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This chapter deals with tense, mood, and aspect (TMA) marking in the languages of Suriname, focusing on the stability of forms, meanings, and structural pat-terns. Despite its prominent position in the creolization debate and occasional mentions in the literature on linguistic areas, studies on TMA in (non creoliza-tion) contact settings in Suriname are relatively few. TMA has been studied in detail in the world’s languages, however, in terms of: - typology (Dahl 1985, 2000; Boland 2006; Dahl and Velupillai 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d; Dryer 2011; Velupillai 2012); - creolization (Singler 1990; Bakker et al. 1994; Winford 2001; Velupillai 2015: 391–403); and - historical development & grammaticalization (Bybee et al. 1994)

The study investigates the judgements of the Turkish L2 speakers of English on tense/aspect agreement violations.

We consider the representation and processing of the English verb features tense, aspect and voice, within a computational cognitive model of human language processing. We assume that a collection of features is associated with each verbal element and that these features may project to the clauses in which they occur. When multiple verbal elements occur, it is possible for the features to conflict, necessitating mechanisms of feature blocking and overriding to determine feature projection. The alternative of having multiple entries in the mental lexicon for each verbal element with different feature sets is avoided due to the ambiguity that would be introduced, and the weak grammatical motivation for doing so. However, we do assume an ambiguity in the case of most v-ed and vbase verb forms, with the past tense v-ed form being distinct from the past participle v-ed form and the present tense v-base form being distinct from the non-finite v-base form. We assume that every finite clause expresses a tense and voice feature and many finite clauses express an aspect feature as well. We consider the case of transitive and intransitive verbs in combination with the auxiliary verbs Dbe and Dhave in finite clauses. For intransitive verbs, we introduce an active/inactive voice feature distinction which aligns with the transitive distinction between active and passive voice.

YIDDISH ASPECT TENSE AND THE LEXICON EXPRESSION OF TIME IN YIDDISH

It has been well learnt that a large number of Arab EFL learners encounter a considerable degree of complexity in the use of tense and aspect as fundamental components of the English language. Such a degree of difficulty is perceived and experienced by those learners at their different levels of learning English starting at the primary level up to the university level. This is what has led the researcher to carry out this research with the major aim of looking into the reasons behind the failure of such learners to handle the use of tense and aspect of English in a proper manner. The sample of this research comprised a group of students studying English as an ESP course, who were on the verge of graduation in the College of Engineering, Jazan University. The research tools used were both a test and a questionnaire. The findings of the research show that those learners encounter a great deal of complexity in the use of tense and aspect. This is clarified by means of their inability to use tense and aspect in English as correct as they should. This complexity is greater in the case of the use of the aspect. The research concludes with forwarding a number of conclusions resulting from the discussion of the results; and these conclusions are followed by a number of recommendations that can be useful for teachers, curricula designers and decision makers.

This study aims to investigate the acquisition of English verb morphology by learners of two typologically different L1s and the role of L1 transfer in the acquisition pattern, a cross-sectional study (n = 180) carried with Chinese and Mongolian college students learning English at two proficiency levels, using the cloze passage and composition. 120 cloze passages and 20 compositions were selected as data to be analyzed. Consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis, the results of MANOVA tests show a significant effect of lexical aspect on tense-aspect marking use: the perfective and past markings are strongly associated with Achievements/Accomplishments; the progressive marking is strongly associated with Activities; the present marking is strongly associated with States. Even though Mongolian and Chinese learners show virtually the same acquisition pattern, their performances in using the past, perfective, and progressive markings are different. Mongolian learners exhibiting superiority over Chinese learners in associating and correctly using the perfective and progressive markings, overuse of progressive markings by Mongolian learners, and overextending progressive markings to States by both L1 groups show evidence of L1 transfer. Contradictory findings are greater use and correct use of past markings with States than with Activities, overextending progressive markings to States, and learners' preference for using progressive markings with Achievements to Accomplishments, which suggest that the methodology, L1, sentence structures and input may somewhat affect the results of tense-aspect marking studies.

Questioning the notion of a sensitive period for second language acquisition, this research examined students' interlanguage development in selected classes at two grades in early, middle, and late French immersion. These classes were administered the same verb tense tests: an oral elicited imitation test and written rational cloze test. Analysis of results indicated that, in general, the aspectual distinction between the "passe compose" and "imparfait" was difficult for all groups of students. Moreover, while students in earlier starting programs significantly outperformed those in later starting programs on the oral task, two groups of students in later starting programs outperformed students in earlier starting programs on the written task. These results suggest that factors related to starting age, including instructional approaches, may have had an effect on students' performance. Interlanguage analysis resulted in a proposed general sequence of development for students' written use of the "passe compose" and "imparfait." (Contains 155 references.) (Author)

Previous studies have found that L2 learners have persistent difficulties with the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect even at advanced levels, particularly when the relevant constructions are different or absent in the learners' L1. This suggests that the L1 has a strong or even permanent influence on the acquisition of L2 grammatical knowledge. To look at this issue more systematically, the current study combines both comprehension and production, and it focuses on the processing and production of English tense-aspect (i.e., simple past, present perfect, and present progressive constructions) by Chinese and Arabic learners, and how their respective L1 affects their learning.

Previous studies have found that L2 learners have persistent difficulties with the acquisition of L2 tense-aspect even at advanced levels, particularly when the relevant constructions are different or absent in the learners' L1. This suggests that the L1 has a strong or even permanent influence on the acquisition of L2 grammatical knowledge. To look at this issue more systematically, the current study combines both comprehension and production, and it focuses on the processing and production of English tense-aspect (i.e., simple past, present perfect, and present progressive constructions) by Chinese and Arabic learners, and how their respective L1 affects their learning.

This paper explores the relationships between a computational theory of temporal representation and a formal linguistic theory of tense and aspect. It aims to provide explicit answers to four fundamental questions: (1) what is the computational justification for the primitives of a linguistic theory; (2) what is the computational explanation of the formal grammatical constraints; (3) what are the processing constraints imposed on the learnability and markedness of these theoretical constructs; and (4) what are the constraints that a linguistic theory imposes on representations. We show that one can effectively exploit the interface between the language faculty and the cognitive faculties by using linguistic constraints to determine restrictions on the cognitive representations and vice versa. Three main results are obtained: (1) We derive an explanation of an observed grammatical constraint on tense -- the Linear Order Constraint -- from the information monotonicity property of the constraint propagation algorithm of Allen's temporal system: (2) We formulate a principle of markedness for the basic tense structures based on the computational efficiency of the temporal representations; and (3) We show Allen's interval-based temporal system is not arbitrary, but it can be used to explain independently motivated linguistic constraints on tense and aspect interpretations. We also claim that the methodology of research developed in this study -- 'cross-level' investigation of independently motivated formal grammatical theory and computational models -- is a powerful paradigm with which to attack representational problems in basic cognitive domains, e.g., space, time, causality, etc.

This paper explores the relationships between a computational theory of temporal representation and a formal linguistic theory of tense and aspect. It aims to provide explicit answers to four fundamental questions: (1) what is the computational justification for the primitives of a linguistic theory; (2) what is the computational explanation of the formal grammatical constraints; (3) what are the processing constraints imposed on the learnability and markedness of these theoretical constructs; and (4) what are the constraints that a linguistic theory imposes on representations. We show that one can effectively exploit the interface between the language faculty and the cognitive faculties by using linguistic constraints to determine restrictions on the cognitive representations and vice versa. Three main results are obtained: (1) We derive an explanation of an observed grammatical constraint on tense -- the Linear Order Constraint -- from the information monotonicity property of the constraint propagation algorithm of Allen's temporal system: (2) We formulate a principle of markedness for the basic tense structures based on the computational efficiency of the temporal representations; and (3) We show Allen's interval-based temporal system is not arbitrary, but it can be used to explain independently motivated linguistic constraints on tense and aspect interpretations. We also claim that the methodology of research developed in this study -- 'cross-level' investigation of independently motivated formal grammatical theory and computational models -- is a powerful paradigm with which to attack representational problems in basic cognitive domains, e.g., space, time, causality, etc.

Generating language that reflects the temporal organization of represented knowledge requires a language generation model that integrates contemporary theories of tense and aspect, temporal representations, and methods to plan text. This paper presents a model that produces event combinations and appropriate connecting words to relate them. We distinguish between inherent and non-inherent aspectual features of verbs and describe an algorithm that uses these features to select tense, aspect, and temporal connecting words for generating text based on time-stamped information. The main result of this work is the successful incorporation of constrained linguistic theories of tense and aspect in a self-contained module called CONGEN that produces a ranked list of temporal connectives and tense/aspect possibilities from pairs of time-stamped literals. We show that the theoretical results described herein have been verified in a large-scale corpus analysis. The framework serves as the basis of a component designed to enhance the English output of a constrained generation system.

Time, tense and aspect in early Vedic grammar : exploring inflectional semantics in the Rigveda Author(s): by Eystein Dahl Series: Brill's studies in Indo-European languages & linguistics, v. 5 Publisher: Brill, Year: 2010 ISBN: 9789047440505,9047440501

Form-focused instruction is usually based on traditional practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of grammatical features. The comparison of such traditional accounts with cognitive grammar (CG) descriptions seems to favor CG as a basis of pedagogical rules. This is due to the insistence of CG on the meaningfulness of grammar and its detailed analyses of the meanings of particular grammatical features. The differences between traditional and CG rules/descriptions are exemplified by juxtaposing the two kinds of principles concerning the use of the present simple and present progressive to refer to situations happening or existing at speech time. The descriptions provided the bases for the instructional treatment in a quasi-experimental study exploring the effectiveness of using CG descriptions of the two tenses, and of their interplay with stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, and comparing this effectiveness with the value of grammar teaching relying on traditional accounts found in standard pedagogical grammars. The study involved 50 participants divided into three groups, with one of them constituting the control group and the other two being experimental ones. One of the latter received treatment based on CG descriptions and the other on traditional accounts. CG-based instruction was found to be at least moderately effective in terms of fostering mostly explicit grammatical knowledge and its effectiveness turned out be comparable to that of teaching based on traditional descriptions.

Form-focused instruction is usually based on traditional practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of grammatical features. The comparison of such traditional accounts with cognitive grammar (CG) descriptions seems to favor CG as a basis of pedagogical rules. This is due to the insistence of CG on the meaningfulness of grammar and its detailed analyses of the meanings of particular grammatical features. The differences between traditional and CG rules/descriptions are exemplified by juxtaposing the two kinds of principles concerning the use of the present simple and present progressive to refer to situations happening or existing at speech time. The descriptions provided the bases for the instructional treatment in a quasi-experimental study exploring the effectiveness of using CG descriptions of the two tenses, and of their interplay with stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, and comparing this effectiveness with the value of grammar teaching relying on traditional accounts found in standard pedagogical grammars. The study involved 50 participants divided into three groups, with one of them constituting the control group and the other two being experimental ones. One of the latter received treatment based on CG descriptions and the other on traditional accounts. CG-based instruction was found to be at least moderately effective in terms of fostering mostly explicit grammatical knowledge and its effectiveness turned out be comparable to that of teaching based on traditional descriptions.

This article describes the development of a tense and aspect identifier, an online tool designed to help learners of English by harnessing a natural language processing pipeline to automatically classify verb groups into one of 12 grammatical tenses. Currently, there is no website or application that can automatically identify tense in context, and the tense and aspect identifier fills that niche. Learners can use the tool to see how grammatical tenses are used in context. Finite verb groups are automatically identified, and the relevant words in the verb group are highlighted and colorized according to the tense identified. The latest deployed system can identify tenses in simple, compound, and complex sentences. False positive results occur when there is ellipsis of auxiliary verbs or when the tagger assigns the incorrect part-of-speech tag. The user interface of the tense identifier is a web app created using the Flask framework and deployed from the Heroku platform. The tool can be used for inductive and deductive teaching approaches, or even to check for tense consistency in a thesis. [For the complete volume, "CALL for Widening Participation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2020 (28th, Online, August 20-21, 2020)," see ED610330.]

Most existing natural language database interfaces (NLDBs) were designed to be used with database systems that provide very limited facilities for manipulating time-dependent data, and they do not support adequately temporal linguistic mechanisms (verb tenses, temporal adverbials, temporal subordinate clauses, etc.). The database community is becoming increasingly interested in temporal database systems, that are intended to store and manipulate in a principled manner information not only about the present, but also about the past and future. When interfacing to temporal databases, supporting temporal linguistic mechanisms becomes crucial. We present a framework for constructing natural language interfaces for temporal databases (NLTDBs), that draws on research in tense and aspect theories, temporal logics, and temporal databases. The framework consists of a temporal intermediate representation language, called TOP, an HPSG grammar that maps a wide range of questions involving temporal mechanisms to appropriate TOP expressions, and a provably correct method for translating from TOP to TSQL2, TSQL2 being a recently proposed temporal extension of the SQL database language. This framework was employed to implement a prototype NLTDB using ALE and Prolog.

Mental Model Theory claims that the human cognitive system simulates the mechanisms of the external world, predicts the development of events, makes plans, and solves problems by constructing mental models. Humans build models based on information provided in communication to reason. Inaccurate reasoning may occur when individuals lack sufficient information and fail to construct all possible models. This theory challenges the dominant behaviorist paradigm and contests the rule-based Mental Logic Theory, and has become one of the core concepts in cognitive psychology since its proposal, exerting extensive influence on psychology, linguistics, and even educational domains, and thereby, offering a novel psycholinguistic perspective for language instruction. This article, first reviews the origins, development, core tenets, and fundamental characteristics of Mental Model Theory. It then makes a comparative analysis of learning outcomes between the pilot class and conventional instructional class, and is dedicated to applying research findings on mental models to the instruction of English tense and aspect, with the aim of overcoming the negative influence of language transfer among Chinese learners and exploring effective approaches to teaching and learning English tense and aspect.

Mental Model Theory claims that the human cognitive system simulates the mechanisms of the external world, predicts the development of events, makes plans, and solves problems by constructing mental models. Humans build models based on information provided in communication to reason. Inaccurate reasoning may occur when individuals lack sufficient information and fail to construct all possible models. This theory challenges the dominant behaviorist paradigm and contests the rule-based Mental Logic Theory, and has become one of the core concepts in cognitive psychology since its proposal, exerting extensive influence on psychology, linguistics, and even educational domains, and thereby, offering a novel psycholinguistic perspective for language instruction. This article, first reviews the origins, development, core tenets, and fundamental characteristics of Mental Model Theory. It then makes a comparative analysis of learning outcomes between the pilot class and conventional instructional class, and is dedicated to applying research findings on mental models to the instruction of English tense and aspect, with the aim of overcoming the negative influence of language transfer among Chinese learners and exploring effective approaches to teaching and learning English tense and aspect.

Nyakyusa is an underdescribed Bantu language spoken by around 800.000 speakers in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. This book provides a detailled description of the verb in this language. The topics covered include the complex morphophonological and morphological processes as well as verb-to-verb derivation, copula verbs and grammaticalized verbs of motion. The main body of the book consists of a detailed description of tense, aspect and modality constructions, which includes not only an in-depth discussion of their sentence level semantics, but also of their patterns of employment in discourse.

We have developed a new method for Japanese-to-English translation of tense, aspect, and modality that uses an example-based method. In this method the similarity between input and example sentences is defined as the degree of semantic matching between the expressions at the ends of the sentences. Our method also uses the k-nearest neighbor method in order to exclude the effects of noise; for example, wrongly tagged data in the bilingual corpora. Experiments show that our method can translate tenses, aspects, and modalities more accurately than the top-level MT software currently available on the market can. Moreover, it does not require hand-craft rules.

Nyakyusa is an underdescribed Bantu language spoken by around 800.000 speakers in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. This book provides a detailled description of the verb in this language. The topics covered include the complex morphophonological and morphological processes as well as verb-to-verb derivation, copula verbs and grammaticalized verbs of motion. The main body of the book consists of a detailed description of tense, aspect and modality constructions, which includes not only an in-depth discussion of their sentence level semantics, but also of their patterns of employment in discourse.

Authier Gilles, Maisak Timur (eds.) Tense, Mood, Aspect And Finiteness In East Caucasian Languages

Authier Gilles, Maisak Timur (eds.) Tense, Mood, Aspect And Finiteness In East Caucasian Languages

Authier Gilles, Maisak Timur (eds.) Tense, Mood, Aspect And Finiteness In East Caucasian Languages

Authier Gilles, Maisak Timur (eds.) Tense, Mood, Aspect And Finiteness In East Caucasian Languages

Dealing with inflectional phrases in the context of teaching and learning setting requires a careful attention so as to demonstrate the complex domain of tense inflection. The strategies employed in teaching apart, the tense system of the L1 determines the learning of the system of L2 with either positive or negative evidences which in turn immensely influences the efficacy of teaching-learning practice of tense and aspect system. Languages that do not have a regular paradigm in terms of tense system and/or aspectual marking on the Verb Phrase (VP) overtly are many in number which obviously poses a challenge for the teacher dealing with the phenomenon. The paper concentrates on teaching simple, perfective and progressive aspect of English to learners from the Telugu linguistic community in whose language the tense system is not morphologically or clearly expressed. Finally, the paper suggestively proposes an analysis that comes to the aid of teaching-learning practice of the phenomenon of tense and aspect in second language learning classroom.

Accepting the perfective aspect as the "marked" correlative of a true morphological correlation in the opposition of perfective:imperfective in Russian verb study, the author disregards non-systemic facts in order to concentrate on the aspect relations as they appear in "linear pairs". The author proceeds to describe the functions of the aspect category as they appear in the different forms of the finite and infinite verbs. Forms which do not allow for possible confusion in aspect and tense discrimination lead the writer to first examine the infinitive and the imperative. The present-future, preterite, and participle and gerunds are then examined with examples of grammatical application. (RL)

To deal with meaning and use as well as form.

To deal with meaning and use as well as form.

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of English tense-aspect morphology is influenced by narrative structure by addressing 2 research questions: (i) Do learners exhibit different rates of use of past in foreground and background? (ii) How do dominant forms of foreground and background change as the learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system? Data for the analysis came from written narratives produced by 120 Thai EFL learners divided into 5 proficiency levels. Results showed that the foreground exhibited greater rates of use of past than background across proficiency levels. The dominant forms characterizing foreground and background, however, change from nonpast to past as learners become more proficient with respect to their L2 tense-aspect system. Revealing an interplay between distribution of verbal morphology regarding narrative structure, the findings provide empirical support for the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of difficulty learners experience in developing their L2 grammatical competence. (Contains 4 figures, 3 footnotes and 3 tables.)

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Pre-registration for close replication of Roberts and Liszka (2013). Reference for original study: Roberts, L., & Liszka, S. A. (2013). Grammatical aspect and L2 learners’ online processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences in English: A self-paced reading study with German, Dutch and French L2 learners. Second Language Research, 37(4), 619–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658319895551

Fieldwork with a Hydaburg resident yielded this descriptive paper, which focuses on Haida syntax, and especially predication. The verbal word in Haida is of three distinct types--active, stative, and neutral--the first two of which may occur in either SOV or OSV word order. Neutral verbal words are relatively rare and take active pronouns plus a particle prefixed to the predicate root. Three types of roots may head predication: verbal or active, adjectival, and adverbial. Tense and aspectual suffixes may be attached directly to either a simple or derived predicate root. Three primary tenses (present, distant past, and distant future tenses) are described, along with three suffixes (timeless aspectual, compound perfective, and compound priximate future suffixes). As primary tenses are marked distinctively in the interrogative, it would appear that the indicative and interrogative are separate moods in Haida. Negation is seen as a relatively straightforward process involving the infixing of a particle before the tense/aspect suffix(es). For all tenses and aspects, the third person plural is inflectionally marked. (DB)

The fiction of James Kelman is clearly not written in standard literary English. This paper examines some of the different ways in which the language of his novels and stories diverges from standard English, and discusses the extent to which these divergences contribute to his stated literary aims. It will be argued that Kelman in his fiction, is developing a literary language that is neither "standard" nor "dialect," but trades on both in pursuit of specific literary ends. (Contains 13 references.) (Author)

During the past fifteen years, a variety of linguistic analyses of the tense and aspect systems of dialects of English has been conducted. These analyses were bounded by several analytic dimensions. This paper treats three of these dimensions and discusses their interrelationships and implications in relation to two dialects--Black English and standard English. All of the analyses discussed are cast in the framework of generative, transformational grammar. The semantic approach to the analysis of standard English tense and aspect reveals that the underlying structure of both Black English and standard English is substantially the same. A list of references is included. (Author/JM)

During the past fifteen years, a variety of linguistic analyses of the tense and aspect systems of dialects of English has been conducted. These analyses were bounded by several analytic dimensions. This paper treats three of these dimensions and discusses their interrelationships and implications in relation to two dialects--Black English and standard English. All of the analyses discussed are cast in the framework of generative, transformational grammar. The semantic approach to the analysis of standard English tense and aspect reveals that the underlying structure of both Black English and standard English is substantially the same. A list of references is included. (Author/JM)

During the past fifteen years, a variety of linguistic analyses of the tense and aspect systems of dialects of English has been conducted. These analyses were bounded by several analytic dimensions. This paper treats three of these dimensions and discusses their interrelationships and implications in relation to two dialects--Black English and standard English. All of the analyses discussed are cast in the framework of generative, transformational grammar. The semantic approach to the analysis of standard English tense and aspect reveals that the underlying structure of both Black English and standard English is substantially the same. A list of references is included. (Author/JM)

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Click here to view the University of Florida catalog record

Click here to view the University of Florida catalog record

Click here to view the University of Florida catalog record