John Benjamins Publishing Company
Issues in the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Greek-English bilingual children
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Abstract
The present study investigates the comprehension of perfective and imperfective aspect in Greek-English bilingual children. Previous work on L2 acquisition of aspect indicates that imperfective aspect appears later than perfective aspect in the marking of past events across various languages (Andersen & Shirai 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 2000) and that the [+ habitual] feature of imperfective aspect, appears later than the [+ continuous] feature (Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Shirai 2002); the same pattern also holds for adult learners of L2 Greek (Mattheoudakis et al. 2011; Papadopoulou 2005). 60 children, 30 Greek-English bilinguals and 30 Greek monolinguals, completed a forced choice oral task, in which they had to select between the perfective and imperfective aspect of a specific verb. The task consisted of short stories which tested three experimental conditions: perfective, [+ continuous] imperfective and [+ habitual] imperfective; for each condition individual stories with and without temporal conjunctions were provided. The results revealed that the perfective aspect was successfully acquired, while problems with the imperfective aspect are evident, especially when the imperfective sentences denote habituality. The participants’ performance suggests no association between the presence of conjunctions and the decoding of aspect. Interestingly, a significant correlation was found between children’s vocabulary level and their performance on aspect.
Abstract
The present study investigates the comprehension of perfective and imperfective aspect in Greek-English bilingual children. Previous work on L2 acquisition of aspect indicates that imperfective aspect appears later than perfective aspect in the marking of past events across various languages (Andersen & Shirai 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 2000) and that the [+ habitual] feature of imperfective aspect, appears later than the [+ continuous] feature (Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Shirai 2002); the same pattern also holds for adult learners of L2 Greek (Mattheoudakis et al. 2011; Papadopoulou 2005). 60 children, 30 Greek-English bilinguals and 30 Greek monolinguals, completed a forced choice oral task, in which they had to select between the perfective and imperfective aspect of a specific verb. The task consisted of short stories which tested three experimental conditions: perfective, [+ continuous] imperfective and [+ habitual] imperfective; for each condition individual stories with and without temporal conjunctions were provided. The results revealed that the perfective aspect was successfully acquired, while problems with the imperfective aspect are evident, especially when the imperfective sentences denote habituality. The participants’ performance suggests no association between the presence of conjunctions and the decoding of aspect. Interestingly, a significant correlation was found between children’s vocabulary level and their performance on aspect.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Tense, aspect and modality in second language acquisition 1
- Beyond individual form-meaning associations in L2 Tense-Mood-Aspect research 27
- The grammatical representation of aspect 53
- Issues in the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Greek-English bilingual children 75
- Is it really easier to acquire a closely-related language? 105
- ‘It starts to explode.’ Phasal segmentation of contextualised events in L2 English 145
- The acquisition of modal auxiliaries in English by advanced Francophone learners 183
- Using the present tense to talk about irreality 213
- Index 253
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Tense, aspect and modality in second language acquisition 1
- Beyond individual form-meaning associations in L2 Tense-Mood-Aspect research 27
- The grammatical representation of aspect 53
- Issues in the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Greek-English bilingual children 75
- Is it really easier to acquire a closely-related language? 105
- ‘It starts to explode.’ Phasal segmentation of contextualised events in L2 English 145
- The acquisition of modal auxiliaries in English by advanced Francophone learners 183
- Using the present tense to talk about irreality 213
- Index 253
