Interpretation of Imperfective Past Tense in Spanish: How Do Child and Adult Language Varieties Differ?

Some studies on the L1 acquisition of aspect in various child languages have discovered that imperfective is acquired later than perfective aspect, whereas others find early adult-like performance. A variety explanations has been advanced, particularly problems (i) with semantics combination telic predicates, (ii) inferring intended temporal antecedent a discourse, and (iii) reasoning about an agent’s intentions to complete event when observing situation progress. The current study aimed disentangle which purported can best explain patterns. Twenty-three Spanish monolingual children (mean age 5;11) 17 adults were presented sentences one two aspectual tenses (pretérito indefinido pretérito imperfecto). Using picture-selection task presenting either narrative setting or non-narrative setting, participants prompted choose between complete, ongoing, incomplete situations. In children’s interpretation imperfecto was adult-like, but it not. target-like reveals telic-imperfective (contra explanation i). Furthermore, five-year-olds did not depend cues for agent intentionality interpreting iii). discrepancy suggests challenge lies discourse integration (supporting ii).