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Kim03damn You and Me Both Scotty
Kim03damn You and Me Both Scotty
speakers
with focus on morphosyntactic and lexico-semantic issues
Seon Young Kim
The differences between Korean and English in terms of tense and aspect (TA)
1.
While English has clear formal marking for present and present progressive, Korean has the only formal
marking (nu)n for present and present progressive.
While English has clear formal marking for perfect and imperfect, Korean has no special marking for perfect and
impeferfect.
In Korean time adverbial is more important than English for distinguishing present and present progressive.
Minja studies.
While English distinguishes state verbs from other verbs, Korean has no state verbs (for example, see, like,
hate, be happy, be sad and etc are active verbs).
States
Activities
Accomplishments
(Telic events)
+
+
Achievements
(Punctual events)
Research Questions
1.
What effect do formal marking have on the L2 learners acquisition of English tense and aspect?
1a. Do Korean learners whose L1 has only formal marking (n)un for present and present progressive
distinguish English present and present progressive which have clear distinction in their forms?
1b. Do Korean learners whose L1 has no special marking for perfective aspect and imperfective aspect
distinguish English perfective aspect and imperfective aspect?
1c. If Korean learners dont distinguish English TA, is it the effect of their L1 or other factors (time
adverbial, context, etc.)?
2.
How much does inherent lexical aspect affect on L2 learners acquisition of English tense and aspect?
2a. Do Korean learners whose L1 has no stative verbs follow the Primacy of Aspect for the acquisition of
English TA?
2b. If Korean learners dont follow POA, is it the effect of their L1 or other factors (time adverbial, context,
etc.)?
Test Methodology
1.
The study has tested 3 Korean Ph.D. students and 3 Korean undergraduates in Lancaster University with
five basic English inflectional verb forms (V, Ving, Vs, Ved, Virreg) across the four traditional Vendlerian
inherent aspect classes (states, activities, accomplishments, achievements) with English TA interpretation
test.
2.
To compare the interpretation with their real speaking production, the study has also tested them with
English TA production test.
3.
For the purpose of reference for subjects, data has also been collected from their English grammar
proficiency test and interviewing them about their language background.
4.
To have a base line for the English TA interpretation test, three natives have been tested with the same
interpretation test with Korean students.
In terms of grammatical sentences of states Korean students responses are on the whole similar with natives.
grammati c al s entenc es / s tates i n s i mpl e
pres ent
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
-1
N1 N2
-2
2. In terms of grammatical sentences of activities Korean students responses are on the whole similar with natives.
grammati c al s entenc es / ac ti vi ti es i n
s i mpl e pas t
grammati c al s entenc es / ac ti vi ti es i n
- i ng
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
-1
N1 N2
-2
3. In terms of grammatical sentences of achievements Korean students responses are on the whole similar with
natives.
grammati c al s entenc es / ac hi evements i n
s i mpl e pres ent
2
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
4.
-1
N1 N2
-2
In terms of grammatical sentences of accomplishments Korean students responses are on the whole similar with
natives in simple present and simple past, but show difference of degree in progressive sentences even though all
of them are positive.
grammati c al s entenc es /
ac c ompl i s hments i n s i mpl e pas t
grammati c al s entenc es /
ac c ompl i s hments i n - i ng
0
-1
-2
0
N1 N2
-1
-2
N1 N2
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
N1 N2
-1
-2
2. In terms of ungrammatical sentences of activities while Korean students responses are on the whole similar with
natives in progressive forms, several their responses are different with natives in simple present.
ungrammati c al s entenc es / ac ti vi ti es i n
- i ng
ungrammati c al s entenc es / ac ti vi ti es i n
s i mpl e pres ent
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
-1
N1 N2
-2
3. In terms of ungrammatical sentences of accomplishments Korean students responses are clearly different from
natives.
ungrammati c al s entenc es /
ac c ompl i s hments i n s i mpl e pres ent
ungrammati c al s entenc es /
ac c ompl i s hments i n s i mpl e pas t
0
-1
0
N1 N2
-2
-1
N1 N2
-2
4. Two Korean Ph.D. students (NN2, NN3) whose grammar proficiency are most advanced among 6 subjects show
different responses compared with natives and other Koreans.
ungrammati c al s entenc es / ac ti vi ti es i n
s i mpl e pres ent
2
1
0
-1
-2
N1 N2