Cover -- Table of Contents 5 -- Chapter 1 Introduction: Knowledge, Classroom Input and Performance in the Development of Second Languages 9 -- 1.1 Overview 9 -- 1.2 What Constitutes Second Language Acquisition 11 -- 1.2.1 Effects of Classroom Input in the Development o fInterlanguage Grammars 11 -- 1.2.2 Hypotheses about the role of the L1 18 -- 1.2.3 Knowledge and performance 22 -- 1.3 Summary 27 -- 1.4 Organization of the Book 27 -- Chapter 2 Linguistic Assumptions 29 -- 2.1 Introduction 29 -- 2.2 What is Be? 29 -- 2.2.1 Copula Be in English 29 -- 2.2.2 Progressive be 32 -- 2.3 The syntax of be 35 -- 2.4 The Cantonese equivalent of be: haih 41 -- 2.4.1 How progressive be is expressed in Cantonese 41 -- 2.4.2 Syntactic Distribution of haih 42 -- 2.4.3 Functions of haih 45 -- 2.4.4 The underlying syntactic structure of constructions involving haih 50 -- 2.5 Comparison of English be and Cantonese haih 53 -- Chapter 3 Literature Review 57 -- 3.1 Introduction 57 -- 3.2 Summary of L2 morpheme studies 57 -- 3.3 Acquisition problems posed by be 65 -- 3.3.1 Possible Accounts for the Omission problem 69 -- 3.4 Research Questions 78 -- Chapter 4 Methodology 81 -- 4.1 Experiment 81 -- 4.2 Subjects 81 -- 4.3 Procedures 83 -- 4.4 Rationale for the Tasks 83 -- 4.4.1 The Grammaticality Judgment Task 84 -- 4.4.2 Story Writing Task 87 -- 4.4.3 Acceptability Judgment Task 88 -- 4.5 Scoring Method 89 -- 4.5.1 Grammaticality Judgment Task 89 -- 4.5.2 Storytelling Task 90 -- 4.5.3 Acceptability Judgment Task 92 -- Chapter 5 Results 97 -- 5.1 Introduction 97 -- 5.2 Grammaticality Judgment Task 97 -- 5.2.1 Counterparts of be in Cantonese 98 -- 5.2.2 Non-counterparts of be in Cantonese 101 -- 5.2.3 Optionality of be in Predication (temporary and permanent) in Cantonese 105.

5.2.4 Two Common problems reported in the literature: Overgeneralization of be and Substitution 108 -- 5.2.5 Inflection (IP) of the subjects 113 -- 5.3 Production Task (storywriting) 115 -- 5.3.1 Beginner Group 119 -- 5.3.2 Elementary Group 121 -- 5.3.3 Lower Intermediate Group 122 -- 5.3.4 Upper Intermediate Group 123 -- 5.3.5 Advanced Group 124 -- 5.3.6 Very advanced Group 124 -- 5.4 Acceptability Judgment Task 125 -- 5.4.1 Acceptable Habitual 125 -- 5.4.2 Unacceptable Progressive 128 -- 5.4.3 Acceptable Progressive 129 -- 5.4.4 Unacceptable Habitual 131 -- Chapter 6 Discussion and Conclusion 133 -- 6.1 Introduction 133 -- 6.2 The role of the L1 in the acquisition of be 133 -- 6.2.1 The role of the L1 in different initial state hypotheses 133 -- 6.2.2 Consistency of the findings with these theories 134 -- 6.2.3 Implications for the initial state hypotheses 146 -- 6.3 Knowledge and Performance 148 -- 6.3.1 Differences between Cantonese L2 learner English and native English with respect to tense: the production task 149 -- 6.3.2 Discrepancy between production data and knowledge data 150 -- 6.4 Pedagogical Implications 151 -- 6.4.1 Quantity of Instruction versus Proficiency Levels 152 -- 6.4.2 Possible Role of Instruction 155 -- 6.4.3 Conclusion on pedagogical implications of the findings 163 -- 6.5 A follow-up study 164 -- 6.5.1 How simple past tense is being taught in primary classrooms in HK 165 -- 6.5.2 Strategies used by teachers in teaching simple past tense 166 -- 6.5.3 Teaching approaches 166 -- 6.5.4 Teachers' perceptions about students' problems in acquiring simple past tense 167 -- 6.5.5 Teachers' perceptions about students' problems in using simple past tense 167 -- 6.5.6 Teachers' suggestions of teaching simple past tense 167 -- 6.5.7 Conclusion of findings 168 -- 6.6 Conclusion 169 -- 6.6.1 Role of the L1 and the initial state 169.

6.6.2 Knowledge and Performance 170 -- 6.6.3 Pedagogical Implications 170 -- 6.6.4 Suggestions for further studies 171 -- Appendix A: Description of the subjects 173 -- Appendix B: Subjects' Version of the English test 175 -- Appendix C: Researcher's Version of the English test 191 -- Appendix D: Original Story: The Woman who Tricked Death 207 -- Appendix E: Sentences produced by Cantonese ESL learners in Task 2 219 -- Appendix F: Different property types used by the Cantonese ESL learners in Task 2 365 -- Appendix G: Different property types (and the frequency) used by each proficiency group in Task 2 367 -- Appendix H: Target-like forms and non-target-like forms for different property types (all subjects) produced in Task 2 (0: not, 1: yes) 371 -- Appendix I: Target-like forms and non-target-like forms for different property types produced by each proficiency level in Task 2 (0: not, 1: yes) 381 -- Appendix J: Processing operations involved in the acquisition of grammatical rules 387 -- Appendix K: Romanization Systems: Yale, IPA and LSHK 389 -- Appendix L: Questionnaire of the follow-up study 393 -- References 413.