incomplete acquisition and attrition of spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals

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Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals

Silvina Montrul

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition / Volume 5 / Issue 01 / April 2002, pp 39 68DOI: 10.1017/S1366728902000135, Published online: 17 April 2002

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728902000135

How to cite this article:Silvina Montrul (2002). Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, pp 3968 doi:10.1017/S1366728902000135

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Incomplete acquisition andattrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adultbilinguals*

SILVINA MONTRULUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This study investigates whether age of onset of bilingualism has an effect on ultimate attainment, and documents

incomplete acquisition and attrition of tense/aspect morphology in Spanish. A group of 20 monolingual Spanish speakers,

31 US-born bilinguals, and 8 Latin America-born bilinguals participated in the study. Sixteen of the US-born

participants were simultaneous bilinguals who had been exposed to Spanish and English from ages 0 to 3, the remaining

15 learned English between ages 4 to 7 (early child L2 learners), and the Latin-America-born bilinguals learned English

between 8 and 12 years of age (late child L2 learners). Results of an oral production, a written completion, and two

meaning-interpretation tasks showed that the simultaneous bilingual and the early child L2 groups differed signi®cantly

from monolingual Spanish speakers, while only a few individuals in the late child L2 group showed erosion with some

aspects. Results suggest that morpho-phonological spell-outs and semantic features of functional categories are affected

by incomplete acquisition and language loss, and that many of the patterns of divergence found resemble stages of second

language acquisition.

The study of bilingualism within the generativeframework has largely been concerned with thesimultaneous and independent development of twoor more linguistic systems in bilingual childrenduring the age of ®rst syntax, extending from birthuntil the ages of 3 or 4 years (Meisel, 1989, 1990,1994a; Genesee, Nicoladis and Paradis, 1995; Paradisand Genesee, 1996, 1997; Hulk, 1997; Genesee,2000). Genesee (2000) explains that researchers havefocused on this particular population because,among many other empirical and conceptual reasons,these children are presumably on their way toacquiring full linguistic competence in the twolanguages. In light of this approach, an obviousquestion that emerges is whether in fact these chil-dren eventually converge on the grammars of nativespeakers in any of the two or more linguistic systemsthey are exposed to when they become adults. Theissue of failure to converge on the target languagehas recently been brought up by Meisel (2001), inthe context of how bilingualism could contribute to

* Funding for this study was provided by a grant from the

University of Illinois Campus Research Board. I thank MoÂnica

de Pedro for the invaluable help she provided with the recruit-

ment and testing of participants. I also thank Carmen Silva-

CorvalaÂn, AysËe GuÈrel, Johanne Paradis, Kenneth Hyltenstam,

and JuÈrgen Meisel for insightful feedback on this study.

language change, but has surprisingly remainedunexplored.

The present study, therefore, focuses on adultbilinguals of Hispanic background living in theUnited States, also referred to as Spanish heritagespeakers. Having been brought up by one or twoparents and/or other family members of Hispanicorigin, these individuals had been exposed to Spanishand English from birth and early in childhood.Although they speak the two languages as adults,many feel more comfortable using English, andappear to have failed to acquire full competence inSpanish. That is, at least in their Spanish abilities,many of these speakers resemble second languagelearners of different pro®ciency levels. Perhaps thesesimultaneous bilinguals and early child L2 learnersreceived insuf®cient exposure to Spanish as children,or were exposed to a variety of Spanish in contactwith English, or a rapid shift from Spanish to Englishinput and use occurred early in childhood, andpossibly they never learned Spanish completely.Thus, divergence from native speaker norms wouldconstitute cases of incomplete acquisition.

Another related question is what happens whenchildren become bilingual after the age of primarylanguage acquisition, that is, after they supposedlyhad ample opportunity to acquire full competence in

Address for correspondence

Silvina Montrul, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 4080 Foreign Languages

Building, MC-176, 707 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

E-mail: [email protected]

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 5 (1), 2002, 39±68 # 2002 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S1366728902000135 39

their native language. Can sequential or successivebilinguals lose linguistic ability in their native lan-guage due to extensive exposure to the second lan-guage, among other things? If they do, then thesewould constitute cases of attrition, since attritionimplies that a language system was acquired comple-tely and then some aspects were lost. In order toaddress whether age of onset of bilingualism has aneffect on incomplete acquisition or attrition, thisstudy also included a group of individuals born inLatin America who moved to the United Statesbefore puberty and acquired English after they hadalready acquired full competence in Spanish.

To examine these fundamental questions aboutincompleteness and loss in a bilingual situation, thisarticle focuses on the morphological and semanticproperties of the Spanish Preterite/Imperfect aspec-tual contrast. A compelling reason to investigateverbal morphology is that this general area of lin-guistic knowledge has long been observed to be mostvulnerable during ®rst (Brown, 1973; Clahsen, 1986;Rizzi, 1993/1994; Radford, 1994; Wexler, 1994), bi-lingual (Dulay and Burt, 1974; Meisel, 1994b), andsecond language acquisition (Eubank, 1994, 1996;Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994, 1996; Lardiere,1998a, b; PreÂvost and White, 2000) and is likewise aprime candidate for simpli®cation and erosion as aresult of language loss (see contributions in Seligerand Vago, 1991). Indeed, prominent sociolinguisticstudies like Silva-CorvalaÂn (1994) and Zentella(1997) have already documented cases of differentgenerations of Spanish±English bilingual speakersborn in the United States whose speech displayserosion and loss of the morphology of the Spanishverbal system, including neutralization of thePreterite±Imperfect opposition in production. To theextent that language attrition only manifests itself inthe production of morphology (i.e. performance) thismay suggest that these bilinguals have problemsretrieving linguistic information on-line, or mappingabstract features to morpho-phonological forms.From the perspective of current syntactic theory(Chomsky, 1995), where in¯ectional morphology hasacquired a central role, a question that emerges iswhether erosion of morphology also entails loss ofabstract formal features.

In the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995), lan-guage consists of an invariant computational systemand a lexicon, which is seen as the source of linguisticvariation. Within the lexicon, a principled distinctionis made between lexical categories (nouns, verbs,adjectives, etc.) and functional categories, such ascomplementizer, determiner, tense, agreement, nega-tion. The role of functional categories is to checkformal features of lexical items that drive syntactic

operations. Features that make an essential contri-bution to meaning, such as categorical features andthe phi-features of nominals (plural, human, gender),are [+interpretable], while those that are onlyrelevant to morpho-syntax, including case andagreement, are [7interpretable]. Non-interpretablefeatures can be strong or weak, leading to differentsyntactic consequences. Within this framework,Sorace (2000) has proposed that L1 attrition affects[+interpretable] features rather than [7interpretable]features. Furthermore, attrition is restricted to theinterface between syntax and discourse/pragmaticconstraints, and does not seem to affect the computa-tional system (syntax proper) itself.

This issue of whether attrition affects formalfeatures of functional categories has recently beenaddressed by Toribio (2001). Toribio investigated thepotential erosion of Spanish verbal agreement in¯ec-tion in the productive abilities of Spanish±Englishbilinguals to ®nd out whether both abstract formalfeatures of agreement and overt agreement morph-ology were eroded. Toribio found that despite faultyagreement morphology, the syntactic distribution ofverbs and other elements in the sentence indicatedthat syntactic abstract features were intact. Sinceagreement features are [7interpretable], Toribio'sresults are not at odds with Sorace's proposal thatattrition appears to target non-interpretable featuresonly. However, de®cits can also arise in very subtleareas of knowledge not usually evident from pro-duction. These include particular meaning interpreta-tions that are also part of the linguistic competenceof a speaker. Assuming that semantic features fallunder the [+interpretable] category, this studyfocuses on whether semantic features of aspectualmorphology can be affected.

Following de Miguel (1992) and Giorgi andPianesi (1997), I assume that Aspect is instantiated ina functional category AspP, where the interpretable[� perfective] feature is checked through overt aspectmorphology. In light of recent debates on the natureof morphological variability in interlanguage gram-mars (Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997; Lardiere1998a, b; PreÂvost and White, 2000), like Toribio's(2001) study, this study is also concerned with thequestion of whether both morpho-phonological and[+interpretable] semantic features of Spanish AspPare differentially affected by language dissolution,and whether there are systematic patterns of ``incom-pleteness'' or loss both in production and interpret-ation of the Preterite/Imperfect contrast.

The ®ndings of this study bear on importanttheoretical issues. If attrition affects mental represen-tations as well as performance, this raises questionsabout the real ``stability'' of linguistic competence

40 Silvina Montrul

acquired before puberty (Sharwood Smith, 2001),about the existence of a critical period for languageacquisition, and about the limits of simultaneous andsequential bilingualism in early childhood. Further-more, attrition of a primary language forces us tolook deeper into the role of input in L1 acquisition,both the kind of input and the frequency required tomaintain language skills.

The Preterite/Imperfect contrast in Spanish:Morpho-syntax and semantics

In Spanish the indicative past tense has two forms:Preterite and Imperfect. The difference between thetwo has to do with aspect. Aspect is concerned withthe internal temporal structure of a situation asdescribed by verbs and phrases (Comrie, 1976;Bybee, 1985; Chung and Timberlake, 1985; Smith,1997), and denotes a complete or an incomplete(ongoing) event. Unlike tense, which is expressedwith in¯ectional morphology (as well as with adverbsand calendric expressions), aspect can also beencoded in the lexical classes of verbs, usually calledlexical aspect, or it can be grammaticalized andmarked by in¯ectional morphology on the verb, forexample with perfective or progressive morphemes.The latter is what Smith (1997) terms ``viewpointaspect''.

Lexical aspect (also called Aktionsart, situationaspect by Smith (1997) or VP aspect, by Verkuyl(1993)) depends on the meaning of the verb andproperties of its internal argument and adjuncts.That is, an event can have an inherent limit orendpoint and be telic, as in Mary wrote a sentence,or it can be atelic and have the potential of con-tinuing inde®nitely, as in Mary writes beautifulstories. Telicity is the basis for the classi®cation ofverbs into Vendler's (1967) four categories, as shownin (1):

(1)states know

stative

activities run

�atelic

accomplishments run a mile

)dynamic

achievements notice

�telic

States (know, be, love) are properties with no internalstructure. Activities (run, sing) are homogeneousprocesses going on in time without an inherent goal(Mary ran for hours). Accomplishments have aprocess component going on in time and an inherentculmination point (Susy baked a cake). Finally,achievements have an inherent culminating point,but unlike accomplishments, the process leading tothat point is instantaneous (The boat sank). Activities,accomplishments, and achievements are dynamic or

eventive classes because they have a process com-ponent (Verkuyl, 1993), as opposed to states, whichare stative. The lack of culminating point makesstates and activity predicates atelic, whereas accom-plishments and achievements, having an inherentend, are telic.

Aspect is also expressed morpho-syntactically onthe verb, by perfective and imperfective tense mor-phemes, to indicate ``different ways of viewing theinternal temporal constituency of a situation''(Comrie, 1976, p. 3). This is also referred to asgrammatical aspect or viewpoint aspect (Smith,1997), and, like lexical aspect, also makes reference tocomplete versus ongoing situations. The term``boundedness'' (Depraetere, 1995) is relevant to des-cribe the properties of grammatical aspect. Perfectiveaspect is bounded: it looks at the situation fromoutside, as having a beginning and end, but disre-garding its internal structure, as in (2). If Laura builta house, then the event of building started and®nished, and the result is a house. Imperfective aspectis unbounded: it looks at the situation from inside,and is concerned with internal structure withoutspecifying beginning or end of the situation, as in (3).In Spanish the perfective/imperfective aspectualdistinction is realized through the in¯ectionalmorphology of the Preterite and Imperfect tenses.(Unlike the situation in English, this distinction existsindependently of the opposition Progressive/Non-progressive). Thus, Preterite tense marks perfectiveaspect, and the Imperfect tense signals imperfectiveaspect, as (2) and (3) illustrate.

(2) Laura construyoÂ una casa. (Preterite-perfective-bounded)``Laura built a house.''

(3) Laura construõÂa una casa. (Imperfect-imperfec-tive-unbounded)``Laura was building a house.''

Typically, atelic predicates (states and activities)tend to appear with the Imperfect tense (unbounded)and telic predicates (accomplishments and achieve-ments) appear with the Preterite (unbounded).Despite these central tendencies, boundedness andtelicity, being properties of two different aspectuallevels, can be combined. That is, in Spanish all theaspectual classes of verbs can be expressed withPreterite and Imperfect, as the examples in (4)through (7) show, depending on what the speakerwants to convey and on context.

(4) a. El auto me costoÂ $20.000. state``The car cost (pret) me $20.000.''

b. El auto me costaba $20.000.``The car cost (impf ) me $20.000.''

41Incomplete acquisition and attrition

(5) a. Juan durmioÂ en el sofaÂ. activity``Juan slept (pret) on the sofa.''

b. Juan dormãÂa en el sofaÂ.``Juan slept (impf ) on the sofa.''

(6) a. Juan corrioÂ 5 km. accomplishment``John ran (pret) 5 km.''

b. Juan corrãÂa 5 km.``Juan ran (impf ) 5 km.''

(7) a. Juan alcanzoÂ la cima. achievement``Juan reached (pret) the top.''

b. #Juan alcanzaba la cima``Juan reached (impf ) the top.''

However, as noted by King and SunÄer (1980) andGiorgi and Pianesi (1997), achievement predicates(alcanzar la cima ``reach the top'') in Romance areodd for some speakers (hence the symbol #) with the``present-in-the-past'' reading of the Imperfect, as(7b) indicates.1 Since achievements have an inherentendpoint and are telic, they are incompatible with theunbounded interpretation of the Imperfect (7b),unless there is a speci®c pragmatic context or adver-bial that emphasizes the process leading to the resultand to support the unbounded interpretation (Juanalcanzaba la cima cuando una raÂfaga de viento se loimpidioÂ ``Juan was reaching the top when a strongwind prevented him from reaching it''). This is whatde Swart (1998) calls ``aspectual coercion'', a prag-matic process governed by implicit contextual re-interpretation mechanisms and triggered by the needto resolve aspectual con¯icts. In order for achieve-ments to have a continuous reading, the progressivemust be used (8),2 and this is true of English as well:in this case, with the progressive, the action is viewedas overt and developing; the progressive adds a sortof ``slow camera effect'' (King and SunÄer, 1980).

(8) Juan estaba alcanzando la cima.``Juan was reaching the top.''

Stative verbs tend to occur with the Imperfect tense.However, in Spanish, as in other Romance lan-guages, there are some stative verbs that shift toachievement (eventive) depending on the past tenseform (conocer ``know'', saber ``know'', poder ``beable'', tener ``have'', querer ``want''). Thus, saber in(9) is stative in the Imperfect but becomes an achieve-ment in the Preterite, receiving an inchoative inter-pretation, as in (10). The Preterite denotes theoccurrence in the past of the initial phase of the state.

(In English, the alternation between know and ®ndout is achieved lexically.)

(9) Juan sabãÂa la verdad.Juan know (impf ) the truth``Juan knew the truth.''

(10) Juan supo la verdad.Juan know (pret) la verdad``Juan found out the truth.''

Leaving this lexical aspectual shift aside, the Pre-terite expresses that an event culminated in the past,and has a quanti®ed reading that refers to a singleevent.

(11) Pedro roboÂ en el autobus.Pedro robbed (pret) in the bus``Pedro robbed in the bus.''

By contrast, the Imperfect has a variety of othermeanings. For example, it can express an ongoing,progressive activity in the past:

(12) Cuando la directora abrioÂ la puerta la profe-sora entregaba los exaÂmenes.when the headmaster opened the door theteacher handed (impf ) in the exams``When the headmaster opened the door theteacher handed in the exams.''

In this case, the Imperfect is similar, but not identical(see King and SunÄer, 1980), to the Imperfect Pro-gressive in Spanish, which easily translates into thePast Progressive in English:

(13) Cuando la directora abrioÂ la puerta la profe-sora estaba entregando los exaÂmenes.``When the headmaster opened the door theteacher was handing in the exams.''

Another meaning of the Imperfect is that ofhabitual action in the past. Note that in English, thismeaning cannot be translated into the Progressive:the verbs would or used to are used instead.

(14) MarãÂa practicaba (impf ) tennis cuando eraninÄa.

(15) *Maria was practising (p. prog) tennis whenshe was a child.

(16) Maria used to / would practice tennis when shewas a child.

In addition, habitual sentences describe tendenciesof individuals, and this particular meaning of theImperfect is related to that of genericity (Jackendoff,1972; Cinque, 1988). Sentence (17) with the Imperfectgets a generic interpretation (dinosaurs as a species)and a speci®c interpretation (a particular dinosaur),

1 I am a native speaker of Spanish and I do not ®nd achievements

with Imperfect morphology necessarily odd.2 For speci®c details of why the Imperfect is incompatible with

achievements whereas the progressive is not see Giorgi and

Pianesi (1997) and references therein.

42 Silvina Montrul

while the same sentence with the Preterite (18) onlygets the speci®c interpretation.

(17) Un dinosaurio comãÂa algas generic/specificA dinosaur ate (impf ) kelp`À dinosaur ate kelp''

(18) Un dinosaurio comioÂ algas *generic/specificA dinaosaur ate (pret) kelp`À dinosaur ate kelp''

These interpretations also obtain with a variety ofimpersonal constructions in Spanish: namely, im-personal se constructions (de Miguel, 1992), arbitrarysecond person singulars, arbitrary ®rst personplurals, and in®nitives (Hernanz, 1988; Casielles,1994). The sentences in (19a) and (19b) are imperson-al se constructions. When the aspectual reference isimperfective the subject of se is interpreted as generic,that is, it can include in its referent people, everybodyand even the speaker. If the verb is in the Preterite(perfective) the generic interpretation is not possible:the empty category in subject position receives aspeci®c interpretation, and can include the speaker.

(19) a. Se comãÂa bien en este restaurante.Se eat (impf ) well in this restaurant`Òne/We would eat well in that restaurant.''Se = la gente en general ``people in

general'' generic= nosotros ``we'' specific

b. Se comioÂ bien en este restaurante.Se eat (pret) well in this restaurant``We ate well in that restaurant.''Se = # la gente en general ``people in

general'' #generic= nosostros ``we'' specific

While impersonal se constructions allow for arbitraryreading (``someone'') when they have perfectiveaspectual features, arbitrary singulars and ®rstperson arbitrary plurals with perfective featuresbecome fully referential (you and we, respectively), asCasielles (1994) noticed.

(20) ComãÂas bien en este restaurante. generic(You) ate (impf ) well in this restaurant``You ate well in this restaurant.''

(21) Comiste bien en este restaurante. specific(You) ate (pret) well in this restaurant``You ate well in this restaurant.''

To summarize, whereas the Preterite denotes a com-pleted event in the past, the Imperfect has a variety ofother values: progressive, habitual, and generic. Thesubtlest property of the Imperfect tense is that with avariety of impersonal constructions, it has both ageneric and a speci®c interpretation, which includes

the speaker. By contrast, the Preterite only allows aspeci®c interpretation.

Aspect in phrase structure

Based on an analysis of the interpretive facts of thePresent tense with eventive predicates, Giorgi andPianesi (1997) claim that English verbs acquire cate-gorial features by being associated with the aspectualfeature [+perfective]. In English, the continuousreading with eventive verbs (accomplishments, activ-ities, and achievements) is not normally available in(22) while the Spanish example in (23) can be used todescribe an action in progress:

(22) #John eats an apple right now.

(23) Juan come una manzana en este momento.

Spanish does not associate the feature [+perfective]with the Present tense, and the continuous interpret-ation is available.

Under the assumption that agreement, tense, andaspect head their own functional projections(Pollock, 1989; Chomsky, 1995), Giorgi and Pianesipropose that the functional category AspP, and itsassociated feature [�perfective] entailing closure, areinstantiated in Germanic and Romance languages.The formulation of this functional category waspreviously proposed by de Miguel (1992) to explainthe aspectual restrictions of verbs in a variety ofSpanish syntactic constructions. The tree in (24)shows where AspP is in the clause structure.

(24) A possible syntactic analysis:

AgrSP

AgrS VP

Spec V'

V TP

TP AspP

Asp VP[� perf ]

V NP

The difference between English and Spanish lies inthe feature composition and values of the AspPcategory. According to Giorgi and Pianesi, Englishinherently associates the feature value [+perfective],which encodes boundedness, with all eventive predi-cates (i.e., activities, accomplishments, and achieve-ments). The feature value [7perfective] is simply notrelevant in English. However, following de Miguel I


further assume that in Spanish AspP is associatedwith both [� perfective] features. Spanish verbs donot have any inherent aspectual feature: they acquiretheir aspectual properties by checking the [� perfec-tive] features in AspP through Preterite and Imper-fect tense morphology.

The feature values [�perfective] are also crucial toaccount for the generic and speci®c interpretations ofthe Preterite and Imperfect morphology with certainimpersonal constructions in Spanish. FollowingGrohmann and Etxepare's (1999) analysis of rootin®nitives in Spanish, I assume that with the SpanishImperfect there is a universal quanti®er (VP) posi-tioned above the TP. The universal quanti®cation ofthe Imperfect is determined by the presence of aphonetically empty quanti®er whose syntactic mani-festation is the imperfective morphology.

When the subject pronoun of a verb in theImperfect rises to the Spec of the VP, the genericinterpretation obtains. When the subject pronoun isin the scope of deictic tense, the speci®c interpret-ation obtains. The subject pronoun in Preterite tensesentences cannot rise to a VP spec, simply because VPdoes not exist.

Within this context, the task of children and bi-linguals acquiring Spanish involves recognizing thatSpanish verbs are morphologically complex wordsthat are not inherently associated with the feature[+perfective]. Furthermore, they need to learn theappropriate morphological distinction between Pre-terite and Imperfect and to correctly map the formalfeatures [+perfective] with Preterite morpho-phonology and [7perfective] with Imperfectmorpho-phonology. Imperfect morphology is linkedto a universal quanti®er. Therefore, knowledge of theperfective/imperfective aspectual distinction inSpanish comprises knowledge of the morpho-syntax(the Preterite/Imperfect tense paradigms) and itsassociated semantic interpretation (bounded vs.unbounded situation, habitual vs. non-habitual,generic vs. speci®c).

Previous studies on the acquisition and attrition of

preterite and imperfect in Spanish

A prominent idea in the acquisition literature is thataspectual morphology emerges in a systematicfashion, as proposed by the aspect before tenseHypothesis (Antinucci and Miller, 1976) or thePrimacy of Aspect Hypothesis (POA) (Andersen,1986). In essence, the lexical aspectual properties ofverbs, or telicity marking, guide the acquisition oftense/aspect markers. Perfective morphology appears®rst and with telic predicates (accomplishments andachievements); imperfective morphology appears

after perfective morphology, ®rst with stative predi-cates and then spreading to the other classes. Thelarge majority of studies on the acquisition of Spanishhave been set out to corroborate this proposal.

Research on L1 acquisition and simultaneousbilingualism (Jacobsen, 1986; Krasinsky, 1995; Bel,1998) show that by age 2, Spanish-speaking childrenalready mark verbs in the past, exclusively with thePreterite form of the verb. (Children learning Penin-sular Spanish use past participles ®rst.) Preterite isused with punctual events and change of state verbs(achievements) and accomplishments; stative andactivity predicates appear in gerund, in®nitive, andpresent tense forms. The Imperfect appears withstative verbs much later, by age 3.

In L2 acquisition, Andersen (1986) found in hisstudy on the naturalistic acquisition of Spanish bytwo child native speakers of English, that the childrenused the inherent lexical class of the verb phrasesin the acquisition of Preterite and Imperfectmorphology, and proposed the POA. Subsequently,many studies tracing the development of tense/aspectmorphology in instructed learners of Spanish havebeen conducted (Ramsay, 1990; HasbuÂn, 1995;Lafford, 1996; Liskin-Gasparro, 1997; Salaberry,1999) to test the predictions of the POA. Thesestudies have reported different ®ndings, and supportfor the POA hypothesis is not categorical. On thebasis of production data, most studies reveal thatthe Preterite tense, which is hypothesized to be thedefault (Liskin-Gasparro, 1997; Salaberry, 1999), isacquired ®rst and appears with telic events (accom-plishments and achievements). The Imperfect is alater acquisition and is mapped to atelic predicates(activities and states). However, most studies seem tohave found that in the earliest stages, L2 learners ofSpanish use Preterite and Imperfect tenses with allclasses of verbs and that the biased distribution ofthese tenses in accordance with the POA is observedat later stages.

As for language attrition, Silva-CorvalaÂn (1994)studied the verb system of three generations ofMexican±American bilinguals (including adolescentsand adults) living in the Los Angeles area. Firstgeneration speakers (group I) were born in Mexicoand had emigrated to the States after age 11. Thesespeakers had native command of Spanish and theircommand of English ranged from near-native topoor. Speakers of group II were either born in theUnited States or had arrived in the United Statesbefore the age of 11. Group III speakers were thosewho were also born in the United States, but at leastone parent had to be classi®ed as a speaker of groupII. All the US born-bilinguals had been exposed tothe two languages from birth, had native command

44 Silvina Montrul

of English, and their ability in Spanish ranged fromnear-native to poor. All speakers were interviewedand conversations were later transcribed for analysis.In addition, all speakers completed ®ll-in-the-gapquestionnaires designed to elicit supplementary infor-mation about the choice of tenses.

Silva-CorvalaÂn documented seven implicationallyordered stages of progression of simpli®cation andloss.3 The ®rst stage affected the use of FuturePerfect and the Conditional (as a tense) and the laststage represented the loss of the present Subjunctive.The simpli®cation (but not loss) of the Preterite andImperfect tenses occurred in stage 3, with sim-pli®cation of the Preterite (with a closed class ofstative verbs) occurring before simpli®cation of theImperfect Indicative. Silva-CorvalaÂn documentedspeech samples showing that speakers often confusedPreterite and Imperfect forms, using one for theother:

(25) Imperfect for PreteriteYo fui el uÂnico hombre que tenãÂan (impf )``I was the only son they had''

(26) Preterite for ImperfectEn la casa mi mamaÂ era la uÂnica que habloÂ

(pret) espanÄol y las demaÂs hablaron (pret) eningleÂs``At home my mom was the only one whospoke Spanish and the other ones only spokeEnglish''

However, upon closer examination of the data,Silva-CorvalaÂn discovered that the shrinking of thePreterite at stage 3 affected only a small number ofstative verbs: estar/ser ``be'', tener ``have'', and saber``have''. Speakers from group I most frequentlyproduced stative verbs in imperfective contexts, butin perfective contexts these speakers used thePreterite with these verbs. However, speakers ofgroups II and III had neutralized the morphologicalperfective±imperfective distinction, and the speakerswith the lowest pro®ciency, in particular, used theImperfect form in both perfective and imperfectivecontexts. On the other hand, 5 out of 12 speakers ingroup II (42%), and 9 out of 16 in group III (56%)incorrectly used the Preterite in imperfective contexts.In short, Silva-CorvalaÂn found that while the Pre-terite expands to imperfective contexts with stativeand non-stative verbs, the Imperfect expands to

perfective contexts with statives only. Based on these®ndings, Silva-CorvalaÂn claimed that the patterns ofsimpli®cation and loss of tense morphology appearto be the mirror-image of development in creolizationand in L1 and L2 acquisition. Furthermore, ®ndingsimilarities between the stages of simpli®cation ofPreterite/Imperfect morphology and the L2 acquisi-tion of these tenses as documented by Andersen(1991), she noted that ``there is suf®cient coincidencebetween stages of acquisition and attrition to supporta basic distinction between stative and dynamicverbs'' (Silva-CorvalaÂn, 1994, p. 51). Finally, sheclaimed that the loss or simpli®cation of tenses inthese individuals is not the result of transfer fromEnglish ± the superordinate language ± but rather aresult of reduced of exposure and use of Spanish andother cognitive and interactional factors. WhileSilva-CorvalaÂn calls these cases of attrition or loss, itis possible that the simpli®ed grammars of thesebilingual speakers are the result of incomplete acqui-sition in childhood, since all the 2nd and 3rd gener-ation bilinguals in her study were exposed to Spanishand English from birth. Language attrition couldperhaps characterize the simpli®ed systems found inher ®rst generation speakers, if it can characterizeany, since these speakers learned Spanish as an L1completely in Mexico before arriving in the UnitedStates as adults.

To summarize thus far, all the studies presentedabove have investigated the link between emergenceand loss of overt Preterite/Imperfect morphology andthe aspectual class of verbs, or lexical aspect, withproduction data. But seen from the perspective ofgenerative grammar, and assuming that aspect isinstantiated as a functional category, the acquisitionof functional categories involves much more thanmastering overt morphology. It also entails masteringformal features and understanding the different inter-pretations associated with these two aspectual formsin Spanish. A parallel situation emerges in languageloss, since de®cits can also arise in very subtle areasof knowledge (competence) not usually evident fromproduction.

An exception to the L2 acquisition studiesdescribed above is a series of studies investigating theadult L2 acquisition of morphological and semanticproperties of Preterite and Imperfect by English-speaking learners of different pro®ciency levels that Ihave conducted in collaboration with RoumyanaSlabakova. Unlike the particular population of thepresent study ± heritage speakers who were exposedto Spanish and English in early childhood and beforeage 12 ± for these L2 studies we de®ned secondlanguage learners as adults who began acquiringSpanish at school after the age of 12 and who are not

3 Reduction or loss refers to the elimination of a form from the

linguistic repertoire of a speaker. Simpli®cation is de®ned as a

process by which a form X expands to contexts in which Y

should be used (like overgeneralization), so that the contrast

between X and Y is no longer distinctive. A simpli®ed form is a

shrinking form.


from Hispanic background. In these L2 studies wefocused on the acquisition of morphology and theinterpretive properties of these tenses, and speci®callydeveloped tasks aimed at eliciting judgments onmeaning interpretations. In Slabakova and Montrul(in press) we found that intermediate and advancedL2 learners successfully acquired the bounded/unbounded interpretive properties of Preterite andImperfect with accomplishment, achievement, andstative predicates, and in Montrul and Slabakova (inpress), we were able to establish that the acquisitionof tense morphology either preceded or occurredtogether with the acquisition of the aspectualsemantic entailments, but that lower level L2 learnershad signi®cant problems mastering the Preterite/Imperfect contrast with stative verbs. In Slabakovaand Montrul (2000) we tested the interpretation ofPreterite and Imperfect with change of meaning pre-terites, habitual vs. one-time-event, and generic vs.speci®c contexts, using a Truth Value JudgmentTask. Results showed that intermediate learners hadmore dif®culty with the interpretation of Imperfectsentences in general (except for stative verbs thatshift to achievements in the Preterite), but that theadvanced group was quite successful at masteringproperties of these tenses that are never taught inlanguage classrooms, including the constraints on thegeneric/speci®c interpretations. Finally, in Montruland Slabakova (submitted) we showed that a sub-stantial number of subjects (60%) who acquiredSpanish after the age of puberty and were deemed tobe near-native speakers based on their native-likeperformance in a number of tasks (including sponta-neous speech), also reached native-like attainmentwith the subtle interpretive properties of the Preterite/Imperfect contrast. (These results contrast sharplywith a previous study by Coppieters (1987) with nearnative speakers of French who claimed that the PasseÂ

ComposeÂ/Imparfait distinction was not acquirableand was not part of Universal Grammar either.)

The study on incomplete acquisition and attritionin bilinguals to be described next is an extension ofthis line of research pursued in L2 acquisition. Aquestion that emerges in a bilingual situation iswhether reduced exposure to Spanish results in sub-stractive bilingualism and, if that is the case, whetherthe younger the age of onset of bilingualism, themore divergence there will be with native Spanishspeakers. In the context of the theoretical andempirical background already presented, the follow-ing hypotheses were formulated.

If patterns of dissolution of Preterite and Imper-fect in production and comprehension are similar tostages of L2 acquisition, and if these are in somesense related to Spanish being in contact with English

(or transfer from English), then bilinguals shoulddisplay (1) erosion or loss of Imperfect before Pre-terite, because Imperfect is acquired last and becauseEnglish lacks the equivalent of the Imperfect, and (2)erosion or loss of the Preterite/Imperfect contrastwith stative verbs, because here is where Spanishand English differ as well. (Recall that stative verbsare not possible in the progressive in either languageand are neutral in English as to the perfective/imperfective opposition.)

Participants

There was a group of Spanish native speakers from avariety of Spanish-speaking countries (n =20) (meanage 27.2) who were graduate students in an Americanresearch university and had been living in the UnitedStates for between 6 months and 4 years. Althoughthis group was also bilingual in some sense, I willrefer to them as monolinguals, rather than as thenative speaker control group, because these speakerswere brought up monolingually in Spanish-speakingcountries and learned English as young adults. Therewere also 31 bilinguals from the Chicago area (mean22.56), mostly from Mexican±American background,and 8 bilinguals (mean age 20.3) who were born inLatin America (3 in Mexico, 3 in Venezuela, and 2 inArgentina), arrived in the United States between theages of 8 and 12, and began learning English then(mean age of exposure to English 10.57). I call thisgroup bilingual because they are from Hispanic back-ground, grew up in the United States, and speak bothSpanish and English ¯uently. Sixteen of the 31 US-born bilinguals had been exposed to Spanish andEnglish from birth or had started learning Englishbefore age 3 (age of early syntactic development).These will be also referred to as simultaneous bi-linguals. The remaining 15 US-born bilinguals beganlearning English between 4 and 7 years of age (mean4.87). Because Vihman and McLaughlin (1982) andMcLaughlin (1984) consider children who startlearning a second language after the age of threesequential bilinguals or child L2 learners, I will referto this group as early child L2 learners. Between 25%and 31% of these bilinguals reported that English wastheir dominant language. The bilinguals born inLatin America are also sequential bilinguals, but willbe referred to as late child L2 learners. These did notexpress a particular preference for using Spanish orEnglish in a variety of contexts. Although all of themindicated that Spanish was their L1, English was thelanguage that they reported using more often atschool, work, and with some friends. Table 1 sum-marizes the biographical and linguistic informationof the three bilingual groups.

46 Silvina Montrul


Table 1. Biographical and linguistic information about all the bilingual participants

Simultaneous bilinguals Early child L2 learners Late child L2 learners

(n = 16) (n = 15) (n = 8)

First language Spanish±English Spanish Spanish

Mean age at time of testing 22.94 21.87 21.14

Mean age of ®rst exposure to English 0.23 4.87 10.57

Mean years of exposure to English 22.71 17 10.57

Parents' language

both Spanish 87.5% 81.75% 100%

one English / one Spanish 12.5% 18.75% 0%

Language spoken at home before now

Spanish 25% 75% 100% 37.5%

English and Spanish 75% 25% 0% 62.5%

Primary language of schooling

English 100% 100% 0% 100%

Spanish 25% (as L2) 37.5% 100% 0%

Language used in other social situations

English 56% 50% 62.5%

Spanish 31% 37.75% 62.5%

Dominant language

English 25% 31.25% 0%

Spanish 0% 6.25% 0%

both 56% 18.75% 0%

It depends 19% 43.75% 100%

Speaks better

English 81.25% 75% 0%

Spanish 0% 12.5% 50%

both 18.75% 12.5% 50%

Understands better

English 50% 31.25% 0%

Spanish 0% 6.25% 50%

both 50% 62.5% 50%

Reads better

English 93.75% 62.5% 12.5%

Spanish 0% 6.25% 37.5%

both 6.25% 31.25% 50%

Writes better

English 87.5% 75% 25%

Spanish 0% 6.25% 0%

both 12.5% 18.75% 75%

Note that before refers to when these subjects were living in their country of origin and now refers to life in the United

States.

Except for the social and linguistic informationsummarized in Table 1, which was considered suf®-cient to classify these individuals as bilinguals regard-less of how balanced they are in each language asadults, no other independent measure of bilingualismwas used. All bilingual subjects met four of the ®veenvironmental variables de®ning transitionalbilinguals described by Lipski (1993, p. 159): (1) littleor no school training in Spanish; (2) Spanish wasspoken in early childhood either as the only languageof the home or in conjunction with English; (3) arapid shift from Spanish to English occurred beforeadolescence; (4) subsequent use of Spanish is con-®ned to conversation with a few relatives.

Because the 39 bilinguals learned the twolanguages before puberty, they would fall into thecategory of 2nd generation bilinguals in Silva-CorvalaÂn's classi®cation (her group II). However,for the purposes of this study they will be dividedinto three groups, as determined by age of onset ofbilingualism: those who learned English and Spanishat the age of early syntax (0±3 years) or simul-taneous bilinguals; those who learned English afterthe age of ®rst syntax (4±7 years) or early child L2learners; and those who had learned Spanish in theircountry of origin, but learned English when theymoved to the United States between the ages of 8and 12 years, or late child L2 learners. If thesimultaneous bilinguals and early child L2 learnersshow divergence in Spanish competence fromSpanish monolingual speakers, this divergence couldretrospectively be attributed to reduced or interrup-ted exposure to Spanish in early childhood, andhence incomplete or unbalanced acquisition. By con-trast, the late child L2 learners, who arrived in theStates between the ages of 8 and 12 years, hadpresumably already acquired native competence inSpanish and had even received some elementary levelschooling in their countries of origin. If divergencewith monolingual speakers is found in this group,then it can more safely be attributed to language lossor attrition.

The three bilingual groups and the monolingualspeakers took parts of a pro®ciency test consisting ofa vocabulary and cloze section, with a combinedmaximum score of 50 points. The mean for themonolingual speakers was 48.35 (SD 1.46, range45±50), for the simultaneous bilinguals it was 41.43(SD 6.09, range 28±48), for the early child L2learners it was 42 (SD 4.44, range 33±48), and forthe late child L2 learners it was 47.62 (SD 1.59,range 45±50). A one-factor ANOVA indicated sig-ni®cant differences among groups (F(3,55) = 12.321,p < .00001). Pairwise post hoc comparisons using theTukey procedure revealed that the simultaneous

bilinguals and the early child L2 learners weresigni®cantly different from the monolinguals and thelate child L2 learners, but not signi®cantly differentfrom each other. The child L2 learners and themonolinguals scored above 90% accuracy (range45±50). Eleven individuals in the simultaneousbilingual group (68.75%), 12 in the early child L2learner group (80%), and 1 in the late child L2learner group (12.5%) scored below 2 standard devia-tions from the mean score of the native speakers.

Methodology and results

In what follows I will present the methodology andresults of the four main experimental tasks investi-gating knowledge of the Preterite/Imperfect contrastin Spanish. For ease of exposition, I have divided thepresentation into Study 1 and Study 2. Study 1 willreport on the bilinguals' accuracy of Preterite andImperfect forms in oral and written narratives andStudy 2 will focus on bilinguals' performance on twomeaning-interpretation tasks.

Study 1: Accuracy of Preterite and Imperfect forms in

narratives

The aim of this part of the study was to assess thebilinguals' performance with the use and recognitionof Preterite and Imperfect forms in ®ctional narra-tives. There were two tasks: a written morphologyrecognition task and an oral production task. Themorphology recognition task consisted of a shortnarrative (excerpt from Hitchcock's ``Psycho'') with30 blanks. Subjects had to choose between thecorrect Preterite or Imperfect form of the verb.Efforts were made to guarantee that only one tensewas possible in each blank. Figure 1 shows a frag-ment of the text as example. For the oral productiontask, all participants had to retell Little Red RidingHood's tale in the past. They were prompted withpictures and audio-recorded. Narratives were latertranscribed and coded for analysis.

48 Silvina Montrul

El jefe le (1) daba/dio el dinero a la empleada para

depositarlo en el banco. La empleada (2) trabajoÂ/

trabajaba para la companÄãÂa pero no (3) estuvo/estaba

contenta con su trabajo y (4) quiso/querãÂa otro

trabajo . . .

``The boss gave the money to the employee to be

deposited in the bank. The employee worked for the

company but was not happy with her job and wanted

another job . . .''

Figure 1. Example from the morphology recognition task

Results

The scores on the morphology recognition taskappear in Table 2. A one-factor ANOVA indicatedsigni®cant differences among groups (F(3,55) = 4.201,p = .009). Tukey post hoc procedures indicated differ-ences between the simultaneous bilinguals (mean25.5, range 15±30) and the other three groups (meanmonolinguals 28.95, mean early child L2 learners 27.4,mean late child L2 learners 27.62). To see howindividuals varied, all scores were normalized toestablish how many bilinguals scored above 2 stan-dard deviations from the monolingual speakers'mean Signi®cant results are shown in bold. Thesescores also appear in Appendix A. Nine individualsin the simultaneous bilingual group (56.25%), threein the early child L2 learner group (20%), and two inthe late child L2 learner group (25%) diverged frommonolingual speakers. Clearly, while evidence ofnon-native-like performance is attested with indi-viduals in the three groups, many more divergentcases are found in the two earliest groups (simul-taneous bilinguals and early child L2 learners).

Turning now to the oral production task, after thenarratives were transcribed, the percentage distri-bution of different tenses was calculated for eachsubject and then pooled by group. The frequencydistribution of tenses (Present, Progressive, Preterite,Imperfect and others) was almost identical for thefour groups. Figures 2 and 3 focus exclusively on thefrequency distribution of Preterite and Imperfectwith accomplishments, achievements, activities, andstate predicates. Con®rming the central tendencies ofpast tense morphology and verbal predicate distribu-tions discussed earlier, Figure 2 shows that around95% of Imperfect forms were used with the atelicclasses: i.e., states (70±80%) and activities (13±20%).By contrast, Preterite forms were mostly used withthe telic classes: accomplishments (31±38%) andachievements (47±51%). Activities and states com-prised between 9±13% and 3±7% of Preterite forms,respectively.

Although there were no differences betweenmonolingual speakers and the three bilingual groupsin terms of frequency of distribution of Preteriteand Imperfect forms, there were differences in accu-racy. These percentages are illustrated in Table 3.Every time monolingual speakers used Preterite andImperfect forms, the context was appropriate andthe meaning was as intended, as evaluated from thepictures and sequence of events of the narrativethey were retelling. This was not always the casewith bilinguals, however, who oftentimes confusedPreterite with Imperfect forms, or used Preteriteand Imperfect Indicative in lieu of ImperfectSubjunctive forms. However, despite occasionalerrors, the overall rate of accuracy per group wasabove 90%.

These percentage accuracy scores were submittedto a factorial ANOVA with predicate (state, activity,accomplishment, and achievement) and tense(Preterite and Imperfect) as the within factors andgroup as the between factor. There was a main effectfor group (F(3,55) = 42180.325, p = .00001) and apredicate by tense interaction (F(3,55) = 3.701,p = .013). Table 3 shows that the simultaneousbilingual group was the least accurate overall. Their


Table 2. Scores on the morphology recognition task(maximum = 30)

Mono- Simultaneous Early child Late child

linguals bilinguals L2 learners L2 learners

(n = 20) (n = 16) (n = 15) (n = 8)

mean 28.95 25.5 27.4 27.62

SD 1.05 4.69 2.41 1.59

range 27±30 15±30 22±30 24±30

90

80

70

6050

40

30

20

10

0State Activity Accomplishment Achievement

monolingualssimultaneousearly child L2bilinguals 8–12

Figure 2. Oral production task: percentage distribution of

the Imperfect by predicate type.

60

50

40

30

20

10

0State Activity Accomplishment Achievement

monolingualssimultaneousearly child L2late child L2

Figure 3. Oral production task: percentage distribution of

the Preterite by predicate type.

mean percentage accuracy was 92.66%, as comparedto 95.62% of the early child L2 group and 96.37% ofthe late child L2 group. Tukey post-hoc comparisonsindicated that the three bilingual groups were statisti-cally different from the control group of monolingualspeakers but no different from each other. As for thepredicate by tense interaction, this was due to loweraccuracy overall on stative verbs in the Preterite. Thesimultaneous bilinguals produced more errors withstative verbs requiring a Preterite verb form (mean77.14% accuracy) than with other predicates, andwere overall more inaccurate with the Preterite (mean89.9%) than with the Imperfect form (mean 95.45%).In contrast, the early child L2 group was overallmore inaccurate with the Imperfect (mean 91.69%)than with the Preterite (mean 99.56%), particularlywith accomplishments (mean 85.71%) and achieve-ments (mean 85.71%) (i.e., they overextended theImperfect to cases where the Preterite was mostappropriate). Finally, the late child L2 learners werethe most accurate of all, except that all the errorscame from one individual and occurred with stativeverbs in the Preterite (mean 71%). These resultsvalidate the trend reported by Silva-CorvalaÂn (1994),according to which erosion begins with the simpli®ca-tion of the Preterite with a subset of stative verbs.

In consonance with what has been reported in thesociolinguistic literature (Silva-CorvalaÂn, 1994; Zen-tella, 1997), typical errors involved replacement ofone form for the other or extension of past indicativeforms to subjunctive forms (the latter were not takeninto account to calculate the percentage accuracybecause they represent errors of mood rather thanaspect). Representative examples are illustrated in(27), (28) and (29). (Numbers in brackets preceded bythe hash symbol # indicate individual subjectnumber, followed by the respective bilingual groupclassi®cation in terms of onset of bilingualism. An

asterisk * indicates ungrammaticality, and a questionmark ? indicates odd use according to context.)

(27) Imperfect for Preterite/Pluperfecta. Cuando se levantoÂ el lobo */?sentãÂa el estoÂmago

pesado. (#203, simultaneous bilingual)b. Lo que hizo el lobo *era tambieÂn *comioÂ la

Caperucita. (#210, simultaneous bilingual)c. Ella estaba arreglando todos los ¯ores que

ella *recogãÂa durante su camino. (#213,simultaneous bilingual)

d. Ella no *notaba que el lobo estaba en lacama. (#213, simultaneous bilingual)

e. Un dãÂa una ninÄa *salãÂa de su casa rumbo ala casa de su abuelita. (#213, simultaneousbilingual)

f. Un lobo la vioÂ y la *perseguãÂa. (#218, earlychild L2 learner)

g. Y luego el lobo tuvo sed y */?querãÂa tomaragua (#229, simultaneous bilingual)

(28) Preterite for Imperfecta. Cuando *caminoÂ por el bosque se encontroÂ

con el lobo. (#220, early child L2 learner)b. *Hubo un campesino con un hacha que

quiso proteger a Caperucita. (#220, latechild L2 learner)

c. Hace un tiempo */?hubo una ninÄa chica quese llamaba Caperucita Roja. (#235, earlychild L2 learner)

d. Le puso las galletas en una mesa mientras ellobo *estuvo debajo de las cobijas. (#235,early child L2 learner)

e. HabãÂa una vez la Caperucita Roja que*quiso llevarle comida a su abuela. (#240,late child L2 learner)

f. El lobo nomaÂs le dijo que entrara, y comoella *supo que estaba enferma . . . (#235,early child L2 learner)

50 Silvina Montrul

Table 3. Oral production task: percentage accuracy on Preterite (Pret.) and Imperfect (Imperf.) by predicate type

Monolinguals Bilinguals

Simultaneous Early child L2 Late child L2

Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf.

Predicates

states 100 100 77.14 98.42 98.27 100 71 100

activities 100 100 100 100 100 95.34 100 100

accomplishments 100 100 91.4 100 100 85.71 100 100

achievements 100 100 91.1 83.3 100 85.71 100 100

total 100 100 89.9 95.43 99.56 91.69 92.75 100

Overall total 100 92.66 95.62 96.37

(29) Preterite and Imperfect Indicative for ImperfectSubjunctivea. El llegoÂ a la casa de la abuela antes que ella

*llegoÂ. (#222, simultaneous bilingual)b. MamaÂ le dijo que *llevaba unas cosas.

(#207, early child L2 learner)c. Se metioÂ a la cama de la abuela a pretender

que ella era para cuando *llegoÂ Caperucita.(#218, early child L2 learner)

d. Se le hizo raro que la voz de la abuelita no*era igual. (#235, early child L2 learner)

Most of the subjects who produced errors in the oralnarrative also performed poorly in the pro®ciencyand the morphology recognition task (subjects #203,#210, #213, #229 in the simultaneous bilingualgroup and subject #220 in the early child L2 learnergroup). Other subjects (#222 and #235 from thesimultaneous bilinguals group, #207 and #218 fromthe early child L2 group) only scored lower in thepro®ciency test and did ®ne in the morphologyrecognition task. However, the one subject whodisplayed all the errors in the late child L2group performed like the native speakers on themorphology recognition and the pro®ciency tests.Other subjects did well on the two narrative tasks buthad poor pro®ciency scores. In short, while it is clearthat the two earliest bilingual groups ± simultaneousand early child L2 ± diverge considerably from themonolingual native speakers, there is a great deal ofindividual variation when the two tests are consid-ered together.

Study 2: Interpretation of Preterite/Imperfect forms

If bilinguals display faulty morphology inproduction, do they also show de®cits in the inter-pretation of these tenses, or in their knowledge of theformal features [� perfective] encoding boundednessor closure? If bilinguals show de®cits in productionbut not in the interpretation of these aspectual forms,then this result will indicate that production prob-lems may just consist of an inability to map semanticfeatures onto morpho-phonological material (asuper®cial problem) (Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997;Lardiere, 1998a, b; PreÂvost and White, 2000).However, if bilinguals show de®cits in interpretationas well as in production, then this will be evidencethat their knowledge (mental representation) of thefunctional category AspP is either incomplete orlacking altogether.

For this part of the experiment, I used the sameinterpretation tasks developed in collaboration withRoumyana Slabakova for adult L2 acquisition. The®rst task was a sentence conjunction judgment task

testing the acquisition of the Preterite/Imperfect con-trast with accomplishment, achievement and statepredicates. Subjects were presented with a list ofsentences consisting of two coordinated clauses.Some of the combinations made sense, while otherswere contradictory. Subjects had to judge on a scaleranging from 72 (illogical) to 2 (logical) whether thetwo clauses made sense together. The 0 on the scalemeant ``I don't know'' (1/71 meant logical/illogicalin rare contexts). Minimal pairs in which the Imper-fect tense in the ®rst clause made the sentence logical,while the Preterite made it illogical, were included asthe examples in (30) through (35) show. The testconsisted of a total of 56 sentences (28 logical and 28illogical). There were 14 sentences with accomplish-ment verbs, 14 with achievement, and 14 with stativeverbs. There were no activity predicates included inthis task because they were odd with both tenses anddid not ®t the design of the test. In each class, 7 verbsappeared in the Preterite and 7 in the Imperfect tense.

States(30) La clase era a las 10 pero empezoÂ a las 10:30.

logical``The class was (impf ) at 10 but started at 10:30.''

72 71 0 1 2

(31) La clase fue a las 10 pero empezoÂ a las 10:30.illogical

``The class was (pret) at 10 but started at 10:30.''72 71 0 1 2

Achievements(32) Los GonzaÂlez vendãÂan la casa pero nadie la

comproÂ . logical``The Gonzalez sold (impf ) the house butnobody bought it.''

(33) Los GonzaÂlez vendieron la casa pero nadie lacomproÂ illogical``The Gonzalez sold (pret) the house butnobody bought it.''

Accomplishments(34) Pedro corrãÂa la maratoÂn de Barcelona pero no

participoÂ . logical``Pedro ran (impf ) the Barcelona marathon buthe did not participate.''

(35) Pedro corrioÂ la maratoÂn de Barcelona pero noparticipoÂ . illogical``Pedro ran (pret) the Barcelona marathon buthe did not participate.''

The test also included 14 distractor sentences (7logical and 7 illogical) using other tenses. These wereincluded to make sure that subjects correctly distin-guished logical from illogical sentences irrespective ofverb form.


The second task was a Truth Value JudgmentTask (Crain and Thornton, 1998) designed to testother meanings associated with the Preterite/Imperfect contrast: namely, knowledge of stativeverbs that shift to achievements in the Preterite,habitual meaning of the Imperfect, and the generic/speci®c interpretation of subjects with the Imperfect.This task is ideal to test knowledge of sentence±meaning pairs, since it presents participants with acontext and asks them to relate the context to agrammatical sentence. In some cases, the context andthe grammatical sentences do not match in meaning.Participants have to decide whether the sentencefollowing each story is true or false in the contextprovided. A representative example with stative verbsthat shift to achievements in the Preterite is illu-strated below. There were two stories, one thatsupported a stative interpretation and another thatsupported an eventive interpretation. Each storyappeared twice: once with a sentence with the verb inthe Preterite and the second time with a sentence withthe verb in the Imperfect. The Imperfect form of theverb was true in the stative story and false in theeventive story, and the opposite situation obtainedwith sentences in the Preterite.

(36) La navidad pasada Carmen hace una ®esta einvita a todos sus viejos amigos. Entre todos losinvitados estaÂn Susana y Marcos, que no se venmuy seguido. Cuando Marcos conversa conSusana le pregunta por su familia. Susana lecuenta a Marcos que su familia estaÂ viviendo enBarcelona ahora.Marcos conocioÂ a Susana. V F*

(36') La navidad pasada Carmen hace una ®esta einvita a todos sus viejos amigos. Entre todos losinvitados estaÂn Susana y Marcos, que no se venmuy seguido. Cuando Marcos conversa conSusana le pregunta por su familia. Susana lecuenta a Marcos que su familia estaÂ viviendo enBarcelona ahora.Marcos conocãÂa a Susana. V* F

``Last Xmas Carmen gives a party for all herold high-school friends. Among all the guestsare Marcos and Susana who don't see eachother very often. When Marcos and Susanachat with each other, Marcos asks Susanaabout her family. Susana tells him that herfamily is now living in Barcelona.''Marcos met Susana (for the ®rst time)

false for story (36)Marcos knew Susana true for story (36')

(37) Ana va a la boda de sus amigos Carlos yCarolina. Ana no tiene novio. Carolina le pre-

senta a Roberto. Ana y Roberto bailan toda lanoche.Ana conocãÂa a Roberto. V F*

(37') Ana va a la boda de sus amigos Carlos yCarolina. Ana no tiene novio. Carolina lepresenta a Roberto. Ana y Roberto bailan todala noche.Ana conocioÂ a Roberto. V* F``Ana goes to the wedding of her friends Carlosand Carolina. Carolina introduces Roberto toAna. Ana and Roberto dance all night long.''Ana knew Roberto false for story (37)Ana met Roberto (for the ®rst time)

true for story (37')

The test included a total of 80 story±sentence com-binations, 40 stories with a sentence in the Preteriteand the same 40 stories with a sentence in theImperfect, divided into three conditions. Condition Ainvolved stative verbs that change meaning in thePreterite (6 pairs of stories), that is, testing thedifference between verbs that alternate between astative or eventive interpretation depending on thepast tense form (sabãÂa ``he knew'' vs. supo ``he foundout''); Condition B involved the habitual vs. one timeevent interpretations of the two aspectual markers (5pairs of stories) (Marcelo robaba/roboÂ en el autobus``Marcelo would rob/robbed in the bus''), and Con-dition C tested the generic versus speci®c subjectinterpretation (6 pairs). Half of the sentences inCondition C involved the generic/speci®c interpret-ation of arbitrary subjects in Spanish (Te pedãÂan/pidieron identi®cacioÂn ``They would ask/asked you foridenti®cation''). The remaining 12 story±sentencecombinations were designed to get the answer``False'' in order to counterbalance Condition C, inwhich 3 out of 4 story±sentence combinations were``True''.

Results

The sentence conjunction judgment task

Mean scalar responses of the sentence conjunctionjudgment task, excluding all 0 responses (``don'tknow'') for every subject, were submitted to ananalysis of variance with repeated measures, withGroup as between-groups factor (monolinguals,simultaneous bilinguals, early child L2 learners, latechild L2 learners), and Tense (Preterite, Imperfect)and Verb (accomplishment, achievement, state) asthe within-groups factors. Overall results revealed asigni®cant main effect for Group (F(3,55) = 4.403,p = .011), for Tense (F(1,58) = 384.950, p = .0001),and for Verb (F(2, 56) = 63.060, p = .0001). The Tense

52 Silvina Montrul

by Group, Verb by Group, and Verb by Tense byGroup interactions were signi®cant at the p = .05level. To ®nd out whether there were speci®c differ-ences between groups, I conducted post hoc Tukeyprocedures. The alpha level was set at p = .05.

Figure 4 shows the mean responses for accom-plishment predicates (Jorge corrãÂa/#corrioÂ la carrerapero al ®nal no participoÂ ``Jorge was running/ran therace but in the end he did not participate''). For allthe groups, there was a statistically signi®cant con-trast between sentences in the Preterite and in theImperfect (F(3,55) = 690.926, p = .0001), indicatingthat all groups knew the bounded/unboundedsemantic contrast between the two aspectual forms.There were no differences among groups for Preterite(mean monolinguals ±1.04, mean simultaneousbilinguals ±0.69, mean early child L2 learners ±0.88,mean late child L2 learners ±1; F(3,55) = .598,p = .691) or Imperfect sentences (mean monolinguals1.24, mean simultaneous bilinguals 1.1, mean earlychild L2 learners 1.03, mean late child L2 learners1.63; F(3,55)= 2.002, p = .124).

The results of achievements are illustrated inFigure 5. (Los GonzaÂlez #vendieron/vendãÂan la casapero nadie la comproÂ ``The GonzaÂlez were #sold/wereselling the house but nobody bought it'').

As can be seen, the responses for the sentences inthe Imperfect received lower numerical ratings thanthose of the Preterite in general, and this trend wasexpected because achievements in the Imperfect cansound odd for some speakers if an appropriatecontext is not provided. However, there was still asigni®cant contrast between the two tenses for allgroups (F(3,55) = 524.054, p = .0001). While therewere no signi®cant differences among groups for thesentences in the Preterite (mean monolinguals ±1.67,mean simultaneous bilinguals ±1.4, mean early childL2 learners ±1.38, mean late child L2 learners ±1.58;F(3,55) = .658, p = .581), differences were signi®cantfor the sentences in the Imperfect (F(3,55) = 4.564,

p = .002). The simultaneous bilingual group (mean0.43) differed signi®cantly from the monolingualspeakers (mean 1.18) on achievements in theImperfect but did not differ from the other twobilingual groups (mean early child L2 learner 0.8 andmean late child L2 learner 0.76). It appears that thesimultaneous bilingual group ± more than the others± does not have the pragmatic knowledge required toresolve the aspectual con¯ict between the [+telic]nature of achievements and the [+durative] featuresof the Imperfect.

Figure 6 shows the mean scores for stative pre-dicates (La clase era/# fue a las 10 pero empezoÂ a las10:30 ``The class was at 10 but started at 10:30''). Aone-way ANOVA with states in the Imperfect, and apost hoc Tukey procedure, indicated differencesbetween the monolingual native speakers (mean 1.56)and the simultaneous bilingual group (mean 0.96)(F(3,55)= 3.486, p = .022). The mean responses ofstates in the Preterite were also signi®cant amonggroups (F(3,55)= 6.748, p = .001), mainly due to theperformance of the simultaneous bilinguals (mean±0.77) and the early child L2 learners (mean ±0.55),who were signi®cantly less accurate than the mono-


PreteriteImperfect

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

–0.5

–1

–1.5

–2Monolinguals Simultaneous Early child L2 Late child L2

Figure 4. Sentence conjunction judgment task: mean

responses on accomplishments.

PreteriteImperfect

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

–0.5

–1

–1.5



responses on achievements.

PreteriteImperfect

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

–0.5

–1

–1.5



responses on states.

linguals and the late child L2 learners (mean ±1.21).These subjects showed an increased tendency tojudge the sentences with the Preterite as logical, likethose with the Imperfect.

To summarize, group results indicate importantdifferences between bilinguals and monolingualnative speakers, and onset of bilingualism appears toplay an important role in establishing the degree ofdivergence. The simultaneous bilingual group dif-fered signi®cantly from monolingual speakers onachievements in the Imperfect and stative verbs inboth Preterite and Imperfect, whereas the early childL2 group differed from the monolinguals only onstative verbs in the Preterite. The Latin-America-born bilinguals (late child L2 learners) did not differfrom monolingual native speakers. With the excep-tion of stative verbs in the Preterite, which showedreliable differences between the simultaneous andsequential late child L2 learners, overall, the threebilingual groups did not differ statistically from eachother.

Individual results

Since attrition refers to temporary or permanent lossof language ability, as re¯ected in a speaker's per-formance or competence that would be consistentwith native speakers of similar age and languagedevelopment (Seliger, 1996), it is important to ®ndout whether particular bilingual individuals have lostor exhibit incomplete knowledge of the functionalcategory AspP. To that end, the next analysis focuseson individual bilinguals' and monolingual nativespeakers' mean responses. Paired samples t-tests withaccomplishments, achievements and states for each

subject were carried out to see whether each subjecttreated the two tenses differently. If a signi®cantdifference is found at the p. 05 level, then this meansthat individuals distinguish semantically between thebounded and unbounded interpretations of the Pre-terite and Imperfect forms. The full details can befound in Appendices B, C, D, and E. Table 4summarizes the results of the paired samples t-testsperformed on the scores of each subject.

Results showed that 85% of the monolingualspeakers and 50% of late child L2 bilingual grouphad a statistically signi®cant contrast between Pre-terite and Imperfect sentences with the three classesof predicates (i.e., meaning that they distinguishedbetween the bounded interpretation of the Preteriteand the unbounded interpretation of the Imperfect),while only 12.5% in the simultaneous bilingual groupand 13.33% in the early child L2 group had all threecontrasts. Fifteen percent of the native speakersshowed the contrast with only two predicates, as didthe other 50% of the late child L2 learners. Withinthe simultaneous and the early child L2 groups, 25%and 33.33%, respectively, showed knowledge of thecontrast with two predicates, and 50% and 40% ofthem showed the contrast with only one predicatetype. (In many cases, bilinguals gave positive ornegative ratings to both the Preterite and Imperfectforms.) Finally, 12.5% and 13.33% of the simul-taneous bilingual and early child L2 groups had nocontrast at all with any of the predicates. Theseresults show that semantic interpretations are alsoaffected by language loss, particularly with states andachievements, and that simultaneous bilinguals showthe greatest overall divergence from monolingualnative speakers.

54 Silvina Montrul

Table 4. Sentence conjunction judgment task: number of individuals who had statistically signi®cant contrastsbetween Preterite and Imperfect sentences

Monolinguals Simultaneous Early child L2 Late child L2

(n = 20) (n = 16) (n = 15) (n = 8)

count percent count percent count percent count percent

all contrasts signi®cant 17 85 2 12.5 2 13.33 4 50

accomplishments and achievements

signi®cant 1 5 1 6.25 1 6.66 2 25

accomplishments and states signi®cant 0 0 1 6.66 1 12.5

states and achievements signi®cant 2 10 3 18.75 3 20 1 12.5

accomplishments signi®cant 0 5 31.25 2 13.33 0

achievements signi®cant 0 1 6.25 1 6.66 0

states signi®cant 0 2 12.5 3 20 0

no single contrast signi®cant 0 2 12.5 2 13.33 0

The Truth Value Judgment Task

Subjects received points for choosing correctly trueand false sentences. The maximum accuracy score forCondition A was 6, for Condition B was 5, and forCondition C was 6. The subjects' scores on the TruthValue Judgment Task were submitted to a factorialANOVA, with Group as between factor (mono-linguals, simultaneous bilinguals, early child L2learners, and late child L2 learners) and Conditions(A, B, and C), Tense (P vs. I), and Response (T vs. F)as within factors. Tukey post hoc procedures wereconducted to determine differences among groups.Results showed a main effect for Group (F(3,55) =6081.053, p = .0001), for Condition (F(3,54) = 22.826,p =.0001), and for Tense (F(1,55)= 7.883, p =.007).The Condition by Group, Condition by Tense, andCondition by Tense by Group interactions weresigni®cant at the p = .0001 level.

Figure 7 shows the results of the sentences ofCondition A: stative verbs that shift to achievementsin the Preterite. Sentences with the verb in theImperfect (Juan sabãÂa la verdad ``Juan knew thetruth'') were true for a story providing a stativecontext and false for eventive contexts; the formswith the Preterite (Juan supo la verdad ``Juan foundout the truth'') were false in stative contexts but truein eventive contexts.

For this condition, overall performance on theImperfect sentences (mean 4.802) was more accuratethan on the Preterite (mean 4.201), and this wasexpected because the default interpretation withthese verbs is the stative one. Preterite sentenceswith stative stories were statistically signi®cant(F(3,55) = 13.435, p = .00001). There were no statis-tical differences between the monolinguals (mean5.35) and the late child L2 group (mean 4.37), but

there were differences between the monolingualspeakers and the two other bilingual groups (meansimultaneous bilinguals 3.25 and mean early child L2learners 3.2). The late child L2 learners were alsosigni®cantly different from the simultaneousbilinguals and the early child L2 learners. By con-trast, accuracy scores on Imperfect sentences werequite high for all the groups, resulting in no statisticaldifferences (mean monolinguals 5.2, mean simul-taneous bilinguals 5.06, mean early child L2 learners4.95, mean late child L2 learners 5; F(3,55) = .344,p = .794).

For the stories supporting an eventive interpret-ation, the Preterite was true and the Imperfect wasfalse. With the Preterite sentences, there was asigni®cant difference between the groups (F(3,55) =3.511, p = .021). According to post hoc comparisonsthe performance of the early child L2 group (mean3.66) was statistically different from that of themonolingual speakers (mean 4.7) and the late childL2 learners (mean 4.33). As for the Imperfectsentences, which were false, these were alsostatistically signi®cant (F(3,55) = 5.489, p = .002). Thesimultaneous bilinguals (mean 4.25) and the earlychild L2 learners (mean 4.33) were less accurate thanthe monolingual speakers (mean 5.45), while the latechild L2 group (mean 4.95) performed like the mono-lingual speakers. Here too the late child L2 learnerswere different from the early child L2 learners.

Figure 8 shows the accuracy scores on storiessupporting a habitual event versus a one-time eventin the past (Condition B). With habitual stories, theImperfect was true and the Preterite was false; withone-time event stories, the Preterite was true whilethe Imperfect was false. In this condition, overallperformance on Preterite (mean 4.72) was better than


late child L2early child L2

simultaneousmonolinguals

Imperfect (F)Preterite (T)eventive

Imperfect (T)Preterite (F)stative

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Figure 7. Truth Value Judgment Task: stative verbs that

shift aspectual class.



Imperfect (F)Preterite (T)one-time

Imperfect (T)Preterite (F)habitual

5

4

3

2

1

0

Figure 8. Truth Value Judgment Task: one-time event

versus habitual action in the past.

on Imperfect (mean 3.77), consistent with many ®nd-ings in the L2 acquisition literature (Lafford, 1996;Liskin-Gasparro, 1997; Salaberry, 1999).

The Preterite sentences in habitual stories werestatistically signi®cant (F(3,55) = 2.759, p = .045). Thesimultaneous bilingual group (mean 4.37) was differ-ent from the monolingual native speakers (mean4.85). The Imperfect sentences in habitual storieswere also signi®cant (F(3,55) = 3.879, p = .015), andthe differences lay between the monolinguals (mean4.75) and the simultaneous bilinguals (mean 3.53),and between the monolinguals and the early child L2learners (mean 3.33). The late child L2 learners (mean3.95) were no different from the monolingualspeakers or the other two bilingual groups. As forone-time event stories, results were not signi®cantwith Preterite sentences (F(3,55) = .670, p = .574). Bycontrast, sentences in the Imperfect were signi®cant(F(3,55) = 7.552, p = .00001). The simultaneousbilinguals (mean 3.18) and the early child L2 learners(mean 2.86) were signi®cantly different from themonolingual speakers (mean 4.7) and from the latechild L2 learners (mean 4.12).

Finally, Figure 9 shows the accuracy scores onimpersonal constructions with stories supporting ageneric versus a speci®c interpretation. Recall thatimpersonal constructions with the Imperfect areambiguous between a generic or a speci®c interpret-ation, while only the speci®c interpretation is avail-able with the Preterite. Therefore the sentences in theImperfect were true both in generic and speci®cstories, while the sentences in the Preterite were truewith speci®c stories but false with generic stories. Inthis condition, performance on the Preterite (mean5.14) was higher than on the Imperfect (mean 4.60).

Results of generic stories were not signi®cant forPreterite (mean monolinguals 5.14, mean simultaneousbilinguals 5.06, mean early child L2 learners 5.06,mean late child L2 learners 5.12; F(3,55) = .314,p = .815) or Imperfect sentences (mean monolinguals5.55, mean simultaneous bilinguals 5.6, mean earlychild L2 learners 5.6, mean late child L2 learners 5.12;F(3,55) = 1.331, p = .274), indicating that all groupscorrectly interpreted the sentences in the Imperfect ashaving a generic reading, while the sentences in thePreterite did not support such interpretation. As withspeci®c stories, all groups were also very accurate atjudging the Preterite sentences as having a speci®cinterpretation (mean monolinguals 5.15, mean simul-taneous bilinguals 5.12, mean early child L2 learners 5,mean late child L2 learners 5.12; F(3,55) = .083,p = .969). However, accuracy on Imperfect sentenceswith speci®c stories was signi®cant (F(3,55) = 3.658,p = .018) and there were differences among groups.There were no differences between the monolingual

speakers (mean 4.4) and the late child L2 learners(mean 3.75), but the monolinguals were differentfrom the two other bilingual groups ± the simul-taneous bilinguals (mean 3.31) and the early child L2learners (mean 3.46). There were no differencesamong the three bilingual groups. In short, the latechild L2 learners performed like the native speakers,displaying knowledge of both the speci®c/genericambiguity of the Imperfect and the generic restrictionon the Preterite.

Individual results

To see how bilinguals diverged from monolingualspeakers, the scores were normalized (converted toz-scores) as in the pro®ciency test and the morph-ology recognition task. Full details are displayed inAppendices F and G. Table 5 summarizes the results.One of 16 individuals in the simultaneous bilingualgroup (6.25%), 4 of 15 (26.66%) in the early child L2group and 2 of 8 bilinguals (25%) in the late child L2group passed the z < 2 criterion of nativeness. All therest differed from monolingual native speakers in atleast one variable. The variables showing most diver-gence were stative verbs in the Imperfect and eventiveverbs in the Preterite in the condition testing stativeverbs that shift to achievements in the Preterite, theImperfect tense in the condition testing habitualversus one-time events in the past, and the Imperfecttense with speci®c interpretation in the last condition.

Discussion and conclusion

The central concern of this study was whether adultbilinguals who were exposed to two languages simul-taneously and sequentially as children acquired full

56 Silvina Montrul



Imperfect (F)Preterite (T)specific

Imperfect (T)Preterite (F)generic

5

4

3

2

1

0

6

Figure 9. Truth Value Judgment Task: generic versus

speci®c subject interpretation.

linguistic competence in one of the two languages,converging on the grammars of native speakersraised monolingually. Results of a series of pro-duction and judgment tests on the Preterite/Imperfectcontrast in Spanish administered to the 20 mono-lingual speakers and the 39 Spanish±Englishbilinguals showed, ®rstly, that there was a great dealof variation among the bilingual speakers withingroups and in some instances across groups, andsecondly, that the age of onset of bilingualism andnumber of years of exposure to a majority languageplay a role in ultimate attainment. Comparisonsbetween the monolingual control group and the twoearlier bilingual groups (simultaneous bilinguals andearly child L2 learners) showed reliable statisticaldifferences. Overall, there were no group differencesbetween the late child L2 learners and the mono-lingual group (but there were differences at theindividual level, which I discuss below). In turn, theperformance of the late child L2 learners wassuperior to the performance of the early child L2learners and the simultaneous bilinguals with somevariables. Overall, the production and interpretationtasks converged on one robust result: incompleteacquisition in the case of simultaneous bilinguals andearly child L2 learners and attrition in the case of latechild L2 learners affect more profoundly stative verbsin the Preterite. Here is where the simultaneousbilinguals differed signi®cantly from the mono-linguals and the late child L2 learners. Next, and to alesser extent, achievement verbs in the Imperfecttense and other uses of the Imperfect as tested in theTruth Value Judgment Task were affected as well.

When we focus on individuals within each group,the ®ndings indicate that there is only one subject inthe US-born group there are two and 2 subjects inthe Latin-America-born group who scored within therange of variation of native speakers with all vari-

ables in all tests. Thus, we can conclude that thesespeakers have converged on the grammar of Spanish,at least in the grammatical domain investigated here.At the other extreme, there were four individualswho appear to have very little knowledge of thePreterite/Imperfect contrast in Spanish: two subjectsin the US-born group who were exposed to Englishand Spanish from birth until 3 years (#205 and #219)and two others in the early child L2 group (#226 and#234), for example, did not distinguish betweenPreterite and Imperfect in the sentence conjunctionjudgment tasks with accomplishments, achievements,or states, and also differed from native speakers withmost variables in the Truth Value Judgment Task.These subjects behaved as if they did not know thedifference between Preterite and Imperfect, especiallyin interpretation. All other subjects fell inbetween,diverging from monolingual speakers either in pro-duction or with some of the variables in the twomeaning interpretation tasks. This wide range ofpro®ciency levels within groups also corroborates theconcept of bilingual continuum proposed by CarmenSilva-CorvalaÂn (1991, 1994). Furthermore, suchample range of variation in ultimate attainment istypical of second language acquisition situations, butnot of ®rst language acquisition, and is one of themain arguments in favor of a critical period forsecond language acquisition (Bley-Vroman, 1990;Long, 1990; Birdsong, 1999).

In light of the theoretical approach assumed, theseresults suggest important competence and perform-ance differences between simultaneous and sequentialbilinguals and native speakers. It seems that morpho-logical erosion and feature erosion go hand in handin many subjects, contrary to the conclusions reachedby Toribio (2001). Toribio claimed that formalfeatures of Spanish agreement seemed more resistantto deterioration or re-speci®cation in two Spanish±


Table 5. Truth Value Judgment Task: number of bilingual individuals who did not perform within native speakers'range

Truth Value Judgment Task

condition Change of meaning Preterites One-time / habitual action Subject interpretation

stories Stative Eventive Habitual One-Time Generic Speci®c

tense Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf.

Bilinguals

Simultaneous (n =16) 2 6 6 0 8 6 3 10 2 1 1 4

Early child L2 (n = 15) 2 2 7 0 0 6 3 9 0 0 1 2

Late child L2 (n =8) 0 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 2 1 1

English bilingual subjects, despite faulty agreementerrors in production. The existence of a strong verbalfeature was evident from other syntactic operationspresent in the bilinguals' Spanish productions,including adverb placement (verb raising), licensingof null and postverbal subjects, and other verb-second structures. Similarly, Bruhn de Garavito(2001) showed that a group of 11 early bilinguals(Spanish speakers exposed to English since birth) didnot differ signi®cantly from monolingual Spanishspeakers with adverb placement in a grammaticalityjudgment task. Two important differences betweenthe present study and these two studies on verbmovement explain the discrepant ®ndings. First, thepresent study targeted semantic or [+interpretable]rather than syntactic or [7interpretable] features ofverbal in¯ection and, secondly, unlike Toribio'sstudy, it went beyond production and utilizedmeaning interpretation tasks to probe into subjects'competence. Taken together, these three studies arenot contradictory, however, because they focused ontheoretically different features. The three studiesindependently con®rm Sorace's (2000) proposal thatattrition affects [+interpretable] but not [7inter-pretable] features. My conclusion is that at least inthe area of aspectual semantic interpretations, manybilinguals never converge on the Spanish system ofnative speakers, even when they were exposed to twolanguages simultaneously at an early age. This®nding by itself is quite revealing, especially fortheoretical claims about a critical/sensitive period forlanguage acquisition closing somewhere between age6 (Ioup, 1989; Flege, 1991; Hyltenstam, 1992) andpuberty (Lenneberg, 1967), depending on the author.Since all the bilinguals in this study started learningSpanish at birth and during early childhood, theseresults suggest that biology itself, instantiated in theform of Universal Grammar, is not suf®cient forsuccessful language acquisition in adulthood. Asimilar conclusion was reached by Hyltenstam (1992)in a study on adolescent L2 learners of Swedish whoacquired their L2 after age 6. These bilinguals' ulti-mate attainment both in their L1 and L2 divergedsigni®cantly from native speaker norms, leadingHyltenstam to conclude that ``an early age of onsetmay be a necessary although not suf®cient require-ment for native-like ultimate attainment'' (Hylten-stam, 1992, p. 354). Our attention must thereforeturn to a closer examination of the role of inputduring this crucial stage of language development.

In the case of the simultaneous bilingual group,one should note that these adults were obviouslyexposed to English and Spanish during the age ofprimary syntactic development. In fact, referringback to Table 1, 87.5% of these subjects reported that

both parents spoke Spanish, but only 25% of themsaid that Spanish was the home language, while theremaining percentage used both languages at home.In contrast, 81.75% in the early child L2 groupreported that both parents spoke Spanish and 75% ofthem used Spanish at home. Unfortunately, it isdif®cult at this point to reconstruct the speci®ccircumstances in which Spanish was used by theseindividuals and their caregivers in early childhood.But since a robust 87% of the US-born bilingualsmade errors similar to the errors made by adultintermediate and advanced English-speaking L2learners of Spanish (i.e., monolingual Englishspeakers who started learning Spanish after puberty)(Slabakova and Montrul, 2000, in press; Montruland Slabakova, in press), one can only speculate thatthose subjects who spoke both English and Spanishat home received insuf®cient exposure to Spanish aschildren, either in terms of the amount, quality, orcontinuity of input needed to attain full pro®ciency,and never acquired Spanish completely as children,particularly the simultaneous bilinguals. In the caseof those bilinguals who learned English between ages4 and 7 years, it is possible that they acquired andsoon lost parts of the tense/aspect system after exten-sive exposure to English and reduced exposure toSpanish (c.f. Silva-CorvalaÂn 2001). (It is an openquestion whether these subjects' competence inEnglish is affected as well.)

That simultaneous bilingual children show differ-ential (albeit not de®cient) development as comparedto monolinguals is revealed in a recent study byParadis (to appear) on the use of overt/null subjectsin the Spanish development of Manuela (between 1year, 7 months and 3 years, 2 months) ± a Spanish±English bilingual child. While monolingual childrenproduced overt subjects 16±20% of the time,Manuela produced them 35% of the time. Whenfrequency, type, distribution, and context were takentogether Manuela's use of overt subjects and wordorder variation were found to be grammatically wellformed but pragmatically odd. Puzzled by this®nding, Paradis next examined the frequency of overtsubjects use in the speech of the parents as well. SinceManuela's father spoke Caribbean Spanish and themother spoke non-native Spanish (she was a nativespeaker of English), Paradis speculates thatManuela's parents' Spanish was already in somesense a variety in contact with English. Paradisconcluded that the source of crosslinguistic in¯uencein this bilingual child is perhaps external rather thaninternal, and that the input that bilingual childrenreceive, rather than psycholinguistic de®ciencies,might be the cause of differential development. These®ndings are quite revealing since studies of this sort

58 Silvina Montrul

may begin to explain why these very young childrencould eventually fail to converge as adults on one ofthe grammars they acquire.

In addition to differences in bilingual presentationin the home and in the community (one-parent±one-language, or two-parents±two-languages, mono-lingual home and bilingual community), Vihman andMcLaughlin (1982) point out that changes in thechild's linguistic environment over time also affectlinguistic ability. Clearly, in the United States, entryinto day-care, kindergarten, or elementary schoolmay effect the change, marking the imminent disuseby the child of a family language. A recent study bySilva-CorvalaÂn (2001) on linguistic consequences ofimpoverished input in seven simultaneous bilingualchildren of kindergarten age (between 5 years, 1month and 5 years, 11 months) corroborates justthat. She concludes that the process of simpli®cationand loss attested in adult Spanish-English bilingualsin the tense±aspect±mood domain is likely to be aconsequence of an interrupted process of normalacquisition between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Indeed,two of the children studied had a more completeverbal system at age 3 than at age 5 years, 11 months.At this point, intensive exposure to English in mono-lingual English day-care, television, communicationwith older siblings, together with the child's realiza-tion that his caregivers can understand English evenif they speak Spanish, severely reduces the child'scontact hours with Spanish and limits the opportu-nities for language use. As a consequence of thisreduction in the input, Silva-CorvalaÂn states that theverbal system of these children will remain stagnantand reduced, resulting in the simpli®ed or incompletetense±aspect±mood systems attested in bilingualadults (see also Schlyter's (1993) study on bilingualchildren's weaker language). Like the adults studiedby Silva-CorvalaÂn (1991, 1994), these children do notproduce stative verbs in the Preterite in perfectivecontexts, for instance, because, as Silva-CorvalaÂn(2001) explains, they never reach the ®nal stage in theacquisition of tense/aspect morphology in which thePreterite form spreads to stative verbs or Imperfectto telic (punctual) verbs ± either because they neveracquired it or because they acquired it and soon lostit. Since acquisition of verb tenses is in many casescontext-dependent, Silva-CorvalaÂn further adds thatcognitive, linguistic, and interactional factors, butparticularly frequency of social interactions, mayexplain the linguistic gaps observed in these children.

That quantity and quality of input received inchildhood plays a crucial role becomes even moreobvious when we consider the results of the Latin-America-born bilinguals, who arrived in the UnitedStates between the ages of 8 and 12 years (the late

child L2 group). In contrast to the US-bornbilinguals (simultaneous and early child L2), thesesequential bilinguals appear to have a more stablegrammar in Spanish, since most of the subjects thatperformed like monolingual native speakers on alltasks were found in this group. At the same time,signs of erosion in production and with some vari-ables in the two other interpretation tasks weredetected with particular subjects in this group, butsuch variability was not as generalized and did notproduce a group effect as with the subjects in theother two earlier bilingual groups. These individualdivergent cases could be safely assumed to beinstances of attrition, given that these bilingualsachieved native-like competence and lived, receivedinput, and attended school in a predominantlySpanish-speaking environment until at least age 8,and later suffered an abrupt shift in degree oflanguage use at home and at school, as shown inTable 1.

From a wider perspective, the collective results ofthe three bilingual groups raise questions about theinstability of bilingual balance or language domi-nance and how this is subject to change under varyingconditions, especially in early childhood. Mostimportant, since all the bilinguals in this study hadbeen acquiring Spanish since birth and some of themlearned English later, language dominance does notappear to be so much dependent on which languagewas acquired ®rst as on input and frequency of use.This is clear in a recent study conducted by Kohnert,Bates and HernaÂndez (1999), who tested the in¯uenceof the formal environment (school) on languagedominance. The experiment was on lexical-semanticproduction and cognitive processing in 80 bilingualschool-aged Spanish-speaking children who learnedEnglish between the ages of 4 and 6 years at school(sequential bilinguals) in the United States. The sub-jects were divided into ®ve different age groups: 5±7,8±10, 11±13, 14±16 years, and college age. Results ofa picture naming task showed that the youngestchildren (5±7) were Spanish dominant, as measuredby accuracy and speed in reaction time, while the twonext age groups, 8±10 and 11±13 were equallybalanced in Spanish and English. By contrast, theolder adolescents (14±16) and the college-aged adultswere stronger in English than in Spanish on measuresof lexical ¯uency. Overall performance in Englishoverrode performance in Spanish after approximately10 years of formal experience in English.

There are signi®cant parallels between the resultsof Kohnert, Bates and HernaÂndez (1999) and thepresent study, even though the former is a study oflexicon and this is a study of in¯ectional morphologyand semantics. Considering years of exposure to


English both before and after schooling began in the3 bilingual groups shows that the earlier bilingualgroups (simultaneous bilinguals and early child L2learners) received an average of 22.7 and 17 years ofexposure to English respectively, while the averageamount of exposure for the late child L2 group was10 years. Clearly, the groups that received moreextensive exposure to English are the ones thatdisplayed most incomplete competence in Spanish.The bilingual speakers who received some schoolingin Spanish before arriving in the United States stillshowed more stable competence in Spanish andreported a more balanced control of the twolanguages, despite the fact that they had been in theUnited States for almost 10 years (Table 1).However, signs of erosion have already begun toemerge in these bilinguals as well.

In light of the fact that many bilinguals indeedshow divergent ultimate attainment in Spanish, arethere systematic patterns of incomplete acquisitionand loss, in a way comparable to stages of languageacquisition? Language acquisition studies havereported that overall the Preterite is learned ®rst inL1 and L2 acquisition, and the Imperfect is learnedlater. Preterite appears with telic classes (accomplish-ments and achievements) and Imperfect with atelicclasses (states and activities) before they spread to allverbs. Results of the production tasks in narrativesshowed that the frequency distribution of Preteriteand Imperfect by verb class was identical for allgroups, but bilinguals made a few replacement errorsin production, which is consistent with what otherstudies of bilinguals have found (Silva-CorvalaÂn,1994; Zentella, 1997). Although both Preterite andImperfect were affected, it is not the case thatbilinguals showed more erosion with the Imperfectthan with the Preterite overall, but depended on tenseand predicate type combinations. More speci®cally,erosion and loss were most pronounced with stativeverbs in the Preterite (see also results reported inSilva-CorvalaÂn, 1991, 1994, 2001) and with achieve-ment verbs in the Imperfect. Since stative verbs areatelic and the Preterite implies boundedness whileachievements are telic and the Imperfect signalsunboundedness, these error patterns suggest thatbilinguals are more conservative than monolinguals,since they do not accept meaning combinations thatexhibit a clash of features between lexical and gram-matical aspect, even when the grammar allows itunder varying pragmatic contexts. Since, accordingto Andersen's (1986) eight-stage proposal Imperfectspreads to achievements at stage 7 and Preterites tostates at stage 8, still, the error patterns found in thepresent study con®rm that what is supposedlyacquired later is either never acquired in early child-

hood bilingualism (c.f. Silva-CorvalaÂn, 2001), or islost after extensive contact with English, as in thecase of some sequential bilinguals.

The results of incomplete acquisition of thebilingual groups reported here are comparable to theresults of two studies with intermediate and advancedL2 learners who have been learning Spanish since age12 (Montrul and Slabakova, in press; Slabakova andMontrul, in press), and are still learning Spanish.4

Using the same sentence conjunction task Montruland Slabakova (in press) showed that intermediatelevel learners whose native language was English hadmost dif®culty acquiring the bounded/unboundedcontrast with stative verbs, and this was explained asbeing related to in¯uence from English, since Englishdoes not have Imperfect aspect grammaticalized, andthe Progressive cannot be used with these verbs.Furthermore, stative verbs are neutral as to theperfective/imperfective distinction in English. More-over, L2 learners had dif®culty with achievementpredicates in the Imperfect. We explained theseresults in this way: native speakers have access toaspectual ``coercion'' (de Swart, 1998), a pragmaticprocess that provides a context to avoid a clash ofsemantic features. Coercion shifts the emphasis to theprocess immediately preceding the change of state,thus in a way turning achievements into accomplish-ments. Even though English speakers coerce inEnglish, and Spanish speakers do the same inSpanish, coercion might be peripheral to UniversalGrammar competence, more dependent on input andrepeated exposure than other structures, and thusharder to acquire. We concluded that non-nativespeakers had acquired the morpho-syntactic andinterpretive properties of AspP but, unlike nativespeakers, they did not have the pragmatic ability tocoerce as a means to avoid a con¯ict between thesemantic features of the lexical aspectual class [+telic]and those of the aspectual tense [7bounded]. Inother words, they have learned the central, coredistributions of these tenses (Preterite with telic pre-dicates and Imperfect with atelic predicates), buthave not learned the non-canonical uses. Just likethese results for adult L2 learners, the results ofthe present study revealed that in the sentenceconjunction judgment task bilinguals also

4 An anonymous reviewer points out that these results are relevant

to Coppieters's (1987) conclusions. Unlike Montrul and Slaba-

kova (submitted), these studies are not about near-native

speakers but about L2 learners who have not necessarily attained

a steady state in their L2 yet. Thus, they cannot be directly

compared to Coppieters's (1987) study, which tested knowledge

of the Imparfait/PasseÂ ComposeÂ distinction with near-native

speakers of French. For details about this particular comparison

refer to Montrul and Slabakova (submitted).

60 Silvina Montrul

experienced most dif®culty with stative and achieve-ment verbs. The simultaneous bilingual groupshowed depressed performance with states in bothPreterite and Imperfect forms, like the intermediatelearners in Montrul and Slabakova (in press).However, the other two groups of bilinguals onlyexperienced problems with the states in the Preterite.Again, these results con®rm the trends found in theoral production task, and replicate the ®ndings ofSilva-CorvalaÂn's (1994) study with Mexican±Americans in the Los Angeles area. Finally,bilinguals showed depressed performance with theachievements in the Imperfect as well, although to alesser degree than the L2 subjects in the Montrul andSlabakova study.

The US-born bilinguals (simultaneous and earlychild L2) also performed in a way comparable to theadult L2 learners in the Slabakova and Montrul (inpress) study with the interpretation of Preterite andImperfect in the Truth Value Judgment Task.Bilinguals experienced most dif®culty with stativeverbs that shift aspectual class in the Preterite (sabãÂa``he knew'' versus supo ``he found out''), habitualmeaning of the Imperfect versus one time eventmeaning of the Preterite, and generic versus speci®cinterpretation of null subject pronouns in impersonalconstructions. Results of the ®rst two conditionscon®rmed that simultaneous bilinguals, just likemany L2 learners, confused morphological formsand did not discriminate the meaning interpretationsassociated with the two aspectual forms. Results ofthe condition testing the Imperfect for having aspeci®c as well as a generic interpretation alsoshowed that bilinguals did not interpret null subjectswith the Imperfect as referring to somebody speci®c.As with the results for achievement and stative verbsin the sentence conjunction judgment task, theseresults also indicate that bilinguals do not have thepragmatic ability to entertain different meaning inter-pretations of a single form. These results suggest thatsemantic±pragmatic distinctions might be more per-ipheral to Universal Grammar regulated knowledge,and are most vulnerable areas for crosslinguisticin¯uence and language attrition, as studies of earlybilingualism (Hulk and MuÈller, 2000) and adult bi-lingualism (Sorace, 2000) have shown. Incompleteacquisition and attrition affect [+interpretable]features of functional categories.

To conclude, many bilinguals who acquired twoor more languages simultaneously and sequentially inearly childhood may not converge on the grammar ofnative speakers in the less dominant language asadults, even if that language was the family languageand learned ®rst. The earlier the age of onset ofbilingualism and the more intense the exposure to the

sociolinguistically dominant language, the moreincomplete the adult grammar may turn out to be,suggesting that an early age of onset of a criticalperiod might be a necessary but not a suf®cientcondition for convergent language acquisition (seealso Hyltenstan, 1992). In order to acquire deeperinsights into the nature of attrition, incomplete acqui-sition, and the limits of balanced bilingualism inadulthood, further work should examine in greaterdetail how the changing patterns in the input duringbilingual development in addition to how languageuse affect the form of the emerging grammars, par-ticularly from the age of early syntax and extendingto at least the years of early schooling. In keepingwith the research program of the generative enter-prise, data from normal attrition and incompleteacquisition of a primary language can offer yetanother perspective to our growing understanding ofthe nature of the human language faculty.

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Received May 17, 2001 Revision accepted October 27, 2001

64 Silvina Montrul

Appendix A. Individuals' z scores in the pro®ciency test and morphology recognition task

Monolinguals Simultaneous bilinguals Early child L2 learners Late child L2 learners

(n = 20) (n = 16) (n = 15) (n = 8)

Subj. # Morph. Subj. # Morph. Subj. # Morph. Subj. # Morph.

11 7.90 *201 1 207 .05 212 1

12 1 202 76.62 209 7.90 *217 71.86

13 71.8 203 713.29 215 7.90 224 .05

14 1 204 72.81 218 7.90 232 74.71

15 .04 205 72.81 220 76.62 238 71.86

16 .04 206 73.76 221 71.86 239 72.81

17 1 *208 1 223 .05 *240 7.90

18 1 210 74.71 225 71.86 241 1

19 1 213 713.29 226 .05

20 7.90 *214 1 227 7.90

21 .04 216 71.86 228 72.81

22 1 219 71.86 233 76.62

23 1 222 .90 234 .05

24 7.90 229 72.81 236 71

25 .04 230 71.86 237 .05

26 7.90 235 1

27 1

28 7.90

29 71.8

30 .04

Note: that those values that are less than ±2 for each individual in the three bilingual groups appear in bold. An asterisk

next to each subject number indicates that that particular individual scored within the native speakers range (z < 2).


Appendix B. Monolingual native speakers' mean responses and p values on the sentence conjunction judgment task

Accomplishments Achievements States

Subj. # Pret Imperf. p Pret. Imperf. p Pret. Imperf. p

11 71.43 1.43 .002 72 0.14 .032 70.29 1 .188

12 71.14 1.43 .001 72 1.29 .001 72 1.43 .001

13 71.57 1.43 .001 72 1.86 .001 72 2

14 71.86 1.29 .000 72 1.14 .001 72 1.29 .001

15 72 2 71.57 1.14 .019 72 1.29 .001

16 70.86 1.57 .039 70.86 1.29 .004 71.86 1.29 .001

17 71.67 1.43 .004 71.86 1.8 .001 72 1.86 .000

18 1.17 1 .009 70.71 1.86 .009 70.57 1.86 .004

19 71.29 1.29 .012 71.71 1.14 .027 71.71 1.43 .001

20 71.57 1.14 .012 71.57 1 .007 71.14 1.43 .006

21 70.33 0.86 .049 71.71 1.29 .001 71.14 1.57 .004

22 70.86 0.57 .211 72 0.43 .010 71.57 1.86 .010

23 71.29 0.43 .043 72 1 .001 71.71 2 .011

24 71 1.14 .033 71.86 1.43 .004 71.86 1 .001

25 70.14 1.86 .001 71.43 1.71 .004 70.71 2 .009

26 70.71 0.43 .226 71.71 1 .001 70.83 1.57 .009

27 71.43 1.57 .001 72 1.29 .000 71.29 1.71 .001

28 70.29 1.17 .022 71.43 0.71 .008 71 1.14 .028

29 71.57 0.5 .004 71.43 1.5 .006 71.29 1.86 .001

30 71.14 0.29 .004 71.71 0.71 .012 71.33 1.43 .008

Group mean 71.04 1.14 .0001 71.67 1.18 .0001 71.41 1.55 .0001

Appendix C. Simultaneous bilinguals' mean responses and p. values on the sentence conjunction judgment task


Subj. # Pret. Imperf. p Pret. Imperf. p Pret. Imperf. p

201 70.71 0.86 .206 71.86 1.17 .008 71.29 2 .001

202 72 70.29 .030 72 70.57 .082 70.71 0 .478

203 71 1.29 .030 72 70.67 .121 70.86 0 .328

204 71.33 1.33 .025 72 70.86 .172 0 1.43 .175

205 2 1 .111 71 1.29 .074 0.14 0.71 .611

206 .42 1.28 .078 71.75 2 .001 7.50 1.83 .017

*208 71.85 1.57 .000 72 1.42 .000 7.85 1.57 .021

210 7.28 1.14 .070 71.83 0.33 .010 7.85 .17 .322

213 71.33 1.33 .001 71.42 .28 .200 7.85 7.85 1.000

214 7.86 1 .244 71.71 70.29 .094 71.71 0.85 .004

*216 71.42 1.28 .007 72 .28 .019 71.71 1.14 .002

219 1.14 1 .829 1 .71 .772 7.85 1.28 .649

222 71.14 1.42 .060 71.66 .5 .015 70.85 1.57 .010

229 7.14 2 .019 1.42 .71 .052 7.14 .57 .769

230 71 .25 .527 72 0.50 .091 71.16 1.83 .001

235 71.57 1.28 .004 71.66 .16 .048 7.14 1.28 .082

Group mean 70.69 1.10 .0001 71.40 0.43 .0001 70.77 0.96 .0001

66 Silvina Montrul

Appendix D. Early child L2 learners' mean scores and p values on the sentence conjunction judgment task



207 72 2 71.5 1 .018 71 1.75 .115

209 7.75 1.50 .078 72 .57 .009 71.16 1.66 .028

215 .16 1 .317 7.33 1.33 .031 7.28 1.28 .025

218 7.28 .85 .256 71.86 1.29 .140 70.29 1.43 .049

220 7.28 .42 .394 71.33 .66 .127 7.85 1.14 0.22

221 71.5 2 .006 71.70 1 .062 0 2 .182

223 71.57 7.42 .311 72 0 .018 72 1 .005

225 7.28 .14 .482 71.71 1 .002 .16 0.83 .501

226 71.85 2 .356 .80 1.40 .573 0.85 1.85 .134

*227 7.85 2 .008 72 2 7.28 2 .030

228 70.86 .42 .281 71.66 7.16 .091 7.71 1.57 .019

233 71.33 .83 .027 71.33 1 .128 7.42 1.85 .009

234 0 .25 .846 71.20 7.60 .426 70.28 .28 .386

236 7.57 1.29 .039 71.33 .50 .110 70.28 .71 .267

*237 71.28 1.28 .017 71.57 1.14 .004 71.71 1.57 .000

Group mean 70.88 1.03 .0001 71.38 0.80 .0001 70.55 1.39 .0001

Appendix E. Late child L2 learners' mean responses and p values on the sentence conjunction judgment task



*212 70.28 2 .018 71.57 1.42 .004 7.66 2 .025

217 70.85 2 .012 71.85 1.28 .004 7.28 1.42 .078

*224 72 1 .005 71.71 0.14 .045 71.33 .83 .027

232 70.8 1.2 .037 70.42 0.71 .084 7.33 1 .062

238 72 2 71.33 0 .363 72 1 .007

239 70.28 2 .078 72 0.85 .008 72 1.33 .004

*240 71.14 1 .037 72 0.57 .047 71.85 1 .001

*241 70.71 1.85 .006 71.83 1.16 .005 71.28 2 .001

Group mean 71 1.63 .0001 71.58 0.76 .0001 71.21. 1.32 .0001


Appendix F. Monolingual native speakers' z-scores on the Truth Value Judgment Task

Change of meaning Preterites One-time / habitual action Subject interpretation

Stative Eventive Habitual One-Time Generic Speci®c

Subj. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf.

11 1.41 .73 7.52 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 7.16 .75 1.05 7.4

12 .33 .73 .97 1.05 71.36 .6 .23 .46 .91 7.92 1.05 .61

13 1.41 7.6 7.52 7.26 .42 .6 .23 .46 71.24 7.92 7.19 .61

14 .33 .73 7.52 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 .91 7.92 7.19 7.4

15 7.76 7.6 .97 7.26 .42 .6 .23 .46 71.24 .75 1.05 1.62

16 1.41 .73 .97 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 .91 .75 1.05 1.62

17 .33 7.6 .97 1.05 .42 .6 .23 71.08 .91 .75 1.05 .61

18 7.76 71.93 7.52 7.26 71.36 71.84 .23 .46 7.16 7.92 7.19 71.41

19 7.76 .73 7.52 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 .91 .75 7.19 .61

20 .33 .73 .97 7.26 .42 .6 .23 .46 7.16 .75 7.19 .61

21 7.76 .73 .97 1.05 .42 71.12 .23 .46 7.16 72.28 71.65 7.4

22 7.76 .73 7.52 71.58 .42 71.12 .23 .46 .91 7.92 1.05 7.4

23 7.76 7.6 7.52 7.26 .42 .6 .23 .46 7.16 .75 7.19 1.62

24 1.41 .73 .97 7.26 .42 .6 .23 71.31 .91 7.92 71.42 7.4

25 1.41 .73 7.52 71.58 .42 .6 .23 .46 71.24 .75 7.19 7.4

26 7.76 71.93 72.01 7.26 71.36 .6 .23 72.3 .91 .75 7.19 71.41

27 .33 7.6 .97 7.26 .42 71.12 .23 .46 7.16 7.92 71.42 7.4

28 71.85 71.93 72.01 71.58 .42 71.12 .23 71.08 71.24 .75 1.05 7.4

29 7.76 .73 .97 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 .91 .75 7.19 7.4

30 7.76 .73 7.52 71.58 .42 71.12 71.32 .46 71.24 .75 7.19 7.4

bold = z-score >72

Appendix G. Bilinguals' z7scores on the Truth Value Judgment Task

Change of meaning Preterites One-time / habitual action Subject interpretation

Stative Eventive Habitual One-Time Generic Speci®c

Subj. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf. Pret. Imperf.

Simultaneous

*201 1.41 .73 7.52 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 .91 .75 1.05 7.4

202 1.41 73.27 72.01 71.58 .42 74.57 .23 72.62 .91 7.92 71.42 71.41

203 7.76 71.93 7.52 1.05 72.36 71.12 .23 72.62 .91 .75 7.19 72.42

204 7.76 7.6 76.49 1.05 .42 72.84 .23 74.15 7.16 .75 1.05 72.42

205 7.76 73.27 73.51 71.58 72.36 74.57 .23 74.15 72.31 .75 72.65 7.4

206 7.76 74.6 75 71.58 72.36 72.84 .23 72.62 75.54 .75 7.19 7.4

208 .33 7.6 .97 1.05 75.14 .6 74.32 .46 7.16 72.58 71.42 7.4

210 72.93 7.6 75 7.26 .42 74.57 .23 71.08 7.16 7.92 7.19 71.41

213 72.93 7.6 77.99 7.26 72.36 71.12 .23 .46 .91 7.92 7.19 72.42

214 .33 7.6 72.01 71.58 .42 76.29 74.32 74.15 .91 .75 1.05 7.4

216 1.41 .73 72.01 71.58 .42 .6 .23 74.15 .91 .75 1.05 71.41

219 7.76 73.27 72.01 1.05 75.14 71.12 74.32 77.23 71.24 .75 71.42 72.42

222 71.85 71.93 72.01 7.26 .42 71.12 .23 72.62 .91 .75 1.05 7.4

229 .33 73.27 73.51 7.26 72.36 71.12 .23 74.15 .91 .75 1.05 7.4

230 71.85 7.6 75 1.05 .42 .6 .23 .46 7.16 .75 1.05 .61

235 7.76 71.93 73.51 7.26 72.36 71.12 .23 .46 .91 7.92 7.19 71.41

Early child L2

207 72.93 7.6 73.51 7.26 .42 74.57 .23 74.15 .91 .75 7.19 71.41

209 1.41 75.93 72.01 71.58 .42 71.12 .23 71.08 71.24 .75 72.65 71.41

215 7.76 73.27 73.51 7.26 72.36 71.12 .23 75.69 7.16 .75 1.05 7.4

*218 .33 7.6 72.01 7.26 .42 71.12 .23 .46 7.16 .75 1.05 .61

220 71.85 7.6 72.01 71.58 .42 74.57 74.32 72.62 71.24 .75 7.19 .61

*221 7.76 71.93 72.01 7.26 .42 .6 .23 71.08 7.16 7.92 71.42 7.4

*223 7.76 7.6 72.01 71.58 .42 71.12 .23 .46 .91 .75 7.19 7.4

225 71.85 7.6 75 71.58 72.36 74.57 .23 77.23 71.24 .75 1.05 71.41

226 71.85 71.93 72.01 1.05 .42 76.29 .23 77.23 .91 .75 1.05 71.41

227 72.93 7.6 73.51 7.26 .42 71.12 .23 .46 .91 7.92 7.19 72.42

228 71.85 7.6 75 1.05 72.36 71.12 .23 72.62 71.24 7.92 71.42 71.41

233 .33 71.93 72.01 71.58 .42 72.84 74.32 72.62 .91 7.92 7.19 71.41

234 71.85 71.93 76.49 7.26 72.36 76.29 74.32 75.69 71.24 7.92 7.19 72.42

236 71.85 7.6 75 1.05 .42 .6 .23 72.62 7.16 .75 1.05 7.4

*237 .33 7.6 72.01 1.05 .42 .6 .23 71.08 .91 7.92 71.42 7.4

Late child L2

*212 7.76 7.6 72.01 7.26 .42 .6 .23 71.08 .91 7.92 7.19 .61

217 7.76 7.6 .97 71.58 .42 72.84 .23 72.62 .91 .75 1.05 74.44

224 1.41 7.6 72.01 7.26 .42 72.84 .23 .46 7.16 72.58 72.65 7.4

232 .33 71.93 73.51 71.58 72.36 71.12 .23 71.08 7.16 .75 1.05 7.4

*238 .33 7.6 .97 1.05 72.36 71.12 .23 71.08 .91 7.92 1.05 .61

239 .33 73.27 75 7.26 72.36 71.12 .23 .46 71.24 .75 7.19 71.41

*240 .33 7.6 .97 1.05 .42 71.12 .23 71.08 .91 7.92 1.05 .61

241 .33 .73 72.01 7.26 72.36 72.84 78.86 71.08 .91 72.58 71.42 7.4

68 Silvina Montrul

incomplete acquisition and attrition of spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals

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