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This thesis examines the L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of aspectual properties in Spanish. Specifically, it investigates preterite versus imperfect distinctions and the ongoing value of the Spanish present tense among English-speaking L2 learners and long-term Spanish immigrants. In contrast to previous research which explains L2 learners’ difficulties as a result of either maturational constraints or morphosyntactic development, this study provides a supplementary explanation focusing on L1 transfer of the semantic patterns of tense morphemes. The study proceeds by comparing data from L2 learners with that of long-term Spanish immigrants. Unlike what is argued for L2 acquisition difficulties, the difficulties immigrants may have with tense and aspect cannot stem solely from impairment reasons. These immigrants acquired the L2 as adults. Therefore, to the extent that L2 learners share similar patterns of errors with adult immigrants, L2 speakers’ difficulties cannot be unequivocally linked to causes related to impairment. Instead, following a selectional approach to aspectual variation (De Swart, 1998), it is argued that transfer of the selectional patterns of tense morphemes offers a more encompassing explanation of the difficulties L2 speakers face with tense and aspect. Data collection involved two truth-value judgment tasks, two acceptability judgment tasks and two elicited production tasks. Twenty long-term immigrants, twenty English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish, and twenty native speakers of Spanish serving as control participants took part in the study. Results show incorrect activation of aspectual patterns by both experimental groups and similar patterns of difficulties in some of the conditions under investigation. I conclude that transfer from the other language offers a more adequate explanation of the difficulties L2 learners face

This thesis examines the L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of aspectual properties in Spanish. Specifically, it investigates preterite versus imperfect distinctions and the ongoing value of the Spanish present tense among English-speaking L2 learners and long-term Spanish immigrants. In contrast to previous research which explains L2 learners’ difficulties as a result of either maturational constraints or morphosyntactic development, this study provides a supplementary explanation focusing on L1 transfer of the semantic patterns of tense morphemes. The study proceeds by comparing data from L2 learners with that of long-term Spanish immigrants. Unlike what is argued for L2 acquisition difficulties, the difficulties immigrants may have with tense and aspect cannot stem solely from impairment reasons. These immigrants acquired the L2 as adults. Therefore, to the extent that L2 learners share similar patterns of errors with adult immigrants, L2 speakers’ difficulties cannot be unequivocally linked to causes related to impairment. Instead, following a selectional approach to aspectual variation (De Swart, 1998), it is argued that transfer of the selectional patterns of tense morphemes offers a more encompassing explanation of the difficulties L2 speakers face with tense and aspect. Data collection involved two truth-value judgment tasks, two acceptability judgment tasks and two elicited production tasks. Twenty long-term immigrants, twenty English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish, and twenty native speakers of Spanish serving as control participants took part in the study. Results show incorrect activation of aspectual patterns by both experimental groups and similar patterns of difficulties in some of the conditions under investigation. I conclude that transfer from the other language offers a more adequate explanation of the difficulties L2 learners face

This study investigated the acquisition of English tense and aspect through the manipulation of collostructional strength, instructional saliency, and frequency of use in group activities. Past research has focused on some of the factors in this study and their influence on acquisition, such as explicit instruction, but no research to date has attempted to compare the different factors to each other and attempt to create a working model of processing depth with these factors. Additionally, little research exists on the influence proficiency level and personal meaningfulness has on acquisition and in relation to these other determinants, or the role of lexical aspect in verb use and acquisition. The participants in this study were all females from a university in Japan. They were separated into different groups based upon their proficiency level, and each group was given a different treatment of group activities that focused on learning the simple past tense, present perfect, and past progressive over the course of a two week session. Pretests, immediate and delayed posttests were conducted to attempt to measure acquisition. MANCOVAs, Factorial MANCOVAs, and a Chi-Square test were all run to determine the outcome of the treatments. The results of the study suggest a loose continuum in terms of processing depth with explicit instruction as the most effective factor followed by frequency of use, and collostructional strength having minimal and conditional, effectiveness. The results also suggest the powerfulness of proficiency level as a determiner of whether acquisition will occur, with personal meaningfulness playing a lesser but still important role. The lexical aspect use of verbs appeared to show that the learners in this study leaned heavily on activity verbs and using the progressive aspect. Overall the results add to the growing collection of knowledge in understanding how learners develop their verb use as they acquire language. / Applied Linguistics

English is taught in Swedish schools as a foreign language. The students are at different levels, and most of them try to achieve a higher proficiency level. While the extent to which students are successful at learning a language depends on many different factors. Previous studies have shown that students who are open to taking risks in their production are at an advantage. The present study investigated 80 texts written by students in the seventh and the ninth grade. The main aim was to investigate to what extent errors and complexity levels can be explained in relation to risk taking. In more detail, the study examined differences between the grades in terms of degree of syntactic complexity and what kinds of aspect and tense errors were made. To be able to investigate the errors an approach called Error Analysis was used. The results showed that for both grades, substitution errors were the most common error and there was a significant difference between the grades (p<0.001); however, the other errors showed no significant differences. Regarding the complexity levels, there was a highly significant difference (significance level p<0.001) for the least complex sentences, but there were no significant differences between the grades for the highest and second highest levels of complexity. The results furthermore suggest that there is a correlation between risk taking and a higher likelihood of making errors, as a large proportion of the erroneous sentences written by students from the ninth grade were found in syntactically complex sentences. Most of the errors made by students in the seventh grade were found in less syntactically complex sentences however.

Text in English / This dissertation, deals with the verb structure found in Ju/̕hoansi, Naro and !Xóõ, which form part of the Northern, Central and Southern Khoesan respectively. Although previous studies have been conducted on these languages, no study has been done to date involving a detailed comparison of the structures in these languages. Thus, not much has been done in the area of syntax; particularly syntactical comparison. Previous studies ignored comparisons of grammatical categories and structures such as noun class markers, plural formation markers, tense and aspect markers and verbal extensions. This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 covers the language situation in Botswana. Chapter 2 is devoted to the literature review. Chapter 3 deals with the linguistic features found in the three languages. Chapter 4 covers the methodology and the theoretical framework adopted in the dissertation. The theoretical framework is eclectic in nature, in other words, the study is largely descriptive. However, on occasion, some aspects of lexical functional grammar (LFG) are used. This theoretical framework is appealing as it best handles important aspects of the languages under consideration, particularly the verb extensions. Chapter 5 describes the noun class system, highlighting the markers found in different noun classes. It also covers tense and aspect markers as well as the verbal extensions found in the three languages. Specifically, it is argued in this chapter that plural formation occurs in three ways; regular plurals, irregular plurals and neutral plurals. The study reveals a close relationship between tense and aspect and the motion of the events, points of reference and moment of speech encoded in the verbs involved. Adverbials can co-occur with the relevant tenses. Lastly, it is shown that verbal extensions do not just combine freely; they are subject to different kinds of sequential constraints. Chapter 6 summarizes the main findings, highlighting the similarities and differences in the three languages. Naro is SOV while Ju/'hoansi and !Xóõ are SVO. Chapter 6 also indicates areas in these Khoesan Languages requiring further research. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

[pt] Neste trabalho buscamos um melhor entendimento dos limites e das limitações de emprego de um tempo verbal português: o pretérito perfeito composto (PPC) do modo indicativo. Com base na Semântica Funcional e por meio de um questionário aplicado tanto a falantes de português-língua materna quanto a aprendizes de português-língua estrangeira, testamos, basicamente: a (im)possibilidade de intercâmbio entre o PPC e o presente contínuo, a influência do valor semântico de verbos principais e de adjuntos adverbiais, e ainda, as noções de iteratividade e continuidade expressas pelo PPC. / [en] In this study we set better limits for the uses of a specific verb tense in Portuguese: the present perfect indicative. We developed our work on the basis of the theoretical apparatus of Functional Semantics. Native Portuguese speakers and learners of Portuguese as 2nd language completed a questionnaire. We tested basically if the present perfect and the present continuous could be used interchangeably, but also the influence of the semantic value of main verbs and adjuncts, and the verb aspect expressed by the present perfect.