The Present State of the Aspect Hypothesis: A Critical Perspective

Abstract

Early research on the Aspect Hypothesis yielded a rigid developmental sequence for the acquisition ofgrammatical aspect, in which developing L2 learners applied morphemes to mark aspect in accordancewith the inherent lexical aspect of verbal prototypes. While studies from a variety of L2 backgroundshave amassed evidence for this hypothesis, some recent research has questioned its generalizability (i.e.Comajoan, 2005; Izquierdo & Collins, 2008; Liskin-Gasparro, 2000; López-Ortega, McManus, 2013;Salaberry, 2011). The present analysis of literature reviews the key tenets of the Aspect Hypothesis inorder to examine how subsequent studies have demonstrated that L1 influence, syntactic similaritiesbetween L1 and L2, the role of inherent lexical aspect, and the use of pedagogical materials in classroombased instruction may have implications for its accuracy in predicting learners’ use of temporalmorphology. Such implications may affect the degree of accuracy with which this model predicts theacquisition of aspectual morphology in L2 learners, principally at early and advanced stages ofproficiency. Lastly, this critical analysis identifies potential directions for future research that wouldstrengthen or modify the recent claims that question the predictive accuracy of the Aspect Hypothesis.© 2018 EJAL & the Authors. Published by Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics (EJAL). This is an open-accessarticle distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND)(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).