INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES:
EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP IN PEDAGOGY-RELATED CONTEXTS
The acquisition of the simple past/present perfect by French secondary school learners: when
the form/function relations diverge in l1 and l2
Coralie Payre-Ficout, Catherine Brissaud and Jean-Pierre Chevrot
The acquisition of the simple past (SP)/present perfect (PP) distinction, in English is
particularly challenging for French second language learners, owing to the apparent similarity
of the compound forms of the two languages – the passé composé (PC) and the PP – which
despite their apparent morphological similarity have different functions. This difficulty was
explored through different written tasks implicating several samples of French learners of
English (N ranging from 58 to 204). The observation of the errors shed light on two opposite
tendencies in correlation with the tasks undertaken. The learners produce compound verbal
forms (have play) when they have to do free-text writings or translation. These tasks seem to
induce them to transfer the use of the French past forms into English. The learners use the
morphological distinction between compound and simple forms as a unique reference point.
On the contrary, when the learners are faced with a completion task, they tend to produce
simple verbal forms (play). An investigation of the learners’ capacity to distinguish the two
values of the PC suggests that these difficulties might be resolved by the teaching of these two
values during the French course.
Introduction
The acquisition of the SP/PP distinction is said to be difficult for second language learners
(Bardovi-Harlig, 1997) and is particularly challenging for French second language learners,
owing to the apparent similarity of the compound forms of the two languages – the PC and the
PP – which despite their apparent morphological similarity have different functions (Collins,
2002). If we look at the way English speakers use the distinction between the two verbal
forms, it is not so simple either. Indeed, some variation has been reported in the use of the two
verbal forms amongst the different varieties of English around the world. For example, it is a
well known fact that English speakers in the United States use a simple form of the past tense
when British English would expect the PP (Vanneck, 1958; Marshall, 1981; Sheen, 1984;
Trudgill & Hannah, 1994). For example, just before a meal, a mother would tend to say to her
child “Did you wash your hands?” instead of “Have you washed your hands?” (from Palmer,
1974 quoted by Engel & Ritz, 2000). On the contrary, Australians tend to use the PP instead
of the SP (Engel & Ritz, 2000). Examples testifying to the changing nature and use of the PP
tense in the English language have been reported in colloquial speech but also in news
reports, in newspapers and magazines (Vanneck, 1958; Harris, 1984; Cotte, 1987; Souesme,
1990; Bauer, 1994; Trudgill & Hannah, 1994; Rastall, 1999; Engel & Ritz, 2000; Cox, 2005;
Furmaniak, 2006; Marshall, 1981; Sheen, 1984). The SP has been reported as an unstable
category in the history of many languages that was lost and reintroduced at various times
(Engel & Ritz, 2000; Tagliamonte, 1997). For example, in French, the PC has evolved
historically from a true Perfect to a general past tense encroaching on the territory of the past
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historic (Passé Simple). The past historic is still present in the language but is mainly
restricted to written texts. In earlier English, the PP was used where it would be avoided and
replaced by the SP today.
Contrastive analysis
The French and the English aspectual and temporal past forms are very different. As we can
observe in the following illustration, there is not a strict correlation between the different
tenses of the two languages.
ENGLISH
Simple Past
FRENCH
Past situations
with specific time
reference point
He went to England in 1708/1980
Present Perfect
Past Historic
Il alla en Angleterre en 1708
Past event with
current relevance
I have already been to England
Passé Composé
Il est allé en Angleterre en 1980
Je suis déjà allée en Angleterre
Present Perfect +
measure complement
I have been in England for 4
years
Actions which
started in the past
and are still
continuing
Present +
measure complement
Je suis en Angleterre depuis 4
ans
Figure 1 – Comparison of the French and the English aspectual and temporal past forms.
The English SP can be translated by both the French past historic and the French PC. As for
the English PP, it can be translated by a PP or a present.
Likewise, the reverse can also be difficult. If we go from French to English, as French second
language learners must do, the correlations between the two languages are complex. The PC
can correspond to both the SP and the PP whereas the past historic can only be translated by
the SP.
If we consider the comparison of the perfect in the two languages in more detail we notice
that the French PC and the English PP have a similar morphological pattern. Both verbal
forms consist in a compound form and involve the auxiliary ‘have’ followed by the past
participle of the verb to be conjugated. The two verbal forms share a common usage. In both
languages, the Perfect can be used to express events with current relevance. For example, both
the French and the English speaker will use the Perfect to inform somebody that at this
present time they do not have their keys (J’ai perdu mes clefs! versus I have lost my keys!).
However, in French, the PC can be used to refer to past completed situations and is often
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associated with adverbials or expressions which indicate a specific point or period in the past
(Hier, Tom a perdu ses clefs.). As for the English PP, it cannot be used to talk about a finished
event, if we say when it happened (*Yesterday Tom has lost his keys). Furthermore, unlike the
French PC the English PP only uses the auxiliary have. Despite sharing common patterns, the
English PP and the French PC are used very differently. The French PC covers two meanings
that English conveys through two different forms (‘has arrived’ and ‘arrived’).
Method
We used an experimental approach which aimed at observing the acquisition of SP and PP
written forms by French second language learners in a school setting. In particular, we
observed how the acquisition process depends on the form/function relation in the two
languages and the extent to which the French learners are conscious of the distinction of the
two values of the French PC, an awareness that can help them to avoid confusion between the
SP and the PP.
We explored the acquisition of the SP/PP distinction through different written tasks:
•
a free-text written task which aimed at observing general tendencies in the
spelling of the SP by French second language learners;
•
a translation task which aimed at testing precise hypotheses concerning the
relation between the form and function in the two languages;
•
a completion task which aimed at removing the bias introduced in the
translation study and playing down the possible influence of the French
language;
•
a task designed to observe the ability of the French subjects to distinguish the
two values of the French PC.
Exploratory study
Participants, materials and procedure
First, we carried out an exploratory study. This study aimed at observing French L2 learners’
spelling of the SP and identifying spelling mistakes. We tested 107 French subjects from
different school levels. We asked them to write freely about a past event (the Christmas
holidays) without specifying that they had to use the SP. The instructions were given in
French to avoid supplementary difficulties for subjects with a poor level of English. It should
be stressed that when you describe in French what you did during a specific period of time –
here your Christmas holidays - you usually use the French PC (a compound verbal form).
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Analyses
Initially, we analysed the correct verbal forms. We found that the subjects performed well on
forming the SP (68, 4%). We noticed that this success rate was higher for irregular verbs
(77.5%) than for regular verbs (68.8%) (Wilcoxon, p = 0.022).
Next, we classified the different errors.
ERRORS TYPE
NB
%
EXAMPLES
1. Usage 2: present or base
69
25
fear (feared)
2. Be conjugated
57
20
was eat (ate)
3. Usage 1: English compound tenses
54
19
was walking (walked)
4. Non predicative form
35
12
sleeping (slept)
5. Have conjugated
31
11
have see (saw)
6. Regularisation
18
6
taked (took)
7. Spelling modification
11
4
tryed (tried)
8. Irregularisation
9
3
toke (took)
284
100
Total
Table 1 – Major categories of errors.
From Table 1 we can see the major categories of errors we found in the narratives:
•
Types 1 and 3 consist of usage categories. These categories are made of compound
(type 3) or simple verbal (type 1) forms which exist in English i.e. are English tenses.
•
Type 2 “Be conjugated” and type 5 “Have conjugated” are made of compound verbal
forms which do not exist in English. We may suppose that they have their origin in the
confusion with English compound verbal forms (was eat = passive form) or in the
interference of French compound tenses.
•
Type 4 “Non predicative form” is made of simple forms which exist in English but
which cannot be used as a sentence predicate.
•
Type 6 “Regularisation” consists of the adjunction of the suffix -ed to irregular verbs.
4
•
Type 7 is made of spelling modification errors led by the adjunction of the suffix -ed:
the subjects do not respect the transformation of y into i if the base ends in y preceding
a consonant.
•
Type 8 “Irregularisation”: the SP form is built by analogy with an irregular verb.
We found that 142 out of 284 errors consist in producing a compound English form instead of
the expected SP. We hypothesized that French compound forms influence second language
learners in the choice of the English form. This hypothesis is confirmed by another tendency:
the massive use in English of the auxiliary corresponding to the French Perfect auxiliary
(69%) ‘he is get up’ referring to ‘il s’est levé’ (X2, p = 0.019). This difference is significant for
each school level except for the 3rd year of secondary school.
Translation task
Participants, materials and procedure
The first study was completed by a translation task. This task was based on the hypothesis that
French subjects model English SP verbal forms on French compound forms, particularly on
the PC. Thus, this study aimed at demonstrating that French subjects focus on the form of
French verbal forms and neglect the conditions of usage of the English SP. We tested 204
subjects from different school levels:
•
65 fifth year secondary school subjects;
•
60 sixth year secondary school subjects;
•
51 seventh year secondary school subjects;
•
28 second year university subjects.
The subjects were asked to translate the underlined French verbal forms into English by using
the English verbs in brackets:
En 1911, les rugbymen français jouèrent …………. (PLAY) leur premier tournoi des cinq nations.
En 1998, la France a joué …………. (PLAY) la coupe du monde contre le Brésil.
We collected 32 verbal forms per subject. Two kinds of verbal forms/tenses were used. Some
in the French past historic (jouèrent) and some in the French PC (a joué). It should be stressed
that the PC forms used in this study all had temporal values. So in both cases, the English
expected tense was the SP. We tested two kinds of English verbs: regular versus irregular
verbs. We also took into account another variable which is the frequency of the verbs. We
based our typology on the study led by Rumelhart and McClelland in 1987. The different
verbs used in the translation study are presented in Table 2.
The 16 verbal forms were equally distributed between the 4 categories: regular, irregular,
frequent and rare verbs.
5
REGULAR VERBS
Rare Verbs
Frequent Verbs
Base
SP Forms
Translation
IRREGULAR VERBS
Base
SP Forms
Translation
Play
Played
Jouer
Go
Went
Aller
Start
Started
Commencer
Give
Gave
Donner
Walk
Walked
Marcher
Make
Made
Faire
Love
Loved
Aimer
Have
Had
Avoir
Mail
Mailed
Envoyer une lettre
Bid
Bade/Bid
Offrir un prix
Hug
Hugged
Serrer dans ses bras
Creep
Crept
Grimper
Guard
Guarded
Surveiller
Breed
Bred
Elever
Carp
Carped
Maugréer
Dig
Dug
Creuser
Table 2 - Verbs used in the translation task.
Analyses
Initially, we analyzed the correct verbal forms. We found that the subjects performed better
when they had to translate French past historic verbal forms (jouèrent) than when they had to
translate French PC verbal forms (a joué) (f(1-200) = 87.549, p< 0.01). This difference is
significant for each school level (fifth year of secondary school: (f(1-64) = 32.786, p < 0.001),
sixth year of secondary school: (f(1-59) = 41.656, p < 0.001) and seventh year of secondary
school: (f(1-50) = 88.872, p < 0.001) except for the 2nd year of university: (f(1-27) = 3.156
p= 0.087)).
Figure 2- Success rate according to tense of the French verbs.
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Next, we investigated translations by a compound form. We found that the subjects produced
more compound forms when they had to translate a compound verbal form (PC) than when
they had to translate a simple verbal form (past historic) (f(1-200) = 124.461, p<0.001).
Figure 3- Translations using a compound form based on the tense of the French verbs.
When the French verb is in the PC, 7.70 forms out of a maximum of 16 are translated by
compound forms. When the French verb is in the past historic, the score is 2.05. This
difference is significant for each school level (fifth year of secondary school: (f(1-64) =
27.725, p 0.001); sixth year of secondary school: (f(1-59) = 16.148, p 0.001); seventh year
of secondary school: (f(1-50) = 38.417, p 0.001) except for the 2nd year of university: (f(127) = 324.584, p 0.001).
We then explored whether the regularity, frequency and tense of the French verbs influenced
translations by a compound form. Table 3 illustrates the mean score of the translation by a
compound form in English according to these three parameters. From Table 3 we can see that
the subjects produced more compound forms when they had to translate a compound verbal
form whatever the frequency and the regularity of the verb (frequents regular, f(1-203) =
116.924, p < 0.001; rare regular, f(1-203) =129.918, p < 0.001; frequent irregular, f(1-203) =
139.706, p < 0.001; rare irregular f(1-203) = 121.297, p < 0.001)).
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REGULAR VERBS
(max = 4)
FREQUENT
RARE
IRREGULAR VERBS
Perfect
Past Historic
Perfect
Past Historic
( C)
(S)
( C)
(S)
2.02
0.60
1.77
0.42
(1.544)
(1.058)
(1.551)
(0.919)
1.98
0.51
1.93
0.53
(1.644)
(1.029)
(1.599)
(1.062)
Table 3 - Translations using a compound form according to three parameters: the regularity, frequency and
tense of the French verbs. Mean and standard deviation in brackets.
These results support our hypothesis: the French subjects model English SP verbal forms on
French compound forms, particularly on the PC and neglect the conditions of usage of the
English SP.
Completion task
Participants, materials and procedure
Then we carried out a completion task. This task aimed at removing the bias introduced in the
translation studies and playing down the possible influence of the French language. We
wanted to check if the transfer of the compound verbal forms remains stable when the learners
do not rely on the French verbal forms to translate into English.
We tested 58 French subjects from different school levels:
•
28 subjects attending fifth year of secondary school;
•
30 subjects attending sixth year of secondary school.
The subjects were asked to fill in the blanks to make complete sentences. The English verb
was given in brackets:
I…………. (MAKE) a chocolate cake yesterday.
What a mess! She …………. (MAKE) a cake! There’s chocolate all over the place.
We collected 16 verbal forms per subject. These 16 verbal forms were equally distributed
between regular and irregular verbs. Two kinds of verbal forms were expected: SP and PP.
The different verbs used in the completion task are presented in Table 4.
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Regular Verbs
Irregular Verbs
Base
SP form
Translation
Play
Played
Jouer
Start
Started
Commencer
Walk
Walked
Marcher
Love
Loved
Aimer
Go
Went
Aller
Give
Gave
Donner
Make
Made
Faire
Get
Got
Obtenir
Tableau 4 – Verbs used in the completion and translation tasks.
We compared the results of this study with the results of a translation study led among a
different sample. The comparison of the two studies aimed at observing whether similar error
patterns would arise.
In the translation study, we tested 125 subjects from different school levels:
•
65 fiftht year secondary school subjects
•
60 sixth year secondary school subjects
One verbal form was used: the French PC. Half sentences included PC forms with a past
temporal value such as in En 1998 la France a joué (PLAY) la coupe du monde de foot contre
le Brésil. In this case, the English expected tense is the SP. The other half of the sentences
included PC forms with a current relevance value such as in Le groupe a déjà joué (PLAY) ce
morceau de musique. Here, the expected English tense is the PP.
Analyses
Initially, we analyzed the correct verbal forms. We found a higher success rate in the
completion task than in the translation task. Then we analyzed the learners’ errors in both
studies. The error analysis shows a similar error pattern for both studies. For each study, the
majority of errors come from the confusion between the SP and the PP. For both studies, the
‘have conjugated + verb’ error is very common as it is the second-most frequent error.
However, despite showing a similar error pattern, these errors do not represent the same
percentage in each study as we can see from Tables 5 and 6.
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Type of Errors
Completion
Translation
Present Perfect
30
29
Have conjugated
16
27
Table 4 – Error comparison in the two studies when the SP is expected.
Type of Errors
Completion
Translation
Simple Past
43
36
Have conjugated
16
26
Table 5 – Error comparison in the two studies when the PP is expected.
Next, we did a replacement analysis comparing errors using a replacement by a compound
form with errors using a replacement by a simple form. For each task we grouped together the
errors.
Task
Replacement by a simple form
Replacement by a compound
form
3.77
3.36
(23.56)
(21)
2.78
6.33
(17.37)
(39.56)
Completion
Translation
Table 6 - Translation and completion tasks: errors of replacement by a simple form or a compound form.
From Table 7, we can see that, for the completion task, neither replacement is used more
frequently than the other: the replacement by a simple form seems to occur as often as the
replacement by a compound form. Unlike the completion task, in the translation task the
replacement by a compound form is more frequent than the replacement by a simple form.
The main aim of this study was to test the following hypothesis: without the written verbal
form before their eyes, the influence of the French verbal forms weakens. This hypothesis is
supported by two main results.
First, we noted a higher success rate in the completion task than in the translation task. This
result shows that without the French written verbal forms before their eyes, the learners are
less influenced by the French PC verbal forms and produce fewer errors. Secondly, we
noticed less frequent replacement by compound forms in the completion task which suggests
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a weaker influence of the French compound verbal forms. We also noticed that when we
weaken the transfer effect, another tendency appears which consists of a better success rate
for simple forms and a greater production of such forms.
The observation of the different errors sheds light on two opposite tendencies in correlation
with the tasks undertaken. The learners produce compound verbal forms (have play) when
they have to do free-text narratives or translation. These tasks seem to induce them to transfer
the use of the French past forms into English. The learners use the morphological distinction
between compound and simple forms as a unique reference point. On the contrary, when the
learners are faced with a completion task, they tend to produce simple verbal forms (play).
The French PC task
Participants, materials and procedure
An investigation of the learners’ capacity to distinguish the two values of the PC suggests that
these difficulties might be resolved by the teaching of these two values during the French
course. Indeed, we carried out a task which aimed at observing if French learners were able to
distinguish the two values of the French PC when a simple explanation was given to them.
The study’s participants consisted of 59 French subjects:
•
29 subjects of fifth year of secondary school;
•
30 subjects of sixth year of secondary school.
This task consisted of 12 sentences including French PC verbal forms. Six sentences with
French PC forms with temporal values Je suis allée au cinéma hier and the others included
French PC forms with current relevance values Tiens! Il a neigé!
The subjects were given a sheet of paper on which the two values of the French PC were
described:
We can use the French PC for two reasons:
1. To date an event in the past;
2. To summarise the situation at a given moment/To present the consequences and
results of a past event.
The subjects were asked for each sentence to tick the appropriate value as in the following
example:
Je suis allée au cinéma hier.
1
2
 Je ne sais pas
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Analyses
As we can see from Table 8, 92.7% of the students ticked the correct answer and 4.8% didn’t
tick the correct answer. 2.6 % of the students ticked the answer “I don’t know”.
Correct
Total
I don’t know
Wrong
Percentage
Percentage
Percentage
max = 12
max = 12
max = 12
11.12
0.58
0.31
(1.521)
92.7
(0.914)
4.8
(1.149)
2.6
Table 7- The French PC task: number and percentage of correct, wrong and “I don’t know” answers. Mean and
standard deviation in brackets.
Discussion
In conclusion, we suggest that French learners do not grasp precisely the different values of
the English SP and PP as they do not correspond to the values of French tenses. As a result,
they tend to look for clues to select the right tense. To do so, they base their judgment on the
morphological distinction between simple and compound forms which is very stable and
reliable in the French verbal system. This leads them to transfer the morphological properties
of French compound forms to the production of English forms.
The fact that they model English verbal forms on French verbal forms from the fourth year of
secondary school suggests that it is not a simple mechanical transfer. This search for clues
may be the result of thinking about the way English grammatical tenses work.
The L1 influence may be arbitrated by the skills in L2 verbal morphology. We may
hypothesize that the transfer will work only when the learners thoroughly master the use of
the SP and the PP.
If the same learners do not have the French written verbal form in front of them, they will
then look for other clues to select the correct verbal form. In this precise case, the influence of
French compound forms is weaker and other tendencies appear such as that of producing
simple verbal forms.
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