The following utterances were produced by a second language learner at the early stages of learning English. All of the sentences were gathered from spontaneous utterances. The most likely intention of these utterances is provided in parentheses, when the intention of her utterance is not obvious from the forms produced. As you see, the learner has two forms to express progressive meaning: the Verb + -ing form (e.g., eating and the simple form of the verb.
What hypotheses does the leaner have regarding progressive sentences?When does she use the Verb + – in g form? When does she use the simple verb form of the verb? State the hypotheses that can explain all or most of the utterances below.
Can the hypotheses/hypothesis in (i) explain all of the utterances below? If not, how do you account for the utterance(s)that the hypotheses/hypothesis cannot explain?
