The Acquisition of Perfective and Imperfective Aspect

A Comparative Study of Arabic and Japanese Learners of English

Abstract

The extent to which native language transfer plays a role in second language (L2) learning is a very significant question in the field of second language acquisition (Gabriele, 2005; Schwartz and prouse, 1996). The present study investigates the role of transfer in the acquisition of aspect in L2 English. The study compares two different groups of learners whose native languages differ with respect to imperfective aspect: the first group is comprised of native speakers of Najdi Arabic, a language that is similar to English with respect to the interpretation of the imperfective, and the second group is comprised of native speakers of Japanese, a language whose imperfective form shows interesting differences from both English and Arabic