Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Present Tense in English, Again

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Formal Linguistics and Language Education

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 43))

Abstract

We report on an experimental study examining what aspectual tense forms we use to convey aspectual meanings when talking about present events in English. We test the effect of structural priming on the use of aspectual tense morphosyntax in the English present tense by native speakers, upper-intermediate and advanced L2 learners of English with French as their native language. Comparative production data from a video retell task is used. Aspectual choices from two previous studies by Liszka are compared with our partial replication. While Liszka primed participants to use the progressive tense, our instructions were neutral in this respect. Findings for native speakers point to a high level of individual variation in the use of present progressive and present simple to denote events simultaneous with the speech moment. Not only are choices variable, but they are also influenced by priming. We argue that this variability creates difficulties for learners of English that teachers should know about.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adger, D. (2003). Core syntax: A minimalist syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Al-Thubaiti, K. A. (2015). L2 acquisition of English aspect by L1 Arabic speakers: The role of interpretable features at the syntax-semantics interface. In D. Ayoun (Ed.), The acquisition of the present (pp. 185–214). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ayoun, D. (2005). The acquisition of tense and aspect in L2 French from a universal grammar perspective. In D. Ayoun & R. Salaberry (Eds.), Tense and aspect in romance languages: Theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 79–127). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ayoun, D. (2015). The acquisition of the present. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2007). Shared syntactic representations in bilinguals: Evidence for the role of word order repetition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition., 33, 931–949.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bley-Vroman, R. (1989). What is the logical problem of foreign language acquisition? In S. Gass & J. Schachter (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition (pp. 41–64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bley-Vroman, R. (1990). The logical problem of foreign language learning. Language Analysis, 20, 3–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock, J. K. (1986). Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology., 18, 355–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chuquet, H. (1994). Le présent de narration en anglais et en français. Paris: Ophrys.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comrie, B. (1976). Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowper, E. (1998). The simple present tense in English: A unified treatment. Studia Linguistica, 52(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Déchaine, R., & Manfredi, V. (2000). Interpreting null tense. Paper presented at the Round Table on the syntax of tense and aspect, November 2000, University of Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dominguez, L. (2007). Knowledge of features in fossilized second language grammars. Second Language Research, 23(2), 243–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flett, S., Branigan, H. P., & Pickering, M. J. (2013). Are non-native structural preferences affected by native language preferences? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 751–760. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728912000594.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucart, A., & Frenck-Mestre, C. (2012). Can late L2 learners acquire new grammatical features? Evidence from ERPs and eye-tracking. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 226–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franceschina, F. (2001). Morphological or syntactic deficits in near-native speakers? An assessment of some current proposals. Second Language Research, 17(3), 213–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franceschina, F. (2005). Fossilized second language grammars: The acquisition of grammatical gender. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gabriele, A., & Canales, A. (2011). No time like the present: Examining transfer at the interfaces in second language acquisition. Lingua, 121, 670–687.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gries, S. T., & Kootstra, G. J. (2017). Structural priming within and across languages: A corpus-based perspective. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition., 20(2), 235–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, R. (2001). Second language syntax: A generative introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. (1997). The partial availability of universal grammar in second language acquisition: The ‘failed functional features hypothesis’. Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, R., & Hattori, H. (2006). Interpretation of English multiple wh-questions by Japanese speakers: A missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research, 22(3), 269–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, R., Casillas, G., Hattori, H., Hawthorne, J., Husted, R., Lozano, C., Okamoto, A., Thomas, E., & Yamada, K. (2008). The semantic effects of verb raising and its consequences in second language grammars. In J. Liceras, H. Zobi, & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The role of formal features in language acquisition (pp. 333–355). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopp, H. (2012). Grammatical gender in adult L2 acquisition: Relations between lexical and syntactic variability. Second Language Research, 29(1), 33–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kantola, L., & van Gompel, R. P. (2011). Between- and within- language priming is the same: Evidence for shared bilingual syntactic representations. Memory & Cognition, 39, 276–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Langacker, R. W. (2011). The English present: Temporal coincidence vs. epistemic immediacy. In A. Patard & F. Brisard (Eds.), Cognitive approaches to tense, aspect and epistemic modality (pp. 45–86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Leal, T. M., & Slabakova, R. (2014). The interpretability hypothesis again: A partial replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(6), 537–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liszka, S. A. (2009). Associating meaning to form in advanced L2 speakers: An investigation into the acquisition of the English present simple and present progressive. In N. Snape, Y.-K. I. Leung, & M. Sharwood Smith (Eds.), Representational deficits in SLA: Studies in honor of Roger Hawkins (pp. 229–246). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Liszka, S. A. (2015). The L2 acquisition of the English present simple – Present progressive distinction: Verb-raising revisited. In D. Ayoun (Ed.), The acquisition of the present (pp. 57–85). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mortier, L. (2008). An analysis of progressive aspect in French and Dutch in terms of variation and specialization. Language in Contrast, 8(1), 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rankin, T., & Unsworth, S. (2016). Beyond poverty: Engaging with input in generative SLA. Second Language Research., 32(4), 563–572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sagarra, N., & Herschensohn, J. (2013). Processing of gender and number agreement in late Spanish bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(5), 607–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salaberry, M. R., Comajoan, L., & González, P. (2013). Integrating the analyses of tense and aspect across research and methodological frameworks. In M. R. Salaberry & L. Comajoan (Eds.), Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect (pp. 423–450). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schoonbaert, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2007). The representation of lexical and syntactic information in bilingauls: Evidence from syntactic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(2), 153–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slabakova, R. (2003). Semantic evidence for functional categories in interlanguage grammars. Second Language Research, 19(1), 42–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slabakova, R. (2013). Adult second language acquisition: A selective overview with a focus on the learner linguistic system. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3(1), 48–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slabakova, R. (2015). The effect of construction frequency and native transfer on second language knowledge of the syntax-discourse interface. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36(3), 671–699.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C. S. (1991). The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C. S. (1997). The parameter of aspect. Revised second edition. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 23, 215–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vraicu, A. (2015). The simple present and the expression of temporality in L1 English and L2 English oral narratives: When form meets discourse. In D. Ayoun (Ed.), The acquisition of the present (pp. 289–334). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, C. (2002). Non-progressive aspect in English in commentaries and demonstrations using the present tense. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1235–1256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Amber Dudley & Roumyana Slabakova

  2. NTNU The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Roumyana Slabakova

Authors
  1. Amber Dudley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Roumyana Slabakova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Andreas Trotzke

  2. University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany, UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Tromsø), Tromsø, Norway

    Tanja Kupisch

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dudley, A., Slabakova, R. (2020). The Present Tense in English, Again. In: Trotzke, A., Kupisch, T. (eds) Formal Linguistics and Language Education. Educational Linguistics, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39257-4_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39257-4_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-39256-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-39257-4

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation