Chin (2006)

Chin (2006) examined the acquisition of the semantic contrast between the simple past and past progressive in English by L1 Chinese and L1 Spanish learners. The main goal of the study was to investigate whether the aspectual system in L1 affected the acquisition of the semantic interpretation of aspectual markings in L2. There were three groups of participants in the study: English learners of L1 Chinese, English learners of L1 Spanish, and English native controls. The L1 Chinese group consisted of 17 students from an intermediate English class at an English language institute in Taiwan. The L1 Spanish group comprised 13 students from an intermediate English class at an English language institute in Uruguay. In addition, there were 11 participants in the native group.

The participants were asked to take a cloze test, a morphology test, and an acceptability judgment test. The cloze test was used to assess the participants’

proficiency. The morphology test contained 30 verbs in both simple past and past progressive. The participants were asked to circle the appropriate form according to the contexts provided. The verbs covered both stative and non-stative verbs and the answers were balanced in both markings. Results of the cloze test and the morphology test were used to account for the participants’ performances in the acceptability judgment test.

The acceptability judgment test included 30 test items (2 aspectual types × 3 verb types × 5 sentences) and 10 fillers. Each item was composed of a sequence of two sentences, with the first of which describing an event from either imperfective (past progressive) or perfective viewpoints (simple past), and the second describing a situation that was compatible with imperfective but incompatible with perfective viewpoints expressed in the previous sentences. The following is one set of test sentences taken from Chin (2006:215-216).

(22) a. We were composing the song. We did not finish the song.

b. Mary and Jane composed a song. Mary and Jane did not finish the song.

The participants were asked to rate the acceptability of the sentences on a 5-point scale, with 5 being acceptable, 4 somewhat acceptable, 3 neutral, 2 somewhat unacceptable, and 1 unacceptable. (22a) is expected to receive high acceptance rate because the progressive aspect only emphasizes an action in progress and does not entail completion. (22b) is expected to be rated as unacceptable since simple past implies completion and therefore the two sentences contradict each other.

The verbs used in the test included states (be, enjoy, have, love, resemble), accomplishments (build a house, cook a meal, compose a song, eat a pie, write a book), and achievements (arrive, fall, come, die, reach). Activities were excluded because the semantic contrast of activities is not clear in English. As illustrate below, both (23a) and (23b) are acceptable. (The two examples are from Chin 2006:108.)

(23) a. John ate in the kitchen. John did not finish eating his meal.

b. John was eating in the kitchen. John did not finish eating his meal.

If there is L1 transfer, Chinese and Spanish participants will have different ratings for the test sentences. Since states imperfectives do not have a temporary interpretation in neither Chinese nor Spanish, it is likely that learners of the two L1s will have difficulty interpreting states imperfectives in L2. As for accomplishments and achievements, because Spanish has the same interpretation of perfective and imperfective viewpoints on accomplishments and achievements as English, the Spanish participants are expected to have similar performance as the native control.

On the contrary, perfective accomplishments in Chinese imply a terminated action rather a completed event, which is different from English. Moreover, achievements in Chinese cannot co-occur with the progressive marker. If there is L1 transfer, these differences may hinder Chinese participants’ judgment of the test sentences.

It was found that more than 76% of the L1 Spanish subjects recognized the semantic contrast between simple past and past progressives whereas only less than 18% of the L1 Chinese subjects did. As predicted, the Spanish participants successfully perceived the aspectual contrast between simple past and past progressives on achievements as well as accomplishments, arguing for the positive transfer of L1. Contrary to the prediction, the Spanish participants were also sensitive to the aspectual contrast on states, showing that it is possible for the intermediate learners to acquire the semantic interpretation that is not instantiated in L1.

While the Spanish group attained a native-like interpretation, the Chinese group diverged from native responses. Of the 17 Chinese participants, only one recognized the semantic contrast between simple past and past progressive on states, two on achievements, and three on accomplishments. The other participants did not show any significant differences in the ratings between acceptable and unacceptable sentences.

The performance of the Chinese group supported the Transfer Hypothesis. Because Chinese does not accept progressive markings on states and achievements, the Chinese learners had difficulties in assigning correct interpretation to the English state progressives and achievement progressives. The result also showed that progressives on states and achievements received lower acceptance rate than progressives on accomplishments.

Besides L1 transfer, L2 proficiency might account for the divergent performance of the two language groups. The Spanish group scored significantly higher than the Chinese group on both the proficiency and morphology tests. Although the mean score of the Spanish group was significantly lower than that of the native controls, the higher proficiency level of the Spanish subjects might be a possible reason for the more native-like interpretation of aspectual meanings.

To sum up, there are three important findings of the study. First, L1 played a

crucial role in the acquisition of L2 aspect. The similarities between the aspectual system of L1 and L2 were found to facilitate learning while the differences were found to bring about learning difficulties at the initial stages of second language acquisition. With regard to the acquisition of progressives across verb types, Chinese learners of English acquired progressive use of accomplishments earlier than states and achievements. Second, L2 proficiency seemed to play a role in the acquisition of L2 aspect. Learners who received higher scores on the proficiency test performed better on the acceptability judgment test. Finally, it was possible for the intermediate learners to obtain native-like semantic interpretation of L2 aspect, as evidenced by the Spanish participants and a small number of the Chinese participants.