Similarities and differences in tense and aspect

Taking the aforementioned characteristics of English, German, Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese into consideration (see Chapters 4.2 to 4.6), we can now make some comparisons.

The aim of this chapter is to do a typological analysis. In order to compare different linguistic systems, we need to find the tertium comparationis, the third of comparison (Jaszczolt 2011:

112; König & Gast 2012: 5). Formal and semantic criteria should be considered here; formal criteria relate to linguistic categories (e.g. auxiliary, suffix) and semantic criteria to the meaning (e.g. past time reference, progressiveness).

Previously, we explained that the languages discussed in this study differ in terms of marking grammatical information. Vietnamese was presented as an isolating language and Turkish as a heavily agglutinating language. Both German and Russian belong to fusional languages and English, formerly also classified as a fusional language, is gradually developing into an isolating language. This, of course, shapes how tense and aspect is expressed in each language. In Vietnamese, since there are no inflectional endings, tense and aspect is expressed with separate markers in form of individual words or simply with time adverbials. A special feature is that in this language, tense or aspect markers are not obligatory but may be omitted in a sentence if the context allows to understand the intended meaning. All other languages use inflectional endings or additional words such as auxiliaries to mark tense and aspect distinctions. In fact, English and German were presented as largely relying on auxiliaries, and Russian and Turkish to mainly use inflectional suffixes. We understand this as Vietnamese being on one end of a continuum (no inflectional endings) and Turkish on the other end (almost exclusively inflectional endings) (see Figure 8). English, German, and Russian are lined up next to each other, ranging from some inflectional endings and many auxiliary verb uses (English), to more inflectional endings and also use of auxiliary verbs (German), to even more inflectional endings and fewer auxiliary verb uses (Russian).

133 This classification corresponds to Greenberg’s (1960) morphological typology of languages (see also Siemund 2004: 192). Languages in general cannot easily be assigned to just one category, such as analytic or synthetic, but it is more a matter of degree or overall tendency (Greenberg 1960: 182). Some elements may belong to one, some elements to the other category.

In order to estimate this relation and to capture language internal variation, Greenberg proposes a quantitative approach based on number of measures, such as the synthetic index (1960: 185).

The synthetic index calculates the ratio of morphemes per word; its lowest possible value is 1.00 (one morpheme per word) and there is in principle no upper limit, though numbers higher than 3.00 are extremely infrequent (Greenberg 1960: 185). In his final comparison, Greenberg presents a number of languages, among these English, Vietnamese, and Yakut (which is related to Turkish) and clearly, Vietnamese is presented with the lowest synthesis index, namely 1.06, followed by English with 1.68, and Yakut with the value 2.17. This order can also be observed in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Continuum of analytic and inflectional tense and aspect marking

Furthermore, both English and German belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and share numerous grammatical categories and grammatical functions. Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese are genetically further apart from English and German. Russian belongs to the Slavonic languages, which is also part of the Indo-European languages. Turkish belongs to the Altaic languages and Vietnamese to the Austro-Asiatic languages (see for example Dryer & Haspelmath 2013). Even though there is this genetic relationship between English and German, major grammars classify English as having two tenses, i.e. past tense and non-past tense, and German as having six tenses, i.e. Präsens, Präteritum, Futur I, Perfekt, Plusquamperfekt, Futur II (König & Gast 2012: 82-83). On a formal level, however, English could also be seen as having these six tenses, i.e. simple present, simple past, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect (see König & Gast 2012: 83). The form of these six tenses

134 is largely parallel in English and in German, with meaning differences especially in the use of the present tense, the present perfect, and the future (see again Chapter 4.3 and König & Gast 2012: 92). This formal correspondence but occasional asymmetry in usage may be potentially problematic for learners of English with a German background (see also Swan 2001: 41).

Moreover, in Russian, for example, we only find one past tense form. In English, however, we differentiate between simple past, present perfect, and past perfect. In Vietnamese, though, we find different markers for past, to distinguish between common past and recent past, and also for future, to refer to recent future events and future events that are further away. Yet, as a special characteristic, as was repeatedly explained, tense markers are not obligatory in Vietnamese. In Turkish, we showed that there are two past tense markers that are used to refer to events located prior to the moment of speaking, either for known events, or to refer to events from hearsay. Both markers could be used to convey what can be expressed with the simple past or the present perfect in English. This clearly demonstrates different problem areas for Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese learners.

Despite the close genetic relationship between English and German, we find further points where German differs from English and this may cause additional problems for German learners of English. One such potentially problematic area is the use of aspectual distinctions.

In English, we differentiate between simple aspect and progressive aspect. The progressive is formed with the auxiliary be and the –ing suffix that attaches to the verb stem. In German, we do not find grammatical aspect; hence, there is no grammaticalized form of the progressive aspect. Progressiveness can of course be expressed, yet, a number of different (optional) linguistic means are available in German. When we now look at the other languages that are present in this study, we can make some interesting observations. Russian and Turkish are two languages that rely heavily on aspect marking and also in Vietnamese, we find aspectual markers. Russian, for instances, differentiates between imperfective and perfective aspect; this means (i) that there are grammaticalized aspectual distinctions available in Russian (other than in German), and that (ii) in some situations, the Russian imperfective aspect overlaps with the use of the progressive aspect in English. Yet, formally, these two aspectual oppositions are different. In Russian, there is only an inflectional affix that marks imperfective aspect. Hence, we find (partial) functional overlap and a formal contrast.

In Turkish, we also find aspectual distinctions. A subcategory of the imperfective aspect, which is used for progressive situations, is comparable to the use of the English progressive. A crucial difference is that states, which typically do not occur in the progressive aspect in English, are used with the same marker that is used for progressive situations in Turkish. Similar

135 to what we saw in Russian, there is no auxiliary verb but only an inflectional ending in Turkish.

Furthermore, Vietnamese has a separate word form as a progressive marker, which could be classified as an adverb or auxiliary and which was explained to express progressiveness. Yet, it seems that it is frequently used with stative verbs when they are used for situations that are currently ongoing. This marker is also not obligatory but may be omitted if it is apparent from the context that it refers to an ongoing situation. Thus, there is in fact more overlap between English and Turkish, Russian, and Vietnamese, on both a formal and a conceptual level, than between English and German.

In addition, we learned that there are many uses of the copula verb be that do not find a direct equivalent in Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese. There are various contexts in the three languages where no verbal form is present to link the subject to the subject complement. In Russian and in Turkish, for example, the copula verb is not used in the present tense. In Vietnamese, there is no copula verb before adjectives or numerals. For this particular phenomenon, we find parallel uses in English and in German and we expect that this use may not be problematic for German learners of English, though it may be more difficult for learners of English with a Russian, Turkish, or Vietnamese background.

As we have shown in this chapter and in the chapters before (4.2 to 4.6), all languages relevant in this study differ considerably in the use of tense and aspect and how time and aspectual distinctions are expressed. Table 11 presents a simplified summary of the tense and aspect properties of each of the five languages outlined above. Clearly, there is partial overlap for some features, and there are crucial differences for others. Approximately half of the participants have knowledge of three languages, hence, the linguistic interplay available to these participants is rather complex. This circumstance is exactly what makes this study special: all participants have access to English, because they learn this foreign language in a formal setting.

In addition, all bilingual participants are speakers of German, and they know another language, namely Russian, Turkish, or Vietnamese, respectively. The remaining monolingual participant are either also speakers of German (the German monolinguals), or they do not have access to German. These latter participants are monolingual Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese speakers who grow up in their respective native countries. The analysis of the written texts and oral recordings will show if these linguistic differences across the participants play a decisive role when it comes to the acquisition and mastering of the English tense and aspect system.¹⁹

19 Strictly speaking, of course, the data does not allow to draw any conclusions about the acquisition process of English, because we are only able to access the written and oral responses of the children, hence we can only make conclusions about their performance. We do, however, want to keep the term acquisition, because we can present results about the current status of the acquisition of English.

136

Feature English German Russian Turkish Vietnamese

Morphological tense distinctions ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 

Adverbials to indicate tense distinctions ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Grammaticalized aspect ✓  ✓ ✓ (✓)

Auxiliary verbs ✓ ✓  (✓) (✓)

Copula verb be ✓ ✓ (✓) (✓) (✓)

Predominantly affixes to mark tense and aspect (✓) (✓) ✓ ✓ 

Predominantly analytic tense and aspect marking ✓ (✓) (✓)  ✓

Table 11: Simplified summary of tense and aspect properties

Overall, German and English are typologically closest, and this may exert a large influence on the performance in English for learners that know German. Yet, we also saw that when looking closer into individual features, English differs in many respects from German, but it shares certain features with one or more of the other three languages. In some cases, this could potentially lead to advantages in the English production of the bilingual participants, namely if cross-linguistic influence also came from the heritage language and not exclusively from German. However, it may also result in more non-target-like usage, if a grammatical property works differently in English and Russian, Turkish, or Vietnamese. We further elaborate on this argument in Chapter 5.4 and will now turn our attention to a number of studies that analyze the acquisition of tense and aspect in English by non-native learners.