Chapter 9
The influence of temporal adverbials and lexical aspect on
variable preterite and imperfect selection in native and second
language Spanish
A variationist account
This study adopts a variationist approach to SLA
to investigate the influence of temporal adverbials and lexical
aspect on variable preterite and imperfect selection. A total of 110
L2 Spanish learners at varying proficiency levels and 15 native
speakers of Spanish completed a contextualized preference task that
examined the influence of both linguistic variables on the selection
of preterite, imperfect and both. Results for
frequency of selection showed that learners overselected the
imperfect and both in contexts where NSs
categorically selected the preterite. Mixed-effects logistic
regressions indicated that both factors influenced NSs’ selections,
but not always for learners. NS variation with states and frequency
adverbials is discussed and avenues for additional research are
presented.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1The variationist approach to SLA
- 2.2Tense, aspect and temporal adverbials in Spanish
- 2.2.1Grammatical and lexical aspect
- 2.2.2Temporal adverbials
- 2.3The acquisition of the preterite and imperfect in L2
Spanish
- 2.3.1The influence of temporal adverbials on the acquisition
of the preterite and imperfect in L2 Spanish
- 3.Method
- 3.1Participants
- 3.2Data elicitation task
- 3.3Data coding and analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Frequency of selection
- 4.1.1Native speaker categorical and variable contexts
- 4.2Mixed-effects logistic regressions
- 4.2.1Results for preterite allowed models
- 4.2.2Results for imperfect allowed models
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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