The Aspect Hypothesis Revisited: A Cross-Sectional Study of Tense and Aspect Marking in Interlanguage1

This paper examines the aspect hypothesis, which asserts that verb inflections in early interlanguage systems function primarily as markers of lexical aspect independent of the target language It clarifies how developing inflections, particularly tense markers, align with aspect categories and how this association varies across proficiency level The study analyzed English interviews with twenty-six Puerto Rican college students grouped into four proficiency levels Nine operational tests were applied to 3,649 predicates to assess three dimensions of lexical aspect, which interact to form six aspectual categories Chi-square tests indicate significant interdependence of morphology and aspect at each proficiency level, Ss link, -s with states, -ing with activities, and PAST with punctual events, the latter spreading to all punctual or telic predicates among the highest-level learners The association of inflections with tense increases with proficiency level, lower-level Ss associate -s and PAST primarily with lexical aspect, higher-level Ss Primarily with tense