Tense and agreement markers in the interlanguage of Spanish learners of English

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the learning process of the features of tense and agreement in the interlanguage system of L1 Spanish speakers learning L2 English. This study uses a statistically significant sample of the student population in year 6 of primary education (11-12 years old), year 4 of secondary education (15-16 years old) and upper sixth form (17-18 years old), in the Autonomous Region of the Canary Islands. The research instrument was their written production. The analysis conducted includes the bound morphemes -ed and -s and the free morpheme be (with both copular and auxiliary function). The results show a predominant omission for the agreement morpheme -s in the three groups in which the corpus has been divided. On the other hand, the bound morpheme -ed and the free morpheme be present the highest percentage of correct use. These results confirm the capacity of the subjects to learn the verb features of tense and agreement, thus supporting the arguments of the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Prévost and White, 2000). As the results for the bound morphemes are not in agreement, the influence of other factors on the good results of the bound morpheme –ed, such as the verb aspect or the absence of phonological realizations, is suggested.