Abstract
Abstract: Taking its inspiration from a study conducted by Svalberg of Brunei English verb usage (1998), this paper examines the responses of a sample of 205 Filipino university freshmen to grammatically correct and incorrect verb forms in a 20‐item Grammaticality Judgment Test. The test covered tense harmony, verb forms, tenses, and modals. Except in the area of modal use, the students on the whole performed fairly adequately on the items. As in the Svalberg study, the results showed that both the high proficiency and the low proficiency group had difficulty recognizing non‐standard uses of modal would. Similar would non‐standardisms were subsequently also found in a sample of printed material collected from local newspapers and journals. A possible explanation for this finding might be the convergence of imperfect learning, an expressive need to communicate non‐assertiveness, and the tendency in a second‐language variety to simplify complex structure and semantics.
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