Tense aspect in verbal morphology

Several studies have analyzed the development of verbal morphology in second language acquisition with reference to lexical aspectual clauses. For instance, Andersen (1986, 199 1) argues that the use of inflectional endings in past-tense Spanish (i.e., Preterit and Imperfect) will be associated with the lexical aspectual value of the verb phrase. Alternatively, learners may initially rely on a default marker of past tense (e.g., Preterit). In the present study I analyzed the development of past tense verbal morphology in L2 acquisition among L1 English speakers (105 college students) divided into three levels of proficiency. The analysis was based on two multiple-choice tasks utilizing two different texts of similar lengths. The analysis shows that learners may use a default marker of past tense (preterit or imperfect) during the beginning stages of development of verbal morphology, but the choice of the default option may be dependent on the type of text (personal or fictional).