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Why jumped is so difficult: tense/aspect marking in Mandarin–English bilingual children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2020

Elena NICOLADIS ,
Yuehan YANG  and
Zixia JIANG
Elena NICOLADIS*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Yuehan YANG
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Zixia JIANG
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
*Corresponding author: Elena Nicoladis, University of Alberta, Department of Psychology, P217 Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB, T6 G 2E9, Canada. E-mail: elenan@ualberta.ca
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Abstract

Learning to mark for tense in a second language is notoriously difficult for speakers of a tenseless language like Chinese. In this study we test two reasons for these difficulties in Chinese–English sequential bilingual children: (1) morphophonological transfer (i.e., avoidance of complex codas), and (2) interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker of completion, like the Mandarin –le. Mandarin–English bilingual children and age-matched monolinguals did a cartoon retell task. The verbs used in the stories were coded for accuracy in English, telicity, and suppliance of –ed or –le. The results were consistent with morphophonological transfer: the bilingual children were more accurate with irregular past forms in English than regular forms. The results were also consistent with the bilingual children's interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker: most of their production of –ed was on telic verbs. We discuss possible reasons for the children's interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 47 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 1073 - 1083
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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