The imperfective paradox in a second language: a dynamic completion-entailment test

• Stefano Rastelli ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Pavia

     University of Pavia

     Pavía, Italia

     
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 231, 2019
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen

  • The imperfective paradox (IP) refers to the fact that the imperfective-progressive yields completion entailment with atelic predicates (e.g., Livia was pushing the chair → Livia pushed the chair = true) but not with telic predicates (Livia was peeling the tangerine → Livia peeled the tangerine = not necessarily true). The paper questions whether L2 learners too – like adult native speakers – are sensitive to the IP. Ninety-nine adult L2 Italian learners with different L1s and proficiency levels underwent a novel version of the completion judgment task based on event sub-intervals. In this task, learners did not assess if imperfective and perfective events in a video clip was completed but when. Analysis of reaction times and of interruptive-clicks showed that beginner and intermediate L2 learners – unlike native speakers – did not differentiate the patterns of completion between perfective and imperfective predicates and between telic and atelic predicates. It is possible that – at initial stages of acquisition – such aspectual oppositions are still underspecified. These results challenge the predictions of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis.