The role of dynamic contrasts in the L2 acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology

Abstract

This study examines the second language acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology by three groups of English speakers (beginners, intermediates and advanced). We adopt a novel methodological approach – combining oral corpus data with controlled experimental data – in order to provide new evidence on the validity of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) in L2 Spanish. Data elicited through one comprehension and three oral tasks with varying degrees of experimental control show that the emergence of temporal markings is determined mainly by the dynamic/non-dynamic contrast (whether a verb is a state or an event) as beginner and intermediate speakers use Preterit with event verbs but Imperfect mainly with state verbs. One crucial finding is that although advanced learners use typical Preterit–telic associations in the least controlled oral tasks, as predicted by the LAH, this pattern is often reversed in tasks designed to include non-prototypical (and infrequent) form–meaning contexts. The results of the comprehension task also show that the Preterit-event and Imperfect-state associations observed in the production data determine the interpretation that learners assign to the Preterit and the Imperfect as well. These results show that beginner and intermediate learners treat event verbs (achievements, accomplishments and activities) in Spanish as a single class that they associate with Preterit morphology. We argue that dynamicity contrasts, and not telicity, affect learners’ use of past tense forms during early stages of acquisition.

Prototypical influence in second language acquisition: What now for the Aspect Hypothesis

“…In contrast to many studies on the L2 development of aspect, the present study avoided Modern Times because it has been reported to fail in balancing prototypical and nonprototypical combinations, instead favouring prototypical ones (Bardovi-Harlig 2000;Bardovi-Harlig and Bergström 1996). As a consequence, when Modern Times is avoided (e.g., Domínguez et al 2013) or combined with other methods (e.g., Labeau 2005), then maybe it is no surprise that the AH's predictions for prototypical influence fail to be supported.…”

“…The tasks used in this study were initially created by the SPLLOC 2 research team(Domínguez et al 2013). They were adapted to French for the present study (for further details, seeMcManus, 2011).…”

L1-L2 Differences in the Acquisition of Form-Meaning Pairings in a Second Language

“…Lastly, German implicitly conveys viewpoint aspect lexically and via the discourse context because, unlike in English and French, German past tense forms do not express viewpoint aspect (Comrie, 1976;Duden, 1995;Durrell, 2006). Viewpoint information is, instead, interpreted from situation aspect and leads to preferential interpretations based on a predicate's inherent semantics: atelic predicates entail imperfectivity and telic predicates entail perfectivity (Bohnemeyer & Swift, 2004).…”

“…According to Durrell, Kohl & Loftus (2002, p. 102), the Preterit "is used to narrate past actions or events in written German. In spoken German, the [Perfekt] is commonly used in such contexts" (see also Durrell, 2006;Thieroff, 1992). Although modality does not wholly account for tense use, and verbs can be used with either tense form, Durrell et al (2002) note that, in speaking, the Perfekt is generally preferred over the Preterit in southern Germany (e.g.…”

The importance of task variability in the design of learner corpora for SLA research

“…Although there is still some debate about the specific order of acquisition in L2 Spanish (e.g., Dominguez et al 2013, Salaberry 2008, in general research has demonstrated that the Preterit emerges first with telic predicates (achievements and accomplishments), whereas the Imperfect emerges first with states and later activities. In other words, when learners begin to use past tense morphology, the prototypical combinations of lexical and grammatical aspect will emerge before the non-prototypical pairings.…”