Volume 55, Issue 3 - Special Issue: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in L2 (TAML2), Guest Editors: Kevin McManus, Norbert Vanek, Pascale Leclercq and Leah Roberts

This study tests how patterns of temporal reference in the linguistic expression of advanced Chinese learners of English co-vary with their nonverbal event categorisation. 42 learners were asked to retell videos with achievement-type events and activities in English. Results from expression showed pronounced crosslinguistic influence in learners’ infrequent combination of ongoingness with achievements, when compared with the English controls. Categorisation data signals that L1-modulated preferences also underlie learners’ nonverbal judgements. Crucially, the main new finding is covariation between the frequency of combined forms in learners’ retellings and how close their overall categorisation choices are to the target control group’s.

The current study brings together two novel perspectives: one is concerned with second language acquisition of complex modal semantics by learners of a Slavic (Croatian) language, and the other relates to online processing of modal auxiliary verbs in L2 English. The study sought to examine how English L2 learners process modal verbs can and may in their epistemic, deontic, and dynamic meaning, referring to epistemic possibility (e. g. He may come to the party ), to giving or asking permission (You may/can come in ), or to the expression of ability ( He can speak four languages ). Participants were a group of Croatian university students majoring in English (N=12) and a group of English L1speakers studying at a UK university (N=8). They all completed a self-paced reading task which is thought to be tapping into implicit linguistic knowledge. Results suggest that Croatian speakers acquire the dynamic and deontic modal meaning up to the native level, but they differ from English native speakers as far as epistemic modal semantics is concerned. The results are in line with previous studies in L1 and L2 research which demonstrated delayed acquisition of epistemic modality in comparison with non-epistemic modality. However, the findings also contribute to research on cross-linguistic influences and L1 concept transfer, suggesting that features and their related concepts which are not instantiated in one’s L1 may not be fully acquired even at more advanced levels.

This study describes and analyzes how native and non-native speakers express modality using verbal means during oral retellings. Participants included native speakers of French and English, as well as English-speaking learners of French and French-speaking learners of English at three levels of language proficiency. All participants performed the same short film retelling, which was then transcribed and analyzed in terms of modalization. Results show that all groups use verbal modal means, although rates, meanings and types of modal forms used vary across the two languages, and especially as a function of second language proficiency.

Research on temporality expression has had a prolific history within second language acquisition (SLA) research and has provided a clear picture of temporal and aspectual (henceforth Tem) markers and their order of emergence and development in L2 acquisition. However, most of the studies have only examined speech and neglected the gestural modality. This study is an attempt to fill this gap and contribute to the relatively recent investigation of L2 gestures; examining with a combinative approach Tem devices in speech and the gestures produced concomitantly with those linguistic markers in longitudinal video-recorded narratives produced by four low-proficiency tutored French second language (L2) learners. Our results suggest that speech and gesture form an interconnected system and that gestures play a function in dealing with the abstract domain of temporal reference in early SLA. Analyses reveal that L2 learners do not gesture randomly when expressing Tem values. Their gestures co-occurring with different types of Tem linguistic devices are generally different in proportion, duration and type. Gestures are more frequent in non-finite uninflected verbal contexts. Additionally, they are often iconic and last longer on average than those produced simultaneously with verbal morphology or with adverbials. Differences in gesture rate, duration and nature in the different marking contexts and over the data collection period of 5 months suggest that gesturing may help to reduce the cognitive load brought about by the complexity of morphological marking, and may therefore be used strategically to handle hesitant Tem devices in speech in early SLA.

This study investigates the production of perfective and imperfective aspect in Greek by Greek-German and Greek-English bilingual children. Participants produced retellings of narratives (ENNI, Schneider et al. 2006), which were then coded for the use of grammatical aspect, perfective and imperfective, as well as for lexical and grammatical aspect combinations. Ninety children, 8 to 12 years old, participated in the study: thirty Greek-German bilinguals, thirty Greek-English bilinguals and thirty Greek monolinguals. Although German and English differ in the linguistic expression of aspect in that German lacks morphological aspect, while English marks the +/–progressive distinction, our results reveal that the two bilingual groups did not differ in their preference for perfective aspect. Perfective aspect was also preferred by the Greek monolingual children. Nevertheless, monolingual and Greek-German bilingual children produced fewer perfective verbs compared to the Greek-English children. Finally, all three groups preferred to use perfective aspect with accomplishment/achievement predicates, whereas a difference between the three groups is found in the use of imperfective aspect with stative, activity and semelfactive predicates. This provides partial support to theories which argue for lexical aspect guiding morphological aspect marking in developing grammars.

This article reports on the development of a particular TAM (tense, aspect, modality) sequence in L2 French (FL2): aller +infinitive. Studies of the acquisition of FL2 regularly point to the frequency of the structure “ aller + infinitive” in the learners’ interlanguage from a relatively early acquisitional stage onwards. The sequence in question is nonetheless often too readily identified with the futur périphrastique or futur proche , which leads researchers to assume that the futur périphrastique is productive at an early stage of the acquisitional process, even much sooner than the futur simple and approximately at the same developmental stage as the emergence of the passé composé . In this study we analyze the quantitative development of the sequence aller +infinitive in the oral productions of three groups of Dutch-speaking learners of FL2, as well as the semantic value(s) expressed by this sequence. Does it really (only) express the future, from an early acquisitional stage onwards? The FL2 data are also compared to the oral productions of a native speaker benchmark group.