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- Title
Tense-aspect Marking by L2 Learners of English and Native English Speakers: Inherent Lexical Aspect and Unitary vs. Repeated Situation Types.
- Authors
Chiung-chih Huang
- Abstract
In second language acquisition studies, it has been observed that learners' use of verb morphology is influenced by inherent lexical aspect. The purpose of this study is to go beyond inherent lexical aspect and investigate how the aspectual distinction between 'unitary' and 'repeated' situation types (Smith, 1997) influences learners 'and native speakers' use of verb morphology. The data of this study consist of audio-taped interviews of eight subjects: three native English speakers, and five learners whose native language is Mandarin Chinese. The results reveal that in relation to inherent lexical aspect, both learners and native speakers demonstrate similar skewed distributions of verb morphology in their speech. However in relation to unitary vs. repeated situation types, learners and native speakers demonstrate different patterns in their use of progressive morphology: Native speakers tend to use progressive morphology for describing repeated situations, while learners use it to describe the ongoing, continuous nature of unitary situations. The findings suggest that learners' acquisitional patterns may not be determined exclusively by native input. The prototype account proposed by Shirai & Andersen (1995) provides a feasible explanation for the findings of this study.
- Subjects
ENGLISH linguistic morphology; CHINESE language; NATIVE language &; education; SECOND language acquisition; VERBS; MORPHOLOGY (Grammar)
- Publication
Issues in Applied Linguistics, 1999, Vol 10, Issue 2, p113
- ISSN
1050-4273
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5070/l4102005017