In search of the perfect tense
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Joanne Markle LaMontagne
Abstract
Across languages, the present perfect introduces a time interval whose right boundary extends to the present time (Todavía no ha llegado/‘She still has not arrived’), but there is variation as to whether perfect forms constitute marked or unmarked forms of past tense reference. We examine the acquisition of the present perfect in Mexican Spanish, a dialect where the perfect is highly marked. We explore patterns of use in present tense contexts in an elicitation study of 17 Mexican children (M = 5;7). Children perform well with the preterite, but use few perfect targets. Their most prominent response in perfect scenarios is not the preterite but the present tense, suggesting that to avoid the complexity of the perfect, children focus on the expression of the reference rather than the event time.
Abstract
Across languages, the present perfect introduces a time interval whose right boundary extends to the present time (Todavía no ha llegado/‘She still has not arrived’), but there is variation as to whether perfect forms constitute marked or unmarked forms of past tense reference. We examine the acquisition of the present perfect in Mexican Spanish, a dialect where the perfect is highly marked. We explore patterns of use in present tense contexts in an elicitation study of 17 Mexican children (M = 5;7). Children perform well with the preterite, but use few perfect targets. Their most prominent response in perfect scenarios is not the preterite but the present tense, suggesting that to avoid the complexity of the perfect, children focus on the expression of the reference rather than the event time.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements 1
- L2 acquisition 3
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Part I. Parameters and beyond
- Pro-drop then and now 17
- Reference comprehension and production in bilingual Spanish 37
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Part II. Features and crossroads L1/L2
- When masculine as default supercedes L1 transfer 73
- L2 knowledge of gender and number agreement in Spanish noun ellipsis 99
- Not just algunos , but indeed unos L2ers can acquire scalar implicatures in L2 Spanish 125
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Part III. Word order and complex structures
- Comprehension of subject and object relative clauses by second language learners of Spanish 149
- On the production of differential object marking and wh -question formation in native and non-native Spanish 187
-
Part IV. Monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition
- In search of the perfect tense 213
- The acquisition of grammatical gender in L1 bilingual Spanish 237
- Applying computing innovations to bilingual corpus analysis 281
- Index 303
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements 1
- L2 acquisition 3
-
Part I. Parameters and beyond
- Pro-drop then and now 17
- Reference comprehension and production in bilingual Spanish 37
-
Part II. Features and crossroads L1/L2
- When masculine as default supercedes L1 transfer 73
- L2 knowledge of gender and number agreement in Spanish noun ellipsis 99
- Not just algunos , but indeed unos L2ers can acquire scalar implicatures in L2 Spanish 125
-
Part III. Word order and complex structures
- Comprehension of subject and object relative clauses by second language learners of Spanish 149
- On the production of differential object marking and wh -question formation in native and non-native Spanish 187
-
Part IV. Monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition
- In search of the perfect tense 213
- The acquisition of grammatical gender in L1 bilingual Spanish 237
- Applying computing innovations to bilingual corpus analysis 281
- Index 303
