Cover not available
Part of
Hispanic Contact Linguistics: Theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives
Edited by Luis A. Ortiz López, Rosa E. Guzzardo Tamargo and Melvin González-Rivera
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 22] 2020
► pp. 215–234

Chapter 9
The distribution and use of present and past progressive forms in Spanish-English and Spanish-Brazilian Portuguese bilinguals

| Rutgers University
| Purdue University
This study examines the distribution and use of simple and progressive forms in two groups: English-speaking heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. (n = 9) and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking heritage speakers of Spanish in Brazil (n = 15). We hypothesized that the groups would show different crosslinguistic influence from their dominant languages in their choice of verb forms. We collected semi-spontaneous production data via oral narratives and analyzed group differences in verb form, either simple or progressive, in activity and accomplishment verbs (Vendler, 1967). The results show a main effect for group, confirming that English-Spanish bilinguals favor progressive verb forms in such contexts, while Brazilian Portuguese-Spanish bilinguals opt for simple verb forms. We discuss our findings following previous work by Jiang (2000) and Putnam & Sánchez (2013).
Keywords: heritage language, verb morphology, progressive verb form
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Tense and aspect
    • 2.2Semantic constraints in the selection of the Spanish present tense
    • 2.3Semantic constraints on the selection of the imperfect progressive in Spanish and BP
  • 3.Previous acquisition research
    • 3.1The Spanish present progressive
    • 3.2The Spanish imperfect progressive
    • 3.3Research question and hypothesis
  • 4.The experiment
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Methods and structures under analysis
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.22.09lop
References (34)
References
Alarcos Llorach, E. (1994). Gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, J. (2002). Verb raising in Spanish: A comparison of early and late bilinguals. In Proceedings of the 26th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 84–94).Google Scholar
Chaston, J. M. (1987). Aspect choice in preterit and imperfect usage in the speech of Mexican-American college students in Texas: a sociolinguistic approach (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Colomé, L. C. (2013). Tense and aspect in second language Spanish. In K. L. Geeslin (Ed.), The handbook of Spanish second language (pp. 235–252). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1976). Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cuza, A. (2013). Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax proper: Interrogative subject–verb inversion in heritage Spanish. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 17, 71–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010). The L2 acquisition of aspectual properties in Spanish. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 55(2), 1001–1028. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuza, A., & López Otero, J. C. (2016). The acquisition of the semantic values of the Spanish present tense in L2
and heritage Spanish. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 29(2), 462–486. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuza, A., & Miller, L. (2015). The protracted acquisition of past tense aspectual values in child heritage Spanish. In R. Klassen, J. M. Liceras, & E. Valenzuela (Eds.), Hispanic linguistics at the crossroads: Theoretical linguistics, language acquisition and language contact (pp. 211–229). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuza, A., Pérez-Leroux, A. T., & Sánchez, L. (2013). The role of semantic transfer in clitic-drop among simultaneous and sequential Chinese-Spanish bilinguals. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35(1), 93–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Swart, H. (1998). Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 16, 347–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geeslin, K., & Fafulas, S. (2012). Variation of the simple present and present progressive forms: A comparison of native and non-native speakers. In K. Geeslin & M. Díaz-Campos (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 179–196). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Jiang, N. (2000). Lexical representation and development in a second language. Applied Linguistics, 21(1), 47–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klein, F. (1980). A quantitative study of syntactic and pragmatic indicators of change in the Spanish of bilinguals in the U.S. In W. Labov, (Ed.), Locating language in time and space (pp. 69–82). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lamanna, S. (2008). Usage of imperfect and imperfect progressive verb forms in Spanish as a majority and minority language: Is there an effect for language contact? In J. Bruhn de Garavito & E. Valenzuela (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 10th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 251–264). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Lardiere, D. (2008). Feature-assembly in second language acquisition. In J. Liceras, H. Zobl & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition (pp. 106–140). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
(2009). Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 25, 173–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lavandera, B. R. (1981). Lo Quebramos, but only in performance. In R. P. Durán (Ed.), Latino language and communicative behavior (pp. 49–67). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Montrul, S. (2004). Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 125–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008). Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2002a). Competence and performance differences between monolinguals and 2nd generation bilinguals in the tense/aspect domain. In J. F. Lee, K. L. Geeslin, & J. C. Clements (Eds.), Structure, meaning, and acquisition in Spanish (pp. 93–114). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
(2002b). Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language And Cognition, 5(1), 39–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. & Potowski, K. (2007). Command of gender agreement in school-age Spanish bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11(3), 301–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Slabakova, R. (2003). Competence similarities between native and near-native speakers: An investigation of the preterite-imperfect contrast in Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25(3), 351–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mrak, A. (1998). El discurso del pasado en el español de Houston: Imperfectividad y perfectividad verbal en una situación de contacto. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 17, 115–128.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. (2011). Reanalysis in adult heritage language: New evidence in support of attrition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(2), 305–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Putnam, M., & Sánchez, L. (2013). What’s so incomplete about incomplete acquisition? – A prolegomenon to modeling heritage language grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3, 478–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sánchez-Muñoz, A. (2004). Transfer in the Spanish progressive constructions in Los Angeles. USC Working Papers in Linguistics, 2, 16–29.Google Scholar
Schmitt, C. (2001). Cross-linguistic variation and the present perfect: The case of Portuguese. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 19(2), 403–453. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Solé, Y. (1977). Continuidad/descontinuidad idiomática en el español tejano. The Bilingual Review, 4, 189–199.Google Scholar
Valdés, G. (2001). Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities. In J. Peyton, D. Ranard, & S. McGinnis (Eds.), Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource (pp. 37–80). McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Yllera Fernández, M. A. (1999). Las perífrasis verbales de gerundio y participio. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (Eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 3391–3441). Madrid: Real Academia Española, Colección Nebrija y Bello, Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Berríos, Juan & Matthew Kanwit
2024. Progressive aspect across temporalities: variation between synthetic and analytic forms in L1 and L2 Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 17:2 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo
Delgado-Díaz, Gibran J.
2024. The imperfect progressive in Puerto Rican Spanish: a case of language contact or grammaticalization?. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:286 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.