On steady-state interlanguage grammars of Korean English learners: Focused on tense-agreement elements

Abstract

This paper focuses on the ultimate, steady state of L1 Korean L2 English grammars, specifically on whether stabilization can occur in the tense-agreement system. The researcher interviewed 20 participants who had lived five or more years in an English-speaking country and obtained the following results: With some subjects, first, stabilization seems to have occurred with modal and perfect auxiliaries and in subject-verb agreement involving lexical verbs. Secondly, most cases of incorrect tense marking are seemingly attributable to the L1 Korean influence with its relative tense marking. The paper then suggests that stabilization may occur as a result of unnoticed overgeneralization, syntactic complexity, and parametric difference.