Progressive aspect across temporalities: variation between synthetic and analytic forms in L1 and L2 Spanish

Abstract Tense-mood-aspect mappings and the variable morphosyntactic structures that express them are a key aspect of language development. For instance, progressive aspect expression in Spanish might present a learnability problem because the language alternates synthetic and analytic forms to encode progressiveness (e.g., como vs. estoy comiendo ‘I am eating’). To date, however, acquisition studies have focused on present temporalities, rather than past or future contrasts. We examine the frequency of selection of these variants and the linguistic factors that significantly condition selection across course levels. For this purpose, four groups of college-level learners ( N = 117) and one L1 Spanish group ( N = 21) completed a 30-item written preference task. The dependent variable was form selection (synthetic, analytic, or that both were equally possible). The independent variables considered were the dynamicity of the predicate, the presence of a co-occurring adverb, temporality, and verb lexeme frequency. Results showed stable rates of selection across groups, with each selecting synthetic forms in over 50% of contexts. Within-group mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that lexical frequency and temporality, in addition to dynamicity, were relevant predictors of preference, as learners moved from making no distinction between forms to systematic patterns of selection as course level increased.