This study aimed to investigate the production of stress in English compound nouns and phrasal verbs by L1 Thai learners. Based on the Interlanguage Hypothesis (Corder, 1982; Selinker, 1972), it was hypothesized that (1) there is a positive relationship between English proficiency levels and accuracy in stress assignment in compound nouns and…

The second language (L2) acquisition of tense, aspect, and mood/modality (TAM) has been widely explored as it holds the promise of a better understanding of the L2 learners' linguistic competences, particularly semantically and morpho-syntactically. This study focuses on the acquisition of the subjunctive mood by L1 English learners of L2 French…

This paper investigated the "be"-insertion phenomenon in L2 English. L2 learners often insert "be"-forms before thematic verbs, creating nontargetlike forms (e.g. "She is love ice cream"). Based on L2 data from learners of topic-prominent L1s, a group of researchers have claimed that such "be"-forms are…

The Aspect Hypothesis assumes that--in early interlanguages--the perfective past spreads from telic to atelic verbs because events occurring in the past are easier to be associated with predicates having an inherent endpoint in their lexico-conceptual representation. In this study it is questioned whether for initial L2ers knowing the general…

As regards the acquisition of L2 verbal morphology, one of the universal tendencies as elucidated by the Interlanguage Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994, p.43) is that language learners use emerging verbal morphology to distinguish foreground and background in narratives. This present study examines whether Thai EFL learners' use of…

Lardiere (2003), in her reply to Lakshmanan and Selinker (2001), justifies the use of suppliance in obligatory contexts as a method of analysis in the investigation of the second language (L2) acquisition of past tense, and claims that such a method is characteristic of previous studies that have proposed the Aspect Hypothesis. It is argued here…

This cross-sectional study of first language (L1) English adolescents learning French as a second language (L2) uses their development of negatives in relation to finite and non-finite verbs to investigate the status and nature of functional categories in these learners' emerging grammars. Analysing oral data from elicited production tasks from…

An analysis of intrasentential codeswitching patterns that refutes a common explanation is presented. It is suggested that the Matrix Language-Frame model, which claims codeswitching to be entirely a matter of sentence production, is inadequate to account for a common but hitherto unexplained phenomenon, the occurrence of "dummy" verbs under…

Longitudinally investigated the development of interlanguage by two Korean speakers of English to better understand the second-language acquisition process. In particular it tested the aspect hypothesis that asserts that verb inflections in early interlanguage systems function primarily as markers of lexical aspect. (Author/VWL)

Responds to a reanalysis of study findings that refute the claim that negative evidence can lead to parameter setting in second-language acquisition, presenting empirical evidence from French learners of English, suggesting that positive second-language acquisition data do not guarantee the loss of native language parameter settings. (26…

Previous investigations of the variable marking of past time by the L2 learner have given rise to a number of hypotheses which predict the patterns of acquisition and use of past time markers in interlanguage (IL). However, given the complicity between their predictions, it has been previously noted that hypotheses such as the aspect and discourse…

In traditional classifications of languages by inflectional subsystems, both creole languages and the results of untutored SLA (interlanguages) are classified as isolating. We focus on remnants of verbal inflectional morphology in French-related creoles and ask: (a) Can the properties of verbal morphology be attributed to SLA, and (b) what does…

A certain group of English verbs, the ergatives, is consistently mis-passivized in Chinese-speakers' interlanguage. Comparison of the ergative construction in Chinese and English shows that they share similar properties. However, this does not seem to facilitate learning of the target English construction. Furthermore, the passive ergatives are…

Examines how second-language learners compensate for their target language deficiency in communication using the One to One Principle of interlanguage communication. Results indicate that target language aspects not adhering to one-to-one mapping between semantic and surface elements are problematic to the learners and are seemingly acquired late.…

Part of a 20-year Yugoslav Serbocroatian-English Contrastive Project, this study is intended to make students, teachers, textbook writers, and scholars aware of elements in the system of English modals that might cause difficulties to the native Serbocroatian-speaking learner of English. An eclectic method of contrastive analysis consisting of…