Table Of ContentChild Second Language Acquisition
Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil)
The focus of this series is on psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic aspects
of bilingualism. This entails topics such as childhood bilingualism,
psychological models of bilingual language users, language contact and
bilingualism, maintenance and shift of minority languages, and socio-
political aspects of bilingualism.
Editors
Kees de Bot Thom Huebner
University of Groningen San José State University
Editorial Board
Michael Clyne Georges Luedi
University of Melbourne University of Basel
Kathryn A. Davis Christina Bratt Paulston
University of Hawaii at Manoa University of Pittsburgh
Joshua A. Fishman Suzanne Romaine
Yeshiva University Merton College, Oxford
Francois Grosjean Merrill Swain
Université de Neuchâtel Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Wolfgang Klein G. Richard Tucker
Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik Carnegie Mellon University
Volume 35
Child Second Language Acquisition. A bi-directional study of English and Italian
tense-aspect morphology
Sonia Rocca
Child Second Language Acquisition
A bi-directional study of English
and Italian tense-aspect morphology
Sonia Rocca
Lycée Français de New York
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rocca, Sonia.
Child second language acquisition. A bi-directional study of English and Italian tense-
aspect morphology / Sonia Rocca.
p. cm. (Studies in Bilingualism, issn 0928-1533 ; v. 35)
Based on the author's doctoral dissertation--University of Edinburgh, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Second language acquisition. I. Title.
P118.2.R585 2007
401'.93--dc22 2007030468
isbn 978 90 272 4146 7 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2007 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
A mio marito
“Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.”
(John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, 1633)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
LIST OF TABLES xi
LIST OF FIGURES xiii
ABBREVIATIONS xv
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO TENSE-ASPECT 5
INTRODUCTION 5
1.1 GRAMMATICAL ASPECT 6
1.1.1 The perfective 8
1.1.2 The imperfective 12
1.2 LEXICAL ASPECT 21
1.2.1 Lexical aspectual features 22
1.2.2 Classification systems 22
1.2.3 Lexical aspectual classes 30
1.2.4 Aspectual relations and type-shift 36
1.2.5 Internal structure of situations 38
1.3 GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL ASPECT: THE INTERACTION 39
1.3.1 Perfective forms and lexical aspect 40
1.3.2 Imperfective forms and lexical aspect 47
CONCLUSION 51
CHAPTER 2
THE ACQUISITION OF TENSE-ASPECT 55
INTRODUCTION 55
2.1 FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 55
2.1.2 L1 English studies 60
2.1.2 L1 Italian studies 64
2.2 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 71
2.2.1 Adult L2 acquisition 73
2.2.2 Child L2 acquisition 79
2.2.3 Language transfer 88
CONCLUSION 97
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES 101
INTRODUCTION 101
3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES 101
3.2 PARTICIPANTS 104
3.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 105
3.3.1 Set-up of the sessions 105
3.3.2 Structure of the sessions 106
3.4 DATA ANALYSIS 109
3.4.1 Transcription 109
3.4.2 Coding 111
CONCLUSION 117
CHAPTER 4
ANALYSES AND RESULTS 119
INTRODUCTION 119
4.1 L2 ENGLISH DATA 119
4.1.1 Across-category analysis 119
4.1.2 Within-category analysis 134
4.2 L2 ITALIAN DATA 149
4.2.1 Across-category analysis 149
4.2.2 Within-category analysis 180
4.3 L2 ENGLISH AND L2 ITALIAN DATA: A COMPARISON 207
CONCLUSION 209
CHAPTER 5
GENERAL DISCUSSION 211
INTRODUCTION 211
5.1 CHILD L2 ACQUISITION OF TENSE-ASPECT MORPHOLOGY 211
5.1.1 Child L2 English 212
5.1.2 Child L2 Italian 213
5.2 CHILD L2 ACQUISITION AND L1 ACQUISITION 215
5.3 CHILD L2 ACQUISITION AND ADULT L2 ACQUISITION 218
CONCLUSION 220
CONCLUSION 221
REFERENCES 225
SUBJECT INDEX 237
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is based on my doctoral dissertation completed in July 2003 at the De-
partment of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the University of Edinburgh. I
would like to thank the Faculty of Arts at the University of Edinburgh for sponsoring
my PhD with a scholarship that covered both maintenance and tuition fees.
Writing these acknowledgements gives me the opportunity to look back and
think about all the people who, one way or another, have contributed to the devel-
opment of this research. First and foremost, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to
all the children who took part in the study, DAN, MAT, BER, LOU, FER, HEL and
their families, for having welcomed me in their homes, giving me the possibility to
give life to this research. I am also grateful to the directors, adjunct-directors and
staff of the European Schools in Culham and Varese for help in the recruitment of
the participants.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Antonella Sorace,
for her careful advice, penetrating comments and positive attitude over the years. I
would also like to acknowledge my PhD examiners, Henriette Hendricks and Mits
Ota for their insightful comments on my dissertation.
For enlightening discussions on the topics of this book, I wish to give credit to
the following scholars: Roger W. Andersen, Giulia Centineo, Malcolm Edwards,
Gibson Ferguson, Nina Hyams, Usha Lakshmanan, Jim Miller, Keith Mitchell, Terry
Odlin, Jon Usher, Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. I am indebted to Alex Housen, for his
personal and professional support at crucial stages of this research and to Larry Se-
linker, for convincing me to undertake a PhD while he was my MA supervisor at
Birkbeck. I am grateful to Rafael Salaberry, Yas Shirai and Dalila Ayoun for their
precious editorial and academic guidance on my previous publications. I also wish to
thank the editors of this series at Benjamins, Kees de Bot and Thom Huebner, as well
as anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and encouragement. Special
thanks to Kees Vaes at Benjamins for his kindness and professionalism.
On a personal note, I owe most to my parents Lucia and Mario, my brother Mas-
simo as well as my husband Larry, for their ceaseless moral and practical support,
my dearest friend Evelynn for her constant spiritual advice and my sister-in-law Lea
for being the best sister-in-law ever invented.
My final words of gratitude go to Alison Butcher and Geoffrey Hutchings who,
during my undergraduate years at the Università Cattolica, taught me the depth and
the beauty of the English language, possibly starting all this.
