L2 acquisition of an aspect parameter

The article studies a contrast in the aspectual marking of telicity in English and Slavic languages (most examples are from Bulgarian). A solution based on a syntactic decomposition of eventive verbs into a causal subevent and a resultative state subevent is proposed. A template approach to aspectual composition is outlined. The differences in English and Slavic aspectual usage are argued to be due to the null versus overt character of the telic morpheme and its phrase structure position. An experimental study, based on this parametric difference, and investigating the competence of Slavic native speakers acquiring English is presented. Results are interpreted in the light of current theories of second language learners' access to Universal grammar