Tense and aspect in Italian interlanguage / Zuzana Toth.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Toth, Zuzana, author.

Series:

Sprache Im Kontext / Language in Context

Sprache im Kontext / Language in Context ; 45

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian language--Tense.

Italian language.

Interlanguage (Language learning).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XII, 266 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany ; Boston, Massachusetts : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The expression of time is fundamental in communication and languages have developed a variety of means to encode temporal relations. When learning a new language, learners are often faced with the challenging task of discovering a new system of temporal relations.The present study investigates the development of tense and aspect marking in the interlanguage of L3 Italian learners enrolled in university language courses. It examines how the tense-aspect system develops in the interlanguage and how the acquisition process is shaped by factors such as the lexical aspectual value of the predicates and discourse grounding. The data indicate that both lexical aspect and discourse grounding influence the distribution of verbal morphology in the interlanguage. Semantically congruent pairings of lexical aspect, verbal morphology and discourse grounding are used more frequently and appropriately than less prototypical combinations. The acquisition process is also influenced by the learner’s L1, which was mostly German in the context of the present study.The study can be used as a guide for curricular decisions in language teaching, and for projecting further research on the development of tense-aspect marking in multilingual learners.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgments

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Key concepts of language acquisition research

3 Tense, aspect and grounding

4 The acquisition of tense and aspect in Romance languages

5 The acquisition of tense and aspect in Italian

6 Methodology

7 Results of the obligatory occasion analysis

8 Results of the frequency analysis

9 The effect of lexical aspect on the distribution of past tense morphology

10 Discussion

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Diss. Universität Wien 2018.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9783110626490

3110626497

9783110625189

3110625180

OCLC:

1226679185