Tense Constructions Research Articles

Tense Errors in Albanian Speakers Learning English (L2)

Albanian students learning English as a Second Language (ESL) face considerable challenges with the English tense system due to significant grammatical differences between the two languages. This study examines the specific difficulties that Albanian ESL learners in Kosovo experience with tense usage, drawing on responses from both questionnaires and written compositions. The results reveal a high frequency of errors, particularly in the Past Simple, Present Simple, Present Perfect, Past Perfect, and Future Simple tenses. The most common errors were related to incorrect tense construction. The frequent mistakes in the Past and Present Simple tenses suggest that native language interference and the overgeneralization of English rules contribute significantly to the learners' struggles. The study calls for further research, especially longitudinal and oral-based studies, to better understand these issues and to develop more effective teaching strategies to help Albanian learners improve their command of English tenses.

The Impact of Diglossia on Inflectional Morphological Constructions and Their Relation to Literacy Skills: A Longitudinal Study.

This study examined the differences in spoken Arabic (SpA) and standard Arabic (StA) in inflectional (gender, number, possessive pronouns, and tense) construction use in Arabic among preschoolers. Moreover, we tested the contribution of the inflectional constructions possessed in kindergarten to reading skills in the first grade and examined whether this morphological contribution differs between SpA and StA. We assessed 261 Arabic-speaking kindergartners for 1 year until the end of first grade for inflectional knowledge in kindergarten and reading skills in first grade (reading accuracy and fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension). The findings revealed that among inflections, prevalence of performance on gender constructions was the highest, followed by number and possessive pronouns, and lowest performance for tense constructions. Although the performance for SpA was higher than for StA in all constructions, similar patterns were observed except similarity between gender and number in StA. Moreover, the results indicate a significant contribution of almost all inflectional constructions (except possessive pronouns) possessed in kindergarten to all reading skills in the first grade. However, tense did not contribute to reading comprehension, and possessive pronouns did not contribute to any of the reading measures. Regarding diglossia, although the claims that linguistic components in StA are not represented in the mental lexicon, StA accounted for an additional significant 2%-3% of the explained variance in Step 2 (which checked the practical significance of statistically significant results) in all reading measures. This study highlights the impact of diglossia-specific morphological differences (prevalence of the use of the morphological construction in Arabic in SpA vs. StA) on reading and literacy measures, especially the contribution of morphological awareness in SpA, which may provide a stronger basis for StA reading skills. The implications of these results are discussed, especially regarding exposing children to the morphological representations of both the SpA and StA forms to promote reading and literacy in Arabic.

Children's Command of Four Inflectional Constructions in Arabic: Differences and Development With Age.

This study examines whether differences in acquisition exist among the inflectional constructions of number, gender, possessive pronouns, and tense. Moreover, the study investigates whether these inflectional patterns develop with age. The participants were 1,020 Arabic-speaking kindergartners from K2 and K3. Children were assessed in morphological tasks, which targeted four different morphological inflectional constructions both in real words and pseudowords: gender, number-plural, possessive pronouns, and tense. Findings reveal the differences between all inflectional constructions. In other words, children demonstrated higher performance in gender construction, followed by construction of numbers and possessive pronouns, while the lowest performance is shown among tense construction. In addition, the results indicate that all inflectional constructions develop with age, that is, there was higher performance in K3 than in K2 in all inflection constructions. This study contributes to our knowledge about early language development by showing that the acquisition of gender and number-plurals is faster and more advanced than the acquisition of possessive pronouns or tense. The implications of these results are discussed, especially the need to develop children's inflectional forms such as possessive pronouns and tense, which may eventually also impact narrative understanding and production.

To drop or not to drop? Predicting the omission of the infinitival marker in a Swedish future construction

AbstractWe investigate the optional omission of the infinitival marker in a Swedish future tense construction. During the last two decades the frequency of omission has been rapidly increasing, and this process has received considerable attention in the literature. We test whether the knowledge which has been accumulated can yield accurate predictions of language variation and change. We extracted all occurrences of the construction from a very large collection of corpora. The dataset was automatically annotated with language-internal predictors which have previously been shown or hypothesized to affect the variation. We trained several models in order to make two kinds of predictions: whether the marker will be omitted in a specific utterance and how large the proportion of omissions will be for a given time period. For most of the approaches we tried, we were not able to achieve a better-than-baseline performance. The only exception was predicting the proportion of omissions using autoregressive integrated moving average models for one-step-ahead forecast, and in this case time was the only predictor that mattered. Our data suggest that most of the language-internal predictors do have some effect on the variation, but the effect is not strong enough to yield reliable predictions.

Aspectual Coercion and Lexical Semantics Part 1: Using Selection to Describe the Interaction between Construction and Verb Meaning

Abstract Coercion is an inferential strategy used to resolve conflict between an operator and its argument. Such conflicts are resolved in favor of the semantic requirements of the operator (Talmy, 2000). Jackendoff (1997) and De Swart (1998), among others, represent coercion through type-shifting operators that intervene between an aspectual operator and its situation-type argument, ensuring that the argument is of the appropriate type for the operator. This framework has a mapping problem: the rules that it uses to represent aspectual-type shifts simply replace one aspectual type (the input) with another (the output), so it does not explain how the input representation constrains the output representation. This article offers a solution to the mapping problem: treating aspectual type shifts as operations on the decomposed semantic representations of verbs. I will show that two such operations can capture both implicit and explicit aspectual type-shifts in English, involving both tense constructions and aspectual constructions.

Picnic, Accident or Cookies? A Systematic Approach to Guide the Selection of the Picture Definition Tasks in Linguistic Assessment

Picture description tasks are used to elicit language samples in individuals with aphasia and other cognitive disorders. However, task selection may affect the type of language variables elicited. In this study, our goal is to compare the strengths and the weaknesses of the two internationally used picture description tasks with a novel picture description task developed specifically for Turkish-speaking individuals. In sum, 20 cognitively healthy individuals with a mean age of 52 ± 14/3 were included. Three different picture description tasks composed of single pictures were used: The Picnic Scene from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised, the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination and the Accident Scene from the Turkish Language Assessment Test for Aphasia. All language samples were recorded using a digital voice recorder. Automated and semi-automated approaches were used for the systematic analysis of the language features that were classified into four levels: general language measures, the morphosyntactic level, the lexicosemantic level and the sentence level. Participants showed greater efficiency and produced the greatest number of subordinate clauses, derivational suffixes, passive voice suffixes and relative past tense construction during the Accident Scene description. On the lexicosemantic level, the Picnic Scene was particularly superior to the Cookie Theft Picture in eliciting nouns. Imperfective aspect use was less frequent in the Accident Scene description. All three tasks had limitations and advantages compared with each other. We recommend the development of novel picture description tasks that would be more effective in eliciting specific language features in Turkish-speaking individuals.

Language about the future on social media as a novel marker of anxiety and depression: A big-data and experimental analysis.

Anxiety and depression negatively impact many. Studies suggest depression is associated with future time horizons, or how "far" into the future people tend to think, and anxiety is associated with temporal discounting, or how much people devalue future rewards. Separate studies from linguistics and economics have shown that how people refer to future time predicts temporal discounting. Yet no one-that we know of-has investigated whether future time reference habits are a marker of anxiety and/or depression. We introduce the FTR classifier, a novel classification system researchers can use to analyse linguistic temporal reference. In Study 1, we used the FTR classifier to analyse data from the social-media website Reddit. Users who had previously posted popular contributions to forums about anxiety and depression referenced the future and past more often than controls, had more proximal future and past time horizons, and significantly differed in their linguistic future time reference patterns: They used fewer future tense constructions (e.g. will), fewer high-certainty constructions (certainly), more low-certainty constructions (could), more bouletic modal constructions (hope), and more deontic modal constructions (must). This motivated Study 2, a survey-based mediation analysis. Self-reported anxious participants represented future events as more temporally distal and therefore temporally discounted to a greater degree. The same was not true of depression. We conclude that methods which combine big-data with experimental paradigms can help identify novel markers of mental illness, which can aid in the development of new therapies and diagnostic criteria.

A Linguistic and Stylistic Analysis of Ted Hughes’s “Hawk Roosting”

The world of birds in Ted Hughes poems has always been the subject of a controversy and critical interest. His attempts to majestify their violence, and project their terrifying and brutal traits might tend to give the impression that the poet is the envoy of terror. However, a closer inspection indicates that the bird-of-prey-world is boldly a foil to project human concerns and moral behaviour. This study provides a linguistic and stylistic analysis of the poem “Hawk Roosting”. Metonymically, the figure of the Hawk in the poem stands for birds of prey, and allegorically, it refers to political dictators in human history. The study, and for the first time, applies the concept of mind style, dramatic monologues and mask lyrics in its analysis to reflect the Hawk’s strange psychology and worldview depending on the rhythmic form and stylistic features. Thus, the study shows how distinctive linguistic features—such as, the use of pronouns, simple present tense, polysemy, enjambment, and deviant constructions among others—relate to the mental representation of the Hawk’s world. This view indicates that there would always be a Hawk to plague, or a dictator to rule, no matter where you are, or which time you live in.

A corpus-based investigation of semantic and syntactic differences between the two major future tense constructions

AbstractEnglish has two major future tense constructions,willandbe going to. Additionally, English can also use the present tense with a future-marking adverbial to express futurity. However, the distributions of these future markers are not free but limited. Instead of discriminating the differences among these distributions through direct comparison to etymological meanings or intuitive examples, this study offers an account for the semantic and syntactic differences between the two major English future tense constructions by analyzing data retrieved from the British National Corpus (BNC). The focus of attention is chiefly on the semantic and syntactic differences that lead to the choices British English native speakers make when expressing futurity. Based on the empirical analysis of data from the BNC, this study demonstrates that distribution of the future tense constructions seems sensitive to the following factors: (1) event-time orientation (temporal posteriority) or present-time orientation (prospective aspect), (2) the levels of verbal dynamicity in the whole sentence, (3) contexts of subordination, and (4) different text categories. The analysis suggests that the futurity constructions are not in the same distribution but are semantically and syntactically different. Utilizing its findings, this study aims to enhance second language learners’ expression of futurity by providing pedagogical suggestions.

МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ АНАЛІТИЧНОГО РОЗВИТКУ ФОРМ ГОТСЬКОГО МАЙБУТНЬОГО ЧАСУ

The purpose of this article is to give the model, which demonstrates the development of the Future tense forms in the Gothic language. The initial stage of modelling the Future tense development includes the description of components according to their constituent features. It gives the possibility of tracing the gradual analytisation of corresponding grammatical form, and finding out latent features, which are characteristic for differentiated grammatical forms creating and building the set of Germanic future tense formal structures. The subject of the investigation are peculiarities of formation mechanism of temporal verb forms for projecting the action into the future. To describe the future action the Gothic language used forms of the Present tense involving phrase or upper phrase context. Within the Present tense forms a prefixal word formation model was found. The Greek future tense was translated involving prefixal and present forms in the Gothic language. The Gothic optative was involved to render the future tense. The present tense forms gain future meaning under the influence of aspect-tense specificity, which is recognized as futurelizing factor. Functions of the aspect-tense specificity may be performed with phrase or upper phrase context and syntactical structures with definitely represented semantics. Distinguished present tense constructions create the primary pivot, which is a basis for further development of the Gothic future tense forms. Gothic analytical structures with participle or infinitive were formed involving inchoative, strong, preterite present verbs. These structures are recognized as compound verbal predicates. Analytical structures cover the pivot creating coaxial cylinders. The whole model may be recognized as divergent-rotational because representing the Gothic future tense forms model itself "moves" along the temporal axis. Multilevel model structure demonstrates the fact that analytical forms are changeable in the gravitation. The comparison of divergent-rotational model components and peculiarities of their arrangement indicates and the caudal development of the Future tense forms in the Gothic language. Tendencies found and distinguished as initial, primary in the Gothic language happen in the process of development of the Old Germanic languages. These tendencies are reflected in the Modern Germanic languages, too.

Pragmatic Aspects of Tense in English and Arabic: Based on a Neo-SRE Theory

The hypothesis upon which this paper is based is that in both Arabic and English the notion of tense underdetermines the notion of time, and some pragmatic enrichment is needed to the get at the correct temporal interpretation. In both languages, beside the normal unmarked tense usages, some marked usages of tense are available wherein the tense constructions do not refer to their equivalent temporal intervals; this is done for the sake of rhetorical purposes as illustrated and exemplified. Even the unmarked cases to tense are proven to require, for sound interpretation, the inclusion of pragmatic givens. Many examples are given in both languages showing the pragmatic nature of the temporal interpretive process of tense in terms of the SRE theory where the interrelationship of the three-time intervals speech, event, and reference times (S/TU, E/TSit, R/TT) is based primarily on rather pragmatic parameters within the process of temporal interpretation. Some new treatment is given concerning the theory of tense interpretation which is related to a pragmatic conception of the speaker’s temporal projection or “virtuality” via which tenses’ inherent three-time points are pragmatically interrelated and arranged in terms of the potential existence of multiple virtual and non-virtual speakers.

The aspectual distribution and modal licensing in Russian infinitival constructions

The puzzle to be explored here is why Russian Modal Dative Infinitival Constructions (DMCs) are restricted in their aspectual choice. Specifically, in declarative environments, only imperfective is grammatical. Perfective requires non-veridical environments. This paper offers a unified account for the aspectual distribution in DMCs in terms of licensing conditions on a covert future modal. Extending Todorović and Wurmbrand’s (2016) analysis of future infinitives to Russian DMCs, I propose that the difference between perfective and imperfective structures is attributed to the absence/presence of the present tense. The main claim is that similar to English and BCS future tense constructions, DMCs involve a covert future modal (e.g, need), which needs to be licensed by non-veridical operators when the infinitival DMC lacks the tense components. The licensing conditions on covert future modals lay the foundation to understanding the aspectual distribution in infinitival structures across languages.

An elusive experiental tense construction in Latvian

The article is a contribution to the study of experiential and indefinite past-tense forms. It offers an analysis of the Latvian past-tense construction tikt + PPA, which is now a feature of the Latvian standard language though it was originally restricted to Eastern Latvia (probably mainly the High Latvian dialects). It can be characterised as an experiential but has a wider scope than the prototypical experiential, which refers to event types in the past without precise location in time. The Latvian construction with tikt can also refer to events that are more precisely anchored in time and then develops into a non-resultative and non-narrative past-tense form reminiscent of the factual imperfective in Russian. The question is also raised whether differences can be found between the use of the construction tikt + PPA in texts reflecting its distribution in the regional dialects where it used to be indigenous and in the modern standard language.

Syntactic awareness skills in English among children who speak Slavic or Chinese languages as a first language and English as a second language

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The purpose of this study was to examine syntactic awareness skills in English, among two groups of children: native Chinese speakers and native Slavic (L1) speakers. Both groups were second language English (L2) speakers. Their syntactic awareness skills were compared to a matched sample of L1 English speakers. Design/methodology/approach: Eighty-six third grade students participated in the study, matched between language groups on the basis of age and gender, as well as academic achievements and word reading levels. Data and analysis: L1 English and L1 Slavic groups performed significantly better on the syntactic awareness task than did the L1 Chinese group. A close examination of specific syntactic constructions revealed that the L1 Chinese group did not perform as well as the other groups on past tense constructions, which do not exist in Chinese but do exist in Slavic languages. However, there were no between-group differences on superlative and comparative constructions, which exist in all three languages. Findings/conclusions: The results contribute to our knowledge about cross-linguistic influences between English, Slavic, and Chinese, showing that L1 Slavic facilitates the learnability of L2 English, while L1 Chinese impedes the learnability of L2 English. Originality: The originality of the study lies in the comparison of children from three different L1 groups, matched with respect to reading level. The examination of languages that are typologically different in their syntax is unique. Significance/implications: The results highlight the importance of taking the specific language backgrounds of L2 learners into consideration. Limitations: The current study did not include an assessment of L1 language proficiency among participants.

Prospective Construction in Kla-Dan from a Diachronic Perspective

This paper deals with the etymology and the evolution path of one of the two future tense constructions (the First Future construction) in Kla-Dan, a South Mande language. In order to propose a hypothesis on the origin of the construction and its semantic evolution, firstly, the data of other languages of the same subgroup are involved, and secondly, an analysis of the meaning of the First Future displaced to the past by a retrospective shift marker is provided. The First Future construction is reconstructed for the proto-language of the Dan-Mano-Goo-Tura subgroup. In Goo and Tura, it has the standard prospective meaning; in Mano and Dan-Gweta, the construction has extended its use towards the area of the futural meanings. Dan-Blo is the only language of the subgroup where the reflex of the prospective construction is absent; in this language, it has apparently been replaced by a new periphrastic prospective construction. In combination with the retrospective shift marker, the First Future construction in Kla-Dan has an avertive meaning and is also used in the two parts of irreal conditional constructions. This path of semantic evolution is typical for prospectives in the past. The First Future construction shares the semantic domain of the future with another construction which is also reconstructed for the Proto-Dan-Mano-Goo-Tura and has recently extended its use over a wide range of futural meanings. Based on the data of the closely related languages, this construction should be considered as progressive. From the synchronic point of view, no difference in meaning of the two future tense constructions of Kla-Dan can be found. At the same time the first construction, which is originally prospective can be considered as the main way to express the meaning of the future, whereas the Second Future construction is much less frequent and is only attested in elicited examples.

Have-doubling constructions in historical and modern Dutch

Abstract Have-doubling constructions closely resemble periphrastic perfect tense constructions but have an additional, seemingly superfluous form of the verb have. Whilst these constructions are only found in a small number of modern Dutch dialects, they appear much more broadly in historical varieties of Dutch. In this article, I present new data from a corpus study of have-doubling constructions in Early Modern Dutch (ca. 1500-1700) which reveals both similarities and an important difference with the modern dialectal phenomenon. I argue that there are two structurally distinct types of have-doubling in this older period: one which contains a canonical adjective (i.e. with one internal argument) and one with a non-canonical adjective with a vP layer (Koeneman et al. 2011). I further show that this sheds new light on the observed link between doubling constructions and the rise of the periphrastic perfect tenses, with implications for the nature of this syntactic development.

The function of supine auxiliaries in Swedish and Danish: morphology and syntax in argument assignment

Prima facie, the supine verb forms in Swedish and Danish appear almost identical in terms of morphological form and syntactic function, but a closer look reveals fundamental differences regarding their semantic coding and function. The paper examines the differences from the perspective of the auxiliary verbs with which the supine forms combine with special focus on the assignment of content (‘logical’) arguments to the verb in the supine form. The Swedish supine is inflected for voice, combines with only one true auxiliary and is used almost exclusively for retrospective tense constructions (perfect and pluperfect), and argument assignment is determined by the morphological specification of voice, while the auxiliary is redundant. The Danish supine has no voice inflection, combines with several auxiliaries and is used in a number of constructions, and argument assignment is determined primarily by auxiliary selection. The paper concludes that the Swedish auxiliary plays a peripheral role, which explains the possibility of auxiliary omission, while the Danish auxiliary set plays a crucial role in the specification of construction semantics and argument assignment, thus demonstrating a significant difference between the two languages in the interplay between morphology and syntax.

The clause structure of periphrastic tense sentences in Standard Arabic

This paper investigates the clause structure of periphrastic tense constructions with two fully inflected auxiliary and lexical verbs. The recent accounts of the syntax of tense assumes that the semantic categories of time; the time of utterance, the topic time, and the time of situation, are syntactically mapped into the clause structure of these constructions (Giorgi and Pianesi, 1997). Previous accounts of the syntax of these constructions in Arabic assume that they are biclausal with two TPs (Fassi Fehri, 2004). Contra to these accounts, we contend that these constructions in Standard Arabic are monoclausal with an embedded AspP and not biclausal with two TPs. The lack of two TPs is supported by independent semantic and morphosyntactic evidence such as the impossibility of distinct temporal modification and the unacceptability of embedding a tensed negative particle. However, the potential recursion with two vPs and two independent AspPs is supported by the possibility of allowing two independent subjects and the availability of two fully aspectual and agreement inflections on both verbs, respectively.

Az összetett múlt idők és használatuk a kései ómagyar korban

Az összetett múlt idők és használatuk a kései ómagyar korban

Longitudinal changes in academic learner Finnish

This paper studies longitudinal changes that occur in academic learner Finnish. The approach is data-driven, and it shares the usage-based view of language. The data are part of the Corpus of Advanced Learner Finnish and the studied features are determined statistically by tracing the morphological forms that show the clearest changes in their frequency during the observation period of 16 months. Features found to depict such changes are then studied in greater detail to find out the constructional nature and possible reason for the observed change. The results show that the use of the preterite tense constructions decreases while the present tense constructions increases and that the change is not due to any single lexical unit. The use also becomes quantitatively more native-like. The change is likely due to emergence of a new linguistic register — academic Finnish — and the results thus support the usage-based theory of language acquisition.