Abstract :
Cross-linguistic research on the development of tense-aspect marking has revealed a strong effect of
lexical aspect. But the degree of this effect varies across languages. Explanation for this universal tendency
and language-specific variation is still an open issue. This study investigates the early emergence
and subsequent development of four grammatical aspect markers in Mandarin, -le (perfective), zai
(progressive), -zhe (durative), and -guo (experiential), in the longitudinal speech data of four children
acquiring Mandarin Chinese. It was found that the emergence of grammatical aspect marking generally
follows the predictions of the aspect hypothesis, perfective -le predominantly appearing with telic
verbs, whereas progressive zai is almost exclusively used with activity verbs. However, the typological
features of Mandarin also affect the early uses of -le, which is used with stative predicates more
frequently than predicted, and the input patterns play an important role in children’s aspect marking.
The results support a usage-based learning process in accord with a language-specific system of
aspectual semantics, rather than a strong universal association of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect.
