Cross-linguistic transfer between aspect in Cantonese and past tense in English in Cantonese-English bilingual preschool children

Purpose: This study addresses the question of whether sequential bilingual children's past tense marking development in their second language (L2) is affected by their knowledge of temporal marking in their first language (L1). We investigated whether Cantonese-English sequential bilingual children's knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese (L1), along with external and internal factors, predicts their past tense marking in English (L2). Method: We examined 39 pre-school children's production of perfective aspect markers in Cantonese and regular and irregular past tense morphemes in English using a story-retell task administered in both languages. Result: The results showed that children produced significantly more irregular past tense verbs than regular past tense verbs in English. Their English irregular past tense use, but not regular past tense use, was predicted by their knowledge of aspect markers in Cantonese. Conclusion: Findings suggest that semantic transfer between Cantonese and English might contribute to the early stages of acquiring English past tense marking. Clinically, the results could potentially lead to more informed assessment procedures and better diagnostic decision making for bilingual children.