Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Motivation 1
1.3 Significance of the present study 3
1.4 Research questions 5
1.5 Outline of the book 6
Chapter 2 Corpus linguistics and interlanguage studies 8
2.1 Corpus linguistics 8
2.2 Interlanguage 15
2.3 Learner corpora 20
Chapter 3 Tense and aspect acquisition and linguistic factors 27
3.1 Tense and aspect 27
3.2 The Present Perfect in English 29
3.3 Linguistic factors affecting tense/aspect acquisition 30
Chapter 4 Methodology 54
4.1 Introduction 54
4.2 Data description 54
4.3 Data coding 56
Chapter 5 Results 69
5.1 Introduction 69
5.2 Analysis of tense/aspect errors 69
5.3 Analysis of the present perfect variation 77
5.4 Effects of linguistic factors on present perfect variation 83
Chapter 6 Discussion 122
6.1 Semantic interpretation of the present perfect variation 122
6.2 The effects of linguistic factors on the present perfect variation 125
Chapter 7 Conclusion 157
7.1 Summary of major findings 157
7.2 Implications 165
7.3 Suggestions for future research 168
Appendix 1 A sample text from CLEC 169
Appendix 2 Sampled data from tagged VP6 errors on English tense/aspect 170
Appendix 3 Sampled data from the subjects' use of present perfect 175
Appendix 4 Sampled diagnostic tests for lexical aspect 177
Bibliography 179