like categories on learner data (Bley-Vroman 1983; Klein and Perdue
1992). This section deals with the importance of discussing these criteria
(see also Chapters 8 and 9). Reviewing the ndings of an earlier work by
Lardiere (1998), Lakshmanan and Selinker suggested that verb semantics
(Actionality) and discourse grounding distinctions as proposed in the Aspect
Hypothesis (AH, Andersen 2002; Bardovi-Harlig 2000) studies are valid
criteria to discriminate genuine (non target-like oriented) obligatory con-
texts for past tense markings because telic verbs and foreground events
attract past perfective markings independently of the standpoint of the
target language.
In her reply to Lakshmanan and Selinker, Lardiere (2003) pointed out
that the matter of investigating a learners past tense marking in relation
to inherent lexical aspect (according to the Aspect Hypothesis) and dis-
course foregrounding is in fact at high risk of committing the comparative
fallacy. Lardiere stated that the Aspect Hypothesis studies appear to
assume native speakers intuitions about the meaning of verb stems in
assigning coding categories such as activity, achievement, etc. to the data,
and in applying diagnostic tests for those categories . . . these assump-
tions may indeed obscure our understanding of the L2 idiolect (136).
Lardiere added that in SLA literature she could not nd any discussion
about whether the linguistic tests normally utilized to code data for L1
aspectual categories (operational, compatibility tests) were applicable to
learner data (138). Actually, this point is taken up by Giacalone Ramat
and Rastelli (2008) and Rastelli (2008, 2009), who argue against the pre-
dictive power of actional tests designed for mature languages when used
for IL data (see Section 4.2). For instance, our data show that unlike in
L1 Italian in L2 Italian for-x-time expressions seem to be compatible
also with achievements, and in-x-time expressions seem to be compatible
with activities to the extent that it is dicult to conclude whether the L2
learners semantic representations coincide or dier from those of native
speakers. Shirai (2007), in his reply to Lardiere (2003), acknowledged
that AH studies might have assumed more semantic representations on
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 393
the part of the learners than warranted and concluded that: . . . in the anal-
ysis of production data, one should attempt maximum rigour in classica-
tion without reading in too much about learners semantic representation
(60). Shirai attempted to reduce the risk taking into account the cross lin-
guistic variations of actional value (see Chapter 8, Sections 1, 2 and 3.1.1).
In this and in the following sections, we argue that the problems do not
arise from actional misclassication, but from taking for granted that L2
learners have clear and steady actional representations of the verbs they
are using. A previous and rigorous qualitative analysis is necessary not
only to validate production data as Shirai seems to suggest but also
for both preparing the eld and for narrowing the scope (thus increasing
the reliability) of quantitative analysis. Going beyond Lardiere (2003), we
ask: How do we know for example that a verb that is classied telic in
the target-language is also telic in the interlanguage? Shirai (Chapter 8)
suggests that L1 transfer and L1-L2 discrepancies should be taken into
account in order to answer this question. Unlike Shirai, we would like to
suggest that especially in initial IL the actional content of predicates
remains largely underspecied and that L2 learners are more concerned
about the general meaning of the verbs they use, rather than about the
actional content of those verbs. The question about learners representations
is the kind of a crucial and unavoidable question that quantitative research
alone cannot answer directly, but that it can benet from it indirectly.
Quantitative research can tell us, for instance, if the percentage of verbs
conjugated in the perfective past is signicantly higher for telic verbs than
for atelic verbs or whether perfective past is overextended more frequently
with telic verbs rather than with atelic ones. Instead, qualitative research
could be directed to understand whether learners know the peculiar prop-
erties of telicity of the second language. Investigating the properties of
telicity means answering three fundamental questions at least (which will
be possibly answered in Section 3): (1) Are prospective telic verbs in the
IL used also in virtually incompatible temporal frames (such as for x-time
expressions)? (2) Do L2 learners overuse a small number of basic verbs
regardless of their actional content? (3) Can qualitative longitudinal studies
on learner corpora reveal the existence of a bias for compositional or for
lexical expressions of actionality over time?
We are aware that qualitative analysis based on a limited number of
data (typically, on a convenience sample as Dornyei 2007 puts it) is
not sucient to draw conclusions about the signicance of facts (1)(3).
Nevertheless, qualitative analysis might be useful to cast doubts on the
394 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
(a) Referent check and within-subject variability. The rst point is trying to
establish to what degree we are in control of the referent, which is the state
of aairs described by a learner when recounting a scene. Let us assume
that the elective eld of application for qualitative research is re-telling
task data (see Chapter 7). The main goal of researchers should be to reach
an acceptable degree of control over the intended meaning; that is, over
what is being told by learners about a picture or a lm scene. There is an
additional source of confusion that complicates the task: L2 learners are
likely to use non target-like words and expressions that may mislead or
bias the interpreters towards one or another reading. One possible solution
is to look closely at within-subject variation; that is, at instances where
subjects serve as their own controls in repeated identical elicitation tasks at
dierent times. For instance, to elicit our data, the same subjects are asked
to re-tell the Frog story (see Section 3.1) twice or three times, at an interval
of 3 to 5 and 11 months (See Section 3). Within-subject variations are more
likely to be attributed to a modication in a learners competence rather
than to a dierence in the researchers interpretation (even though the
latter can never be neutralized).
396 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
(b) L1-L2 comparison against verb pairs. The second point is choosing
pairs of verbs in learner data which are both found to be very frequent in
the input and whose basic, general meaning seems to be already clear to
learners. These pairs are of two kinds: actional pairs and phasal pairs. In
native Italian, verbs of the former type share the basic meaning and dier
for one or two actional traits, in this case for the trait [etelic]. For example,
guardare to look, to watch is atelic, while vedere to see in its basic
meaning of perceiving that something entered the visual eld is telic
(see Section 3). Instead, verbs that form phasal pairs can be looked at as
being dierent phases of the same event (for the meaning of phase in the
event structure, see Moens 1987). For example, cercare to search may
serve as the preparatory phase of the event, while trovare to nd can
serve as its culmination point. Comparable to phasal verbs (to some extent
at least) are the reversive verbs (Cruse 1997) such as to teach / to learn,
to give / to receive.
Verkuyl (2005: 27) specied that the notion of culmination is ontological,
not a linguistic one. According to Verkuyl, this notion is rooted in our
tendency to give the nal limit of any event a prominent place given the
time course, but there is no detectable linguistic material at the VP-level
that can be said to express specically a culmination point. We too assume
that the notion of culmination is pre-linguistic. That is, learners might
want or need to express it long before they know which verbs are telic
and which are not in the lexicon of the target language. In this case, the
structural encoding of telicity may precede the lexical encoding (Rastelli
2008). Our hypothesis (Section 4) is that verbs belonging to actional and
phasal pairs are frequently exchanged by initial learners, regardless of
their actional content and that frequency in the input is not a relevant
factor to the choice of either verb. It is important, in order for the verbs
to be valid candidates for entering one or another pair, that learners are
aware of their general meaning, that is, of what is common between verbs
such as see and look (perception with the eyes), walking, going, coming
(displacement), listening and hearing (perception with the ear), etc. This
condition is not in contradiction with our research hypothesis: in fact the
general meaning of guardare and vedere is the physiological act of perceiv-
ing something with the eyes, whereas the general meaning of cercare and
trovare at least in the situation that we will analyze below is the over-
all event that encompasses both. Through the analysis of the sentences
where learners exchange such verbs in Section 3.2, we conclude that
general meanings and phasal meanings have primacy in acquisition over
aspectual features (namely over the [etelic] distinction) and more in
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 397
ditions of use in the two languages. Results from this study showed, on the
one hand, how the notions of tense and aspect exhibit considerable cross-
linguistic variation as far as codication strategies are concerned, and on
the other hand, they suggested that the L1 inuences in subtle ways the
acquisition of tense/aspect distinctions in the target language. Transfer
should anyway be conceived as a conceptual operation according to which
learners may assume that the target languages have the same conceptual
distinctions as their L1. Transfer is not a central issue for the Aspect
Hypothesis, since it is assumed that it is in principle universal (see however
Chapter 8). Results from L2 Italian conrm that the codication of tense
and aspect as was said before is far from being uniform in languages,
and thus learners have to undergo a reorganization of their L1 knowledge.
Several explanations for the observed eects of the Aspect Hypothesis
have been put forth. A cognitive and semantic principle was proposed by
Giacalone Ramat (1995) called the principle of selective association,
stating that features that are semantically congruent, such as telicity, per-
fectivity, and pastness, tend to be associated. Andersen (2002) suggested
a relevance principle and a congruence principle to account for the
anity of certain morphological markers with particular lexical aspectual
classes. These principles have in common the semantic cognitive dimen-
sion, and they are meant to guide the learners discovery of the form/
meaning relation encoded by the tense/aspect markers. A further relevant
factor to account for the learner acquisition path is the prototype eect.
In this view, Shirai and Andersen (1995: 758) stated: children acquire a
linguistic category starting with the prototype of the category, and later
expand its application to less prototypical cases. The same developmen-
tal path should hold true for L2 learners. The application of the notion of
prototype to acquisition is, however, in need of qualication: if learners
are able to infer a prototypical meaning for each inection, where does
this ability come from? Are prototypes in a learners mind as part of their
cognitive equipment (licensing an innatist view of prototypes), or are they
learned by children and adults from the available input, as functional
theories of language acquisition would suggest (Giacalone Ramat 2009:
265)? Descriptions of how learners expand prototypes from their proto-
typical contexts to new ones were provided by Andersen and Shirai (1996)
for the English progressive and by Giacalone Ramat (2009) for the present
tense in Italian. According to Dahl (1985: 78), the prototype of perfective
(which coincides with the prototype of past) associates telic predicates,
perfective aspect, and past tense; and this association, as showed above, can
404 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
account for preferred choices in early learner data. However, the emergence
of the perfective prototype in learner languages is usually blurred and
delayed because rst verbs, including both telic verbs and durative verbs,
appear in a present-like form also when a clear past meaning would be
expected:
(8) Da Asmara primo io vado Keren novanta
From Asmara rst I go-PRES.1stSG Keren ninety
duo kilometri.
two kilometres
I went from Asmara to Keren; it makes ninety two kilometres.
(MK, L1 Tigrinya, telling how he reached Italy)
(9) Interviewer: tu vivevi in campagna o in citta in Cina?
Were you living in the country or in a city in China?
Vivo in una grande citta Shanghai.
I-live-PRES-1SG in a big city Shanghai
I used to live in a big city, Shanghai.
(WE, L1 Chinese)
At any rate, it can be safely stated that the acquisition and use of proto-
typical past for telic verbs requires a certain amount of time (which varies
in individual learners), and that the spread of the past prototype to activities
and states takes even more time. This opens up the possibility that proto-
types are formed starting from the input, as suggested by Bertinetto and
Noccetti (2006) for L1 Italian. Thus, temporal reference, aspect, and action-
ality appear to be initially underspecied in learner productions: learners
struggle with the task of disentangling the various functions of verb inec-
tions and of assembling the appropriate features.
The role of the input available to learners accounts for the Distribu-
tional Bias Hypothesis proposed by Shirai and Andersen (1995) and
Andersen (2002) as an alternative interpretation to the cognitive pre-
disposition to recognize events with an endpoint. According to this prin-
ciple, the distribution of tense/aspect markers with particular classes of
verbs is already present in adult languages (or in native speakers for L2
learners), so that children and learners might simply imitate the input.
This does not seem to be the case, however, because learners appear to
gradually grasp the temporal aspectual and actional properties of the
forms they hear in the input, and initially they do not acquire all mean-
ings of verbal forms, but use them in a central or prototypical meaning.
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 405
3. The study
3. This condition stresses again the dierences between quantitative and qualita-
tive analyses already sketched in Section 1.2. In no way our subject can be
considered as a sample of the population of L2 learners of Italian, and in no
way will we generalize the outcome of our qualitative analysis. Rather, our
aim is to move research away from anecdotal in order to narrow the range of
hypotheses to the most reasonable ones and, nally, to prepare the eld for
always more interlanguage-aware quantitative generalizations.
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 407
and vedere dier in many respects, mainly for [eagentivity], secondly for
the properties of the NP object that is being seen or looked at, and nally
for their subcategorization frame. Generally speaking, vedere to see is an
event perception meaning something that appears in the visual spectrum,
whereas guardare to look is an agentive, controlled event of perception,
as it is clearly demonstrated by the mutually exclusive compatibility of these
two verbs with the adverbials di proposito on purpose and per caso by
chance:
(10) Ti ho guardato di proposito.
I looked at you on purpose.
(11) *Ti ho visto di proposito.
I saw you on purpose.
(12) *Ieri per caso ho guardato una rapina.
Yesterday by chance I looked at a robbery.
(13) Ieri per caso ho visto una rapina.
Yesterday by chance I saw a robbery.
The whole picture is much more complex though, because the [eagentiv-
ity] feature is not the only one to come into play. Agentivity may correlate
with the semantic and grammatical characteristics of the direct object NP.
For instance, the lack of duration of the event represented by the object
lampo lightning selects vedere and excludes guardare, but some objects
that refer to durative events like la partita in TV TV match allow
both verbs, irrespectively of their [eagentive] features. Yet, the feature
of specied quantity triggers the acceptability of lampi lightning as the
possible object of guardare (with an iterative reading):
(14) Ho guardato i lampi.
I looked at the lightening. (pl.)
The phrasal context and the aspectual perspective on the event conveyed
by the verb add some other restrictions too. When used with perfective
tenses expressing the experiential past, vedere is largely preferred:
(15) Hai mai visto una giornata cos bella?
Have you ever seen such a ne day?
(16) ??Haimai guardato una giornata cos bella?
Have you ever looked at such a ne day?
408 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
From a syntactic point of view, vedere but not guardare allows the
complementizer che that to ll the head position of a CP:
(17) Ho visto che Maria e arrivata.
I saw that Maria has arrived.
(18) *Ho guardato che Maria e arrivata.
*I looked that Maria has arrived.
Phasal pair verbs cercare to search and trovare to nd are both transi-
tive too. The former is an activity, atelic verb (as such, it is incompatible
with in x-time expressions), whereas the latter is telic, even though it is
fully compatible either with the progressive (19) or with for x-time expres-
sions (20):
(19) Sta trovando molte dicolta.
He/she is encountering-PROGR many diculties.
(20) Ho trovato tracce di animali per molti giorni.
I found animal footprints for many days.
When selecting actional and phasal pairs in learner data, not only the
actional template of verbs, but also their relationship (and the nature)
with direct object NPs is important. For example, a dierence when com-
paring an actional pair (such as guardare and vedere) to a phasal pair
(such as cercare and trovare) is that only the latter allows all kinds of NP
objects. In theory, anything that can be searched for can also be found,
whereas this does not necessarily hold for actional pairs (something that
can be looked at might not also be seen). In choosing verbs as candidates
for qualitative analysis, it is important that the direct object NPs are
neither over-preferred (collocated), nor outranked for one verb or another
in the pair. In this way, external factors for verb selection are minimized.
In the Frog story, the NP rana frog is compatible as the NP object of
either verb in the pair.
As far as learners L1 is concerned, verbs that enter phasal pairs to
search/to nd and actional pairs to look/to see in Chinese share an
identical morpheme but dier for the presence or absence of a resultative
complement (Li and Thompson 1981). To search corresponds to zhao,
whereas to nd corresponds to zhaodao, which is formed from zhao
plus the resultative dao (which literally means to reach, to arrive). The
presence of dao (resultative complement) conveys the meaning that the
process of searching eventually turned into nding something. Similarly,
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 409
to look can be translated with kan, and to see with kanjian, where jian
(which also means to see) resolves the (potentially) endless process into
an achievement (the same resultative complement jian can also be used
with other verbs of apperception such as wen to smell and tng # to listen
to). We wonder whether these L1 features are likely to be transferred to
the target language and whether they can interfere with the lexical choice
of either verb in the pairs. Three facts are relevant to us in the following
cases: (a) in the learners L1 the verbs in each pair dier in their meaning;
(b) the dierence concerns aspect; and (c) in Chinese, the dierence is not
lexical, but rather it is overtly marked by a morpheme. The overall conclu-
sion is that nothing, both in the L1 and in the L2, represents an obstacle
or delaying factor for either verb in the pairs to be learned in the target
language.
When LIL recounted the scene in which the boy sees that the bowl in
which the frog was kept is empty, he rst used the target-like vedere, but
2 months after, he seemed to backslide to the non target-like guardare:
412 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
There are cases in which the target-like form is only apparently acquired
over time. JAC used trovare, but 5 months later, after a brief wavering, he
eventually seemed to know which verb to choose in the pair:
(43) Loro usciano da casa [. . .] per trovare il rana.
They exit the house to nd (search for) the frog.
(44) Il bambino con il suo amico escono a casa per trova per cerca- per
cercare la rana.
The boy and his dog exit the house to search for the frog.
This distinction was only apparently attained, because a few seconds
later JAC while describing the search seemed to lapse and says:
(45) Il bambino trova il rana sul albero.
The child nds (searches) the frog on the tree.
Inconsistency of choices was frequent within and across subjects. LUI
lapsed from cercare to trovare when referring to the boy searching for the
frog in his boot while his dog searches inside a glass bowl:
(46) Poi lui cerca i scherpi e il cane cerca il bicchiere.
Then he searches (in his) shoes and the dog searches (in the) glass.
(47) Il bambino cerca il suo calve [. . .] il cane trova nella botttiglia.
The boy searches (in his) ?shoes [. . .] the dog nds (searches in)
the bottle.
As in the case of guardare and vedere, these sentences show that our learners
not only blur the distinction between cercare to look for and trovare to
nd, but the examples also reveal that the speakers choices are inconsis-
tent over the whole time span of recordings.
4. Discussion
Three facts emerged from the qualitative analysis of our data. First, some
frequent and basic verbs (as Viberg 2002 calls them) are used instead of
other actionally dierent verbs. As far as the verbs under scrutiny are con-
cerned, the verbs guardare to look and vedere to see despite being ac-
tionally dierent are exchanged very often by learners. A further nding
is that learners lexical choices seem to be unpredictable, in that they do
not seem to follow a consistent developmental path (e.g., from atelic to
telic). Second, verbs that enter phasal pairs are often used indierently
414 Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Stefano Rastelli
In (53) the [telic] and punctual character of the achievement verb addor-
mentarsi to fall asleep conicts with the conjunction mentre while,
unless we admit that one of the two (or both) is underspecied in a learners
interlanguage.
(2) Learners may blur the terminative-bounded opposition and use gram-
matical encoding to express telicity structurally (Rastelli 2008, in press).
Bertinetto and Deltto (2000: 191), comparing dierent mature languages,
proposed to use the pair terminative-non terminative to refer to the
aspectual domain and the pair bounded-non bounded to refer to the
actional domain. They stressed that the presence of an endpoint (or its
atelicity, duration, etc.) in a mental representation of that predicate sur-
vives the fact that the speakers may present the event as concluded or
in course. This distinction is meant to set up a basis for interlinguistic
comparisons among languages that overtly mark verb actionality and
aspect versus languages that do not. Italian overtly codes the terminative-
non-terminative distinction in the past, but it does not code overtly the
bounded-unbounded distinction in predicates (actionality is a matter of
lexical distinction). We think that learners should not be credited with
native representational awareness about a distinction between aspect and
actionality, and that the separation between aspect and actionality is a
rather weak descriptive tool. Rastelli (2008, in press) advances the idea
that learners might use the temporal/aspectual [Perfective] morpheme
to add telicity to atelic verbs (thus blurring the distinction between action-
ality and aspect) and that they upgrade adjuncts (typically, AdvP and PP)
to the rank of arguments to gear the actionality of underspecied verbs to
a telic interpretation. This happens as long as L2 Italian learners do not
check [ePerfective] features in the functional head T(ense) rather than in
Asp (which is either their L1s or default parameter value).
(3) Learners may not be aware of the interactions between lexical and
grammatical aspect. Learners should not be credited to know from scratch
in which circumstances and for which verbs the perfective-imperfective
alternations alone may cause the actional content of the same verb to
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 417
shift.4 If researchers take for granted that L2 learners are aware of this
shift, this would be enough to make some actionality tests fail and, thus
mislead researchers. For instance, in sentence (54), despite the use of the
perfective passato prossimo, the referent-check on the lm scene convinces
us that the English-speaking student wants to say that the woman was
wearing green sunglasses (stative) and not that she wore sunglasses
(achievement).
(54) Ha indossato occhi di sole verdi.
She wore (was wearing) green sunglasses.
In native Italian, the verb indossare to wear can be telic or atelic depend-
ing on the aspectual morphemes (perfective or imperfective). In sentence
(54), the specic use of the verb indossare is telic if we consider its (per-
fective) form, but it is atelic if we consider the supposed meaning (what
the learner probably meant when trying to describe the lm scene). This
form-meaning mismatching leads us to believe that another piece of
actional competence is likely to be missing in a learners interlanguage.
5. Conclusion
At the beginning of this section we expressed the idea that actionality too
is learned. Now, we can dene this idea more precisely. There are converg-
ing cues that there could exist a developmental stage in which learners
actional competence is in re-construction alongside with the whole tense
and aspect system. At this stage, basic verbs (similar in meaning) are easily
exchanged, phasal verbs are easily exchanged, actional distinctions are
blurred, and nally the interactions between lexical and grammatical
aspects are largely ignored. Actionality is learned, as long as the actional
properties are acquired gradually by learners. Qualitative analysis should
warn researchers against carelessly labeling telic or atelic (durative or non-
durative) all verbs in the interlanguage based on accuracy percentages in
mandatory contexts. The procedure of counting up target-like and non
target-like occurrences (in mandatory contexts) of prospective telic and
atelic verbs should not be used as evidence of developmental primacy of
prototypical associations. In fact, as long as we do not know whether a
Acknowledgments
This work is the result of a continuous exchange of ideas between the two
authors. However, Stefano Rastelli is responsible for Sections 1, 3, and 4,
and Anna Giacalone Ramat is responsible for Sections 2 and 5.
Data analysis: The qualitative analysis of actionality in learner language 419
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2001 The second time: The acquisition of temporality in Dutch and
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van Valin, Robert
2005 Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Verkuyl, Hans
2005 Aspectual composition: surveying the ingredients. In H. Verkuyl,
H. De Swart & A. van Hout (Eds.), Perspectives on Aspect, 19
39. Dordrecht: Springer.
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2002 Basic verbs in lexical progression and regression. In P. Burmeis-
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93. 354369.
Chapter 12
Integrating the analyses of tense and aspect across
research and methodological frameworks
1. Introduction
In the last decade, the study of the acquisition of tense and aspect among
second language (L2) learners has become a signicant area of research (e.g.,
Ayoun and Salaberry 2005; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Rocca 2007; Salaberry
2008; Salaberry and Shirai 2002; Slabakova 2001). Some researchers have
gone as far as arguing that there are too many studies on the topic: an
embarrassment of riches as proposed by Slabakova (2002: 186). Despite
the abundance of studies on tense-aspect, there are two recurrent problems
in the current literature: (a) the lack of an open dialogue across theoretical
frameworks (cf., Shirai 2007: 61), and (b) the lack of consistent method-
ological procedures (even when acknowledging disparate theoretical per-
spectives). That is, there has not been a systematic integration of ndings
across theoretical frameworks and methodological procedures. Overall,
such lack of integration leads researchers to base their analyses on only a
limited number of studies, among the many that are available for scrutiny.
Consequently, even if there is an abundant literature on the topic of tense
and aspect, we may not be using all relevant information to gather our
conclusions, thus leading to an inecient analysis or, even worse, an
incomplete one.
For instance, while some theoretical positions consider the role of
adjuncts (in particular, adverbials) as part of a denition of grammatical
aspect (e.g., Salaberry 2008), others regard the role of adjuncts to be
outside of the scope of grammatical knowledge and, more properly, to be
part of world knowledge (e.g., Slabakova and Montrul 2007). Whereas, in
principle, both denitions of the given theoretical construct are valid, the
analysis of ndings from both perspectives can be protably reconciled at
a supra-level in order to obtain an overall interpretation of tense-aspect
phenomena across a wide range of theoretical descriptions. At a minimum,
424 M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
researchers will be led to reconcile the ndings from studies carried out
within distinct theoretical paradigms (see Chapters 5 and 6). A similar
situation arises with the analysis of research methodologies. For instance,
starting with the rst studies that investigated the acquisition of tense-
aspect, there have been discrepancies about the best procedure to code
the data (e.g., coding for lexical aspect, discourse grounding, etc.) and,
more importantly, how to interpret the ndings produced by such diverse
types of coding criteria (see Chapters 8 and 9). Along the same lines, some
data collection procedures are based on grammaticality judgments, whereas
other studies are based on the analysis of data obtained from open-ended
narrative tasks (see Chapters 7, 10, and 11).
Whereas some studies have already provided an integrative view of the
state of the art theoretical approaches to the study of the L2 acquisition of
tense and aspect phenomena (e.g., Ayoun and Salaberry 2005; Bardovi-
Harlig, 2000; Montrul and Salaberry 2003), such proposals have been
limited in scope, mostly restricted to summaries of studies. On the other
hand, to the best of our knowledge, the issue of research methodologies
applied to the analysis of the acquisition of tense-aspect has been restricted
to brief analyses presented as part of the background to specic studies.
The integration of ndings across studies is potentially important for
the overall objective of drafting a comprehensive picture of the acquisi-
tion of tense-aspect phenomena. Furthermore, the integration of analyses
carried out across methodological paradigms may lead to a more ecient
process of theorization. Given the previous analysis, the present volume
has addressed the following questions:
(a) What are the most relevant theoretical constructs (e.g., iterativity versus
habituality in Slabakova and Montrul 2007; cognitive grammar in
Putz, Niemeier, and Dirven 2001) that can be integrated into a pan-
theoretical perspective that would make research on tense-aspect more
ecient and, more importantly, advance our theoretical understanding?
(b) What are the various research methodologies (e.g., production versus
comprehension tests, quantitative versus qualitative approaches) that
could be used the purpose of integrating the various ndings into a
single coherent whole?
(c) What are the results from dierent theoretical frameworks and meth-
odologies that could provide evidence for one or many theories of the
acquisition of L2 tense and aspect?
Integrating 425
That is, whereas Comries denition focuses our attention on the linguistic
characterization of the features of the situation in reality, Klein focuses
our attention on the speakers perspective as opposed to the situation
in reality or the linguistic characterization of such reality. It is obvious
that Kleins denition is the one that introduces a complex interpretation
of the meaning of aspect given its emphasis on the subjective interpreta-
tion of situations by speakers and hearers. Such contrast in meanings
has been discussed in great detail by Smith (1991/1997) and reminds us
that aspect is a complex topic given by the various layers of interpretation
possible.
Despite the apparent subjectivity of how we use aspectual markers to
highlight specic construals of situations in reality (i.e., Kleins deni-
tion above), there are, however, conventions of use (cf. Smith 1991/1997)
of grammatical aspect that provide limits to the arbitrariness of the sub-
1. Granted, both Comrie and Klein oer a more extensive (and nuanced) deni-
tion of aspect. However, we believe that the basic gist of their denitions is
adequately represented in the quotes presented above.
Integrating 427
jective selections. For instance, Smith (1997: 7) points out that [s]tandard
choices focus on aspectual properties that are salient at the basic level;
non-standard choices focus on other properties. Accordingly, Smith con-
tends that sentences (5) and (6) are two possible linguistic descriptions of
the same event (both examples from Smith).
(1) The ship moved.
(2) The ship was in motion.
According to Smith, sentence (1) conveys the conventional interpretation
of the event according to the properties that are salient perceptually and
functionally. In contrast, sentence (2) is representative of the less conven-
tional description of the same eventuality, because it depicts the event as
a state. Either representation has obvious consequences that speakers
may or may not choose to highlight (e.g., option (2) freezes the motion
of the ship). And even if speakers select the unconventional depiction,
Smith notes that receivers will not be misled by unconventional choice.
Knowing a language includes the standard, basic associations of verb con-
stellation with verb type. Moreover, there are cases in which speakers are
even more constrained by the choices, as in the following examples from
Salaberry (2008) (adapted from Langackers (1982) examples in English)
and Doiz-Bienzobas (1995):
(3) a. Sally fue (PRET) de Phoenix a Tucson.
Sally went from Phoenix to Houston.
b. *Esta ruta fue (PRET) de Phoenix a Tucson.
That route went from Phoenix to Houston.
(4) a. La carta deca (IMP) hola.
The letter said hello.
b. *La carta dijo (PRET) hola.
The letter said hello.
As can be seen in both sets of examples, the perfective form is ungram-
matical, thus showing very concrete limits to the range of subjectivity to
be exercised by speakers.
Even though previous classications of theoretical perspectives on the
acquisition of tense-aspect are not necessarily restricted to the identication
of the object of study, there is a clear correlation of theoretical perspective
and the object of study (i.e., the dependent variable). Thus, Montrul and
Salaberry (2003) listed ve theoretical characterizations of the development
of tense and aspect morphology in Spanish broadly dened according to
428 M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
2. The terms Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) and Aspect Hypothesis (AH) are
used indistinctively by dierent authors in the chapters of the volume.
Integrating 429
English low group learners show stability in using the IMP to mark progres-
sivity but not habituality. This is arguably because habituality needs mapping
but progressivity does not. German low group learners indicate diculty in
marking habituality and progressivity with the IMP because both meanings
require remapping. Therefore, it is claimed that when dierences exist in
how the L1 and the L2 express meaning, it is these L1-L2 dierences that
constitute diculties in L2 development.
McManus (2011: 214), however, points out that if the AHs predictions
are not empirically supported (i.e., not reected in spontaneous produc-
tion), then its claim for universality rings hollow. How can the AH be a
valid theory of L2 development if it fails to convincingly predict actual
patterns of L2 development? As we can see, it is dicult to disentangle
the eects of theoretical factors from methodological ones. Indeed, there
are enough methodological dierences in the various studies carried out
to test the eect of the various proposed independent hypotheses that it is
worth considering the relevance of methodological factors.
The eld of SLA has developed in such a way in the last 20 years that
methodologies are not only dierent in the various theoretical frameworks
(e.g., UG versus LAH), but also within the frameworks. For instance,
Chapters 7, 9, and 11 in this volume provide a review of methodologies
that could be considered within one framework (functional-discourse).
Nonetheless, these chapters also provide evidence that within each frame-
work one can choose from plenty of elicitation tasks and methods. For
instance, Comajoans review of 19 studies (Chapter 9) that have used the
foreground-background distinction in L2 studies shows that their deni-
tions vary considerably, and consequently their way of analyzing the data
varies as well. Along the same lines, Bardovi-Harlig (Chapter 7) mentions
three major types of open-ended tasks for tense and aspect L2 research:
narratives, description, and conversation, and within narratives, she studies
conversational and elicited narratives and within the latter she discusses
personal, impersonal, and personalized narratives.
In designing a method to investigate the acquisition of L2 tense and
aspect, at least the following seven factors need to be taken into account
(Montrul and Salaberry 2003; Salaberry and Ayoun 2005; Salaberry 2008):
3. Factor 7 would also fall within research design, but it has already been ana-
lyzed in the previous section.
434 M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
type of learning environment, etc.), discourse context, and task type. The
factors discussed by Bayley can be divided into two main groups, those
that are related to theoretical constructs of the tempo-aspectual system of
languages and those that are related to tasks to elicit data. For this reason,
the adoption of a multivariate analysis perspective can be considered an
issue that is both related to the theoretical framework and to the specic
methodology.
The most common multivariate analyses in L2 tense-aspect have been
related to the study of the LAH and the DH (see summaries of previous
studies in Bardovi-Harlig 2000 and Salaberry 2008). However, in the
analyses of the conspiring factors from the two hypotheses, results tend
to be discussed as if there were two competing forces and one had to play
a more important role than the other, when it is very likely that one may
subsume the other, that both simply interact and are in constant interac-
tion, or that at dierent periods of acquisition one is more important
than the other (see Salaberry 2011 for empirical data that support the
latter argument). In addition, the studies that have examined the interaction
of the two hypotheses have not adopted a multivariate statistical analysis
(like the one argued by Bayley in Chapter 10), but rather statistical techni-
ques that may be more appropriate for quantitative univariate analyses.
Current research is also investigating how dierent variables interact in
the L2 acquisition of tense-aspect from perspectives that go beyond the
LAH and the DH. For instance, Ellis (Chapter 3) investigates how fre-
quency (and its many implications) and salience play a decisive role in
the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect and argues for multivariate analyses
not just from a linguistic perspective (e.g., how are dierent verb forms
marked), but rather from a cognitive perspective that studies how human
beings learn in general and how they learn an L2 specically: we need
models of learning, language, meaning, usage, interaction, development,
and emergence that take all these factors into account dynamically.
The development of SLA research has not been an exception to the chasm
in theories and methodologies that has taken place in other academic dis-
ciplines. For instance, the early debate about the proliferation of theories
in SLA seen as benecial or not to theory construction and development
of the eld (see a summary in Jordan 2004) and the recent one about
social versus mentalistic perspectives of SLA (see a summary in Laord
2007) are proof of the diversity of voices and opinions in SLA and to an
extent to a chasm that has not been solved yet. The divergence of voices is
Integrating 437
types of tasks that can provide complementary results to the study of tense
and aspect. Finally, Comajoan (Chapter 9) reviews dierent approaches
to the study of narrative discourse grounding while highlighting current
studies in which dierent methodologies are integrated (e.g., Rosi 2009).
In his third question, Dornyei asked, What is the best way of mixing
methods? There are multiple combinations depending on two typological
principles: sequence (what methodology is rst? quantitative or qualitative?)
and dominance (which dominates?). Dornyei provided a variety of exam-
ples that combine mostly questionnaires (quantitative) and interviews (qual-
itative) (also self-reports, observation, and experiments). Research in tense
and aspect has used both qualitative and quantitative methods, but very
few researchers have combined them. For instance, Liskin Gasparro (1996)
used retrospective interviews to study how advanced learners of Spanish
argued for the use of preterite and imperfect forms. Other studies examined
the same object but using dierent data collection tasks (e.g., video retell-
ings, story book retellings, and conversations in Comajoan 2001), but there
have been few studies that make an eort to combine methodologies and
tasks (an exception is Rosi 2009, who provided quantitative and qualitative
analyses).
Dorney wondered why researchers do not mix methods more, and
pondered about three possible main reasons. First, researchers in some
elds do not have enough knowledge and training about method mixing.
Second, researchers do not have enough expertise to put into practice
research designs based on mixed methods. And third, publication pressure
may encourage researchers to publish dierent studies with dierent meth-
odologies separately instead of using one single study that combines both
types of method. Those disciplines that have adopted a mixed method per-
spective have soon discovered that such an approach is not the solution to
all problems (see a review in Hesse-Biber 2010; Tashakkori and Teddlie
2006). A major concern has been how to avoid placing one (commonly,
quantitative) rst and relegate the other (often, qualitative) to a subsidiary
position (what Howe 2004 calls mixed-methods experimentalism). As dis-
cussed above, the combinations of methodologies are multiple, and de-
pending on the goals of the study one can be more appropriate than the
other. For instance, Giacalone Ramat and Rastelli (Chapter 11) explicitly
refer to the relationship between the two types of methodologies and argue
for carrying out qualitative studies rst that would inform later quantita-
tive studies later (see Howe 2004 for a detailed discussion of positioning
qualitative studies rst in the eld of educational studies).
440 M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
In sum, mixed methods are not the solution to all the theoretical and
methodological concerns raised in the volume, but incorporating such a
new perspective, which has been adopted in other disciplines and proven
productive, may contribute to the development of research in L2 tense-
aspect. Ultimately, in regard to theory and methodology, we agree with a
number of Jordans (2004: 115116) guidelines for the construction of a
rational theory of SLA, which can adequately be applied to research in
L2 tense-aspect: (a) research is inseparable from theory as has been
clearly demonstrated in the chapters in the volume and in the current
chapter, (b) we cannot formalize the scientic method, that is, there is
no one method to carry out research in L2 tense-aspect and, as argued
by Jordan, there is no clear mark between science and non-science,
but rather multiple methods whose combinations will contribute to the
development of theory and methodology, and (c) there is no need for
paradigmatic theories, in the sense that there should be no concern for
the proliferation of theories that may contribute to the development of
the eld as long as theories are well constructed.
In line with the claims advanced by Jordan (2004), the analysis of
the compatibility of the dierent theoretical perspectives can be framed
by a number of broad discussions (which are not necessarily dierent
from previous general discussions in SLA). In the end, it is clear that a
multiple methods approach is best. Zyzik and Gass (2008: 385), for
instance, argue that . . . multiple methods of data collection . . . enrich
our understanding of a variety of linguistic structures. In particular, Zyzik
and Gass highlight the fact that recent studies conducted within generative
approaches have started to include more contextualized procedures to
gather evidence to test proposed hypotheses (e.g., sentence-selection tasks
as in Bruhn de Garavito and Valenzuela 2008 or paragraph interpretation
as in Rothman and Iverson 2008). In light of this new trend in tense-aspect
studies, our proposal is to encourage the use of mixed method method-
ology in tense and aspect research.
instructional eects, both potential and actual, that can have an eect on
the acquisition of tense-aspect contrasts. In this section, we discuss three
main principles to implement a way of teaching informed by current
research and methodology in the acquisition of L2 tense and aspect.
Before embarking upon the discussion of the principles, we tackle the issue
regarding the eect of instruction on the acquisition of second languages.
Ellis (1997) addressed a number of problems in the teaching and learn-
ing of grammatical items in a second language, and he argued for the
Weak Interface Hypothesis: the kind of explicit knowledge which results
from formal grammar instruction can become, through practice, the kind
of implicit knowledge that is required for use in communication. To be
able to prove whether explicit knowledge can be converted into implicit
knowledge, one has to prove that the learners awareness and use of the
particular grammatical structure improves after instruction. There have
been a number of empirical studies that have demonstrated that learners
who receive instruction outperform those who do not, both with respect
to the rate of acquisition and ultimate level of achievement (Long 1983,
1988; Ellis 1985, 1990, among others). Thus, on the basis of the research
on the eects of form-focused instruction on accuracy, there is enough evi-
dence to show that form-focused instruction can result in denite gains in
accuracy (Ellis 2002). For instance, the European Science Foundation
carried out a number of studies on L2 teaching including target languages
such as English, Dutch, French, German, and Swedish. Dietrich et al.
(1995) conducted dierent studies with learners of each of the ve target
languages. Some of the learners received instruction, whereas some did
not, which allowed for a comparison between instructed and uninstructed
learners. One of the key ndings was that instruction on its own was not
responsible for success, but rather it was a tool to accessing and grasping
the target grammatical phenomenon; and, as such, it had a positive eect
on its acquisition. In sum, eective instruction may have an impact on the
acquisition of L2 tense and aspect. What we dene as eective instruction
has to do with the three principles discussed next.
The rst principle has to do with understanding the complexity of the
instruction and learning of L2 tempo-aspectual systems. Blyth (2005),
using the criteria for determining the diculty of grammatical struc-
tures adapted from Ellis (1997, 2002) showed that Romance aspect is
particularly dicult for English-speaking students because all eight criteria
(formal complexity of the system, functional complexity of the system, relia-
bility of rules, metalanguage of rules, L1-L2 contrasts, frequency of forms
442 M. Rafael Salaberry, Llorenc Comajoan, and Paz Gonzalez
6. Conclusion
This chapter opened with three main questions that the current volume
has attempted to answer: identifying the most relevant theoretical con-
structs that can contribute to a pan-theoretical perspective, integrating
research methodologies, and, nally, analyzing the results derived from
the theories and methodologies. The answers provided in the current
chapter are not conclusive, although they arguably contribute to a better
understanding of the analysis of the acquisition of temporality in the L2
by way of a comprehensive investigation of the path that research in tense
and aspect has followed, the obstacles we have found on the road, and
the hurdles we may still nd in the future. As can be gathered from this
chapter and the ones in the volume, research in L2 tense and aspect has
developed both in the number of theories and methodologies, a fact that
can be considered a strength or a weakness. On the one hand, it is positive
to have a pluralistic perspective of viewpoints on how tense and aspect are
learned in a second language because it contributes to the development of
the SLA discipline in general. On the other hand, the proliferation of
theories and methodologies can be considered problematic when theories
and methodologies become incommensurable among themselves and
results can only be understood as a sort of consequence of having faith
in such and such theory or method. We have suggested that a middle of
Integrating 445
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Accomplishment 4, 18, 60, 68, 98 Boundedness 27, 54, 66, 6870, 82,
100, 123, 132, 137, 160, 176, 177 187, 216
9, 2717, 2834, 287295, 299,
306, 339, 3634, 366, 3778, 381 Coding 45, 23, 77, 81, 834, 125,
Achievement 4, 18, 60, 68, 98100, 165, 171, 211, 260, 268, 271, 280
123, 132, 1345, 137, 142, 160, 2, 285, 2878, 295, 2899, 300,
161, 176, 1789, 201, 2712, 274 32532, 336, 33841, 3535, 358
8, 2834, 287299, 339, 3634, 9, 362, 368, 392, 396, 4156, 424,
366, 3778, 382, 392, 398, 405, 4345, 445
409, 4167, 441 Cognitive grammar 11, 58, 442
Actional pairs 3967, 408, 414 Conceptualization 1214, 29, 53, 58,
Activity 26, 60, 70, 92, 989, 131, 160, 114, 188, 194, 199, 217, 293,
268, 27276, 27779, 281, 283, 296
28690, 29599, 315, 370, 3778, Construal 11, 14, 17, 22, 58, 64, 65,
381, 392, 3979, 405, 408 69, 98, 107, 262, 315, 345, 349,
Actual event 356, 71, 74, 7678, 80 426, 430, 446
2, 198 Construction grammar 2, 52, 90, 106,
Actual occurrence reading 57, 6365, 108, 110, 112, 217
69, 71 Constructions 3, 7, 30, 48, 523, 72,
Actual past situation 79, 84 905, 98, 1012, 104, 1067, 109,
Aktionsart 153, 160, 185, 295, 303, 1114, 117, 129, 207, 2101, 213,
401 215, 389, 422
Aspect hypothesis 6, 98101, 119, Contingency of form-function mapping
137, 15960, 1756, 181, 258, 92, 94, 97, 102
263, 271, 27880, 298, 302, 304
7, 322, 358, 362, 37880, 3823, Default past 119, 159, 175, 177, 178,
392, 398, 40003, 405, 42122, 183, 190, 280, 304
4289, 431, 447, 449 Discourse grounding 263, 30910,
Atelic see telic 3156, 3189, 3214, 326, 328
30, 3401, 345, 392, 424, 430,
Background 3, 5, 1213, 30, 37, 41, 435, 439
44, 47, 667, 82, 103, 129, 137, Discourse hypothesis 45, 101, 119,
193, 197, 213215, 222, 230, 231 180, 258, 309, 350, 353, 355, 428
3, 236, 23940, 2458, 2501, Durative 18, 138, 159, 16170, 175,
253, 2589, 265, 268, 309, 315 17981, 193, 200, 207, 214, 272,
18, 320, 346, 349, 353, 361, 364 294, 317, 320, 342, 363, 391,
7, 36970, 3778, 380, 424, 432 399, 4012, 404, 407, 4178,
3, 4434 431
Basic verbs 393, 4134, 4178, 422 Dynamic 2, 14, 60, 99100, 108, 110
Bounded-unbounded 1722, 248, 34, 1, 1145, 117, 123, 148, 163, 230,
39, 60, 648, 70, 82, 85, 1646, 233, 267, 2713, 276, 2857, 296,
16971, 249, 320, 399, 405, 416, 318, 329, 363, 378, 389, 394, 406,
418 434
456 Subject index
Foreground 5, 1214, 44, 47, 66, 82, 135, 141, 163, 171, 175, 1778,
87, 213, 222, 2303, 236, 23940, 182, 184, 188, 190, 193, 209, 260,
2458, 24953, 256, 259, 265, 265, 271307, 309, 324, 32831,
268, 309, 31520, 346, 349, 353, 339, 3412, 3445, 349, 362, 365,
3646, 370, 3778, 392, 428, 432 370, 372, 376, 378, 3834, 387,
Frequency 1, 3, 6, 21, 51, 8994, 96 391, 392, 394, 398, 4013, 421,
99 10107, 111, 292, 298, 365, 424, 42632, 435, 445, 449
367, 385, 396, 398, 414, 42930, Logistic regression 5, 358, 370, 376,
4334, 441, 443 382
Habitual 3, 24, 36, 767, 1056, 115, Narrative 4, 37, 40, 42, 445, 47, 67,
130, 132, 152, 168, 1723, 188 71, 100, 103, 109, 119, 1312,
90, 1924, 1989, 20002, 2078, 134, 13940, 177, 1845, 215,
2147, 249, 251, 273, 279, 2823, 2203, 22969, 275, 280, 301,
285, 28990, 2956, 317, 320, 303, 304, 30945, 3535, 3602,
402, 424, 431 364, 3679, 3767, 3805, 398,
Heritage learners 14143 405, 4101, 418, 424, 428, 432,
439, 445, 448
Image schema 12 Non-accidental 116, 191, 194, 1967,
Imperfect (IMP) 1889, 192196 2026, 212
Imperfective predicates 60, 64, 68
Imperfectivity 22, 82, 133, 148, 169, Outer/inner aspect 119, 128, 13335,
192, 365 141
Implicational scale 379, 382, 387
Interface hypothesis 12, 1423, 145, Perfective predicates 60, 64, 65, 68,
155, 441 701
Interpretable features 126 Perfectivity 124, 128, 133, 148, 192,
Iterative 12, 235, 1056, 115, 152, 217, 317, 322, 365, 401, 403
188, 190, 198202, 213, 215, 217, Phasal pairs 3967, 400, 408, 4134,
2823, 28990, 2945, 297, 299, 4178
317, 407 Plus principle 1634
Predication eect hypothesis 15960
(Language) prompts 3, 187, 189, 200, Predicational aspect 1604, 167, 171
2026, 2079, 212, 2412, 252, Preterite (PRET) 57, 6371, 7685,
254, 2567 427
Lexical aspect 19, 99101, 10305, Property reading 57, 634, 667, 71,
109111, 116, 119, 1289, 133, 85
Subject index 457
Prototype 7, 12, 15, 3437, 49, 54, 91, Telic-atelic/telicity 7, 66, 98100,
96, 99100, 117, 2756, 27980, 1034, 107, 12330, 132, 138,
301, 306, 310, 343, 388, 403404, 148, 153, 1612, 173, 1768, 184,
422 1889, 1913, 201, 209, 2134,
Prototypicality of meaning 92, 96, 99, 216, 2739, 3201, 324, 327, 329,
102 3634, 370, 380, 3914, 396, 398
Psycholinguistics 110, 113, 114, 155, 401, 4034, 40810, 413, 4168,
302, 452 421, 428, 449
Punctual 18, 247, 168, 193, 202, Temporality 45, 110, 127, 139, 161,
2145, 2725, 279, 2949, 303, 183, 219, 221, 232, 254, 2634,
3167, 320, 327, 3545, 358, 363 267, 307, 316, 322, 3256, 3412,
4, 370, 380, 399, 4156 3456, 389, 401, 420, 422, 443,
444, 446
Radial network 15 Terminative 159, 1634, 16671, 175,
Recency 92, 95, 206 17981, 416
Redundancy 92, 967, 107, 442 Type and token frequency 93, 101
Salience 367, 41, 467, 92, 95, 978, Universal Grammar (UG) 119, 120
1067, 109, 111, 315, 319, 349, 24, 1256, 1289, 14345, 154,
434, 442 204, 432
Semantic entailments 122, 141, 144 Unboundedness 25, 54, 66, 82
Semelfactive 24, 176, 2723, 299, 370, Uninterpretable features 132, 137, 142
399 Universal grammar 119, 14647, 149,
State 1718, 20, 23, 32, 68, 989, 152
123, 132, 1378, 153, 160, 170,
1756, 1789, 181, 24950, 271, VARBRUL 358, 365, 367, 3701,
272, 277, 287, 290, 2956, 305, 376, 382, 389
339, 362, 364, 380, 402, 404, 428 Virtual event 57, 712, 74, 76, 77, 79,
Structural plane 191, 1989 81
Virtuality 76, 82, 856
Task 219260, 280, 336, 341, 366,
395, 424, 432469, 434 Zipfs law 94, 101