Creole English Morphology PDF

Language Learning 55:2, June 2005, pp.
275–334
Creole English Speakers’ Treatment of

Tense-Aspect Morphology in English
Interlanguage Written Discourse
Arlene Clachar
University of Miami
The study sought to examine the effect of lexical aspect

and narrative discourse structure on the pattern of acqui-
sition and use of English verbal morphology exhibited by
creole-speaking students. Findings indicated that the
emergent pattern of morphology in the creole partic-
ipants’ written interlanguage appeared to be influenced
not only by lexical aspect and narrative discourse, but
also by a conglomerate of other factors such as the mor-
phosyntactic features of the creoles, the blurring of the
distinction between the linguistic system of English-
based creoles and that of the standard English varieties,
and the constant bidirectional shifting between the
creoles and the standard varieties along the creole con-
tinuum, as well as the structure of narrative discourse in
creole cultures.
This study examines the pattern of acquisition and use of

English verbal morphology by creole-speaking students. From a
specific stance, the study investigates how lexical aspect and
narrative discourse influence the emergent pattern and use of
verbal morphology in these students’ English interlanguage.
It is now widely accepted that the lexical aspectual classes of
verbs and the narrative structure of discourse influence the emer-
gence and distribution of tense-aspect morphology in learners’
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arlene Clachar,

Department of Teaching and Learning, School of Education, University of
Miami, PO Box 248065, Coral Gables, FL 33124. Internet: aclachar@miami.edu
275
276 Language Learning Vol. 55, No. 2
interlanguage systems (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig,

1998; Dowty, 1986; Robison, 1995). However, to date, the research
dealing with the influence of lexical aspectual class and narrative
structure on verbal morphology in English interlanguage has
focused mainly on learners of English as a second language
(ESL), a focus that seems to rest on the concept nonnative, as if it
had a clear-cut meaning.
There is a very large student population of English-based
creole speakers in the United States. For these speakers standard
English is neither a native language nor a second language (L2),
but a second dialect.1 This is partly so because creole English
generally corresponds to standard English at one linguistic level
(the lexicon) but diverges considerably from standard English at
other levels, such as morphology and syntax. Jamaican Creole
and Guyanese Creole, for example, are characterized by an
English lexicon superimposed on the morphology and syntax of
West African languages (Thompson, 1984). Because of the lexical
overlap between the creole and the standard, the creole-speaking
learner’s receptive knowledge of oral and written English far
exceeds that of the ESL learner—a factor that excludes creole
students from the ‘‘ESL learner’’ paradigm. Therefore, English-
based creole-speaking students, in acquiring standard English, do
not fit the profile of ESL, and their linguistic practices are at
variance with policies of the educational system that place them
in classes with ESL learners.
The acquisitional profile of English-based creole speakers
becomes a very important issue for investigation precisely because
the creole raises concerns about the ESL learner paradigm. The
logical question is: Would creole learners acquire English verbal
morphology in a manner similar to that of students for whom
English is a second or foreign language? This study, therefore,
represents a systematic attempt to understand the acquisitional
path taken by English-based creole-speaking students who do not
fit the ESL paradigm. An investigation of the acquisition of tense-
aspect morphology in these students’ English interlanguage seems
to be a useful starting point, since verbal morphology, as a marker
Clachar 277
of temporality, may provide insight into the manner in which

speakers of English-based creoles process morphological input
and the extent to which this processing differs from that of
noncreole, ESL learners, although it originated with Spanish
data. Such an investigation should prove useful in understanding
the early literacy challenges faced by creole speakers. As a theoret-
ical background for the study, I begin by discussing the genesis of
anglophone Caribbean creoles, their structure, the particularities
of the creole continuum, and thus, the unique linguistic profile of
creole-speaking immigrant students. I then review the literature
on the predictions of the aspect and narrative discourse hypotheses
with respect to the acquisition and distribution of tense-aspect
morphology. Next, based on the predictions of the aspect and dis-
course hypotheses, I provide the rationale for investigating creole
speakers’ acquisition of verbal morphology in light of the unique
characteristics of the creole-speaking community. These character-
istics are then used as the basis for formulating the research
hypotheses. Finally, examination of the data is aimed at ascertain-
ing whether the path taken by creole-speaking learners in
acquiring tense-aspect morphology is different from that taken by
ESL learners as postulated by the aspect and narrative discourse
hypotheses and whether there are specific literacy challenges
associated with the acquisitional path exhibited by creole speakers.
The findings are used to address the controversial native speaker–
nonnative speaker dichotomy.
Creoles in the Anglophone Caribbean: A Unique Dimension
Creoles in the anglophone Caribbean initially arose from

contact among typologically very different languages, such as
West African and European languages during the slave trade
period of the 17th and 18th centuries. Nero (1997) defines the
anglophone Caribbean as ‘‘a linguistic contact zone from which
creole languages emerged as a result of European-controlled
plantation systems bringing together Africans as slaves’’ in con-
tact with Europeans (p. 7). The social conditions of slavery forced
the West Africans (speakers of the substrate languages) to

assimilate linguistically and use vocabulary from the
Europeans’ superstrate languages (in the case of the anglophone
Caribbean, British English). However, the form and use of the
vocabulary were influenced by the West African substrate lan-
guages. This phenomenon is based on the now well-established
notion that many creoles evidence some combination of phonolo-
gical and morphosyntactic features from the ancestral substrate
West African languages (Lefebvre, 1998; Lumsden, 1999;
McWhorter, 1997; Siegel, 2003). The substrate hypothesis, which is
represented in many overlapping variations (Mufwene, 1990), is
usually employed to explain the emergence of the linguistic struc-
ture of creoles. One view of the hypothesis is that creoles are the
result of the restructuring of some aspects of the superstrate
language due to the influence from the substrate languages.
Another claim is that the creoles evolved from the restructuring
of the substrate as a result of the influence of some variety of the
superstrate (Migge, 1998). The former explanation parallels
language shift or second language acquisition (SLA) in creolization
(Thomason & Kaufman, 1988), and the latter is frequently
conceptualized as substrate grammar retention with relexifica-
tion in creoles (Lefebvre, 1993; Migge, 1998).
Some creolists (Kouwenberg, 1996: Mufwene, 1999; Siegel,
2003) maintain that the influences of both the substrate and
superstrate are, in fact, complementary. For example, Siegel
(2003) believes that during the early stages of development of
creoles, in attempting to speak the common European super-
strate L2, individuals transferred structures from the West
African substrate first language (L1) variants that were spoken
in the contact situation. When the speech community began ‘‘to
shift from the substrate to some aspect of the superstrate lan-
guage or a contact variety (a pidgin) lexified by the superstrate
variety, leveling [occurred, that is,] the elimination of some
variants and the retention of others’’ (p. 187). The retention
would involve features emanating from substratal L1 transfer.
Creoles are unique languages and differ from other natural
Clachar 279
languages in their historical evolution. Whereas most languages

evolve slowly, responding mainly to pressures found within a
largely monolingual population, creoles are the result of social con-
frontation of many languages, and the genesis of a creole language
is rather abrupt (Lumsden, 1995). Creoles also differ considerably
from any single one of the parent languages that contributed to
their origin, and they develop these distinctions in a fairly short
period of time under unusual sociohistorical conditions.2
Since anglophone Caribbean Creoles have a predominantly
English lexicon but have morphological and syntactic systems
showing affinities with the West African languages that contributed
to their genesis, there is likely to be a blurring or even confusion on
the part of creole-English-speaking learners as to what constitutes
the creole, on one hand, and the standard English variety, on the
other, when they are exposed to the standard in a formal educational
setting. Another important characteristic of creole speakers is the
unique linguistic environment in which they acquire their native
creoles. This environment has been described as a creole continuum
representing a range of speech varieties from the basilect (the most
conservative creole), to the mesolect (the intermediate, less creolized
varieties), to the acrolect (the standard variety). There is constant
interaction between the creole and the standard, a phenomenon that
DeCamp (1971) calls a creole continuum, such as that found in such
countries as Antigua, Guyana, and Jamaica. The underlying notion
of the continuum is that there is no clear-cut division between the
two polar varieties—the creole and the standard—which are typo-
logically and genetically distinct from each other. Instead, there is a
spectrum of speech varieties between the polar varieties that range
from the basilect to the mesolect to the acrolect. Most people in the
anglophone Caribbean speak either the basilectal or the creo-
lized, mesolectal varieties of English but consider their language
to be English because of the low social status associated with the
basilectal and mesolectal varieties (Winford, 1994).
The massive wave of immigrants from the anglophone
Caribbean to the United States, particularly to New York and
Florida, over the past decade and a half has contributed to a steady
influx of creole-English-speaking students into U.S. classrooms.

According to the Caribbean Research Center at City University of
New York, in 1997, there were approximately one million immi-
grants from the anglophone Caribbean basin in the states of New
York and Florida, many of whom are native speakers of English-
based creoles.3 Palmer (1995) notes that since large-scale migra-
tion from this region shows no sign of decreasing, teachers in U.S.
classrooms are likely to come in contact with more and more
students whose native languages are English-based creoles.
Recent studies have found that because North American
teachers are not familiar with the linguistic structure of English-
based creoles, creole-speaking children are misplaced in ESL
classes. This misplacement is one of the main factors that
has contributed to their low academic achievement, since for
these students, English is neither a native language nor an L2
(Pratt-Johnson, 1993).
As stated earlier, this article investigates how creole speak-
ers use lexical aspectual class and the structure of narrative
discourse to shape the acquisition of verbal morphology and
whether this pattern of acquisition is similar to that found in
the interlanguage of non-creole-speaking, ESL learners. If the
study reveals a different emergent pattern for creole speakers,
then it will provide insight into the early and fundamental
literacy challenges faced by such speakers. The following section
is therefore devoted to a concise explanation of the lexical aspect
and narrative discourse hypotheses as well as a justification for
examining their effect on creole speakers’ interlanguage systems.
The Lexical Aspect and Narrative Discourse Hypotheses
The basic premise of the lexical aspect and narrative dis-

course hypotheses asserts that the lexical aspectual classes of
verbs interact with the structure of narrative discourse in order
to determine the distribution of verbal morphology in learners’
interlanguage. This premise rests on the relationship between
the aspect hypothesis and the narrative discourse hypothesis
Clachar 281
(Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1998). I now discuss

the two hypotheses separately, then focus on the interaction
between the two. Subsequently, I describe the manner in which
their interaction influences the distribution of emergent tense-
aspect morphology in learners’ interlanguage.
Tenets of the Aspect Hypothesis
The aspect hypothesis is predicated on the theoretical

notion of inherent or lexical aspect. Contrary to the more com-
monly known grammatical aspect, which is characteristically
morphological, inherent aspect is fundamentally lexical or non-
grammatical in nature. The aspect hypothesis holds that the
emergence of verbal morphology or verbal inflections is largely
governed by aspect distinctions inherent in the verb. That is, as
inflections appear in interlanguage systems, they are not evenly
spread across all verbs, but rather, their choice depends on the
lexical aspect of the verb: the temporal properties germane to the
inherent lexical meaning of the verb (Andersen & Shirai, 1996;
Bardovi-Harlig, 1999, 2000). For example, learners of English
tend to use past morphology most often with verbs indicating
‘‘punctual’’ events that are instantaneous and have a clear end-
point, as in (1), and progressive morphology with events that
have inherent duration, as in (2) (both from writing samples
from participants in the current study):
(1) He arrived to her house at noon but he not give her the
money.
[¼ He arrived at her house at noon but he did not give
her the money.]
(2) I want her to running in the race to support the charity.
[¼ I want her to run in the race to support the charity.]
Thus, the aspect hypothesis asserts that verbal morphology in
learners’ interlanguage systems is guided by the semantic properties
of verbs or predicates and functions mainly as a marker of lexical
aspect. Andersen and Shirai (1994) state that ‘‘second language

learners will initially be influenced by the inherent semantic proper-
ties of verbs or predicates in the acquisition of tense-aspect markers
associated with or affixed to these verbs’’ (p. 133). Essentially, then,
learners are likely to use verbal morphology whose meaning is most
similar to the semantic properties of the verb.
Both tense and aspect refer to the notion of temporality. Tense
uses the present moment of speaking as the deictic center. Thus,
present moment establishes the three most basic tenses cross-
linguistically: Present tense indicates simultaneity of the time of
the event and the present moment; past tense locates the event
before the present moment; and future tense refers to the location
of the event after the present moment. Aspect, on the other hand, is
not concerned with the placing of an event or situation within a
framework of time but, rather, characterizes ‘‘different ways of
viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation’’ (Comrie,
1976, p. 3). For example, the difference between she is eating and she
was eating connotes tense, because the contrast of is and was
identifies the distinction between the two regarding the time that
the utterance was made. However, the distinction between she ate a
slice of cake and she was eating a slice of cake is that of aspect,
because the difference rests on the manner in which the action of
eating is conceptualized by the speaker. In the first instance, the
action is perceived in terms of its entirety, whereas the latter is
viewed as an action in substages (Comrie, 1976).
Aspect is traditionally categorized in two ways: grammat-
ical aspect and lexical aspect. Grammatical aspect is reserved for
aspectual distinctions that are marked by grammatical forms
such as auxiliaries and inflections. The progressive aspect in
English and the perfective-imperfective aspect in Spanish are
examples of grammatical aspect. Lexical aspect, on the other
hand, denotes the semantic properties that are inherent in the
meaning of the verb or verb phrase, regardless of any grammat-
ical marking or reference to time (Salaberry, 1999). In other
words, lexical aspect ‘‘captures’’ semantic properties that indi-
cate whether a verb or verb phrase (a) denotes an action with
Clachar 283
‘‘inherent duration like talk and sleep,’’ (b) is punctual with an

inherent endpoint like notice and arrive, or (c) has properties
that combine duration as well as a specific endpoint like build a
house and paint a picture (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999, p. 342).
These distinguishing properties in lexical aspect were classified
by Vendler (1967). He noted four categories of semantic properties
inherent in verbs that correspond to four lexical aspectual classes:
statives, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. This class-
ification was first used in SLA research by Andersen (1989, 1991);
therefore, I will adopt his conceptual framework in this article.
In classifying the semantic properties in verbs, the clearest
distinction occurs between stative verbs and nonstative or dynamic
verbs (activities, accomplishments, and achievements). This is
illustrated in Table 1 as having the feature [þdynamic]. Statives
denote situations that have no dynamics and continue without the
infusion of effort or energy (e.g., love, hate, want). Thus, statives are
identified by the feature [dynamic]. Activities are set apart from
the other dynamic verbs in that they refer to actions or events that
have inherent duration with no specific endpoint and display the
same degree of homogeneity, such as run, play, dance, sleep, talk
(Smith, 1983). Therefore, activities have the feature [telic].
Achievements are distinct from the other dynamic verbs in that
they encode the commencement or the end of an event (Mourelatos,
1981), as in The concert started at 6 p.m. or The rain stopped, and
can be perceived as being reduced to a single point (Andersen,
1991). Achievements are therefore denoted by the feature
[þpunctual]. Accomplishments have features in common with
activities [punctual] and achievements [þtelic]. Similar to activ-
ities, accomplishments have inherent duration, and like achieve-
ments, accomplishments have an inherent endpoint. Therefore,
both achievements and accomplishments can be considered telic
verbs.
The aspect hypothesis and second language acquisition.
Essentially, the aspect hypothesis predicts that L2 learners
will associate verbal morphology or specific verbal inflections
with the inherent semantic features of verbs belonging to
Table 1
Semantic properties for the four categories of lexical aspect

Lexical aspectual categories
Semantic properties Statives Activities Accomplishments Achievements
Punctual þ
Telic þ þ
Dynamic þ þ þ
Note. From ‘‘Developmental Sequences: The Emergence of Aspect Marking in Second

Language Acquisition,’’ by R. W. Andersen, 1991, in C. A. Ferguson & T. Huebner
(Eds.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theories (p. 311). Copyright 1991 by
John Benjamins. Reprinted with permission.
corresponding lexical aspectual classes. For example, the lexical

aspectual class of achievements, because of its inherent semantic
characteristics (instantaneous action that can be reduced to a
single point, [þpunctual]), tends to show an affinity for past
morphology. Likewise, the lexical aspectual class of activities,
because of its inherent semantic properties (having duration, no
specific endpoint, [telic]), tends to attract the progressive mor-
phological inflection -ing. Regarding the aspect hypothesis,
Andersen (1991) claims: ‘‘In the beginning stages of language
acquisition only inherent aspectual distinctions are encoded by
verbal morphology’’ (p. 307). The confluence of the aspect
hypothesis is that lexical aspectual category determines the
manner of appearance of tense-aspect morphology and that as
morphology emerges in interlanguage systems, it first marks the
lexical aspectual category of verbs that is most semantically
congruent with it.
In essence, then, the aspect hypothesis predicts that L2 learn-
ers use verbal morphology in the following way: In the beginning,
L2 learners mark the lexical aspectual classes of achievements
and accomplishments with the past morpheme, and then they
extend the past marker to the lexical aspectual categories of activ-
ities and statives; these learners first mark the lexical aspectual
Clachar 285
category of activities with the progressive morpheme, and then

they extend the progressive marker to the aspectual classes of
accomplishments, achievements, and statives (Andersen &
Shirai, 1994). Therefore, lexical aspectual class tends to create
a skewed distribution of tense-aspect morphology in the inter-
language system, and this distributional bias has been supported
by SLA studies with untutored learners (Flashner, 1989; Kumpf,
1984), with tutored learners (Robison, 1995), and with a cross-
sectional range of L2 learners whose native languages included
Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Portuguese,
Turkish, Persian, Russian, and Swedish (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999).
It is now widely accepted that lexical aspectual class inter-
acts with the structure of narrative discourse in order to shape
the distribution of emergent tense-aspect morphology (Andersen
& Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1998; Dowty, 1986) in L2
learners’ interlanguage. In the following section, I first discuss
the structure of narrative discourse and then illustrate how it
interacts with lexical aspect to influence verbal morphology.
Tenets of the Narrative Discourse Hypothesis
Traditionally, narrative discourse is described as having

two segments: the foreground and the background (Bardovi-
Harlig, 1992; Flashner, 1989; Kumpf, 1984).4 The foreground
narrates events that pertain to the central communication sys-
tem of the narrative and consists of clauses that push the chro-
nology of the events along in time (Dry, 1983). In other words,
the foreground answers the question ‘‘What happened next?’’
Linguists view a narrative as a genre of discourse in which the
speaker orders a series of events according to their temporal
association (Dahl, 1984), and foreground clauses are specifically
used to carry out this function. Background clauses, on the
other hand, depict an event by describing a previous event,
predicting the result of an event, or assessing a situation or
event narrated in the foreground. Thus, whereas the foreground
narrates the main events and shows sequence, the background
has a variety of functions (e.g., explaining, predicting, interpret-

ing, expounding, assessing) and is not responsible for chronicling
events in sequence.
Interaction Between the Aspect Hypothesis and the Narrative

Discourse Hypothesis
Although the aspect hypothesis and the narrative discourse

hypothesis remained distinct and were discussed separately in
the past, credit must be given to Bardovi-Harlig (1998, 1999),
who argued that the two hypotheses do complement each other
and should be interpreted as an integrative concept. She has
convincingly shown that lexical aspect and narrative discourse
structure do interact in order to determine how learners acquire
and use verbal morphology in their interlanguage narratives. In
fact, she asserts that the interaction between the two hypotheses
is obvious when we consider that both hypotheses ‘‘rest on
shared features of temporal semantics’’ (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998,
p. 477). A case in point is foreground information. Verbs in the
foreground can be defined, in terms of their punctual character-
istics, as being punctual and complete and therefore having the
ability to sequence events (Reinhart, 1984). Punctualness and
completeness correlate with the semantic properties of the lex-
ical aspectual category of achievement verbs, and these verbs
correlate with punctualness; the lexical aspectual categories of
both achievement and accomplishment verbs, as a result of their
overlapping semantic features, correlate with completeness.
Thus, the foreground shows an affinity for both achievement
and accomplishment verbs. Sequence refers to ‘‘what happened
next?’’: in other words, the chronological order of events. Although
sequence is not directly correlated with lexical aspectual class,
it is inherently linked to the notion of completeness, since only
events that are completed can be chronicled in a sequence (Dowty,
1986), and sequenced events tend to occur in the foreground (Tomlin,
1984).
Clachar 287
On the other hand, since the background serves the purpose

of explaining, predicting, interpreting, expounding, assessing,
etc., it does not push the sequence of events along in time. The
temporal characteristics of background information, therefore,
can be defined as [punctualness, completeness]. These two
characteristics [punctualness, completeness] identify with
the features of the lexical aspectual category of activity verbs.
Similarly, the lexical category of statives, as a result of its
semantic features (having no dynamics, continuing without the
infusion of effort or energy, and representing continued existence),
correlates with the features [punctualness, completeness].
Thus, the background is the fertile environment for activities and
statives.
It is therefore obvious that the temporal features inherent
in grounding (foreground and background information) are
sensitive to the semantic properties of the lexical aspectual
categories of verbs. Because foreground predicates have their
own temporal features [þpunctual, þcompleteness, þresult]
and correspond to the semantic properties of the lexical aspectual
classes of verbs that share these features (e.g., achievements
and accomplishments), they also tend to attract tense-aspect
morphology sharing similar features. Thus, foreground clauses
are the likely environments for past morphology. Likewise,
there are specific temporal features that define the background
[punctualness, completeness, result], and these features
correlate with the lexical aspectual categories of activities and
statives, which, in turn, attract the progressive morpheme
having the same features. Therefore, the background tends to
be the fertile environment for progressive morphology. (For a
discussion of the interrelationship between the aspect hypoth-
esis and the narrative discourse hypothesis, see Bardovi-Harlig,
1998, 2000.) It is clear, then, that the interaction between the
aspect and the narrative discourse hypotheses dictates that
learners tend to perceive a relationship among lexical aspect,
grounding principles, and verbal morphology and transform this
relationship into a rule to create the skewed distribution of
tense-aspect morphology predicted by the aspect and narrative

discourse hypotheses.
Example (3) is illustrative of this interaction (the excerpt is
taken from data in the study):
(3) Foreground
The little girl arrived [achievement] on the beach and
made a san castel [accomplishment].
She notised [achievement] a shadow and then a stranjer
aproched [achievement].
When he said [achievement] sometin to her, she ran
away [achievement] and hide [achievement].
Background
The stranjer was trying [activity] to catch her but he
become [stative] tired.
Note that the foreground is the psychological ground contain-

ing events that are central to the child’s fright and fleeing.
The background, as stated earlier, does not push the chro-
nology of events along in time but provides supporting details
that expound on foregrounded events. The example also
shows achievement and accomplishment verbs in foreground
information as well as stative and activity verbs in the
background.
Thus far, I have discussed how the tenets of the aspect
and discourse hypotheses explicate the emergence and dis-
tributional pattern of tense-aspect morphology in non-creole-
speaking, L2 learners’ interlanguage. This study seeks to
determine whether creole English students exhibit a similar
pattern of tense-aspect morphology, as is predicted by the
hypotheses. The following section, therefore, endorses the
rationale for examining the pattern of acquisition and dis-
tribution of morphology in creole students’ English inter-
language systems.
Clachar 289
Rationale for the Study
The Creole System and the Creole Continuum
This study was motivated by two factors. First, speakers of

English-based creoles, in acquiring standard English, are acquiring
neither a native language nor an L2, because the creole corresponds
to standard English at the lexical level but diverges considerably
from the standard at other levels such as the morphology and
syntax. As a result, creole learners’ receptive knowledge of oral
and written English far exceeds that of L2 learners in ESL classes.
They therefore do not fit the nonnative paradigm used in L2
research. It is hypothesized that this unusual relationship between
the standard and English-based creoles may lead creole students
to exhibit a different pattern of verbal morphology in their English
interlanguage than that posited by the aspect and narrative
discourse hypotheses. Second, the study was also motivated by
the fact that creole speakers in the anglophone Caribbean acquire
their native creoles in a unique linguistic environment represent-
ing a continuum of speech varieties from the basilect to the mesolect
to the acrolect. In order to justify the speculation that the linguistic
structure of the creole and the continuum may affect the pattern
of acquisition and use of verbal morphology in creole-speaking
students’ English interlanguage, it is necessary to provide a brief
description of the creole verbal system as well as the particularities
of the creole continuum.
The creole verbal system: Verbal morphology. Tense-aspect
morphology has occupied a very central role in creole studies and
has played a major role in differentiating creole varieties (e.g.,
Antiguan Creole, Jamaican Creole, Guyanese Creole, Papiamentu,
Haitian Creole) from the noncreole European varieties (e.g.,
English in Antigua, Jamaica, and Guyana, Spanish in Curaçao,
and French in Haiti). In the Caribbean, the noncreole varieties,
such as English, Spanish, and French, have maintained their
European systems of tense-aspect marking (e.g., auxiliary verbs
and verbal inflections), whereas the creoles have shown a very

distinct system (Holm, 1988). Typically, in Caribbean Creoles,
basilectal verbs are not inflected; rather, they are preceded by
particles for tense-aspect marking. These preverbal particles
serve the same functions as in the corresponding European lexifier
languages, but they mark tense and aspect in a manner similar to
that of the African languages that contributed to the genesis of the
creoles (Holm, 1988). For example, in Jamaican and Guyanese
Creoles, the preverbal particles mark tense-aspect morphology:
(4) Mi don sing.
I completive sing. [¼ I sang.]
Mi a da sing.
I progressive marker sing. [¼ He is singing.] (Alleyne,
1980, p. 11)
Additionally, the base form of the creole verb (i.e., without any
preverbal particle) refers to the specific time in focus that is
made obvious from an adverb, an adverbial phrase, or contextual
clues. For example:
(5) John eat di mango yeside.
John eat (Ø past) the mango yesterday. [¼ John ate the
mango yesterday.]
(The adverb yesterday marks the past.) (Roberts, 1988,
p. 65)
Wi leave from der an come doun here fo stodi.
We leave (Ø past) from there and come (Ø past) down
here to study. [¼ We left that place and came down here
so I could study.]
(Based on the context, the past is understood.) (Holm,
1988, p. 150)
Examples (4) and (5) indicate that English-based creoles show
a great deal of overlap at the lexical level with the standard English
variety but manifest morphological affinity with West African
languages.5 As a result, there may be a blurring of distinctness as
Clachar 291
to what constitutes the creole, on one hand, and standard English,

on the other, when the creole learner is exposed to the standard in a
formal learning environment. Because of the blurring between the
two language systems, it is speculated that creole learners may not
use verbal morphology in a manner that is consistent with the
postulates of the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
The creole verbal system: Serialization. The morpho-
syntactic strategy of serialization, in which a series of two or
more verbs are strung together without a conjunction or a
complementizer (as would be the case in the European lexifier
languages), is frequently found in Caribbean Creoles (Collins,
1997; Helms-Park, 2003; Veenstra, 2000; Winford, 1993). Holm
(1988) posits that the ‘‘combined meaning of serial verbs can be
seen as falling into several categories’’ (p. 183). One such
semantic category conveys a sense of direction in which the
verb ‘‘come’’ expresses the idea of ‘‘movement toward’’ and the
verb ‘‘go’’ suggests the opposite: ‘‘movement away from’’ (p.
183). The following examples with come are taken from
Guyanese Creole and Jamaican Creole:
(6) Di pikni ron kom hoom.
The child run come home. [¼ The child ran home.]
(Winford, 1993, p. 184)
Dem kya i kom gi wi.6
They carry it come give we. [¼ They brought it to us.]
(Alleyne, 1980, p. 12)
An example with go taken from Jamaican Creole indicates move-
ment away from:
(7) Dem ron go lef im. (Alleyne, 1980, p. 12)
They run go leave him. [¼ They ran away from him.]
(Alleyne, 1980, p. 12)
It is interesting to note that all serial verbs in each case
of serialization (Examples (6) and (7)) convey directionality
denoting ‘‘sub-parts of a single event’’ (Winford, 1993, p. 184).
Thus, the event described by serial verbs in creoles is construed
as having a tightly knit sequence of substages and duration.

However, in standard English, such an event would be presented
and interpreted as a completed event with no duration. For
instance, let us return to two of the above examples of serialization:
Compare Dem kya i kom gi wi (literally, ‘‘Them carry it come
give we’’) with standard English They brought it to us, or Dem
ron go lef im (literally, ‘‘Them run go leave him’’) with standard
English They ran away from him. It is clear that in English
these events would be represented by verbs belonging to the
lexical aspectual class of accomplishments (having duration
and a clear endpoint). On the contrary, in creoles, these events
are likely to be conceptualized as consisting of a sequence of
phases and having duration, that is, events represented by
verbs belonging to the lexical class of activities. Thus, creole
speakers, by virtue of their interpretation of the inherent dura-
tion in an event expressed by serialization, may use morphology
with verbs in their English interlanguage to distinguish such
events in a manner that is not consistent with that predicted by
the aspect and narrative discourse hypotheses. This matter will
be discussed in the section Results and Interpretation. I now
turn to the second factor that motivated the study: the creole
continuum and the effect it is speculated to have on the creole
students’ acquisition of verbal morphology.
The creole continuum. One basic feature of the continuum
is that it specifies two polar varieties (the creole and the
standard English variety) that are typologically and genetically
different from each other (Alleyne, 1980). Between these polar
varieties exists a great deal of variablility ranging from the
basilectal speech varieties (the creole in the strict sense) to the
mesolectal varieties (the intermediate, less creolized varieties) to
the acrolect (the standard variety). That is, any variable,
whether it be phonological, morphological, syntactic, or lexico-
semantic, can have as its variants features that can be identified
with the basilect, features that can be identified with the
acrolect, and features that can be identified with the inter-
mediate mesolectal varieties of the continuum. The intermediate
Clachar 293
varieties can be conceptualized as approximations to standard

English or the reverse, approximations to the creole with respect
to their formal linguistic properties (Rickford, 1987).
It is crucial to note that the speech variations ranging from
the creole to the standard English variety of the continuum are
not stringently ordered, and there are no discrete groups of
speakers identified with ordered registers representing degrees
of approximations to the standard or the creole. The fact is that a
speaker will sometimes use mi ben kom, sometimes mi did kom,
mi kom, or mi kyem (‘‘I came’’). The same speaker will variably
use mi a kom alongside mi da kom, mi komin, a komin, or aim
komin (‘‘I am coming’’). Thus, there is a considerable amount of
bidirectional style shifting along the continuum (Patrick, 1999).
The tremendous amount of variability that typifies the con-
tinuum dictates that in a native creole speaker’s speech, each
tense-aspect marker can have several morphological variants
representing the basilectal, mesolectal, and acrolectal varieties.
This means that a verb belonging to any lexical aspectual class
of verbs can have several morphological variants to mark, for
example, the progressive or the simple past. The examples in (8)
are illustrative of the variants of the progressive along the creole
continuum representing the basilectal, mesolectal, and acro-
lectal forms (Alleyne, 1980):
(8) Mi a sing. Mi da sing. (basilect) [¼ I am singing.]
Mi singin. A singin. (mesolect) [¼ I am singing.]
I’m singin. (acrolect) [¼ I am singing.]
Thus, unlike in standard English, there are several variants
to mark the progressive along the continuum: a da þ V;
Ø þ V þ {in}; a þ V þ {in}; (be) þ V þ {ing}. The examples in
(8) of the morphological variability diagnostic of the creole
continuum immediately introduce the nature of the complexity
involved in the acquisition of standard English verbal morphol-
ogy by native speakers of English-based creoles. Since the creole
L1 has several morphological variants marking the progressive
or the past (unlike standard English, which has only one
inflectional marker for the progressive or the past), it is specu-

lated that creole-speaking students may have specific challenges
as they encode the lexical aspectual classes of verbs via standard
English verbal morphology. The speculation that these chal-
lenges exist rests on the fact that creole learners who have an
L1 with several variants for the progressive or the past must
infer one prototypical form and meaning for the progressive or
past morpheme as they acquire the standard English verbal
morphological system.
Based on the linguistic profile of creole English speakers, the
question now becomes: Do creole-speaking students acquire and
use verbal morphology in their interlanguage narratives in the
same manner as has been posited by the tenets of the aspect
hypothesis and the narrative discourse hypothesis? In order to
address this question, the study presented here extrapolated from
Bardovi-Harlig’s (1998) findings on the influence of lexical aspect-
ual class and narrative discourse on verbal morphology (i.e., the
tenets of the aspect and narrative discourse hypotheses) in order to
establish specific patterns of verbal morphology against which to
compare the creole-speaking students’ pattern of use of morphology.
Therefore, the participants’ written English interlanguage was
analyzed to observe the extent to which their use of past and
progressive morphology paralleled Bardovi-Harlig’s findings (set
out below) in regard to foreground and background information.
Analytical Focus of the Study
Tenets of the Aspect and Discourse Hypotheses
Using the tenets of both the aspect hypothesis and the

narrative discourse hypothesis as the framework for analyzing
her interlanguage data, Bardovi-Harlig (1998) observed that
learners with limited resources in an L2 do show sensitivity to
grounding and distinguish the foreground from the background
by employing differential tense-aspect morphology:
Clachar 295
1. Achievements are the predicates most likely to be

inflected for simple past, regardless of grounding.
2. Accomplishments are the next most likely type of pred-
icate to carry the simple past. Foreground accomplishments
show higher rates of use than background accomplishments.
3. Activities are the least likely of all the dynamic verbs to
carry simple past, but foreground activities show higher
rates of simple past inflection than background activities.
Activities also show use of progressive, but this is limited to
the background. (p. 498)
Thus, Bardovi-Harlig articulates the association among ground-
ing principles, lexical aspectual classes of verbs, and verbal
morphology: The foreground is the fertile environment for
achievements and accomplishments, and these lexical aspectual
classes of verbs are the logical carriers of the simple past (past
morpheme). Correspondingly, in the background, atelic predi-
cates show an affinity for progressive morphology, and this can
even spill over into statives.
Construction of the Research Hypotheses
Extrapolating from the above assertions, three research

hypotheses were explored in creole-speaking students’ written
English interlanguage:
1. The simple past shows the highest rate of usage with
achievements, followed by accomplishments, activities, and
statives, respectively, without relation to grounding.
2. Overall, the past is used more frequently in the fore-
ground than in the background across these lexical classes.
3. In background information, the predicted pattern is a
decreased rate of use of the progressive morpheme, starting
from the highest use with activities, to accomplishments, to

the lowest use with achievements.
Method
Participants
The participants were 48 English-based-creole-speaking

students in two community colleges in south Florida. They ranged
in age from 18 to 23 and were selected because they were all
recent immigrants from the anglophone Caribbean islands of
Jamaica, Antigua, and Guyana and had been living in Florida
for no more than 2 years. They were placed into the colleges’
basic writing programs based on their performance on tests that
required them to write essays (narrative and expository) in
response to writing prompts. As in most writing programs,
there were regular classes in these basic writing programs for
native speakers of English (whose writing did not evidence fea-
tures of L2 learners) and ESL classes. The presence of nonnative
and nonstandard features in the writing samples was the deter-
mining factor for placing students into ESL classes (Clachar,
2003). The participants were all in ESL classes.
It is important to point out that although it is virtually
impossible to control for the exact same variables as in previous
studies that have explored the acquisition of verbal morphology
by L2 learners, this study was careful to replicate such major
variables as type of narrative tasks, elicitation tasks, age of
participants, and learning environment (the participants were
being exposed to standard English in a formal classroom
environment). Fifteen participants were from rural working-
class backgrounds, 18 from urban working-class backgrounds,
and 15 from urban lower-middle-class backgrounds in their
native Caribbean countries. I tape-recorded and transcribed
interviews with the participants in an attempt to classify their
Clachar 297
predominant speech patterns and place them within a range

along the creole continuum.
In order to enable me to arrive at this classification, each
participant was interviewed for about an hour. Topics included
participants’ jobs (where applicable), past and present hobbies,
things that they find annoying, games they played as children,
adjustment to the United States, and reaction to ethnic stereo-
types. Following Edwards (1983), the participants were asked to
tell either a near-death experience or a story involving super-
natural beings or events (a ‘‘ghost’’ story). In the early part of
the interview, approximately the first 10–12 min, participants
used more acrolectal forms than in the later segments, because
they focused on their speech less as the interview progressed. For
purposes of classifying the participants’ speech, I used morphologi-
cal variables that have been consistently employed by scholars
working with creole continuum data: the first-person singular
subject pronoun (mi [basilect], a [mesolect], ai [acrolect]) as well
as the progressive morpheme (a da þ V [basilect], Vin Ving
[mesolect], and aux þ Ving [acrolect].
Although there is extensive variation along the continuum
and no group of speakers exhibits categorical use of any par-
ticular variant, the degree of shifting from one variety to another
is restricted by the situational context, interlocutors, and speak-
ers’ socioeconomic backgrounds and attitudes, as well as expo-
sure to and proficiency in the acrolectal variety (Winford, 1997).
Since creole speakers shift between varieties in response to the
above-mentioned factors, the best way to classify participants
was to rely on the frequency with which they used these mor-
phological variants in the interviews. It must be pointed out that
this classification of participants into basilectal, mesolectal, and
acrolectal speakers was designed to facilitate comparisons across
participants for the purpose of the study and was not intended
to create three distinct lectal varieties, because the creole
continuum involves a significant degree of ‘‘intersystemic com-
petence’’ (Winford, 1997, p. 265), in which speakers demonstrate
the ability to shift from one variety to another based on
sociolinguistic factors. For example, although some participants

showed a predominance of the basilectal mi/ada þ V, occur-
ring at least two thirds of the time, these participants also
used the mesolectal variants a/Vin Ving and therefore were
classified as basilectal-mesolectal. Mesolectal speakers used
a/Vin Ving at least 66% of the time. Speakers whose speech
showed mesolectal features but exhibited the acrolectal vari-
ants ai/aux þ Ving at least 66% of the time were classified as
mesolectal-acrolectal. (For comparable analyses of these
variants along the basilectal-mesolectal-acrolectal range of the
continuum, see Alleyne, 1980; Bickerton, 1973; Edwards, 1983;
Patrick, 1999; Rickford, 1979, 1987; Winford, 1997). Twenty
participants were classified as basilectal-mesolectal, 17 as meso-
lectal, and 11 as mesolectal-acrolectal. In order to establish
interrater reliability, two raters who were graduate students of
linguistics and native creole speakers classified the speech
samples independently. The researcher’s classification of the
samples concurred on 84% of the samples classified by each of
the other two raters.
Procedure
The creole-speaking students were shown two silent films (the

second, 1 week after the first) and asked to retell the stories in
writing. The films were selected because they have clear-cut, well-
delineated action scenes (conducive for analyzing foreground
events) and changes of scenes in the form of digressions in order
to expound on foreground events and provide orientation (to facili-
tate analysis of background events). The participants watched each
film twice, and after each showing, they were given the opportunity
to ask questions in order to clarify doubts. They were then asked to
retell the events in each film in writing and were given 1 hr to
produce the first written narrative and 1 hr to produce the second.
They were allowed to use dictionaries and thesauruses (which are
also available to them during regular writing classes) as reference
Clachar 299
sources. Following Bardovi-Harlig and Bergström (1996), the writ-

ten narratives were also used to group the participants according to
their level of proficiency in English based on their use of past forms
(see Table 2). That is, each narrative was analyzed and coded on
the basis of accurate usage of past morphology in past-time obliga-
tory environments, which included the simple past and the past
progressive. This grouping allowed for more effective comparison
across participants. The grouping was essential for another reason.
Recall that the linguistic repertoire of a creole speaker ranges along
a continuum and, as a result, there is constant bidirectional shift-
ing between the creole and the standard poles of the continuum.
This means that creole speakers learning standard English are
likely to exhibit considerable variation with respect to the creole
influence on their written English interlanguage. Therefore, it was
necessary to group the participants on the basis of their correct use
of past morphology in obligatory contexts as a criterion that could
be used to determine the extent to which they had moved toward
the acrolectal end of the continuum.
All participants were ranked according to the percentage of
appropriate use of past morphology. The scores ranged from 24
to 47 and from 52 to 68, representing Cohorts 1 and 2 (the lower
proficiency groups in this study, designated basilectal-mesolectal
dominant based on their speech patterns); and from 71 to 79 and
over 81, representing Cohorts 3 and 4 (the higher proficiency
groups, whose speech patterns qualified them as mesolectal-
dominant and mesolectal-acrolectal dominant). Table 2 shows
the cohorts of participants according to their use of appropriate
past morphology in obligatory contexts. Note that 26–47 and
52–68 are much larger ranges of scores than 71–79 and over
81. These divisions were selected to distinguish the participants
who were at the high-mesolectal end of the continuum (71–79)
and those who were incorporating acrolectal features into their
interlanguage (over 81) from the participants who were predom-
inantly basilectal-mesolectal. As such, the basilectal-mesolectal
influence on the acquisition of standard English verbal mor-
phology could be better identified.
Table 2
Cohorts of participants according to percentage of accurate usage of

past marking in obligatory contexts and number of predicates per
participant
Percentage of Number of
Cohorts Participants past marking predicates
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 1 24.3 46

2 27.4 49
3 28.7 50
4 28.9 46
5 30.1 40
6 30.4 56
7 30.7 57
8 32.6 49
9 34.8 36
10 37.3 39
11 39.6 58
12 39.8 48
13 41.3 49
14 41.5 58
15 42.3 50
16 44.7 55
17 46.1 53
18 46.9 57
Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11) 19 52.6 68
20 52.9 73
21 54.1 87
22 55.6 70
23 55.8 67
24 58.7 75
25 60.3 69
26 64.6 80
27 66.5 87
28 66.9 79
29 68.1 76
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12) 30 71.3 84
31 71.4 79
32 71.8 84
Clachar 301
33 72.0 88
34 73.6 77
35 74.1 81
36 75.7 76
37 75.9 74
38 76.2 78
39 77.2 81
40 79.1 75
41 79.4 86
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7) 42 81.4 86
43 82.5 81
44 82.7 77
45 83.0 72
46 83.6 72
47 85.1 79
48 85.3 84
Note. From ‘‘The Acquisition of Tense and Aspect in Second Language and Foreign
Language Learning: Learner Narratives in ESL and EFL,’’ by K. Bardovi-Harlig and
A. Bergström, 1996, Canadian Modern Language Review, 52, p. 313. Copyright 1996
by University of Toronto Press, Inc. Adapted with permission.
Data Codification
Two types of coding procedures were used: (a) a coding

system for grounding and (b) a coding system for verbal mor-
phology. With respect to grounding, each verb token was counted
on the basis of clauses belonging to foreground and background
information in the narrative7 (see Tenets of the Narrative
Discourse Hypothesis for a description of the criteria for asses-
sing grounding). The interrater reliability coefficient for coding
decisions was 88.3. Next, each verb in foreground and back-
ground predicates was coded according to tense-aspect mor-
phology used by the participants: past, past progressive, present
progressive, and V Ø. All verbs that were marked for the past,
including overgeneralized forms such as catched and singed,
were coded as past. Verb forms were coded as past and present
progressive if they indicated was/were and is/are distinctions
along with the –ing participle. Verbs such as cost and put, whose
past and base forms cannot be differentiated, were excluded

from the data. Tokens with monosyllabic past that ended in
consonant clusters were also excluded. Each verb phrase was
assigned to one of four aspectual categories: achievement, accom-
plishment, activity, and stative.8 Verbs in each lexical category in
foreground and background clauses were then examined for evi-
dence of tense-aspect morphology as well as VØ in order to deter-
mine whether creole-speaking learners’ use of verbal morphology in
their English interlanguage was influenced by lexical aspectual
class and narrative discourse in the same way as is predicted by
the aspect and narrative discourse hypotheses. Table 3 shows the
distribution of verbs in each lexical aspectual category by ground-
ing, that is, in foreground and background clauses.
Results and Interpretation
Research Hypothesis 1
Past marking was examined in order to determine whether

the creole-speaking students exhibited a decreasingly lower rate
of use of the past across the lexical classes of achievements,
accomplishments, activities, and statives, respectively, in both
the foreground and the background. In other words, the objective
was to ascertain whether the students did show a pattern of use of
Table 3
Distribution of verb tokens in each lexical aspectual category by

grounding
Lexical aspectual classes
Grounding Achievements Accomplishments Activities Statives
Foreground clauses 1,387 682 485 204

Background clauses 201 103 229 307
Note. Total number of verbs ¼ 3,598.

Clachar 303
the past inflection in foreground and background predicates that

was congruent with the pattern predicted by the aspect and
narrative discourse hypotheses for noncreole, L2 learners of
English. Analysis of the clauses revealed that creole-speaking
students’ treatment of the past varied according to their level of
proficiency, which, in turn, reflected the degree of creole influence
on their narrative writing in English. Participants in Cohorts 1
and 2 (participants at the lowest level of proficiency in English)
used the past in a very different manner from those in Cohorts 3
and 4 (the more proficient learners). Since the former exhibited a
marked difference from the latter in the distribution of their use
of the past, I divide the sample accordingly to facilitate reading.
The analysis of statives in foreground and background predicates
proved to be somewhat challenging and, therefore, again, to facili-
tate reading, this lexical category will be analyzed separately
from achievements, activities, and accomplishments.
Cohorts 1 and 2. Participants in Cohorts 1 and 2 exhibited
a clear pattern. Past marking in foreground information did not
show the distributional bias predicted by the aspect and dis-
course hypotheses. Instead, the creole learners’ written produc-
tions revealed that past inflection was spread evenly across the
lexical aspectual categories of achievements, accomplishments,
and activities (see Table 4). In addition, a noticeably distinctive
pattern occurred in foreground clauses: Verbs carried a low rate
of the past inflection, and many verbs appeared as VØ. Table 4
shows the percentage of foreground predicates that carried the
given inflection in each aspectual class: Among Cohort 1, 22.9%
of achievements, 20.8% of accomplishments, and 20.4% of activ-
ities were inflected; among Cohort 2 participants, 20.9% of
achievements were marked, accomplishments carried 22.5% of
the marking, and 27.6% of activities were inflected.
The following section discusses possible explanations for
the lack of the distributional bias in the pattern of past marking
in foreground clauses produced by Cohorts 1 and 2. Focusing on
verbs in these clauses, what we might be seeing is the indiscrim-
inate affixing of the English past inflection across the three
Table 4
Percentage of foreground predicates carrying the past inflection in

each aspectual class (Cohorts 1 and 2)
Cohorts Achievements Accomplishments Activities Stativesa
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 22.9 20.8 20.4 35.9

(80) (35) (24) (38)
Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11) 20.9 22.5 27.6 28.7
(54) (42) (36) (42)
Note. The total number of tokens in each aspectual class that carry past marking in
the foreground is given in parentheses.
a
As noted in the text, this lexical aspectual class was analyzed separately, and the
analysis is discussed separately.
lexical aspectual categories, a phenomenon that may have been

influenced by three factors: (a) the structure of discourse in
creole narrative, (b) the linguistic structure of the creole, and
(c) the particularities of the creole continuum. Therefore, I now
turn to an interpretation of the possible role that each of these
factors may have played in shaping the students’ pattern of use
of the past in foreground information.
With respect to the first factor (i.e., the structure of creole
narrative), linguists concur that in tense-aspect systems of
anglophone Caribbean Creoles, VØ is the marker for perfectiv-
ity in the foreground in the basilect and mesolect, whereas -ed
accomplishes this function in the transition zone between the
mesolect and the acrolect. As a past form, VØ is the most
ubiquitous marker in the foreground and specifies events in
an ‘‘in-focus time frame’’ that the speaker wants to emphasize,
either psychologically or in reference time. Typically, VØ is
used in creole discourse with different functions, but always
with the connotation of nonremote past (Youssef & James,
1999, pp. 608–609). James (1997, p. 144) discusses four func-
tions of VØ. The following excerpt illustrates the first of these
Clachar 305
functions, identification of past events in the foreground that

move the chronology of the main storyline along in time:
Things was so nice at that time that you kuda achieve
Anything if you did want to. Because, you know, well,
thing bin cheap. The money bin small really, but you
kuda make am, though. So then after I LEAVE school, I
went off to do some carpentry trade. And then me COME
and me GET married. And then thing bin little stiffy-
stiffy. Then it TAKE a little period of time before the golf
course COME, and the golf course people COME . . . and
me START to work with them there. (Youssef & James,
1999, p. 609)
In the preceding excerpt, the narrative advances through a
series of events (rendered in capital letters in the excerpt)
marked by VØ.
The following excerpt illustrates James’s (1997) second
function, the linking of past stative situations to events in the
foreground:
Mi friend introduce mi to this girl and wi start fi develop
a friendship. Things going good so I decided to live on the
campus. . . . And like how me and her BELONG to the
same study groups we worked a lot together on projects
. . . and that is how we come fi know one another so good.
In the preceding quotation (from an interview with a participant

in the study), the situation of belonging is tied to the development
of events leading to the friendship between the two individuals.
The following excerpt illustrates James’s (1997) third func-
tion, denotation of ‘‘nonactual’’ past events in the subordinate
clauses in the foreground:
My mother then said to dad it was best if we TURN back
before it got worse.
She told him if he don’t cook, he would take what he
GET. (James, 1997, p. 151)
The VØ in the above subordinate clauses refer to events that
did not actually take place and therefore could not move the
chronology of the main storyline along. However, the events are

salient to the foreground.
The following excerpt illustrates James’s (1997) fourth
function, narration of past events that ‘‘participated in the open-
ing of a story’’:
This story is a true one and is about how a guy LOSE
both his best friend and his girl friend. (James, 1997,
p. 151)
These illustrations of James’s (1997) four discoursal func-
tions illustrate that the creole VØ plays a very significant role in
marking events in terms of their psychological salience and is
often associated with a broad range of nonremote past functions.
It appears that this range of functions, indicated by VØ,9 tends
to be generalized to the most dominant standard English mar-
ker, the past morpheme –ed, when demands are made on creole
speakers at the lowest level of English proficiency (Cohorts 1
and 2) to produce the standard. This phenomenon may have
contributed to the lack of the distributional bias in the use of
the past morpheme in the foreground.
Another plausible source of counterevidence to the distri-
butional bias may be the influence of the transitional area
between the mesolect and the acrolect. This area is a creole
space in which speakers mix the contact codes in the mesolectal
and acrolectal range of the continuum in creole narrative dis-
course (Youssef & James, 1999). Typically, creole speakers
(those with mastery of the acrolect, as well as those who are
basilectal and mesolectal and are being exposed to the
standard) do capitalize on the discursive richness existing in
the creole VØ to embellish their narratives. They also alternate
between the creole VØ and the standard -ed to create fore-
ground-background contrast (Youssef & James, 1999). The
power of the oral transitional area between the mesolect and
the acrolect lies not only in the ability it gives to mix varieties
in contact to produce a very rich semantic system, but also in
the ability it offers the speakers to engage in acts of identity,
Clachar 307
asserting through their language both ethnic solidarity and

distinctiveness (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985). Such rich-
ness might not be achieved as effectively with one lectal variety
alone. In this transitional area of the continuum, the past
morpheme belongs to the acrolect as well as the mesolect, in
which it is used to calque a number of creole past functions. As
the creole-speaking students move from this oral transitional
area (which allows for the mixing of the Ø and -ed systems) to
the written mode, there is a correspondingly greater demand
for the production of the standard past inflection. However,
since these students are not entirely familiar with the English
past and the creole past system cannot be matched with the
formal structures of the English past meaning and function,
they may have used the past to fit a wide range of foreground-
ing functions. This phenomenon reflects the semantic reality
that the creole functions associated with VØ cannot be fully
located in the standard past; thus, there is a tendency to
employ the generalized past marker across lexical classes
(cf. Youssef & James, 1999, regarding Tobagonian Creole
speakers). The lack of a distributional bias in the use of the
past suggests that the creole speakers in Cohorts 1 and 2 were
at a very early interlingual stage in which they may have found
it challenging to infer a prototypical meaning and function for
the English past morpheme and associate it with similar fea-
tures of the aspectual classes of verbs.
What these results indicate is that creole speakers do not
represent a homogeneous group with the same level of English
proficiency because of their similar scores on placement exams.
This assertion is supported by differences between Cohorts 1 and
2, on one hand, and Cohorts 3 and 4, on the other, with respect to
morphological marking. It is crucial to point out that participants’
different degrees of creole influence on narrative writing in English
appeared to have contributed to the distinctive patterns of inflec-
tion rather than their degrees of progress toward standard English.
The second factor that may have played a role in the
observed counterevidence to the distributional bias is the
linguistic structure of the creole. English-based creoles show

lexical similarity to standard English but diverge from the mor-
phological and syntactic system of the standard, a factor that
creates a blurring of the distinctness between the creole and the
standard. The existence of a common lexicon that often obscures
the semantic boundaries between the creole and the standard as
well as the absence of a creole marker that is sufficiently iso-
morphic with the standard past marker makes it difficult for
speakers to identify a prototypical meaning and function for the
English past morpheme and associate it with similar semantic
features of the aspectual classes of verbs. Consequently, the stu-
dents in Cohorts 1 and 2 may not have perceived a relationship
among the temporal features of the foreground, the lexical aspec-
tual classes of verbs, and the past morpheme and thus were not
able to transform this relationship into a rule to create the dis-
tributional bias posited by the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
The creole continuum is the third factor purported to con-
tribute to the lack of a distributional bias in the use of the past.
Recall that the continuum is characterized by tremendous mor-
phological variability. Concomitantly, in the speech of English-
based creole speakers, a given lexical aspectual class of verbs has
several preverbal variants to mark the past instead of one as in
standard English.10 It would seem that when creole speakers are
exposed to the standard variety in a formal setting, they may
encounter challenges in inferring the meaning and function for
the English past inflection and associating its affinity with the
corresponding semantic properties inherent in the lexical classes
of achievements, accomplishments, and activities in order to
exhibit the skewed distribution. Thus, the general pattern indic-
ative of the written data produced by creole-speaking learners in
Cohorts 1 and 2 seems to support the claim that foreground
information does not manifest the distinctive pattern of past
marking that is typically found in the early and intermediate
interlanguage systems of noncreole, L2 learners.
In addition to the above findings, the foreground by itself did
show some interesting characteristics that deserve discussion:
Clachar 309
Foreground verbs carried a low rate of the past marker, and a

large number of these verbs appeared in the base form. One
plausible explanation for the high rates of VØ in the foreground
may be found in its discourse function. The foreground is where
predicates are used to move events forward in time (Dry, 1983);
that is, foreground predicates trigger a perception of time move-
ment that makes reference to temporal points, and these points
are usually endpoints of events that logically mark the begin-
nings of subsequent events. A careful analysis of the foreground
in the creole participants’ English interlanguage revealed
frequent use of temporal connective adverbs such as before,
after, when, now, and then, which functioned to sequence
endpoints and beginnings of events in a chronological order
and to propel narrative time forward (typical of creole narrative
discourse). Therefore, the past inflection may not have been
perceived by the creole learners as crucial in sequencing the
endpoints and beginnings of events to move narrative time for-
ward. This factor appears to account for the high rate of use of
base forms in the participants’ foreground information. Also,
since the inherent semantic properties of achievements and
accomplishments always move time forward in the foreground
(Dry, 1983), the creole-speaking students seem to have exploited
the semantic properties of the base forms of these categories of
verbs (along with the use of temporal connective adverbs) to
narrate the chronological movement of events and to shape the
pragmatics of their discourse.
Another feasible explanation for the high rate of VØ in the
foreground may lie in the influence of storytelling discourse in
creole cultures. Roberts (1988) claims that because there is a
strong interdependence of syntactic function and semantics in
creole narrative, the verb may be under less pressure than in
standard English to add morphology to meet semantic require-
ments. In addition, he notes that the structure of the narrative
in creole cultures shows elements that are characteristic of
action, such as short sentences with the verb bearing most of
the force and verb tense associated with the time of the action in
the story rather than with the time that the utterance was made,
that is, the historic present, which is usually represented by the
base form of the verb.
In sum then, regarding Cohorts 1 and 2, there seems to be
an earlier additional stage in the acquisition of the English past
inflection, that is, the lack of a distributional bias of the inflec-
tion, which precedes the stage in which the bias appears in the
foreground. In other words, the data suggest a developmental
stage in which Cohorts 1 and 2 ‘‘move backward’’ in the course of
acquiring the past inflection as a result of the factors mentioned
above (such as the structure of creole narrative, the linguistic
structure of English-based creoles, and the particularities of the
creole continuum) but progress to the distributional bias as they
become familiar with the complex nature of the English morpho-
syntactic system and associate the past primarily with aspect
(see the discussion on Cohorts 3 and 4 below).
Cohorts 3 and 4. Unlike Cohorts 1 and 2, the more profi-
cient creole-speaking students in Cohorts 3 and 4 exhibited a
pattern of past marking in foreground information that was
consistent with that postulated by the aspect and discourse
hypotheses: The past inflection was used most frequently with
achievements; accomplishments were next in line to receive past
marking, followed by activities. Table 5 indicates the percentage
of foreground predicates that carried the inflection in each
aspectual class: among Cohort 3 participants, achievements car-
ried the highest rate of inflection (40.3%), followed by accom-
plishments (31.1%) and activities (17.4%); similarly, Cohort 4
participants evidenced a skewed distribution of the past mor-
pheme: achievements, accomplishments, and activities carried
51.1%, 37.5%, and 4.1% of inflection, respectively.
In order to ascertain whether the percentage of foreground
predicates that carried the past inflection in each aspectual class
was statistically significant, a one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was conducted. Significant differences were noted
among the means for all four cohorts for each lexical class of
verbs (see Table 6). Post hoc multiple-comparison tests were
Clachar 311
Table 5
Percentage of foreground predicates carrying past inflection in each

lexical aspectual class (Cohorts 3 and 4)
Cohorts Achievements Accomplishments Activities Stativesa
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12) 40.3 31.1 17.4 11.2

(166) (48) (22) (22)
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7) 51.1 37.5 4.1 7.3
(195) (65) (5) (16)
the foreground is given in parentheses.
a
As noted in the text, this lexical aspectual class was analyzed separately, and the
analysis is discussed separately.
used to examine which means were significantly different from

each other for each of the four significant one-way ANOVA tests.
Proficiency in English had a medium effect on the use of the past
with achievements (R2 ¼ .621). Past marking for achievements
among Cohorts 1 and 2 was significantly different from that
among Cohorts 3 and 4. Proficiency in English had a medium
effect on the use of the past with accomplishments (R2 ¼ .509).
Regarding the use of the past with accomplishments, only
Cohort 1 was significantly different. No significant differences
were noted among the means for Cohorts 2, 3, and 4. Proficiency
in English had a medium effect on marking the past with activ-
ities (R2 ¼ .569). Examining the means for all four cohorts, past
marking with activities among Cohorts 1 and 2 was significantly
different from that among Cohorts 3 and 4. However, proficiency
in English had only a small effect on the use of the past with
statives (R2 ¼ .223). The means indicated that the use of the
past with statives for Cohorts 1 and 2 was significantly different
than that for Cohorts 3 and 4.
It seems feasible that the more proficient creole learners
(Cohorts 3 and 4) were able to make productive inferences about
Table 6
Analysis of variance of past marking in foreground predicates

across lexical aspectual classes
Sum of Mean Signifi-
squares df square F cance
Achievement Between 4898.602 3 1632.867 31.855 .027*

groups
Within 2255.377 44 51.259
groups
Total 7153.979 47
Accomplishment Between 736.114 3 245.371 18.367 .000*
groups
Within 587.803 44 13.359
groups
Total 1323.917 47
Activity Between 435.469 3 145.156 25.046 .000*
groups
Within 255.010 44 5.796
groups
Total 690.479 47
Stative Between 47.382 3 15.794 5.511 .003*
groups
Within 126.097 44 2.866
groups
Total 173.479 47
*p < .05.
the prototypical meaning and function of the English past mar-

ker and use it with verbs that most closely share its meaning,
thereby exhibiting the emergent pattern of verbal morphology
that is predicted by the aspect and discourse hypotheses. To
summarize, then, the creole influence on the pattern of verbal
morphology in the foreground tends to attenuate when creole
learners become more proficient. However, as the results demon-
strate, creole learners at the lower level of proficiency (Cohorts 1
Clachar 313
and 2) exhibit a different pattern of acquisition and use of

past morphology from noncreole, L2 learners with comparably
limited resources in English.
Statives in the foreground. Thus far, I have addressed the
distribution of past marking with respect to the lexical aspectual
classes of achievements, accomplishments, and activities in fore-
ground information. The analysis of foreground statives proved
to be somewhat challenging, and therefore, to facilitate reading,
I decided to focus on the pattern of past marking with statives
separately. Most of these statives were the equative copula be.
What appeared unusual in the creole participants’ English inter-
language was the fact that these copula statives showed variable
past marking depending on whether they were followed by
nouns or adjectives in the predicates: When followed by nouns,
the stative copula was marked, however, when followed by adjec-
tives, the copula was absent quite frequently. This pattern was
fairly consistent across all four cohorts. The only difference was
that Cohorts 3 and 4 (the more proficient participants) exhibited
a higher occurrence of the stative copula in adjectival predicates
that carried past marking. Table 7 shows the distribution of past
morphology in the foreground according to verb tokens.
The table indicates that in Cohort 1, 24 out of 27 equative
copula statives followed by nouns were marked; the other 3
Table 7
Distribution of the past with statives in foreground predicates

Equative copula Equative copula
statives followed statives followed
Cohorts by nouns by adjectives Lexical statives
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 24 (27) 7 (7) 7 (14)

Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11) 27 (31) 6 (6) 9 (12)
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12) 10 (11) 10 (10) 2 (3)
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7) 8 (9) 8 (8) —
Note. The total number of tokens for equative copula statives and lexical statives is
given in parentheses. A dash indicates no occurrence of the form.
were uninflected. In contrast, equative copulas frequently did

not appear in adjectival predicates. Of the 26 contexts for their
use in the foreground, only 7 were employed and showed
marking. Cohort 2 participants exhibited the same pattern:
27 out of 31 copula statives followed by nouns carried marking;
4 were not inflected. However, regarding the 28 contexts for
the use of copula statives followed by adjectives, only 6 were
used and marked for the past. Further examination of Table 7
reveals the same trend with Cohorts 3 and 4: The appearance
of copula statives that showed marking when followed by
nouns and the absence of most copulas when the predicates
were adjectives.
This pattern is probably attributable to the variability of
the creole copula based on its function in the predicate. Holm
(1988) states that in Caribbean Creoles, the equative copula is
used when the predicate is a noun, but not when it is an adjec-
tive. For example, in Jamaican Creole, the equative copula is
required before a noun:
(9) Im iz penta.
He is (equative copula) a painter.
It may be that because the equative copula is present in the
creole noun predicate, it tends to be salient in the creole speak-
er’s English interlanguage and is therefore likely to be marked
for the past. On the other hand, adjectives in Caribbean Creoles
are ‘‘subcategories of verbs’’ and do not require the copula (Nero,
1997, p. 8). For example:
(10) Dem sik.
They (Ø copula) sick. (They are sick.)
Im tal.
He (Ø copula) tall. (He is tall.)
Jamaican Creole speakers might therefore write They sick or He
tall in their English interlanguage. Because of the copula absence
in adjective predicates in Jamaican Creole, the copula might not be
salient and therefore not used in their interlanguage. Since the
Clachar 315
copula is usually a carrier of tense and aspect in learners’ inter-

language (Giacalone Ramat, 1992), the variable past marking
by even the more proficient creole-speaking learners in this
study may indicate traces of influence from the creole copula
system.
The second specific pattern of use of tense-aspect mor-

phology analyzed was the past marking in background predicates.
This analysis was conducted to determine if these predicates
show a lower frequency of the use of the past than foreground
ones, as is predicted by the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
This section therefore focuses on whether the creole learners in
the study, like noncreole learners, evidenced a decrease in the
rate of use of past morphology in the background, moving from
the highest use with achievements, to accomplishments, to activ-
ities, to the lowest with statives, and whether overall past mark-
ing in the background was lower than in foreground information.
Analysis of the participants’ data revealed no discernible
pattern of decrease in the use of past marking across lexical
aspectual classes in the background. Table 8 shows the percent-
age of background predicates that carried the past inflection in
each aspectual class (per cohort). Among participants in Cohorts
1 and 2, background accomplishments carried the highest mark-
ing (32.4% and 30.9%, respectively), followed by activities (23.1%
and 26.4%, respectively); statives were next in line, carrying
24.2% and 23.2% of the marking. Contrary to the aspect hypothe-
sis, background achievements were marked the least (20.3% and
19.7% for Cohorts 1 and 2, respectively). The more proficient
participants (Cohorts 3 and 4) also did not evidence the pattern
of background marking predicted by the aspect hypothesis. Table
8 indicates that among the participants in Cohort 3, statives were
marked most frequently (31.6%), followed by activities (30.1%),
and then achievements (21.0%). Accomplishments carried the
lowest marking (17.3%). Similarly, Cohort 4 did not exhibit a
Table 8
Percentage of background predicates carrying the past inflection in

each lexical aspectual class
Cohorts Achivements Accomplishments Activities Statives
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 20.3 (11) 32.4 (8) 23.1 (15) 24.2 (19)
Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11) 19.7 (9) 30.9 (6) 26.4 (16) 23.2 (19)
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12) 21.0 (9) 17.3 (6) 30.1 (15) 31.6 (23)
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7) 26.8 (16) 19.4 (5) 23.6 (13) 30.2 (22)
the background is given in parentheses.
pattern compatible with that predicted by the hypothesis. That is,

statives carried the highest marking, followed by achievements;
next in line were activities and then accomplishments. Therefore,
the background data showed no decrease in the rate of use of the
past across the lexical aspectual categories of achievements,
accomplishments, activities, and statives, respectively. Overall,
however, as predicted by the aspect and discourse hypotheses,
background achievements, accomplishments, activities, and sta-
tives had a lower percentage of past marking than did foreground
verbs. Table 9 compares, by cohort, the percentage of foreground
and background predicates that carried the past marking in each
aspectual class.
Although the analysis of the background data revealed a
pattern of past marking that did not conform to that predicted by
the hypotheses, this pattern nevertheless indicated the influence
of the narrative structure of the background on verbal mor-
phology. Recall that the background is multifunctional (used to
explain, interpret, expound, predict, assess, etc.) and ‘‘lacks
the sequentiality that characterizes the foreground’’ (Bardovi-
Harlig, 1998, p. 501).
The third specific pattern of use of verbal morphology

examined was progressive marking in background information.
Clachar 317
Table 9
Comparative distribution of the past by grounding across lexical

verb categories as a percentage of verbs used
Lexical verb categories Foreground clauses Background clauses
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18)
Achievements 22.9 20.3
Accomplishments 20.8 32.4
Activities 20.4 23.1
Statives 35.9 24.2
Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11)
Statives 28.7 23.2
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12)
Statives 11.2 31.6
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7)
Activities 4.1 23.6
Statives 7.3 30.2
This pattern was analyzed to determine whether or not the

creole-speaking students exhibited a pattern that was congruent
with that posited by the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
According to the hypotheses, learners perceive the background
as the appropriate environment for progressive morphology, and
their interlanguage exhibits a decreased rate of use of the pro-
gressive marker, moving from the highest use with activities, to
accomplishments, to the lowest use with achievements. With
respect to the use of progressive morphology in background
information, participants in Cohorts 1 and 2 showed a pattern
of marking distinct from that of Cohorts 3 and 4. Thus, to facili-
tate reading, I report the findings accordingly.
Cohorts 1 and 2. As in the results for Hypotheses 2 and 3,

participants in Cohorts 1 and 2 exhibited no distributional bias
in their use of the progressive morpheme. Rather than activities’
showing the highest level of marking, followed by accomplish-
ments, and then by achievements, these lexical categories of
verbs showed approximately the same rate of use of progressive
marking. Although the aspect hypothesis does not predict pro-
gressive marking on statives, the data did show the overexten-
sion of the progressive to this aspectual class, a pattern that was
also reported by Robison (1990) and Andersen and Shirai (1996)
for L2 learners.11 Table 10 indicates the percentage of back-
ground predicates that showed the use of the progressive mor-
pheme in each aspectual class: Among Cohort 1 participants,
background statives showed 26.0% of inflection, activities 26.6%,
accomplishments 23.1%, and achievements 24.3%; among Cohort
2 participants, statives carried 28.7% of progressive marking,
activities 25.8%, accomplishments 19.6%, and achievements
25.9%.
The counterevidence to the aspect hypothesis with respect
to progressive marking on statives provided by these data may
be due to the effect of the creole continuum. This explanation is
based on the fact that a task requiring participants to recount
events does not generally solicit their personal experiences in
the same manner that a personal narrative (in other data) does,
so progressive marking with background statives and activities
Table 10
Percentage of background predicates carrying the progressive inflec-

tion in each lexical aspectual class (Cohorts 1 and 2)
Cohorts Achievements Accomplishments Activities Statives
Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 24.3 (13) 23.1 (6) 26.6 (17) 26.0 (21)
Cohort 2 (n ¼ 11) 25.9 (12) 19.6 (4) 25.8 (15) 28.7 (23)
Note. The total number of tokens in each aspectual class that carry progressive
marking in the background is given in parentheses.
Clachar 319
is not usually necessitated (cf. Fleischman, 1990; Bardovi-

Harlig, 1998, 2000).12 It is here that the continuum may have
explanatory power in accounting for creole speakers’ use of the
progressive morpheme. As stated earlier, the continuum is char-
acterized by tremendous variability in morphological marking.
This means that in a creole speaker’s linguistic repertoire, a
given aspectual category has several preverbal variants to
mark the progressive instead of one progressive marker as in
standard English. It would seem, therefore, that when creole
speakers are exposed to standard English in a formal setting,
they have difficulty identifying the affinity of English tense-
aspect inflections with the corresponding aspectual classes of
verbs. If we rely on the explanatory power of the one-to-one
principle (that learners hypothesize a prototypical meaning
and function for the progressive such as ‘‘action in progress’’;
Andersen & Shirai, 1994), it may be that the creole-speaking
students in Cohorts 1 and 2 found it challenging to match the
function and meaning of the English progressive inflection -ing
with the corresponding semantic properties of the lexical classes
of verbs, since in the creole continuum there are several prever-
bal variants to mark the progressive instead of one inflectional
morpheme as in standard English. Therefore, it appeared as if
there was no systematic matching of the English progressive
inflection with the semantic properties of the aspectual classes
of verbs—a factor that may have led to the even spread of
progressive marking across activities, statives, accomplish-
ments, and achievements, instead of the skewed distribution
predicted by the aspect and discourse hypotheses (Clachar,
2004).
The data seem to suggest that the absence of the distribu-
tional bias in the use of tense-aspect morphology among creole-
speaking learners may be linked to a very early developmental
stage (not predicted by the aspect and discourse hypotheses) in
which non-English-proficient creole speakers do not infer the
meaning and function for the English tense-aspect morpho-
logical system and therefore are not able to associate it with
similar semantic characteristics in the classes of verbs. As a

result, they have difficulty identifying the conceptual connec-
tions among tense-aspect morphology, the aspectual classes of
predicates, and the temporal features inherent in grounding,
factors that would be prerequisites in creating the ‘‘rule’’ to
account for the bias.
Cohorts 3 and 4. A careful analysis of the interlanguage
data produced by the more proficient creole-speaking students
revealed a clear attenuation of the influence of the creole on the
distribution of verbal morphology; that is, the participants’ pat-
tern of use of the progressive marker was congruent with that
posited by the aspect and discourse hypotheses. The participants
exhibited an increased rate of use of the progressive morpheme
across the aspectual classes of verbs. Table 11 shows the
percentage of background predicates that carried progressive
marking in each aspectual class: Among participants in Cohort
3, 33.7% of activities were marked, statives showed a slightly
lower level of marking (30.8%), accomplishments carried 16.6%
of inflection, and achievements evidenced a slightly higher rate,
carrying 19.0% of inflection; similarly, Cohort 4 participants
exhibited a skewed distribution of progressive morphology
across lexical aspectual classes: activities (40.4%), statives
(31.0%), accomplishments (12.1%), and achievements (16.5%).
In order to test whether the percentage of background predi-
cates that carried the progressive inflection in each aspectual class
Table 11
Percentage of background predicates indicating progressive mark-

ing in each lexical aspectual class (Cohorts 3 and 4)
Cohorts Achievements Accomplishments Activities Statives
Cohort 3 (n ¼ 12) 19.0 (8) 16.6 (5) 33.7 (17) 30.8 (23)
Cohort 4 (n ¼ 7) 16.5 (10) 12.1 (3) 40.4 (23) 31.0 (22)
Note. The total number of tokens in each aspectual class that carry progressive
marking in the background appears in parentheses.
Clachar 321
was statistically significant, the means of the four cohorts were

contrasted using a one-way ANOVA. Significant differences were
found among the means for the four cohorts for activities and
statives. Proficiency in English had a medium effect on the use of
the progressive with activities (R2 ¼ .634) but a small effect on
statives (R2 ¼ .209). No significant differences were noted for the
categories of achievements and accomplishments (see Table 12). It
appears that with respect to activities and statives, the more profi-
cient creole students began to hypothesize a prototypical meaning
and function for the English progressive morpheme. Concomitantly,
they began to process the prototypical meaning and function of the
features of both the background and these lexical categories. These
features were then conceptualized as having an affinity with the
inherent characteristics of the progressive morpheme, so that the
narrative structure of the background as well as these categories
were perceived to influence the use of progressive marking.
Table 12
Analysis of variance of progressive marking in background predi-

cates across lexical aspectual classes
Sum of Mean Signifi-
squares df square F cance
Achievements Between groups 5.176 3 1.725 0.229 .876

Within groups 331.303 44 7.530
Total 336.479 47
Accomplishments Between groups 3.576 3 1.192 0.274 .843
Total 194.667 47
Activities Between groups 3.288 3 1.096 0.189 .003*
Total 257.917 47
Statives Between groups 16.684 3 5.561 1.202 .020*
Total 220.313 47
*p < .05.
What is particularly uncharacteristic and interesting is that

background achievements had a tendency to carry a higher rate of
progressive marking than accomplishments (see Tables 10 and 11),
a phenomenon that resulted from fact that many achievements
occurred in structures that resembled creole serial verb construc-
tions (see The Creole Verbal System), attesting to the influence of
the creole even among the more proficient learners in Cohorts 3
and 4. Recall that in creole narrative discourse, achievement events
that occur in serial verb constructions are frequently conceptual-
ized as consisting of substages and therefore as having duration.
The participants who used background achievements in serial-
verb-like constructions in their English interlanguage may have
interpreted these verbs as having duration and thus having an
affinity for the progressive marker. It is suggested that this phe-
nomenon accounted for the unusually high rate of use of the pro-
gressive with achievements in the background.
Implications From Data About Creole Speakers’ Second

Language Challenges
The data from this study suggest that factors such as the
structure of creole narrative, the linguistic structure of English-
based creoles, and the creole continuum that have been pur-
ported to contribute to counterevidence to the aspect and dis-
course hypotheses may also contribute to literacy challenges. For
example, narrative discourse in anglophone Caribbean Creoles
assigns a significant role to VØ in highlighting salient fore-
ground events, and thus there is a tendency for creole-speaking
learners to generalize the broad range of creole past functions
(denoted by VØ) to the most dominant marker, the past mor-
pheme, when they are exposed to the standard English variety
in formal learning environments. Also, in the mesolectal-acro-
lectal transition area of the continuum, the past morpheme
belongs to the acrolect as well as to the mesolect, in which it is
employed to calque a number of creole past functions. As creole-
speaking learners move from this oral transitional zone to the
Clachar 323
written mode, there is a correspondingly greater demand for the

production of the standard English past. However, since they are
not familiar with the English past and the creole past system
cannot be matched with the formal strictures of the English past
meaning and function, they are likely to use the past to fit a wide
range of lexical aspectual class functions in the foreground.
Similarly, the linguistic structure of English-based creoles
may also be associated with specific literacy challenges among
creole speakers at lower levels of English proficiency. Justification
for this assertion is based on the existence of a vocabulary over-
lap between the creole and the standard English lexifier, which
often obscures semantic boundaries. Additionally, the absence of a
creole marker sufficiently isomorphic with the English past marker
renders it difficult for creole speakers to identify a prototypical
meaning and function for the English past morpheme and associ-
ate it with similar semantic features of aspectual classes of verbs.
These phenomena tend to interfere with the ability of creole speak-
ers (particularly those at lower levels of English proficiency) to
perceive a relationship among the temporal features of the fore-
ground, the lexical aspectual classes of verbs, and the perfective
morpheme. Concomitantly, they are not able to transform this
relationship into a rule to create the distributional bias posited
by the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
Related to the issue of challenges is the pattern of past
marking with the equative copula stative. The data produced
by the creole participants (even those with the higher levels of
English proficiency) showed variable past marking depending on
whether the copula stative was followed by a noun or an adjec-
tive in the predicate. Most copulas were in evidence and marked
for the past when followed by nouns, whereas copulas followed
by adjectives were generally absent. As stated earlier, this pat-
tern appears to be consistent with the variability of the creole
copula based on its function in the predicate. Since adjectives in
Caribbean Creoles are ‘‘subcategories of verbs’’ and do not
require the copula (Nero, 1997, p. 8), an underlying challenge
for creole speakers in acquiring and marking the standard
English copula may lie in the ability to recognize adjectival

predicates.
The creole continuum, submitted as a factor contributing to
the lack of a distributional bias in the use of past and progressive
morphemes in both foreground and background clauses, also
appears to contribute to specific literacy challenges. The con-
tinuum is typified by tremendous morphological variability,
and as such there are several preverbal variants to mark the
past and the progressive instead of one past and one progressive
marker as in standard English. Seemingly, when creole speakers
are exposed to the standard variety in a formal setting, they
have difficulty inferring the meaning and function for the
English past and progressive inflections and associating their
affinities with the corresponding semantic properties inherent in
the lexical aspectual classes of verbs.
Traditionally, the educational systems in multilingual
societies such as the United States have relied on ‘‘a native
speaker of English/nonnative speaker of English’’ dichotomy to
structure English-language programs. That is, students are
placed either in regular classes for native speakers of English
or in ESL classes for nonnative speakers of English based on
their demonstrated proficiency in English. The literacy chal-
lenges faced by creole-English students call into question the
validity of the dichotomy and endorse the importance of a spe-
cialized curriculum that addresses specific writing needs of
English-based creole speakers, who are neither native nor non-
native speakers of English, who do not belong in ESL classes,
and who therefore do not fit into this dichotomy. Creole-English
students (typically, those like participants in Cohorts 1 and 2 of
this study) would greatly benefit from an awareness program
(Siegel, 1999) that would help them increase their perceptions of
the differences between the English input they receive and their
own written productions. In a similar vein, Sharwood Smith
(1991) proposes grammatical consciousness raising as ‘‘a delib-
erate focus on the formal properties of language with a view to
facilitating the development of L2 knowledge’’ (p. 118). Although
Clachar 325
grammatical consciousness raising is a necessary requirement in

instruction for both nonnative speakers of English and creole-
speaking learners, it takes on heightened significance for creole
speakers because of the blurring of the distinction between the
English-based creole and the standard. Creole speakers there-
fore have the illusion that they already know standard English
and are not likely to be motivated to confine the new features of
English taught to them to standard English patterns. In ad-
dition, they often do not recognize new English morphosyntactic
structures taught to them (Clachar, 2004). Grammatical con-
sciousness raising must foster a contrastive approach in instruc-
tion in order to help creole speakers notice, hypothesize, and
formulate the rules of the standard English morphological sys-
tem, which they can then use to revise their own writing.
Conclusion
The study discussed in this article sought to examine the

influence of lexical aspect and narrative grounding on the pat-
tern of acquisition of verbal morphology in creole-speaking
students’ written English interlanguage. Its findings indicated
that in some instances, the emergent pattern of verbal mor-
phology in the interlanguage data produced by early and inter-
mediate creole learners represents counterevidence to the
predictions of the aspect and narrative discourse hypotheses.
The study submits that the counterevidence might be asso-
ciated with the effects of the linguistic features of creoles, the
blurring of the distinction between the linguistic system of
English-based creoles and that of standard English, and the
continuous interaction between the creole and the standard
along the creole continuum, as well as the structure of narra-
tive discourse in creole cultures. This counterevidence appears
to challenge the nonnative-speaker-of-English concept, which
continues to be widespread in the field of language teaching
and learning as if it were without controversy. The troubling
aspect of the nonnative-speaker notion is that it continues to be
used as the criterion for making decisions about placing stu-

dents into language classes, testing them, and evaluating them
(Nero, 2000). What the current study clearly establishes is that
the term nonnative speaker of English in SLA research tends to
be nebulous and complex, particularly when creole speakers
become participants in SLA research. The fact that the creole-
speaking students in the study exhibited a pattern of use of
tense-aspect morphology that was not congruent, in some
instances, with that evidenced by noncreole learners raises
concerns about educational practices that may place speakers
of English-based creoles in classes with speakers of English as
an L2.
The findings related to creole learners’ pattern of acquisi-
tion and use of tense-aspect morphology provides a useful start-
ing point for examining the complexities of language challenges
faced by student populations in the U.S. educational system who
do not fit the traditional language acquisition paradigm.
Concomitantly, the study represents a systematic attempt to
understand ‘‘second language acquisition’’ that departs from
the traditional nonnative-speaker-of-English perspective.
Revised version accepted 5 November 2004
Notes
1
The justification for classifying creole English varieties as dialects of
English is based on historical factors. The postemancipation period in
the anglophone Caribbean was marked by the attenuation of social,
political, and economic barriers between Whites and non-Whites (e.g.,
field slaves, house slaves, and a ‘‘middle group’’ of artisans, headmen,
drivers, etc.), which gave rise to different degrees of linguistic accultura-
tion in the direction of the standard English variety (Alleyne, 1980,
p. 184). Consequently, a spectrum of varieties—from the most conserva-
tive creole (lexically related to the standard English variety) to intermedi-
ate varieties—has emerged. The intermediate varieties exhibit clear
instances of lexical and grammatical overlap with the local standard,
even though Winford (1994) cautions that these varieties also show sig-
nificant dissimilarities from the standard.
Clachar 327
2
Le Page (1977), Alleyne (1980), and Winford (1997) suggest that the
early period of settlement of the Caribbean slave plantation society was
characterized by stratified and distinct groups (e.g., field slaves, house
slaves, and an intermediary group comprised of artisans, foremen, etc.),
who must have shown varying levels of acculturation to the British masters’
cultural and linguistic patterns. The next period of settlement was
marked by a rapidly growing population of field slaves who developed a
homogeneous creole. Later, during the postemancipation period, this
creole was influenced by varieties closer to standard English as the social,
political, and economic barriers between Whites and non-Whites began to
weaken.
3
New York and Florida are the states with the largest immigrant popula-
tion from the anglophone Caribbean. There are certain similarities
among the anglophone Caribbean countries because of the common pro-
venience of the people, West Africa, and the common language contact
experiences on European-controlled plantations. The language-contact
situation led to the emergence of creole varieties that differed from
country to country with respect to their grammars and lexicons.
Winford (1997) notes that ‘‘the ingredients of the social and demographic
formula varied significantly from one colony to the next, producing dif-
ferent outcomes’’ (p. 238). These differences in outcome are reflected, for
example, in the retention of basilectal varieties found in Antigua,
Guyana, Jamaica, and Tobago but not in Barbados, Dominica, Grenada,
St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad.
4
I have maintained the foreground-background distinction in the current
study in order to make the data comparable with the previous research
related to the aspect and discourse hypotheses.
5
Alleyne (1980, pp. 162–173) notes the substratal tense-aspect morphologi-
cal influence of West African languages, particularly the Niger-Congo
family of languages, on the verb phrase in Caribbean Creoles. Specific
examples are taken from Twi, Yoruba, and Ewe. Alleyne also points to a
high degree of similarity between Caribbean Creoles and the Kwa lan-
guages (a subgroup of the Niger-Congo family) with respect to serial verb
constructions.
6
With respect to the issue of serialization, I would like to thank one of the
reviewers for pointing out that some serial verb constructions need to be
qualified. Although there has been a plethora of views as to the types of
verbs that qualify as serial verb constructions (Durie, 1988; Helms-Park,
2003; Holm, 1988; Law & Veenstra, 1992; Sebba, 1987; Veenstra, 2000;
Winford, 1993), the following criteria were used to identify serial verbs in
this study: (a) They are derived from transformational rules conjoining two
simple sentences (e.g., dem kya i [and] kom gi wi). The conjoining rules
differ from those of English grammar in two ways. First, unlike in English,
no conjunction is necessary and second, unlike in English, in which the
direct object of the two sentences is the same, it is deleted (equideletion) in
the conjoined sentence. (b) They have directional markers such as come, go,
take, bring (which may be the influence from serial constructions in Kwa
languages), whereas English uses prepositions.
7
A complex clause was analyzed as having a main verb as well as verbs in
the embedded propositions.
8
Following Shirai (1991), the classification of each verb as achievement,
accomplishment, activity, or stative was based on tests of stativity and
telicity. Stativity means that a verb (in its infinitive form) cannot be
given a habitual meaning. For example, in Jim knows the man, the verb
is nonhabitual and therefore a stative verb. Contrastively, in Jim works,
the verb is habitual and is thus a nonstative verb. For the test of telicity,
that is, achievement and accomplishment verbs (versus atelic verbs
[activities]), we pose the question ‘‘If a subject is engaged in doing V (verb
in the present progressive form), and stops in the middle, can one say that
the subject has carried out the act of V? If the answer is ‘‘no,’’ then the verb
is telic; if the answer is ‘‘yes,’’ then the verb is atelic. The following example
clarifies the distinction: Marie is (in the process of) running to the super-
market. If Marie stops in the middle, one cannot say that Marie has run to
the supermarket, so the verb is telic. In contrast, John is (in the process of)
sleeping. If John stops sleeping in the middle (i.e., wakes up), one can say
that John has slept, so the verb is atelic. The punctual-nonpunctual con-
trast differentiates predicates that are perceived as instantaneous or as a
single point (notice the picture) from those with inherent duration (play a
game, play). A test for separating punctuals from nonpunctuals is one that
uses for þ length of time, for example, for an hour (Dowty, 1979).
Nonpunctuals pass the for þ length of time test (e.g., She played for an
hour), however, punctuals fail the test (e.g., *She noticed the chair for an
hour).
9
It should be noted that noncreole languages (Mandarin being a case in
point) show this lack of inflection, and speakers of such languages may also
generalize a broad range of past functions codified by the V in the native
language to the most dominant standard English past morpheme –ed.
However, as is explained in the following paragraph, speakers of English-
based creoles exhibit a distinct characteristic in that the mesolectal-acro-
lectal zone of the continuum allows them to mix the V and the -ed systems.
Based on this phenomenon, the –ed past inflection belongs not only to the
acrolect but also to the mesolect where it is used to calque several creole
past functions. Since the creole-English speakers in Cohorts 1 and 2 were
not familiar with the English past and the mesolectal –ed cannot be
matched with the English past meaning and functions, they may have
used the mesolectal –ed to fit a wide range of foregrounding functions, a
factor that may have contributed to the lack of the distributional bias in the
use of the past morpheme in the foreground.
10
I certainly agree with one of the reviewers that learners from many L1s
confront the same many-to-one L1-to-L2 challenges. However, as discussed
Clachar 329
in the article, the structure of English-based creoles creates a different set

of challenges: (a) The existence of a vocabulary overlap between the
English-based creole and the standard English lexifier creates a blurring
of distinctness between the creole and the standard, a phenomenon that
often obscures semantic boundaries. (b) The absence of a creole marker
sufficiently isomorphic with the English past marker renders it difficult for
creole speakers to identify a prototypical meaning and function for the
English past morpheme and associate it with similar semantic features of
aspectual classes of verbs. These phenomena tend to interfere with the
abilities of creole speakers (particularly those at the lower level of
English proficiency) to perceive a relationship among the temporal features
of the foreground, the lexical aspectual classes of verbs, and the past
morpheme. Consequently, they are not able to transform this relationship
into a rule to create the distributional bias posited by the aspect and
discourse hypotheses.
11
In both sets of data presented by Bardovi-Harlig (1995, 1998), statives are
predominantly represented by the copula. In the earlier data set (1995), the
copula was not excluded; however, it was eliminated in the later analysis
(1998). Bardovi-Harlig’s decision to eliminate the copula was based on the
justification that the copula is a carrier of tense and seldom occurs in base
form. Consequently, it marks tense-aspect morphology earlier than other
statives and is not typical of the tense-aspect pattern of other statives.
Bardovi-Harlig (1998) claims that the exclusion of the copula ‘‘has the
disadvantage of reducing the number of statives in the corpus as well as
the advantage of allowing the stative patterns to be viewed more clearly’’
(p. 484). The inclusion of the copula in this study therefore tends to make
the data somewhat noncomparable with those of previous research, as one
reviewer noted. However, the exclusion of the copula from this study would
have the disadvantage of omitting a unique and distinct—as well as note-
worthy—pattern of tense-aspect marking of the copula among creole-speak-
ing learners.
12
This assertion is based on the recognition that the macro form of narra-
tive can be differentiated into segments that themselves are structured
according to ideational content and linguistic features. The segments
have defining characteristics that permit the realization of a foreground
and background depending on the pertinent features involved in the
particular organization of reality. This gives substantiation to various
linguistic devices that may be used in the course of the narrative to
illustrate its psychological significance to the point the narrator is seek-
ing to make. Therefore, a personal narrative reflects different morpholo-
gical and grammatical evaluators than a nonpersonal one. For example,
in a personal narrative, speakers have a present orientation as they
interpret, evaluate, elaborate, and explain and are likely to use progres-
sive marking in background clauses (cf. Fleischman, 1990; Bardovi-
Harlig, 1998, 2000).
References
Alleyne, M. (1980). Comparative Afro-American: A historical-comparative

study of English-based Afro-American dialects of the New World. Ann
Arbor, MI: Karoma.
Andersen, R. W. (1989). La adquisicion de la morfologia verbal [The acqui-
sition of verb morphology]. Linguistica, 1, 90–142.
Andersen, R. W. (1991). Developmental sequences: The emergence of aspect
marking in second language acquisition. In C. A. Ferguson & T. Huebner
(Eds.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theories (pp. 305–324).
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Andersen, R. W. (1994). The insider’s advantage. In A. Giacalone Ramat &
M. Vedovelli (Eds.), Italiano lingua seconda [Italian as a second lan-
guage] (pp. 1–26) Rome: Bulzoni.
Andersen, R. W., & Shirai, Y. (1994). Discourse motivations for some
cognitive acquisition principles. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 16, 133–156.
Andersen, R. W., & Shirai, Y. (1996). The primacy of aspect in first
and second language acquisition: The pidgin-creole connection. In
W. C. Ritchie and T. K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of second language
acquisition (pp. 527–570). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992). The telling of a tale: Discourse structure and
tense use in learners’ narratives. In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.),
Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 3, pp. 144–161). Urbana-
Champaign: University of Illinois, Division of English as an
International Language.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1995). A narrative perspective on the development of
the tense/aspect system in second language acquisition. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition, 17, 263–291.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1998). Narrative structure and lexical aspect:
Conspiring factors in second language acquisition of tense-aspect mor-
phology. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 471–508.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1999). From morpheme studies to temporal semantics:
Tense-aspect research in SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,
21, 341–382.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Tense and aspect in second language acquisition:
Form, meaning, and use. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Bergström, A. (1996). The acquisition of tense
and aspect in second language and foreign language learning: Learner
narratives in ESL and EFL. Canadian Modern Language Review, 52,
308–330.
Clachar 331
Bickerton, D. (1973). On the nature of a creole continuum. Language, 49,

640–669.
Clachar, A. (2003). Paratactic conjunctions in creole speakers’ and ESL
learners’ academic writing. World Englishes, 22, 271–289.
Clachar, A. (2004). The construction of creole-speaking-children’s linguistic
profile and contradictions in ESL literacy programs. TESOL Quarterly,
38, 153–165.
Collins, C. (1997). Argument sharing in serial verb constructions.
Linguistic Inquiry, 28, 461–497.
Comrie, B. (1976). Aspect. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Ö. (1984). Temporal distance: Remoteness distinctions in tense-
aspect systems. In B. Butterworth, B. Comrie, & Ö. Dahl (Eds.),
Explanations for language universals (pp. 105–122). Berlin: Mouton.
DeCamp, D. (1971). Introduction: The study of pidgin and creole languages.
In D. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages (pp.
13–39). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Dowty, D. (1979). Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Dowty, D. (1986). The effects of aspectual class on the aspectual structure of
discourse: Semantics or pragmatics? Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 37–61.
Dry, H. (1983). The movement of narrative time. Journal of Literary
Semantics, 12, 19–53.
Durie, M. (1988). Verb serialization and ‘‘verbal prepositions’’ in Oceanic
languages. Oceanic Linguistics, 27, 1–23.
Edwards, W. (1983). Code selection and shifting in Guyana. Language in
Society, 12, 295–311.
Flashner, V. (1989). Transfer of aspect in the English oral narratives of
native Russian speakers. In H. Dechert & M. Raupach (Eds.), Transfer
in language production (pp. 71–97). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Fleischman, S. (1990). Tense and narrativity: From mediaeval performance
to modern fiction. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Giacalone Ramat, A. (1992). Grammaticalization processes in the area of
temporal and modal relations. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,
14, 297–322.
Helms-Park, R. (2003). Transfer in SLA and creoles: The implications of
causative serial verbs in the interlanguage of Vietnamese ESL learners.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 211–241.
Holm, J. (1988). Pidgins and creoles: Theory and structure (Vol. 1).
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
James, W. (1997). Students’ TAM errors in the context of the speech of
Tobago. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the West
Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
Kouwenberg, S. (1996). Substrate or superstrate: What’s in a name?

Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 11, 343–347.
Kumpf, L. (1984). Temporal systems and universality in interlanguage:
A case study. In F. Eckman, L. Bell, & D. Nelson (Eds.), Universals
of second language acquisition (pp. 132–143). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Law, P., & Veenstra, T. (1992). On the structure of serial verb construc-
tions. Linguistic Analysis, 22, 185–217.
Lefebvre, C. (1993). The role of relexification and syntactic reanalysis in
Haitian Creole: Methodological aspects of a research program. In S.
Mufwene (Ed.), Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties (pp.
254–279). Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Lefebvre, C. (1998). Creole genesis and the acquisition of grammar: The
case of Haitian Creole. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Le Page, R. B. (1977). Proceses of pidginization and creolization. In
A. Valdman (Ed.), Pidgin and creole linguistics (pp. 222–255).
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity: Creole-based
approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Lumsden, J. (1995). On the acquisition of nominal structures in the genesis
of Haitian Creole. In H. Wekker (Ed.), Creole languages and language
acquisition (pp. 185–205). Berlin, Germany: Mouton.
Lumsden, J. (1999). Language acquisition and creolization. In M. Degraff
(Ed.), Language creation and language change: Creolization, diachrony,
and development (pp. 95–127). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McWhorter, J. (1997). Towards a new model of creole genesis. New York:
Lang.
Migge, B. (1998). Substrate influence in creole formation: The origin of give-
type serial verb constructions in the Surinamese Plantation Creole.
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 13, 215–265.
Mourelatos, A. (1981). Events, processes, states. In P. Tedeschi & A. Zaenen
(Eds.), Tense and aspect: Syntax and semantics (Vol. 14, pp. 191–212).
New York: Academic Press.
Mufwene, S. (1990). Transfer and the substrate hypothesis in creolistics.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12, 11–23.
Mufwene, S. (1999). On the Language Bioprogram hypothesis: Hints from
Tazie. In M. Degraff (Ed.), Language creation and language change:
Creolization, diachrony, and development (pp. 95–127). Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Nero, S. (1997). ESL or ESD? Teaching English to Caribbean English
speakers. TESOL Journal, 7, 6–10.
Clachar 333
Nero, S. (2000). The changing faces of English: A Caribbean perspective.

TESOL Quarterly, 34, 483–510.
Palmer, R. (1995). Pilgrims from the sun: West Indian migration to
America. New York: Twayne.
Patrick, P. (1999). Urban Jamaican Creole: Variation in the mesolect.
Pratt-Johnson, Y. (1993). Curriculum for Jamaican Creole-speaking stu-
dents in New York City. World Englishes, 12, 257–264.
Reinhart, T. (1984). Principles of gestalt perception in the temporal orga-
nization of narrative texts. Linguistics, 22, 779–809.
Rickford, J. (1979). Variation in a creole continuum: Quantitative and
implicational approaches. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Rickford, J. (1987). Dimensions of a creole continuum. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Roberts, P. (1988). West Indians and their language. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Robison, R. (1990). Aspectual marking in English interlanguage. Studies in
Robison, R. (1995). The aspect hypothesis revisited: A cross-sectional study of
tense and aspect marking in interlanguage. Applied Linguistics, 16, 344–370.
Salaberry, R. (1999). Procedural vocabulary: Lexical signalling of concep-
tual relations in the development of past tense verbal morphology in
classroom L2 Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 20, 151–178.
Sebba, M. (1987). The syntax of serial verbs: An investigation into serial-
ization in Sranan and other languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Sharwood Smith, M. (1991). Speaking to many minds: On the relevance of
different types of language information for the L2 learner. Second
Language Research, 7, 118–132.
Shirai, Y. (1991). Primacy of aspect in language acquisition: Simplified
input and prototype. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Siegel, J. (1999). Stigmatized and standardized varieties in the classroom:
Interference or separation? TESOL Quarterly, 33, 701–728.
Siegel, J. (2003). Substrate influence in creoles and the role of transfer in
second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,
25, 185–209.
Smith, C. S. (1983). A theory of aspectual choice. Language, 59, 479–501.
Thomason, S. G., & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language contact, creolization,
and genetic linguistics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Thompson, M. (1984). Teaching literacy to creole speakers: Problems and

possibilities. Caribbean Journal of Education, 11, 158–183.
Tomlin, R. (1984). The treatment of foreground-background information in
the online descriptive discourse of second language learners. Studies in
Veenstra, T. (2000). Verb serialization and object position. Linguistics, 38,
867–888.
Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics and philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Winford, D. (1993). Directional serial verb constructions in Caribbean
English Creoles. In F. Byrne & J. Holm (Eds.), Atlantic meets Pacific:
A global view of pidginization and creolization (pp. 183–203).
Winford, D. (1994). Sociolinguistic approaches to language use in the anglo-
phone Caribbean. In M. Morgan (Ed.), Language and the social construc-
tion of identity in Creole situations (pp. 43–62). Los Angeles: University
of California at Los Angeles, Center for Afro American Studies.
Winford, D. (1997). Re-examining Caribbean English creole continua.
World Englishes, 16, 233–279.
Youssef, V., & James, W. (1999). Grounding via tense-aspect in Tobagonian
Creole: Discourse strategies across a creole continuum. Linguistics,
37(4), 597–624.

Creole English Morphology PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Creole English Morphology PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language Learning 55:2, June 2005, pp.

Creole English Speakers’ Treatment of

The study sought to examine the effect of lexical aspect

This study examines the pattern of acquisition and use of

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arlene Clachar,

interlanguage systems (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig,

of temporality, may provide insight into the manner in which

Creoles in the Anglophone Caribbean: A Unique Dimension

Creoles in the anglophone Caribbean initially arose from

the West Africans (speakers of the substrate languages) to

languages in their historical evolution. Whereas most languages

influx of creole-English-speaking students into U.S. classrooms.

The Lexical Aspect and Narrative Discourse Hypotheses

The basic premise of the lexical aspect and narrative dis-

(Andersen & Shirai, 1994; Bardovi-Harlig, 1998). I now discuss

Tenets of the Aspect Hypothesis

The aspect hypothesis is predicated on the theoretical

aspect. Andersen and Shirai (1994) state that ‘‘second language

‘‘inherent duration like talk and sleep,’’ (b) is punctual with an

Semantic properties for the four categories of lexical aspect

Semantic properties Statives Activities Accomplishments Achievements

Note. From ‘‘Developmental Sequences: The Emergence of Aspect Marking in Second

corresponding lexical aspectual classes. For example, the lexical

category of activities with the progressive morpheme, and then

Tenets of the Narrative Discourse Hypothesis

Traditionally, narrative discourse is described as having

has a variety of functions (e.g., explaining, predicting, interpret-

Interaction Between the Aspect Hypothesis and the Narrative

Although the aspect hypothesis and the narrative discourse

On the other hand, since the background serves the purpose

tense-aspect morphology predicted by the aspect and narrative

Note that the foreground is the psychological ground contain-

Rationale for the Study

The Creole System and the Creole Continuum

This study was motivated by two factors. First, speakers of

and verbal inflections), whereas the creoles have shown a very

to what constitutes the creole, on one hand, and standard English,

as having a tightly knit sequence of substages and duration.

varieties can be conceptualized as approximations to standard

inflectional marker for the progressive or the past), it is specu-

Analytical Focus of the Study

Tenets of the Aspect and Discourse Hypotheses

Using the tenets of both the aspect hypothesis and the

1. Achievements are the predicates most likely to be

Construction of the Research Hypotheses

Extrapolating from the above assertions, three research

from the highest use with activities, to accomplishments, to

The participants were 48 English-based-creole-speaking

predominant speech patterns and place them within a range

sociolinguistic factors. For example, although some participants

The creole-speaking students were shown two silent films (the

sources. Following Bardovi-Harlig and Bergström (1996), the writ-

Cohorts of participants according to percentage of accurate usage of

Cohort 1 (n ¼ 18) 1 24.3 46

Two types of coding procedures were used: (a) a coding

past and base forms cannot be differentiated, were excluded

Results and Interpretation

Past marking was examined in order to determine whether

Distribution of verb tokens in each lexical aspectual category by

Grounding Achievements Accomplishments Activities Statives

Foreground clauses 1,387 682 485 204

Note. Total number of verbs ¼ 3,598.

the past inflection in foreground and background predicates that