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This thesis investigates three different so-called “past tense forms” in Tulu, a Dravidian language spoken in the south-western Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. Through fieldwork material collected by the author, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the usage and functions of the three forms in Tulu. It expands upon previous research, which has acknowledged the forms’ existence but not described their functions or provided examples of their usage. Previous research has also often referred to the forms with contradictory names; for example, one form has been called both “immediate past” by one source (Bhat, 1998:166) and “distant past” by another (Krishnamurti, 2003:334), with little explanation of the choice of these labels. In this thesis, they are called Past1, Past2 and Past3 as they all refer to events that have already happened, but the study shows that the distinction between them is one of aspect and validity of results and not of remoteness in tense. The investigation also shows that the three forms have differentiating and contrasting functions and can, in most cases, not be replaced by the others. Past1 is favoured to express perfectivity, event-focused actions, and consecutiveness. Past2 is used for continuous statives, states resulting from past events and events that have happened at least once, as well as introducing a new topic in a narrative. Past3 refers to both punctual or completed events and states that can hold for some time with other events happening in between, and it is commonly used to mark a situation or result not holding anymore. When events in the past are within the same scope, or an event is elaborated upon, the Past3 is also used, as well as when referring to events completed or started before a time reference in the past. The description of these forms' functions will fill a knowledge gap in the description of Tulu, providing a comprehensive understanding of the tense and aspect system in the language. Furthermore

This thesis investigates three different so-called “past tense forms” in Tulu, a Dravidian language spoken in the south-western Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. Through fieldwork material collected by the author, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the usage and functions of the three forms in Tulu. It expands upon previous research, which has acknowledged the forms’ existence but not described their functions or provided examples of their usage. Previous research has also often referred to the forms with contradictory names; for example, one form has been called both “immediate past” by one source (Bhat, 1998:166) and “distant past” by another (Krishnamurti, 2003:334), with little explanation of the choice of these labels. In this thesis, they are called Past1, Past2 and Past3 as they all refer to events that have already happened, but the study shows that the distinction between them is one of aspect and validity of results and not of remoteness in tense. The investigation also shows that the three forms have differentiating and contrasting functions and can, in most cases, not be replaced by the others. Past1 is favoured to express perfectivity, event-focused actions, and consecutiveness. Past2 is used for continuous statives, states resulting from past events and events that have happened at least once, as well as introducing a new topic in a narrative. Past3 refers to both punctual or completed events and states that can hold for some time with other events happening in between, and it is commonly used to mark a situation or result not holding anymore. When events in the past are within the same scope, or an event is elaborated upon, the Past3 is also used, as well as when referring to events completed or started before a time reference in the past. The description of these forms' functions will fill a knowledge gap in the description of Tulu, providing a comprehensive understanding of the tense and aspect system in the language. Furthermore

The aim of this article is the study of the grammatization process of the preterite perfect (form hube cantado) considering three levels of scientific-didactic treatment of the analyzed unit: (1) linguistic research, (2) SFL grammars and (3) SFL manuals. Consequently, we work on a corpus of 55 texts (30 grammars and 25 manuals) of levels B2-C1. The main conclusion is that the values and functionality of the past tense experience a gradual process of discontinuous degrammatization in grammars according to linguistic theory, and that the manualization of information supposes the slow demise of the form in the Spanish verbal system., El objetivo de este artículo es el estudio del proceso de gramatización del pretérito anterior (forma hube cantado) en virtud de tres niveles de tratamiento científico-didáctico de la unidad analizada: (1) la investigación lingüística, (2) las gramáticas de ELE y (3) los manuales de ELE. Se trabaja, en consecuencia, con un corpus de 55 textos (30 gramáticas y 25 manuales) de niveles B2-C1. La conclusión principal es que los valores y funcionalidad del pretérito anterior, según la teoría lingüística, experimentan un proceso gradual de desgramatización discontinua en las gramáticas y que la manualización de la información supone la paulatina defunción de la forma en el sistema verbal español.

Most of the students commit errors in their writing. This research aimed to analyse errors committed by Eighth-grade students in changing active voice narration into passive voice narration. The study assesses both the primary reasons for errors and the frequency at which they occur. Sixty students from two different Govt. schools were selected to conduct this study using convenient random sampling. The active voice to passive voice narration test was used as a data collection tool. The descriptive and mixed method approach was used in this study. Dulay's theory (1982) was employed to categorize the collected data according to the types of errors. As per the research, the Past Indefinite tense exhibited the highest frequency of misformation errors. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the correction of misformation errors in Past Indefinite tense must be the priority while teaching the active voice narration change into passive voice narration and be figured out consistently.

Most of the students commit errors in their writing. This research aimed to analyse errors committed by Eighth-grade students in changing active voice narration into passive voice narration. The study assesses both the primary reasons for errors and the frequency at which they occur. Sixty students from two different Govt. schools were selected to conduct this study using convenient random sampling. The active voice to passive voice narration test was used as a data collection tool. The descriptive and mixed method approach was used in this study. Dulay's theory (1982) was employed to categorize the collected data according to the types of errors. As per the research, the Past Indefinite tense exhibited the highest frequency of misformation errors. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the correction of misformation errors in Past Indefinite tense must be the priority while teaching the active voice narration change into passive voice narration and be figured out consistently.

The purpose of this research is to analyze of student’s errors on the use of simple present tense in Descriptive text based on the problem that students felt confused about using present tense in their writing especially Descriptive text. The method of the research is qualitative descriptive. The subject of this research was eleventh grade students of SMA PERTI PPMTI Padang. The result show that the researcher found four types of errors : omission, addition, misformation, misodering. Then, the researcher found the highest error made by students is misformation with 52 % percentages. This problem influenced by student felt confused to understand simple past because they did not know the meaning and differences between regular verb and irregular verb. Therefore, students claimed if they seldom to practice writing paragraph

The BiLI-TAS research project explores the Turkish and Swedish language development of 102 bilingual children aged 4-7, growing up in Sweden. Findings are reported for vocabulary, inflectional morphology and subordination, and are related to existing studies of Turkish-speaking children with other language combinations. Higher Turkish vocabulary scores at age 4-5 give way to steeper vocabulary growth in the majority language Swedish. Narratives indicate mastery of Turkish inflection, but lower accuracy in Swedish, with overextended nonfinite past participle suffixation to mark finite past tense. Swedish subordinate clauses are well mastered and increase with age. Despite identical elicitation tasks, relative clauses are less frequent in Turkish, suggesting language-specific discourse functions. Adverbial subordination in Turkish is early, frequent and varied. Novel blends of a subordinate and a coordinate construction with clause-initial cünkü occur, not previously described in the literature.

The BiLI-TAS research project explores the Turkish and Swedish language development of 102 bilingual children aged 4-7, growing up in Sweden. Findings are reported for vocabulary, inflectional morphology and subordination, and are related to existing studies of Turkish-speaking children with other language combinations. Higher Turkish vocabulary scores at age 4-5 give way to steeper vocabulary growth in the majority language Swedish. Narratives indicate mastery of Turkish inflection, but lower accuracy in Swedish, with overextended nonfinite past participle suffixation to mark finite past tense. Swedish subordinate clauses are well mastered and increase with age. Despite identical elicitation tasks, relative clauses are less frequent in Turkish, suggesting language-specific discourse functions. Adverbial subordination in Turkish is early, frequent and varied. Novel blends of a subordinate and a coordinate construction with clause-initial cünkü occur, not previously described in the literature.

The BiLI-TAS research project explores the Turkish and Swedish language development of 102 bilingual children aged 4-7, growing up in Sweden. Findings are reported for vocabulary, inflectional morphology and subordination, and are related to existing studies of Turkish-speaking children with other language combinations. Higher Turkish vocabulary scores at age 4-5 give way to steeper vocabulary growth in the majority language Swedish. Narratives indicate mastery of Turkish inflection, but lower accuracy in Swedish, with overextended nonfinite past participle suffixation to mark finite past tense. Swedish subordinate clauses are well mastered and increase with age. Despite identical elicitation tasks, relative clauses are less frequent in Turkish, suggesting language-specific discourse functions. Adverbial subordination in Turkish is early, frequent and varied. Novel blends of a subordinate and a coordinate construction with clause-initial cünkü occur, not previously described in the literature.

The BiLI-TAS research project explores the Turkish and Swedish language development of 102 bilingual children aged 4-7, growing up in Sweden. Findings are reported for vocabulary, inflectional morphology and subordination, and are related to existing studies of Turkish-speaking children with other language combinations. Higher Turkish vocabulary scores at age 4-5 give way to steeper vocabulary growth in the majority language Swedish. Narratives indicate mastery of Turkish inflection, but lower accuracy in Swedish, with overextended nonfinite past participle suffixation to mark finite past tense. Swedish subordinate clauses are well mastered and increase with age. Despite identical elicitation tasks, relative clauses are less frequent in Turkish, suggesting language-specific discourse functions. Adverbial subordination in Turkish is early, frequent and varied. Novel blends of a subordinate and a coordinate construction with clause-initial cünkü occur, not previously described in the literature.

The BiLI-TAS research project explores the Turkish and Swedish language development of 102 bilingual children aged 4-7, growing up in Sweden. Findings are reported for vocabulary, inflectional morphology and subordination, and are related to existing studies of Turkish-speaking children with other language combinations. Higher Turkish vocabulary scores at age 4-5 give way to steeper vocabulary growth in the majority language Swedish. Narratives indicate mastery of Turkish inflection, but lower accuracy in Swedish, with overextended nonfinite past participle suffixation to mark finite past tense. Swedish subordinate clauses are well mastered and increase with age. Despite identical elicitation tasks, relative clauses are less frequent in Turkish, suggesting language-specific discourse functions. Adverbial subordination in Turkish is early, frequent and varied. Novel blends of a subordinate and a coordinate construction with clause-initial cünkü occur, not previously described in the literature.

Le présent travail est une petite recherche sur l'apprentissage du français, et plus particulièrement sur l'alternance de l'imparfait et le passé composé parmi des suédophones. Le but du mémoire est de comprendre comment les apprenants appliquent la grammaire malgré la différence entre leur langue maternelle et la langue de l'apprentissage. L'étude part de la différence entre le français et le suédois. Le corpus se compose de dix récits au passé écrits par des étudiants des niveau trois et quatre du système scolaire suédois. Le titre de leur devoir était Un souvenir de mon enfance. Un exercice pris du manuel est aussi analysé. Le résultat montre que d'abord les suédophones apprennent à utiliser les verbes d'état à l'imparfait, puis les suédophones expérimentent avec l'aspect des verbes pour l’alternance entre l’imparfait et le passé composé En conclusion, l'alternance entre l'imparfait et le passé composé est un défi pour les suédophones, mais ce n'est pas un défi insurmontable., The current piece of research is a study of how second language learners adapt to the distinction between imperfect and perfect in the narrative of past in the French language. The aim of the study is to find out how the learners adopt the grammar despite the difference between their native language and their learning language. The study describes the difference between Swedish and French. The corpus is defined, consisting of ten narratives by ten second language learners on the levels three and four in the Swedish school system. The title was Un souvenir de mon enfance. An exercise in the schoolbook is also analysed. The result shows that the students first learn how to use imperfect in sentences containing a state verb. Later the students attempt the aspect of the verb to practise the shift between the past tense and the perfect tense. In conclusion, the shift between perfect and imperfect is a challenge to the Swedish learner. However, it is not an unbridgeable gap.

Le présent travail est une petite recherche sur l'apprentissage du français, et plus particulièrement sur l'alternance de l'imparfait et le passé composé parmi des suédophones. Le but du mémoire est de comprendre comment les apprenants appliquent la grammaire malgré la différence entre leur langue maternelle et la langue de l'apprentissage. L'étude part de la différence entre le français et le suédois. Le corpus se compose de dix récits au passé écrits par des étudiants des niveau trois et quatre du système scolaire suédois. Le titre de leur devoir était Un souvenir de mon enfance. Un exercice pris du manuel est aussi analysé. Le résultat montre que d'abord les suédophones apprennent à utiliser les verbes d'état à l'imparfait, puis les suédophones expérimentent avec l'aspect des verbes pour l’alternance entre l’imparfait et le passé composé En conclusion, l'alternance entre l'imparfait et le passé composé est un défi pour les suédophones, mais ce n'est pas un défi insurmontable., The current piece of research is a study of how second language learners adapt to the distinction between imperfect and perfect in the narrative of past in the French language. The aim of the study is to find out how the learners adopt the grammar despite the difference between their native language and their learning language. The study describes the difference between Swedish and French. The corpus is defined, consisting of ten narratives by ten second language learners on the levels three and four in the Swedish school system. The title was Un souvenir de mon enfance. An exercise in the schoolbook is also analysed. The result shows that the students first learn how to use imperfect in sentences containing a state verb. Later the students attempt the aspect of the verb to practise the shift between the past tense and the perfect tense. In conclusion, the shift between perfect and imperfect is a challenge to the Swedish learner. However, it is not an unbridgeable gap.

To learn a language, children must go beyond simply imitating speech and learn the rules of the language from their surrounding linguistic environment. One way to tell that children learn rules is that they apply rules to an overly broad set of words. For example, English-learning children produce forms like ‘breaked’ or ‘catched’ at around 3 years of age. These forms, called past tense overregularizations, show that children have implicitly discovered the past tense formation rule: namely, “add ‘–ed’ to a verb to create the past tense.” But does it take children until age 3 to discover such rules? This dissertation combines a behavioral study with 16-month-olds and a corpus analysis of longitudinal, spontaneous child speech to achieve two goals: the first is to seek evidence that the past tense rule can be found in 16-month-olds, which would be consistent with many observations that children display significant receptive abilities long before their productive abilities reach the same level. The second goal is to determine if the production of past tense overregularizations can be explained by factors other than the discovery of a grammatical rule. Results indicate that children have enough experience with English by 16 months of age to represent verb + ‘–ed’ months before they begin to overregularize in production; therefore, production does not seem to reflect when the past tense rule actually comes online. 16-month-olds were able to discriminate between overregularized verbs and 1) their correct counterparts, 2) nonce verbs + ‘–ed’, and 3) English noun stems marked with ‘–ed’. Further, overregularizations in production seem to reflect children's need to simplify their utterances as they attempt to say more and more complex sentences.

У раду се анализирају глаголска времена са примарном службом обележавања прошлих радњи у говору северношарпланинске жупе Сиринић. Утврђује се инвентар облика који чине претеритални систем овога говора, синтаксичко-семантички услови њихове употребе, стилски потенцијал јединица, те језичке околности које о(не)могућавају њихово комбиновање или међусобну замену на нивоу реченице или у ширим наративним одсецима. Показало се да у испитиваном говору перфекат има најстабилнију позицију – као најфреквентнија јединица са најширим доменом употребе; аорист је основни облик којим се казују прошле доживљене радње исказане глаголима свршеног вида, а његово место у систему релативно је стабилно. Имперфекат се одликује знатно суженим пољем употребе, и ограниченог је синтаксичко-семантичког потенцијала, што упућује на то да је процес његове елиминације у одмаклој фази, док је плусквамперфекат готово ишчезао из система. Упрошћавање четворочланог система претерита узроковано је ширењем перфекта као универзалног времена за обележавање прошлих дејстава, али и високом фреквентношћу временски транспонованих облика (наративног презента, императива и футура првог) којима се исказују прошла дејства специјализоване семантике., В работе анализируются времена глаголов, первичной функцией которых является обозначение прошедших действий в говоре северношарпланинской жупы Сиринич. Определяется инвентарь форм, составляющих претеритальную систему этого говора, синтаксико-семантические условия их употребления, стилевой потенциал единиц, а также языковые обстоятельства, (не)позволяющие их комбинирование или взаимозаменяемость на уровне предложения, или в более широких нарративных отрезках. Оказалось, что в исследуемом говоре перфект (прошедшее время) имеет самое стабильное положение – в качестве наиболее частотной единицы с самым широким кругом употребления, в то время как аорист представляет собой основную форму, обозначающую в прошлом случившиеся действия, выраженные глаголами совершенного вида, а его место в системе является относительно стабильным. Форма перфекта (прошедшего времени) имеет самое широкое применение в стилистически нейтральном повествовании, что подразумевает отсутствие эмоциональной вовлеченности, а информация о (не)событийности действия, как правило, не присутствует на нарративном уровне, то есть содержится в более широком контексте, так как она не входит в инвентарь первичных характеристик прошедшего времени. При оформлении наррации или при повествовании о событиях более комплексного типа, перфект (прошедшее время), как правило, не используется самостоятельно, а объединяется с другими единицами более определенной семантики (аористом, иперфектом, нарративным императивом, будущим временем, временным транспонированным настоящим временем). Перфект в таких контекстах исполняет роль временной локализации действий, выполнения подготовительной роли для их введения, а другие формы несут с собой информацию о событийности действий (аорист, имперфект), о прошлой повторяемости (императив, футур первый/будущее время) и т.п. Имперфект характеризуется значительно более узкой областью употребления и ограниченным синтаксико-семантическим потенциалом, указывая на то, что процесс его устранения, This paper analyzes verb tenses which primarily refer to past actions in the vernacular of the Sirinić Župa in the northern part of the Šar Mountains. The authors ascertain the inventory of forms which make up the preterite system of this vernacular, the syntactic and semantic conditions of their use, stylistic potential of each unit and the linguistic circumstances that make (im)possible their combining or interchangeability at the sentence level or within more extensive narrative sections. It turned out that the perfect has the most stable position – it is the most frequent form with the widest domain of use, while the aorist is the basic form which denotes actions experienced in the past stated by perfective verbs, and its place within the system is relatively stable. The past tense is most commonly used in stylistically neutral narration which involves zero emotional engagement, while the information about experiencing the action (or its lack) is usually absent from the narrative level or is part of the broader context, since it is not one of the primary perfective forms. When composing the narration, i.e. when recounting more complex events, the past tense is not normally used autonomously; it is combined with other forms of more specified semantics (aorist, imperfect, narrative imperative, future or present in the past). The role of the past tense in these contexts is to localize actions in time and to prepare for their introduction, while other forms give information on whether the effect of the action was experienced (aorist, imperfect), on whether the action was repetitive in the past (imperative, future), and the like. The imperfect is characterized by a much narrower use, while its syntactic and semantic potential is limited, which points to the fact that the process of its elimination is well under way, while the pluperfect has almost disappeared from the system.

In the present work are described the conditions of use and the semantic values represented by the periphrasis [estar + gerundio/estar + gerúndio] with auxiliary in simple past tense in a sample collected in the written form of the River Plate Spanish (ER) and Brazilian Portuguese (PB). Were identified three core imperfect values: the durative, the iterative and the detelizer. Among these, it was found a strong tendency towards the expression of durative events stand out in both varieties. In the ER, besides the frequent durative character statements, a greater number of occurrences was found which allowing detelized and iterative readings of the predicates more frequently. It was also found that the perfective periphrasis in BP has a more restricted use, which is justified by its greater incompatibility with certain lexical bases., En el presente trabajo se describen las condiciones de uso y los valores semánticos representados por la perífrasis [estar + gerundio/estar + gerúndio] con auxiliar en pretérito perfecto simple en una muestra escrita del español rioplatense argentino (ER) y del portugués brasileño paulista (PB). Se verificaron, en la muestra colectada, tres principales valores imperfectivos: el durativo, el iterativo y el destelizador. Entre estos se destaca una fuerte tendencia a la expresión de la duratividad. En el ER, además, se encontró una cantidad mayor de ocurrencias que permiten, con más frecuencia, las lecturas iterativa y destelizada de los predicados. Se constató, también, que la perífrasis perfectiva en PB presenta un empleo más restringido, lo que se justifica por su mayor incompatibilidad con determinados lexemas verbales.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the inter-language development of the Spanish past tense by Taiwanese learners who learned Spanish as a second foreign language. The analysis of this study was based on the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, which focuses on the inherent lexical aspect of verbs. We came to the following conclusions. (1) Taiwanese learners, whose first language was Mandarin Chinese, demonstrated more accurate uses of the Spanish preterite than the imperfect in written texts at their early stages of development. The acquisition of the lexical aspects of verbs in the preterite in terms of lexical aspect demonstrated the following order: achievement + accomplishment, activity and finally stative, whereas the acquisition of the imperfect showed the opposite sequence. (2) In the majority of the cases, the Taiwanese learners of Spanish demonstrated a similar pattern of acquisition of the Spanish past tense in terms of lexical aspect as that of English-speaking learner of Spanish. This paper will end with discussions on pedagogical implications of the findings and we hope this study will shed light on the current research on the second language acquisition of the Spanish tense/aspect., Este trabajo tiene como fin investigar el desarrollo de los tiempos pasados en la interlengua de los aprendices taiwaneses que aprenden español como segunda lengua extranjera. El análisis se basa en la Hipótesis de Aspecto Léxico que se centra en la importancia del aspecto léxico de los verbos. Llegamos a las siguientes conclusiones: (1) los aprendices taiwaneses de español cuya lengua materna es chino-mandarín manejan el pretérito mejor que el imperfecto en la producción escrita de los niveles iniciales de aprendizaje, el desarrollo de adquisición del pretérito indefinido es de acuerdo al siguiente orden: estado, actividad y realización+logro, mientras que para la adquisición del imperfecto los estudiantes siguen un orden contrario. (2) En la mayoría de los casos los aprendices taiwaneses de español siguen el mismo patrón de aprendizaje que los aprendices cuya lengua materna es el inglés en la adquisición del aspecto temporal. Por último, hacemos sugerencias pedagógicas correspondientes a las conclusiones deducidas para mejorar el resultado de aprendizaje. Con esto, esperamos que esta investigación represente una contribución al estudio relacionado con la adquisición del tiempo-aspecto en español.

Based on a sample of linguistic and metalinguistic interviews both in Ecuador and in Spain, the article presents an in-depth study of a contact induced change in Andean Spanish. Bilingual speakers of Quechua and Spanish are found to assume that Spanish should display a formal opposition of evidentiality vs. non-evidentiality, obligatory in Quechua. In a long term process labeled as indirect contact induced change, both the simple past and the present perfect tense forms are re-categorized as evidentiality vs. non-evidentiality. A fine grained analysis of various paths of grammaticalization in different varieties of Spanish reveal the Spanish tense forms as well motivated candidates for this kind of re-functionalization. The affinity speakers perceive between the chosen tense forms and the two forms of evidentiality is shown to be triggered by the existing vs. missing link of the tense-form with the moment of speech., A partir de una muestra de entrevistas lingüísticas y metalingüísticas de hablantes de la sierra ecuatoriana, tanto en Ecuador como en España (migrantes residentes en Madrid), el artículo presenta un estudio en profundidad de un cambio inducido por contacto en español andino. Los bilingües de quechua y español asumen que el español debería mostrar una oposición formal de evidencialidad frente a no evidencialidad, obligatoria en quechua. En un proceso a largo plazo etiquetado como cambio indirecto inducido por contacto, las formas de pretérito simple y compuesto son recategorizadas como evidencialidad vs. no evidencialidad. Un análisis sistemático detallado de las diversas vías de gramaticalización en diferentes variedades de español revela que ciertas formas de pretérito del español son candidatos especialmente motivados para este tipo de refuncionalización. Los hablantes perciben similitudes entre las formas escogidas del español y los tipos de evidencialidad del quechua y esto es desencadenado por la relación que tienen las formas de pasado con el momento de la enunciación.

Comorian is a Bantu language spoken on the Comoro Islands, a small archipelago between the East African coast and the northern tip of Madagascar. It is usually grouped within the Sabaki languages together with Swahili, Mwani, Elwana, Pokorno and Mijikenda (Nurse & Hinnebusch 1993: 4-19). Internally Comorian is divided into different dialects. In congruence with the four main islands, four dialects of Comorian are usually distinguished in the linguistic literature (Ahmed- Charnanga 1992:13; Nurse & Hinnebusch 1993: 18): Shingazija on the island of Ngazija (Grande Comore), Shimwali on Mwali (Moheli), Shinzwani on Nzwani (Anjouan) and Shimaore on Maore (Mayotte). These four dialects are arranged into two dialect groups (Shingazija/ Shimwali vs. Shinzwani/Shimaore) which are supposed to reflect peculiar linguistic similarities and differences. Although, in general, the greatest morphological differences between the Comorian dialects are within the TAM-markers, the past tense is morphologically quite homogeneous. Therefore dialectal differences do not play a dominant role for the subject of this paper. Two different past tense forms frequently used in everyday speech will be treated here: one morphological simple (one word) form and one compound (two word) form combining the auxiliary -ka (be) with the main verb. They will be discussed first from a formal point of view demonstrating the rules to create the morphosyntactical form. After this they are treated with regard to their semantic contents. The results presented here are based on a one year dialectological research on the Comoro Islands 1996-97. Interviews were made in 56 towns and villages on all four islands of the archipelago.

The performances of 690 L1 and L2 submersion children of grades 4 to 6 on a test of past tense (passé simple) production in French are compared with the aim of assessing how the two groups of children cope with learning a morphological form belonging to a complex paradigm. Homophony with other verbal forms of the paradigm (syncretisms) appears to play a role in the children’s answers. L2 submersion children have significantly lower scores than L1 children and they differ from L1 children in tending to overapply the regular ending. They also seem to be more attentive to agreement and to the visual form of the words than L1 children.

This thesis examines the use of past tenses in narrative texts called urban legends. The aim of the paper is to find out differences in expressing the time prior to the past within the defined stages of the analysed tales. Theoretical part provides a description of semantic category of time and morphological category of tense. Further the system of English tenses is characterized and the possible expressions of the more remote time follow. This part also provides a description of urban legends as a genre. The analysis deals with the found differences among the use of two tenses for expressing the time prior to the past within the three basic stages of the narrative.Práce se zabývá výzkumem použití minulých časů ve vyprávění zvaném městské legendy. Cílem této práce je najít rozdíly ve vyjadřování předminulosti v rámci tří částí, na které jsou analyzované příběhy rozděleny. Teoretická část poskytuje popis sémantické a morfologické kategorie času. Dále je charakterizován systém anglických časů a následuje určení typů předminulostí. Tato část také popisuje městské legendy jako žánr. Analýza se zabývá vyskytujícími se rozdíly v užití dvou časů pro odkazování na předminulost v rámci tří základních částí struktury vyprávění., Práce se zabývá výzkumem použití minulých časů ve vyprávění zvaném městské legendy. Cílem této práce je najít rozdíly ve vyjadřování předminulosti v rámci tří částí, na které jsou analyzované příběhy rozděleny. Teoretická část poskytuje popis sémantické a morfologické kategorie času. Dále je charakterizován systém anglických časů a následuje určení typů předminulostí. Tato část také popisuje městské legendy jako žánr. Analýza se zabývá vyskytujícími se rozdíly v užití dvou časů pro odkazování na předminulost v rámci tří základních částí struktury vyprávění., Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky, Dokončená práce s úspěšnou obhajobou

The present thesis is concerned with a descriptive analysis of a phenomenon in the Japanese language, the use as an imperative of two suffixes of tense and aspect, -ta and -tari. The use of the past tense form (or ta-form) as an imperative in modern Japanese has been touched upon by various scholars, but a detailed account of the construction, its diachrony, and its place in a cross-linguistic context has not previously been performed. These aspects of the constructions are described in detail, and a contrastive analysis determines how imperative -ta differs from other imperatives in modern Japanese. The relation between aspect and imperative utterances manifested in imperative -ta is discussed, focusing on the connection between imperative -ta and perfective aspect. The discussion also focuses on the occurrence of past tense and perfective imperatives cross-linguistically. These phenomena are connected through the concept of deictic projection (Lyons 1977, Tavangar and Amouzadeh 2006).

Compared to monolingual first language acquisition (L1) and adult second language acquisition (aL2), relatively little research has been done on child second language acquisition (cL2). This is an unsatisfactory situation from both a practical and a theoretical point of view. The present study concerns cL2 acquisition of French and poses the question whether cL2 acquisition bears closer resemblance to L1 acquisition or to L2 acquisition. Previous studies are not conclusive on this point. To contribute to this discussion, we selected a set of four diagnostic features in French. These features are well-understood in L1 and adult L2 acquisition. We then applied these to data from three different groups of children acquiring French: child L2 learners, bilingual first language acquirers ((2)L1) and monolingual controls. In all relevant cases the “other language” is Swedish. The results show that, for the majority of the phenomena under investigation, the cL2 children reveal a pattern that is more similar to aL2 than to L1 acquisition. However it is not a question of an across-the-board difference. In fact, in some areas there are only subtle differences between cL2 and (2)L1, for example in the positioning of object clitics the simultaneous (2)L1 children display similarities with the cL2 and the aL2 learners. In the last section, we sketch a preliminary structural explanation that purports to ascertain the stage after which L1-like development is no longer possible.

This article argues against the idea that the Imparfait & the Passe Simple in French are aspectually sensitive tense operators. Both morphemes combine with any type of eventuality. It is not the case that a clause in the Imparfait denotes a state, or that a clause in the Passe Simple denotes an event. It is proposed that the Passe Simple is a true past tense, which introduces a past eventuality in the discourse with the condition that it be the maximal eventuality of the appropriate type. The Imparfait is analyzed as a dyadic morpheme, which selects an eventuality as internal argument & a past temporal referent of discourse as external argument, where the eventuality provides a condition on the temporal referent.

This article argues against the idea that the Imparfait & the Passe Simple in French are aspectually sensitive tense operators. Both morphemes combine with any type of eventuality. It is not the case that a clause in the Imparfait denotes a state, or that a clause in the Passe Simple denotes an event. It is proposed that the Passe Simple is a true past tense, which introduces a past eventuality in the discourse with the condition that it be the maximal eventuality of the appropriate type. The Imparfait is analyzed as a dyadic morpheme, which selects an eventuality as internal argument & a past temporal referent of discourse as external argument, where the eventuality provides a condition on the temporal referent.