Abstract
Research in language acquisition has revealed a relationship between verb morphology (gramatical aspect) and lexical aspect (telicity, duration). Lexical aspect has been found to influence the selection of verb endings (Andersen, 1991; Bardovi-Harlig and Reynolds, 1995; Robison, 1995; Salaberry, 1998), which has been called the Aspect Hypothesis. This article presents the results of a study that analyzed the selection of past tense aspectual markers in a narration in English. The objective of the study was to observe the development in the use of grammatical aspect marked by verb morphology and its relationship with lexical aspect in the context of second language classroom instruction. University students of English at different levels who had Spanish as their native language were the participants in the study. Native speakers of English also participated, in order to compare the results. In general, the results support the Aspect Hypothesis.
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