Tense, Aspect, and Narrative Structure in Spanish as a Second Language

Abstract

The performance of four immersed L2 Spanish speakers is used to test both the Aspect Hypothesis, initially proposed by Andersen (1986; 1991) and the Discourse Hypothesis (Bardovi-Harlig 1994). Personal narratives in four oral interviews support the interaction between the inherent lexical aspect of verbs and grammatical aspect, in accordance with the Aspect Hypothesis. A closer analysis of the narratives within the framework of foreground versus background information shows significant levels of interaction between past grammatical aspectual distinctions and grounding principles, in favor of the Discourse Hypothesis. Thus, these results reveal the two hypotheses as necessary and complementary frameworks of analysis which should be used to obtain a more complete picture of the interpersonal variation in the aspectual system of contact speakers of Spanish as a second language.