Variable future-time reference in French: A comparison of learners in a study-abroad and a foreign-language context

Keywords: L2 variation, future-time reference, French, learning context, L2 development

This study seeks to advance understanding of second-language (L2) acquisition of future-time reference in French, by comparing the developmental trajectories of learners living in and away from the target-language setting. Study abroad learners in France (n = 45), foreign-language learners living in the U.S. (n = 37), and native speakers of Hexagonal French (n = 30) participated in this study. They completed a written-contextualized task, a language-proficiency test and a background questionnaire. For each written-contextualized-task item, participants selected from among three responses that differed with respect to the form (inflectional future, periphrastic future, present). Items were designed to test for the influence of three factors on the form selected: presence/absence of a lexical temporal indicator, temporal distance, and (un)certainty.

Additionally, two extra-linguistic factors were examined: learning context and proficiency level.

The analyses of frequency and the multinomial logistic regressions suggest that, despite developmental similarities between learning contexts, acquisitional paths of study-abroad and foreign-language learners were not identical.

Résumé

Cette étude cherche à faire avancer notre compréhension de l'acquisition de la référence temporelle au futur en français langue seconde, en comparant les trajectoires développementales d'apprenants vivant ou non dans le milieu de la langue-cible. Des apprenants participant à un séjour en France (n = 45), d'autres vivant aux États-Unis (n = 37) et des locuteurs natifs du français hexagonal (n = 30) ont participé à la présente étude. Ils ont réalisé une tâche d'écriture contextualisée, un test de compétence linguistique et un questionnaire de profil linguistique. Pour chaque item d'écriture contextualisée, les participants devaient choisir parmi trois réponses de forme différente (futur fléchi, futur périphrastique, présent). Les items étaient conçus pour tester l'influence de trois facteurs sur la forme choisie : la présence ou l'absence d'un indicateur temporel lexical, la distance temporelle et la certitude. Nous avons également examiné deux facteurs extralinguistiques : le contexte d'apprentissage et le niveau de compétence. Les analyses de fréquence et de régression multinomiale logistique suggèrent qu'en dépit de développements similaires entre les contextes d'apprentissage, la trajectoire acquisitionnelle des apprenants participant à un échange linguistique et celle des apprenants en contexte américain ne sont pas identiques.

Mot-clés: variation en langue seconde, référence temporelle au futur, français, contexte d'apprentissage, développement en langue seconde

Background

In this section we examine previous research pertaining to FTR in French and the acquisition of variable structures by non-native speakers (NNSs).

Expression of FTR in French

When looking to express a future event, the speaker of French has a (conscious or unconscious) choice to make, as a variety of morphological means can be used to make reference to future time. Not only does French have two forms that are morphologically marked for the future-the inflectional future (IF) and the periphrastic future (PF)-but other forms, such as the present indicative, the present subjunctive, and the conditional, can be found in FTR contexts (see [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF]. Previous research in both Canada [START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF] and in France [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF]) has indicated that the three forms used most frequently in reference to future time are the IF, the PF, and the present. 1 Examples of each, taken from the NS data in Gudmestad et al.,are provided in (1):

(1) a. IF ya Benoît et Pascal qui seront là aussi (F7, 37) 'there's Benoît and Pascal who will be there too' b. PF la piscine va être gelée (F4, 6) 'the pool is going to be frozen over' c. present il est à la retraite quand ? (F9, 46) 'he is retired when ?'

The existence of several verbal forms used in FTR contexts did not escape the notice of grammarians of French, who, as shown by [START_REF] Poplack | Prescription vs. praxis: The evolution of future temporal reference in French[END_REF], have in general gone to great lengths in order to attribute a single function to each of the three forms presented in (1).

However, as clearly shown by these authors, the result of this pursuit was a large number of different propositions, without a clear consensus. In their review of 163 grammars published between the 16 th and the 20 th centuries, Poplack and Dion found that grammarians associated no fewer than 20 different functions with the IF, 19 with the PF, and 14 with the present. Their analysis revealed that not only were forms sometimes attributed contradictory functions, but certain functions were attributed to two or even to all three forms. For instance, IF, PF, and present have all been attributed the function of expressing both future events expected to occur in the near future (proximal events), as well as those that will occur in a distant future (distal events) (p. 566). Most problematic for such accounts is the fact that more recent corpus-based research has not supported any of these one-to-one form-function propositions (see Poplack and Dion).

A more recent and nuanced approach to understanding the job-sharing among the different verbal forms in the expression of FTR comes out of variationist approaches to linguistics. Such approaches use statistical analyses that allow researchers to model the influence of multiple (linguistic and/or extralinguistic) factors on the selection of a given variable structure. Such an approach, which will be adopted in the current paper, has proven fruitful for the analysis of future-time expression in French (see [START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF], as well as in other Romance languages (e.g., [START_REF] Gudmestad | Second-language development of variable future-time expression in Spanish[END_REF].

Existing analyses have investigated the modulating influence of a wide range of factors on the expression of future time in French (e.g., [START_REF] Poplack | Prescription vs. praxis: The evolution of future temporal reference in French[END_REF][START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF][START_REF] Roberts | Future temporal reference in Hexagonal French[END_REF], including, but not limited to, sentential negation, temporal distance, the certainty that the future event will occur, and the presence of a temporal adverbial. Each of these factors is hypothesized to influence verb-form choice in future-time contexts. For the PF, it is thought that because this form is anchored in the present (insofar as aller 'to go' is conjugated in the present), it will not be particularly compatible with the hypothetical states evoked by sentential negation, with events that are set to occur in the distant future, or with events that are uncertain to occur. The IF, on the other hand, shows a break from the present, making it particularly congruent with the expression of hypothetical (e.g., negative), distal, and uncertain events. The final linguistic factor that we mention is the presence of a lexical temporal indicator (LTI). LTIs include adverbs such as demain 'tomorrow' or adverbial expressions (à l'avenir 'in the future') and clearly anchor the temporal reference of the discourse as being in the future.

Prescriptive and pedagogical grammars alike often state that the presence of an LTI is a prerequisite to the ability to use the present in future-time contexts (Poplack and Dion 2009: 565).

Variationist approaches have been applied to the study of FTR in several varieties of French. Overall, this body of research reveals a number of general patterns. On the one hand, most varieties of French (be they Canadian,2 Hexagonal, or Martinican) for which we have data show that PF is the preferred verb form for future-time expression, a preference that is particularly strong in Laurentian varieties (for Laurentian varities, see [START_REF] Emirkanian | Le futur simple et le futur périphrastique[END_REF], [START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF], [START_REF] Blondeau | La trajectoire de l'emploi du futur chez une cohorte de Montréalais francophones entre 1971 et 1995[END_REF], and [START_REF] Grimm | The future of Ontario French[END_REF]; for Hexagonal varieties, see [START_REF] Roberts | Future temporal reference in Hexagonal French[END_REF][START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF]; for Martinique, see Roberts (2013, this issue)). In terms of linguistic factors influencing verb-form selection, the strongest overall trends divide varieties of French into two groups: varieties for which sentential negation is the strongest factor, with the presence of negation strongly favoring the IF [START_REF] Blondeau | La trajectoire de l'emploi du futur chez une cohorte de Montréalais francophones entre 1971 et 1995[END_REF][START_REF] Deshaies | Le futur simple et le futur proche dans le français parlé dans la ville de Québec[END_REF][START_REF] Grimm | The future of Ontario French[END_REF][START_REF] Poplack | Prescription vs. praxis: The evolution of future temporal reference in French[END_REF][START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF], and varieties for which temporal distance is the strongest predictor, with the PF being preferred in proximal contexts [START_REF] Comeau | A window on the past, a toward the future: Sociolinguistic and formal perspectives on variation in Acadian French[END_REF][START_REF] King | Back to the future in Acadian French[END_REF], Roberts, 2013, Villeneuve and Comeau, this issue). Moreover, these two trends appear to correspond to geographical differences, with Laurentian varieties of French belonging to the first trend and Acadian and Martinican varieties belonging to the second. For the moment, the jury still appears to be out with respect to Hexagonal French, with [START_REF] Roberts | Future temporal reference in Hexagonal French[END_REF] reporting results that show Hexagonal French to be in line with Laurentian varieties, whereas [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF], [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF], and Villeneuve and Comeau (this issue) suggest that Hexagonal French may resemble Acadian and Martinican French more closely.

Acquisition of Variable Structures by NNSs

At its beginnings, the field of SLA was particularly concerned with the analysis of errors, either searching to explain them with reference to the learner's first language (L1), or comparing errors to the target language being learned. In both cases, variation in language was not part of the discussion, and acquisition was generally regarded as the process of learning categorical rules.

This is, of course, an overly simplified way of looking at (the learning of) human language, and more recent research recognizes that " [v]ariation in the native speech community is a feature of what the learner must grasp" (Regan 1998: 62). That said, the acquisition of variable structures poses particular learning challenges for the L2 learner. In order to successfully "grasp" variation, the learner must not only learn how often different variants are used (e.g., PF > IF, for the expression of future-time in Hexagonal French), but they must also develop sensitivity to the factors that influence the odds of choosing one form over another (e.g., temporal distance). Such aspects are rarely -if ever -taught, so learners must attend to and make use of the input they receive in order to acquire variable structures [START_REF] Geeslin | Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition: Learning to use language in context[END_REF]. In what follows, we will first examine the existing studies into the acquisition of variable FTR in French, before expanding our discussion to studies that have investigated the factor of learning context in the acquisition of variable structures.

1.2.1 Variable FTR in L2 French. Variationist investigations into FTR in L2 French have examined learners enrolled in an intensive French language course at a university in France [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF], Canadian high school students in a French immersion program in Ontario [START_REF] Nadasdi | Emploi du 'futur' dans le français parlé des élèves d'immersion française[END_REF], adult Anglophones having settled in France, who were not instructed learners at the time of data collection [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF], and Irish university students studying either in Ireland or having spent a year in France [START_REF] Howard | From tense and aspect to modality: The acquisition of future, conditional and subjunctive morphology in L2 French. A preliminary study[END_REF]. The first study employed a written contextualized task (WCT, see section 2.1.2 for details on data collection) in order to examine how the factors of temporal distance, (un)certainty, and LTI influence learners of French in an SA context at four levels of proficiency in their selection of verb-forms for the expression of future time. Learners came from a variety of L1 backgrounds and were all enrolled in either a language center or a degree program at a university in Southwestern France. Results showed that, like the NSs, verb-form selection was influenced by the factors of temporal distance and (un)certainty for all groups of learners, and that the greatest differences between the NSs and the learner groups concerns the selection of the present for future-time expression.

The final three studies were all based on oral corpora. Rates of use showed that the immersion students and the adult migrants clearly used more PF than IF. However, the Irish university students, regardless of whether they had studied abroad, used the IF more than the PF.

In terms of factors influencing verb-form selection, once again a similarity was apparent between the immersion students and the adult Anglophones living in France: for instance, in both cases, the presence of an LTI influenced the verbal form used to express FTR. In addition, [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF] reported that their adult Anglophones appeared to be sensitive to the factors of temporal distance and (un)certainty. These results, in which we see the two sets of learners with presumably the most exposure to input showing similarities in certain behaviors, suggest that learning context may play an important role in the acquisition of variable structures. This point will be explored in the following section.

1.2.2 Learning context and SLA. The importance of learning context in the acquisition of an L2 has been lost on neither laypeople (who may advocate SA as the only real way to learn a language), nor researchers. It seems clear that learners studying in an at-home FL context will have different opportunities for language contact and use than their peers who spend all or part of their language learning time in an SA context. More specifically, whereas both FL and SA learners may engage in language classes, SA learners should have the opportunity to use the language in authentic communicative contexts. Such contexts arise both inside the classroom (as the learners in SA programs generally do not share the same L1) and outside the classroom (in service encounters, interactions with host families, with NS friends, etc.). It stands to reason that this increase in input and in interaction may lead to greater learning gains (see [START_REF] Tarone | Social context and cognition in SLA: A variationist perspective[END_REF], for a discussion of the role such differences in social context may play in L2 acquisition), and since the 1990s, numerous studies have attempted to determine the impact of this experience on learner outcomes (e.g., Freed 1995). Research has examined gains with respect to a wide array of abilities, including grammar, lexicon, fluency, pragmatics, and sociolinguistic competence (see [START_REF] Collentine | Learning context and its effects on second language acquisition[END_REF]).

On the whole, this body of research can be divided on the basis of the abilities examined:

grammar and morphosyntax, on the one hand, and fluency, lexicon, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics, on the other. Lafford and Collentine (2006: 107) summarized the results with respect to grammatical development after an SA experience in the following manner: "the appreciable development of general grammatical abilities and morphosyntax is not robust, at least within the timeframe of a semester to a year abroad." Results for other abilities examined have shown the opposite pattern, with most available evidence pointing to the fact that an SA experience, as compared to a comparable at-home group, can lead to gains in fluency (Freed et al. 2004), lexical growth [START_REF] Milton | How periods abroad affect vocabulary growth in a foreign language[END_REF], pragmatic competence [START_REF] Charkova | Second-and foreign-language variation in tense backshifting in indirect reported speech[END_REF], and sociolinguistic competence [START_REF] Geeslin | Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition: Learning to use language in context[END_REF]. Many of the studies into the influence of learning context on sociolinguistic competence have concerned the acquisition of variable structures, and it is to these studies that we now turn.

Learning context and variable structures.

Several studies have concentrated on the acquisition of Spanish (e.g., [START_REF] Kanwit | Acquiring variation in future-time expression abroad in Valencia, Spain and Mérida, Mexico[END_REF]Solon 2013, Whatley 2013) or French (e.g., Howard 2012), with overall results suggesting that "learners do exhibit sensitivity to local norms during a stay abroad and, over time, are able to incorporate those norms into their own developing grammars" (Geeslin and Long 2014: 210). That said, Geeslin and Long also suggest that there may be an important link between proficiency and improvement in sociolinguistic competence while abroad: "research on second language variation in general suggests that sociolinguistic competence is acquired only after a certain level of proficiency has been achieved" (p. 217).

Howard (2012) and [START_REF] Kanwit | Acquiring variation in future-time expression abroad in Valencia, Spain and Mérida, Mexico[END_REF] examined the acquisition of variable FTR in an SA setting in French and Spanish, respectively. Howard administered a sociolinguistic interview to three groups of university learners, one of whom had spent a year in France.

Altogether, he identified 116 tokens of FTR, which were analyzed as a function of verbal form used (IF, PF or present). Results show that the group who had spent time abroad used the PF more than the other groups (31% of tokens), although the IF remained the most frequent form for this group. He suggests that the time abroad may have helped learners reduce their use of the IF and that, furthermore, "it may be that those learners […] in a naturalistic environment are simply more sensitive to use of the informal variant, compared to their counterparts in the foreign language classroom." (p. 217). Kanwit and Solon investigated two groups of NNSs, one studying in Valencia, Spain, the other in Mérida, Mexico. In this study, development across the period of a seven-week intensive SA course was examined (i.e., there was no at-home comparison group).

Learners completed a WCT at the beginning and at the end of their stay abroad; NSs at each site also completed this task. Results showed that the NSs of the two varieties of Spanish showed different patterns in their selection of verb forms. The analysis of the evolution of selection patterns by the two groups of learners revealed "movement toward the local norm for both of our learner groups (although both somewhat overshoot local NS targets), and the predictors of this selection generally indicate acquisition in the direction of the regional norm for both groups, especially in the case of the Valencia learners" (Kanwit and Solon 2013: 216) From previous research into the acquisition of variable structures by NNSs, two findings stand out. First, learning context appears to play an important role, with learners participating in SA programs showing evidence of improvement both in terms of rate of selection among variants, as well as in terms of modulating factors. For FL learners, the results are less consistent.

This is presumably due to the importance of native input for the development of sociolinguistic competence more generally: "Only a prolonged and regular contact with NS of the TL [target language] seems to have a noticeable effect on the learners' sociolinguistic competence" (Dewaele 2004: 314). The second finding concerns the role played by proficiency. If, on the one hand, many authors report that lower-level learners show the greatest gains from SA experiences (e.g., Regan 1998: 73), others have suggested that a certain level of proficiency is necessary for the learner to be able to truly take advantage of such experiences [START_REF] Lafford | The effects of study abroad and classroom contexts on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language: From research to application[END_REF].

The current study was designed in order to address two research questions related to these findings: (a) How do learners in an FL and in an SA context compare in their selection of future-time verb forms on a controlled elicitation task? and (b) What role does proficiency play in verbform selection for FTR on the same task?

The Current Study

In this section we describe the method of the current study and we present the results.

Method

In order to respond to our two research questions, we opted for the use of a WCT. This type of controlled elicitation task permitted us to focus on how different learning contexts and proficiency levels may influence both the rate of selection of verb-forms for future-time expression and the role of three linguistic factors shown in previous research to be important for Hexagonal French, namely LTI, temporal distance, and (un)certainty. While the WCT diverges from the traditional data collection procedures used in variationist studies (i.e., the sociolinguistic interview) and does not necessarily reflect language use, the verb-form choices we provided on the task were motivated by previous analyses of language use (e.g., Gudmestad, et al., 2014). Moreover, we agree with Geeslin (2010: 501) that "multiple means of elicitation are necessary to fully understand the acquisition of a given construct, with each elicitation task providing unique and essential information about learner language." 2.1.1 Participants. The NNSs were selected to represent two language learning contexts:

FL and SA. At the outset of the project, data were collected from a total of 86 FL and 116 SA participants; a little under 50 percent of the total dataset was retained for analysis in the current paper. This decision was made in order to ensure that the main difference between the FL and SA groups would be learning context. For that reason, we first removed from our dataset all participants whose reported country of origin was other than the United States or Canada. Next, in order to ensure that the two groups differed in terms of language-learning context, we removed from our FL group all participants who had spent more than two weeks in a Frenchspeaking country. Finally, we matched the resulting subset of participants in terms of proficiency. The results from our proficiency test (see Data Collection in section 2.1.2) showed that the full set of North Americans in the SA context scored higher than the North Americans in the FL context. For this reason, we removed from our sample any participants in the FL context scoring lower than the lowest SA participant, as well as any SA participants scoring higher than the highest scoring FL participant. In this way, we were able to compare the influence of context of learning on participants from a similar educational culture and with an identical range of proficiency.

Our resulting dataset included 37 FL participants affiliated with a university in the United States. They were enrolled in a fourth-or sixth-semester language course, a fourth-year literature course, or a fourth-year business course within the undergraduate French program (3 hours per week). They ranged in age from 18 to 26; 30 were women and seven were men. The SA participants (n = 45) were associated with a university in the Southwest of France and participated in the study while they were abroad. At the time of data collection they had been living in France for three to nine months. 3 They were enrolled in intensive French-language courses at the university language center (approximately 20 hours of French-language instruction per week). They were between 18 and 36 years of age; nine were men and 36 were women. The participants in the two contexts were further divided into proficiency levels on the basis of the score obtained on our proficiency measure (a c-test). Participants who scored between 16 and 29.5 were placed into the low-proficiency group (FL = 25, SA = 19), and those who scored between 30 and 43.5 were classified into the high-proficiency group (FL = 12, SA = 26).4

The final group of participants, 30 NSs of Hexagonal French, were native to Southwestern France. The results for these participants were previously reported in [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF] but we include them again in this study as they serve as a benchmark for targetlike verb-form selection. They were students in undergraduate or Master's level courses on French as a foreign language at the same university as the SA participants. Three were men and 27 were women, and they ranged in age from 19 to 61. 5We conducted a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine if the low and high proficiency groups were different from each other and if the NNS groups and NSs were different from each other in terms of scores obtained on the proficiency measure. The ANOVA revealed significant differences (F(4, 121) = 243.2, p < 0.001), and a Post Hoc Scheffé showed that neither the SA and FL low-proficiency groups, nor the SA and FL high-proficiency groups were significantly different from each other. The comparisons of all other groups revealed significant differences. In other words, each L2 group scored significantly lower on the c-test than the NSs and each high-proficiency group scored significantly higher on the test than each low-proficiency group. The mean and standard deviation on the c-test for each group are shown in Table 1. [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF] and was modeled after a WCT that investigated FTR in Spanish [START_REF] Gudmestad | Second-language development of variable future-time expression in Spanish[END_REF]. This task consisted of 30 contextualized items that served as dialogue in a short story. Following every paragraph-length context, the participants were asked to contribute to the story by selecting one of three sentences expressing a future action or state that differed in verb form only (i.e., IF, PF, or present). The first item of the task is given in Figure 1; the English translation is provided here but was not included in the task when it was administered.

[Insert Figure 1.]

The 30 items constituted all combinations of the categories of the three independent linguistic factors analyzed (see section 2.1.3). We controlled for other factors that have been found to be related to FTR. In this way, sentences in the dialogue contained a first-person singular verb and there was no subordination or negation. The second task was a c-test (see [START_REF] Renaud | On the nature of agreement in English-French acquisition: A processing investigation in the verbal and nominal domains[END_REF]), which we used to categorize the NNSs into low and high proficiency groups. This test consisted of incomplete words that were contextualized in paragraphs. The second half of some words were replaced with a blank and participants were asked to complete the partial words. The third instrument was a background questionnaire, in which participants provided demographic information and reported on their education and language experiences. In examining LTI, we note that half of all items included a lexical expression conveying information about FTR within the sentence that functioned as dialogue, whereas the other half did not. LTIs were located in the sentence-final position when they were present; LTIs included in the task were tout de suite 'right away', demain 'tomorrow', ce soir 'tonight', à 21h 'at 9pm', après le déjeuner 'after lunch', mercredi 'Wednesday', bientôt 'soon', dans trois jours 'in three days', la semaine prochaine 'next week', dans deux semaines 'in two weeks', dans 2/8/10 ans 'in 2/8/10 years'. Temporal distance identified the distance of the future event from the moment of speaking. We began with five categories: immediate, today, less than a week, less than a month, and greater than a year. For our statistical analysis, this variable was recoded into two categories: 7 proximal (one week or less from the moment of speaking) and distal (more than a week from the moment of speaking). It is important to note that regardless of whether or not the target sentence contained a LTI, details on temporal distance were available in the context that preceded the sentence. Three categories made up the factor of (un)certainty: presence of an uncertainty marker (peut-être 'maybe', probablement pas 'probably not' and éventuellement 'possibly'), presence of a certainty marker (évidemment 'of course', certainement 'certainly', probablement 'probably', sûrement 'surely', and sans (aucun) doute 'without a doubt (whatsoever)'), and no marker. An (un)certainty marker, when present, was located between the finite and infinite verbs of the PF and immediately after a IF or present verb.

In addition to the linguistic factors, we examined two independent extra-linguistic variables: learning context and proficiency. The categories for learning context were FL and SA, and we separated each learning-context group into two proficiency levels (low and high) based on the c-test results (see Participants in section 2.1.1).

Data analysis.

We conducted a quantitative analysis in two phases. First, we performed cross-tabulations to examine the rates of verb-form selection for each participant group. Second, we conducted a multinomial logistic regression for each participant group, in order to analyze the impact of each linguistic factor on verb-form selection. For this analysis, we compared each of two categories of the dependent variable individually (IF and present) against another (base) category (PF) and the three independent linguistic variables in a single statistical model.

Results

We begin by presenting the results for frequency of verb-form selection, followed by the findings from the multinomial logistic regressions.

Frequency.

To begin the analysis we conducted cross-tabulations that show the frequency of selection of the PF, IF, and present (see In the next stage of the analysis, we performed a multinomial logistic regression on the dataset for each participant group separately. We began each multinomial logistic regression by including all three independent linguistic factors in the analysis. However, when a model revealed that a certain variable was not significant, we ran the model again without that variable (e.g., LTI was not significant for SA low, FL low, and the NSs). A single multinomial logistic regression compares one category of the dependent variable (present) against a base category (PF) and then compares the third category (IF) against the same base. Similarly, each independent variable is evaluated by comparing a base category of that variable to the other categories. The base categories of the independent factors were present for LTI, proximal for temporal distance, and the presence of an uncertainty marker for (un)certainty.

Three possible findings resulted from these comparisons, as shown in Table 3. For example, as shown in the comparison of IF selection versus PF selection (Table 4), the SA high group was more likely (>) to select the IF (as compared to the PF) when the future event was set to occur in the distant future, but they were less likely (<) to select the IF when the event was certain to occur (or when the certainty was not specified), as compared to when the event was uncertain to occur. Finally, for this same group, the odds of choosing the IF or the PF in the presence or absence of an LTI were not significantly different. the odds of selecting IF or present were significantly less than the odds of selecting PF An initial examination of the results for the five multinomial regressions (Tables 4 and5) reveals three observations (see Appendix for more details). First, the predictive models for FL low and SA low were identical in terms of the predictive factors and their overall effect on the model; temporal distance and (un)certainty conditioned verb-form selection in the same way and LTI was not a significant influential factor. Second, FL high and SA high exhibited similarities and differences to each other in the ways that the three independent factors impacted their verbform selection. Third, no L2 group was identical to the NS group. We examine each factor individually. Beginning with the linguistic factor of LTI, this factor was not a significant predictor of verb-form selection for FL low, SA low, or the NSs but it was an influential factor for the two high-proficiency groups. Whereas the results for the two high-proficiency groups on this factor were identical when comparing IF selection over PF selection (equal odds), the two groups diverged when present selection was compared to PF selection. For the FL high group, the odds of choosing the present over the PF were greater when an LTI was absent, compared to when it was present. For the SA group, the odds of choosing the present instead of the PF were lower when an LTI was absent instead of present.

Next, for temporal distance, we see that each participant group showed identical patterns with regard to temporal distance and the IF-PF comparison in the multinomial logistic regression (Table 4). The odds of choosing the IF over the PF were greater in distal compared to proximal contexts. However, two patterns emerged from the present and PF comparison for this same factor. On the one hand, the two low-proficiency groups and the NSs exhibited equal odds of selecting either form in distal compared to proximal contexts, whereas, on the other, the two high-proficiency groups showed lower odds of selecting the present instead of the PF when the future event was to occur more than a week away (distal) compared to within the week (proximal).

Finally, with regard to (un)certainty and the IF versus PF comparison, all participant groups were less likely to select the IF (compared to the PF) when the certainty of the event was not specified as compared to when an uncertainty marker was present. The odds of choosing the IF instead of the PF were lower when a future event was certain to occur as compared to when a future event was uncertain to occur for every participant group except for the FL high participants, for whom the odds were equal. The results for the present and PF comparison were less uniform than the IF and PF comparison. The NSs showed greater odds of selecting the present (versus the PF) in the presence of a certainty marker or when no marker (of certainty or uncertainty) was present, when compared to rates of selection in the presence of an uncertainty marker. No L2 group showed this same pattern. Both low-proficiency groups exhibited equal odds of selecting the present and the PF with respect to this factor. Like the low-proficiency groups, both high-proficiency groups showed equal odds of selecting the present and the PF in the absence of an (un)certainty marker versus when a future event was unsure to happen.

However, both high-proficiency groups showed change in the direction of the NS pattern on the comparison between certain versus uncertain future events: FL high, SA high, and NSs all showed greater odds of choosing the present when a future event was certain to occur.

Discussion

The principal aim of this study was to examine how NNSs' verb-form selection in FTR differs as a function of two extra-linguistic variables, namely learning context (FL vs. SA) and proficiency level (low vs. high). Thus, after first reviewing the results of our study with respect to rates of selection and the role played by the factors of LTI, temporal distance, and (un)certainty, we will turn our attention to a reflection on the role of learning context as a function of proficiency for verb-form selection in FTR contexts, focusing on those findings that can be connected to previous research.

Overview of the Current Results

Looking first at rate of selection, we note that the NSs selected the PF slightly more than the IF, in keeping with most accounts of FTR in Hexagonal French (e.g., [START_REF] Söll | De la concurrence du futur simple et du futur proche en français moderne[END_REF][START_REF] Roberts | Future temporal reference in Hexagonal French[END_REF], Gudmestad et al. 2014), and that the present was selected least frequently. This same pattern was found in the data from the FL high and SA low groups, whereas the FL low and SA high groups selected the IF more frequently than the PF.

As for the three linguistic factors tested, the first notable result is that the presence or absence of an LTI did not significantly determine verb-form selection for the NSs or for either of the low-proficiency groups. This finding goes against the expectation that the present must be accompanied by an LTI in order to be able to make reference to future time (see [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF] for further discussion of this point). Interestingly, this factor became significant for the two high-proficiency groups, but in different ways. Whereas the highproficiency FL learners tended to select the present more frequently when there was no temporal adverbial, the high-proficiency SA learners demonstrated the pattern often described in the literature and substantiated in studies of Canadian French by [START_REF] Poplack | Does the futur have a future in (Canadian) French?[END_REF] and [START_REF] Nadasdi | Emploi du 'futur' dans le français parlé des élèves d'immersion française[END_REF], namely the selection of the present in the presence of an LTI.

Moving now to temporal distance, all participant groups showed identical patterns in the PF versus IF comparison, with IF being preferred over PF for distal events. This finding closely follows what has been found for Acadian varieties of French (e.g., Comeau 2011, King andNadasdi 2003), suggesting, as mentioned in the background section, that Hexagonal French may more closely resemble Acadian varieties with respect to linguistic factors influencing future-time expression (see Edmonds and Gudmestad 2015 and Villeneuve and Comeau, this issue). Our L2 results for this factor show that learners at two proficiency levels and in two learning contexts have succeeded in grasping the importance of this factor for PF versus IF selection. The PF-IF comparison is not, however, the entire picture, as we also looked at the present-for-future, a form that was not included in the models presented by King and Nadasdi or Comeau. Here we found differences among our groups, with once again the low-proficiency learners patterning with the NSs: For these groups, there was no significant difference between PF and present selection in proximal versus distal contexts. Both groups of high-proficiency learners, however, showed lower odds of choosing the present (versus the PF) in distal contexts, suggesting a temporal interpretation of each of the three forms for these high-proficiency learners. Although not a variationist study, [START_REF] Moses | The Development of future expression in English-Speaking learners of French[END_REF] also remarked that the higher-proficiency learners in his investigation, who were studying French at an American university, developed a strong temporal interpretation of verbal forms used for FTR (present and PF preferred for proximal events, IF preferred for distal ones), a pattern that was not found in his lower-proficiency learners. He, however, claimed that this pattern was non-nativelike, whereas our data suggest that although the high-proficiency learners may overshoot the NS patterns, FTR in native Hexagonal French does indeed seem to be influenced by the temporal distance of the future event.

Finally, we come to the results for the factor of (un)certainty. It is for this factor that the most differences among groups were revealed. Looking first at the NSs, the IF was most strongly associated with uncertain contexts (cf. [START_REF] King | Back to the future in Acadian French[END_REF], who found that the PF was more likely to be used in certain contexts), whereas the present was more likely to be selected (as compared to the PF) in contexts with a certainty marker or without any marker (as compared to those with an uncertainty marker). If most of the L2 groups showed the same pattern on the PF versus IF comparison (with the exception of the FL high group), the results from the present versus PF analysis showed clear development from the low to the high-proficiency groups.

Taken together, the results from our WCT show the importance of the factors of temporal distance and (un)certainty in the selection of verb-forms for FTR in our NS data, patterns that most closely match what has been reported for Acadian varieties of French. Our four L2 groups show various patterns, which we will now explore as a function of the two extra-linguistic factors of interest in this study: learning context and proficiency level.

The Importance of Learning Context as a Function of Proficiency Level

The results concerning the rates of selection and the importance of three linguistic factors suggest that the observed patterns can, at least in part, be explained with reference to the interaction between the two extra-linguistic factors of learning context and proficiency level. As mentioned previously, with respect to the influence of the factors of LTI, temporal distance, and

(un)certainty, no difference is noted between the two low-proficiency groups, and this despite the fact that the members of the SA group are studying in France at time of testing, and have just spent between three and nine months abroad. These learners were receiving close to seven times as much formal French language instruction as their FL peers (approximately 20 hours per week for the SA learners versus an average of three hours for the FL learners), and they also had more opportunities for authentic communicative interactions in the target language. As already mentioned, the two low-proficiency groups show no differences in terms of the influence of linguistic factors. However, it is of interest to note that the profiles found show that learners at this level -regardless of learning context -are not clearly differentiating between PF and present as a function of LTI (which was not significant) or temporal distance and (un)certainty (both of which received equal odds). This contrasts with what was found for the IF versus PF comparison, and suggests that developmentally speaking, it may be the IF/PF comparison that is first differentiated, a finding which holds across learning contexts. Although no differences are seen in terms of the influence of linguistic factors, the two low-proficiency groups do differ in their selection rates: whereas the SA low group selected the PF most frequently (like the NSs), the FL low group opted most often for IF. These patterns match closely the data reported by [START_REF] Howard | From tense and aspect to modality: The acquisition of future, conditional and subjunctive morphology in L2 French. A preliminary study[END_REF], who found an over-reliance on the IF among his learners who have not been abroad, whereas those who have just spent a year in France use the PF at higher rates.

The most important divergences in our data are not at the level of our low-proficiency learners, but rather are seen in our high-proficiency groups. Like the low-proficiency learners, these two groups are comprised of individuals from a similar educational culture and with a similar proficiency level in French, differing only in terms of their learning context at time of testing. However, unlike the low-proficiency learners, we see clear differences between the highproficiency groups as a function of learning context, both in terms of rate of selection and in terms of modulating factors. For overall selection rates, the FL high group selects PF more than any other form, whereas the SA high group shows a preference for the IF. The latter group also shows the highest selection rate of the present-for-future, at more than 26 percent of total responses. As concerns modulating factors, the two high groups differ in two respects. First, the FL high group exhibited equal odds of choosing the PF and the IF in contexts with a certainty marker compared to contexts with an uncertainty marker. In the same linguistic contexts, the SA high group showed lower odds of selecting the IF over the PF (which matches the NS pattern).

Second, concerning the contexts in which an LTI was absent versus present, the FL high group showed higher odds and the SA high group showed lower odds of selecting the present instead of the PF.

The similarities between the low-proficiency groups and the differences between the high-proficiency groups allow us to suggest two conclusions concerning the influence of the extra-linguistic variables of proficiency and learning context. On the one hand, it is noteworthy that both low-proficiency groups essentially exhibited no difference between the PF and present, but that they did show differences in the odds of selecting the IF over the PF. The highproficiency groups, however, exhibited differences between both the IF versus PF and the present versus PF. The first conclusion is then that it appears that the distinctions between verb forms with respect to the three linguistic factors investigated here begins with the IF and PF and then spreads to the present and PF as learners become more proficient. This finding appears to hold across the two learning contexts investigated. Second, our findings appear to indicate that learning context plays a greater role in the development of future-time expression in French as proficiency level increases. In other words, the impact that learning context has on L2 acquisition may be modulated by proficiency, such that the effect of SA on the development of variable FTR in French gets stronger as proficiency increases. More specifically, frequency of verb-form selection may be sensitive to learning context at low proficiency levels, whereas a higher level of proficiency may be needed before learning context impacts the linguistic predictors under investigation.

These results can be related to a hypothesis developed by Lafford and Collentine (2006: 117) in order to account for findings from the literature on Spanish SA that show that intermediate-level SA learners do not show superior gains (over a FL group) for grammatical competence, whereas at least one study (Isabelli and Nishida 2005, cited p. 117) has shown that advanced learners in an SA context do indeed improve more than their at-home counterparts.

They write

[t]hus we could tentatively propose a kind of 'threshold hypothesis' for students studying abroad: those students with a well-developed cognitive, lexical, and grammatical base will be more able to process and produce grammatical forms more accurately after their experience in a SA context. (Lafford and Collentine 2006: 117) The crux of this hypothesis is that learners must have already attained a certain level of general linguistic (i.e., cognitive, lexical, and grammatical) competence before they are able to free up resources for the processing of (often communicatively redundant) grammatical features.

Although this hypothesis was not originally formulated to account for the acquisition of aspects of sociolinguistic competence, statements by linguists such as [START_REF] Geeslin | Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition: Learning to use language in context[END_REF] show parallels with Lafford and Collentine's observations, insofar as they state that learners must have a relatively high level of general proficiency before being able to acquire sociolinguistic competence. Given that variable future-time expression lies at the crossroads of morphosyntactic and sociolinguistic competence, it may very well be the case that learners must reach a certain threshold before being able to attend to such features of language, thus providing a potential explanation for the lack of differences with respect to linguistic predictors for the lowproficiency learners in different learning contexts as compared to the high-proficiency learners.

What this hypothesis does not explain, however, is why the low-proficiency learners resembled the NSs more than the high-proficiency learners with respect to the analysis of linguistic factors. Although this result may appear somewhat surprising against the backdrop of studies showing clear development towards nativelike norms for learners in a SA context (but see [START_REF] Whatley | The acquisition of past tense variation by L2 learners of Spanish in an abroad context[END_REF], for a pattern similar to our own), it bears note that there is evidence as to the group, whose selection of the present (26.2%) was higher than any group in the current study, demonstrates a certain sensitivity to the input. No such trend is observed for either FL group.

A final issue is that, in this study, we have treated FL and SA contexts as different on the basis of total contact hours and the possibility for authentic interaction in the target language.

However, we know that the SA experience can be radically different from one learner to another (see [START_REF] Wilkinson | The omnipresent classroom during summer study abroad: American students in conversation with their French hosts[END_REF]. Whereas some learners attempt to take advantage of the specificities of the SA experience, others spend little time in the target language outside of the language classroom. A recent study by [START_REF] Gautier | Social networks and acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in a study abroad context: A preliminary study[END_REF] followed seven Americans studying in France over a period of nine months. Learners participated in two semi-directed interviews at months 6 and 9 of their stay abroad, and the data were coded for the use of two sociolinguistic variables: variable ne deletion and optional liaison. The learners also kept contact diaries over one week near the end of their stay, information which allowed the researchers to determine what type of social networks the learners were engaged in (both in terms of languages used and in terms of density). They found, among other things, that the two Americans who had developed networks involving English and French speakers also showed changes in their use of the two variable structures examined in the direction of NS norms. Such findings highlight the importance of more detailed information concerning language contact and social networks in order to address the influence of learning context on SLA.

Conclusion

Although most studies on variable FTR have focused on the PF and IF, the current study has offered additional evidence supporting the importance of including the present-for-future in such investigations. Our analysis suggests that the PF versus present comparison is where most of the differences between proficiency level and learning context occur for L2 learners. This is also gains (or lack thereof) to the learning condition(s) of the SA experience itself." In this vein, the design of the current study enabled us to observe whether changes in the developing future-time expression system as proficiency level improved seemed to take place regardless of learning context or whether SA appeared to be a modulating factor. The response appears to be affirmative in both cases: development was seen across proficiency regardless of learning context, although learning context did modulate this development, particularly at the higher proficiency level.

Future studies that investigate the role of learning context on the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence should continue to include both SA and FL groups, because this research design enables us to isolate linguistic behavior that may be common among L2 learners from that which may be dependent on experience. These studies should also seek to obtain information about participants' social networks and their daily language experiences in the L2.

Longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies that examine learners from more than two proficiency levels are also needed in order to provide more comprehensive information about the acquisitional path. Together these investigations are in a position to offer important details about how a developmental trajectory may be influenced by social context (cf.

2. 1 . 3

 13 Data coding. The dependent variable was the verb form selected to express futurity on the WCT (IF, PF, or present). Although other verb forms may be used in future-time contexts, we chose to target these three variants because[START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF] found that they were the forms used most frequently to convey futurity in a dataset gathered from a group of NSs in France. We designed the WCT to investigate the influence that three independent linguistic factors (LTI, temporal distance, and (un)certainty markers) had on verb-form selection in contexts of FTR. As mentioned previously, we chose these factors because[START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF] demonstrated that these independent variables were related to verb-form use for NSs of Hexagonal French.6

Table 1 .

 1 C-test Results Data collection. Each participant completed three tasks. The data on FTR came from a WCT, which was the same task employed in

	Participant group	Mean	St. dev.
	FL low	22.40	4.01

Table 2 .

 2 Table2). Looking at the data from the 30 contexts together, we see that the NSs chose the PF most often (44.0%), followed by the IF (38.1%), and, lastly, the present (17.9%). SA low and FL high were the L2 groups whose Frequency of Verb-Form Use in Contexts of FTR

	hierarchy of frequency of verb-form selection most closely resembled that of the NSs. Both
	groups selected the PF most frequently (SA low: 42.1%, FL high: 46.7%), followed by the IF
	(SA low: 36.1%, FL high: 35.6%) and the present (SA low: 21.8%, FL high: 17.8%). While FL
	low and SA high also selected the present the least often (FL low: 19.6%, SA high: 26.2%), these
	L2 groups chose the IF (FL low: 41.5%, SA high: 39.4%) more often than the PF (FL low:
	38.9%, SA high: 34.4%) on the WCT.
		PF		IF			Present
	Participant Group	#	%	#	%	#	%	Total
	FL low	291	38.9	311	41.5	147	19.6	749
	SA low	239	42.1	205	36.1	124	21.8	568
	FL high	168	46.7	128	35.6	64	17.8	360
	SA high	268	34.4	307	39.4	204	26.2	779
	NSs	396	44.0	343	38.1	161	17.9	900
	2.2.2 Multinomial regressions.

Table 3 .

 3 Interpreting the Results from a Multinomial Regression Model

	Rank

Table 4 .

 4 Results for the Multinomial Logistic Regression: IF vs. PF

	Participant	LTI		Temp. Dist.		(Un)certainty
	Group	Present Absent	Proximal	Distal	None Certainty Uncertainty
	FL low	Base	NA	Base	>	<	<	Base
	SA low	Base	NA	Base	>	<	<	Base
	FL high	Base	=	Base	>	<	=	Base
	SA high	Base	=	Base	>	<	<	Base

Table 5 .

 5 Results for the Multinomial Logistic Regression: Present vs. PF

	Participant	LTI		Temp. Dist.		(Un)certainty
	Group	Present Absent Proximal Distal	None	Certainty Uncertainty
	FL low	Base	NA	Base	=	=	=	Base
	SA low	Base	NA	Base	=	=	=	Base
	FL high	Base	>	Base	<	=	>	Base
	SA high	Base	<	Base	<	=	>	Base
	NSs	Base	NA	Base	=	>	>	Base

Note. '<' denotes odds of choosing present over PF are lower. '>' denotes odds are higher. '=' denotes odds are not different. 'NA' denotes a variable that is not significant.

  Tarone 2010). André et Sarah sont étudiants en France. Un dimanche avant le début des cours du deuxième semestre, ils déjeunent au restaurant. André regarde le menu et dit : A. Je vais peut-être prendre la soupe à l'oignon et une salade. ____ Je préfère la phrase A. B. Je prendrai peut-être la soupe à l'oignon et une salade. ____ Je préfère la phrase B. C. Je prends peut-être la soupe à l'oignon et une salade. ____ Je préfère la phrase C. 1. André and Sarah are students in France. One Sunday before the beginning of second semester classes, they have lunch together at a restaurant. André looks at the menu and says: A. I am maybe going to have the onion soup and a salad. ____ I prefer phrase A. B. I will have the onion soup and a salad. ____ I prefer phrase B. C. I have maybe the onion soup and a salad. ____ I prefer phrase C. Figure 1. First Item from WCT

	FL low	Base	NA NA	Base Figures	0.54 1.28	Base	0.68	1.83 0.4 1.09
	SL low	Base	NA NA	Base	0.55 1.42	Base	0.92	2.85 0.5 1.61
	FL high 1.	Base	1.17 3.92	Base	0.15 0.69	Base	1.43	6.72 0.58 2.88
	SL high	Base	0.34 0.73	Base	0.31 0.73	Base	1.35	3.58 0.52 1.38
	NSs	Base	NA NA	Base	0.19 1.02	Base	4.036 13.94 1.56 5.56
	Details of the Multinomial Logistic Regressions
	Participant	-2 Log	Chi-square df	p value
	group		Likelihood
	FL low	61.55		45.73	6	<0.001
	SL low	67.29		72.09	6	<0.001
	FL high	92.50		61.48	8	<0.001
	SL high	118.98		134.59	8	<0.001
	NSs		65		268.81	6	<0.001

Those studies that have looked at the present-for-future generally refer to the present indicative (although many such forms are identical to subjunctive ones). In the current study, we also concentrate on present forms in traditional indicative contexts, all the while acknowledging the need, in future research, to examine all verb forms used in future-time contexts.

Research on future-time reference in Canadian French has focused on the Laurentian and Acadian regions.

Given the size of our two SA groups, we are unable to subdivide them further by time spent abroad. We recognize that this factor is worthy of study and leave it to future research.

We do not have extensive information on personal characteristics of the NNSs, such as living arrangements or extracurricular activities. We recognize that this is a limitation of the study that opens the door for future research.

We analyzed all of the NSs together for three reasons. First, examining language change among NSs is not a goal of the present investigation. Second, the group size is relatively small, and breaking it up into even smaller groups leads to challenges with the statistical analysis. Third, the purpose of our NS group was to have an indirect means of representing the input that learners may receive. Since learners likely interact with NSs of different ages, we believe that this NS group serves as an appropriate comparison group for targetlike use.

We recognize that other factors may influence learners' selection of verb forms in future-time contexts, including those that may be unique to interlanguage. We leave the exploration of additional independent variables to future research.

If there are cells with low or zero token counts in a regression analysis, the statistical model is faced with challenges of reliability. Because some of our regressions exhibited multiple cells with low or zero tokens, we collapsed the initial five categories of temporal distance into two categories. This decision increased cell size and improved the reliability of the models.

non-linear nature of the L2 acquisition of sociolinguistic variation (e.g., [START_REF] Gudmestad | Variationist approaches to second language Spanish[END_REF][START_REF] Gudmestad | Second-language development of variable future-time expression in Spanish[END_REF]. In other words, various studies have shown that acquisition of variable learning targets shows movement towards and away from NS patterns across proficiency levels, as opposed to a linear march toward the NS norm. This is particularly evident in [START_REF] Edmonds | What the present can tell us about the future: A variationist analysis of future-time expression in native and nonnative French[END_REF], in which the full data set (N = 116) of SA learners studied in the current analysis was examined. In this analysis, there were four proficiency levels, one of which obtained scores above the high-proficiency group of the current study. Using the factor of LTI as a case in point, we found that this factor was neither significant for the two lowest proficiency levels, nor for the highest proficiency level and the NSs. For Level 3, however, this variable was significant, and the learners at this level selected the present more frequently than the PF when an LTI was present (the same results as were found for the SA high group in the current study). These findings suggest a move from a nativelike non-influence of a given factor, towards a non-nativelike influence of that same factor, before moving back to the original profile. Such non-linear movements across proficiency levels may be due to many factors, including the overshooting of the NS norm [START_REF] Kanwit | Acquiring variation in future-time expression abroad in Valencia, Spain and Mérida, Mexico[END_REF].

In addition to the non-linear nature of SLA, it is important to understand these results against the backdrop of what is known about variable future-time expression in Hexagonal French more generally. In a previous study based on oral conversation data, [START_REF] Gudmestad | expression of temporality by L2 learners of French and English: Acquisition of time, aspect, and modality conference[END_REF] found that the PF was indeed the most frequent form used for future-time expression at 43.8 percent of all tokens. However, the second most frequent form was the present-for-future (accounting for fully 33.5 percent of all tokens), whereas the IF was used in only 18.4 percent of all future-time contexts. Given this information, we may argue that the SA high-proficiency where the NNSs differ most clearly from the NSs. The independent linguistic factors under investigation have also shed light on the presumed developmental trajectory of FTR in L2

French. We saw that temporal distance and (un)certainty were significant factors in explaining the NS patterns, whereas temporal distance, (un)certainty, as well as LTI provided new details about how FL and SA learners vary their verb-form selection in future-time contexts during the acquisitional process. Thus, subsequent studies on variable FTR in L2 Hexagonal French should not only include the present verb form but also the linguistic factors of LTI, temporal distance, and (un)certainty.

The current study has also demonstrated that the selection of verb forms in future-time contexts in nonnative French varied as a function of learning context and L2 proficiency level.

Our results suggest that the impact of learning context on L2 acquisition becomes stronger as proficiency level increases, and that the developmental trajectory for variable future-time expression -and perhaps for variable morphosyntactic structures in general -is non-linear regardless of learning context. The comparisons of proficiency levels and learning contexts were possible largely because we were able to control for certain characteristics of our L2 participant population through an external measure of proficiency. Additionally, by analyzing only those participants whose place of origin was North America, the shared educational background of the L2 participants differed only in terms of time spent in a target language environment. Moreover, similar to other studies (e.g., [START_REF] Charkova | Second-and foreign-language variation in tense backshifting in indirect reported speech[END_REF][START_REF] Howard | From tense and aspect to modality: The acquisition of future, conditional and subjunctive morphology in L2 French. A preliminary study[END_REF], the present investigation responded to a call in the literature for the inclusion of FL learners as a control group in studies that examine the influence of SA on L2 acquisition. The importance of a FL control group is highlighted by Lafford and Collentine (2006: 112), who note that "for those studies lacking an AH [at home] control group it is difficult to contribute [sic] any observable Appendix What follows are three tables that offer more details regarding the multinomial regression models presented in section 2.2. The first two tables provide information on the 95% confidence intervals. If the upper and lower limits of the 95% confidence interval for Exp(b) contained the value of 1, the selection of the dependent variable (IF or present) was not significantly different from the base category (PF). If the values for the upper and lower limits were greater than one, the odds of choosing a category other than the base (IF or present) were significantly greater than the odds of choosing the base category (PF), and if the values for the upper and lower limits were less than one, the odds of selecting IF or present were significantly less than the odds of selecting


Peter Stockinger

From Lexical Meaning to Conceptual Meaning

de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

1) Semantic description and conceptual graph theory

In referring especially to the works of the two German linguists, Thomas Ballmer and Waltraud Brennenstuhl, I want to develop arguments of the central importance of lexical semantics, especially of a systematic lexical semantics of verbal expressions (verbal phrases), not only for linguistic purposes but also, and even yet more, for cognitive science and this branch of applied researches that has to do with the description, conceptualization and formalization of knowledge -of common sense knowledge or of more specialized knowledge.

Most of the semantic analysis of large lexical datas are based, more or less, on a description by means of semantic features or semes. But, it is wildely known too, that the semantic featureapproach sufferts constantly of the lack of principles that could determine the elaboration and systematization of sets or sub-sets of features as well as the definition of those relations that hold between two or more features. In componential semantics there have been defined only some few relations between semantic features -all of them possess a taxonomic character like the hyponymy and the C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris hyperonymy, the antonymy and the synonymy. Besides of their great generality, they cannot give, furthermore, any account of those types of features that are classifiable in their respect.

There is, in fact, a complete lack of a theory of semantic types. This lack hasn't never been overcome neither by componential semantics and its further internal improvements nor by any other more formally or more pragmaticaly oriented semantic theory.

In componential semantics there has been internal improvements -improvements coming especially from the works of European semanticians like in Germany (Bierwisch, Coseriu, Heger, Hundsnurscher) or in France (Pottier, Greimas, Rastier). B. Pottier and F. Rastier, for instance, have introduced several semantic levels which are more or less specific to an experiential domain represented by an lexical field.

They stipulate a most general level called the semantic dimension of invariant features or of features that are postulated as invariants.

Furthermore, they distinguish an intermediate level called the semantic domain identifying global or holistic 'natural' or social entities like 'transport', 'negociation', 'offer', and so on -domains that vary from one language to another, from one culture to another.

Finally, they introduce a third level called the taxemic level which C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris specifies the internal organization of a semantic domain. The domain "transport", for instance may be specified into "terrestrian transport", "maritime transport" or "aerian transport".

The distinction between these three level depends, indeed, of the choice of a descriptive scope and therefore of the objectives or goals that should be satisfied by the description. In this sense, the feature "terrestrian transport" can serve, following the descriptive scope, as well as as a semantic domain, as a semantic dimension, or again as as a taxon.

The functional or goal-oriented dependency of descriptive "strategies" has been seen already by philosophers like [START_REF] Toulmin | The Place of Reason in Ethics[END_REF][START_REF] Wright | The Varieties of Goodness[END_REF] or H. [START_REF] Putnam | The Many Faces Of Realism[END_REF].

But this 'functionalization' of the description introduces the problem of the elaboration of a canon or a canonical basis defining, for instance, the selectional constraints peculiar to a description. The elaboration of a canon or a canonical base is not only a theoretical problem but also a pratical one if you take into consideration that more realistic projects in knowledge ingeneering always have to work with large knowledge datas.

Before discussing the problem of a descriptive canon (which is, in my opinion, quite similar to the theory of meaning postulates in semantics) I will turn to a frame-oriented approach of lexical, generic C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris and more specialized knowledge structures as it has been developped by Sowa in his theory of conceptual graphs. Following Sowa, 'a conceptual graph is a finite, connected, bipartite graph. The two kinds of nodes of the bipartite graph are concepts and conceptual relations. Every conceptual relation has one or more arcs, each of which must be linked to some concept. (...). A single concept by itself may form a conceptual graph, but every arc of every conceptual relation must be linked to some concept." (Sowa 1984, p. 73) An unanalyzed ad-hoc representation of the verbal expression "to transport" fits, as follows, to a conceptual graph:

[PERSON] (agt)---[TRANSPORT] ---(obj) [OBJECT] (inst) (src) (dest) [VEHICLE] [PLACE] [PLACE]
Every concept-type can be specified:

[PERSON] > [CARREER] > [PILOTE] , etc. [VEHICLE] > [TRUCK] > [PLANE], etc. C.N.R.S.
-InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris Furthermore, as J. Sowa emphasizes, every conceptual relation may be composed by several relations or compose itself with other relations a more specific relation.

If we compare the theory of conceptual graphs of Sowa with the componential semantics in its structural version of [START_REF] Greimas | Sémiotique. Dictionnaire Raisonné de la Théorie du Langage[END_REF] and [START_REF] Pottier | Linguistique Générale[END_REF], we see that there is a strong equivalency between these two approaches:

the concept types correspond to the generic or specific semes belonging either to the semantic dimension (cf. [PERSON],

[OBJECT] or [PLACE]) or to the semantic domain like This equivalency is quite important because it allows to control the process of the formalization of semantic or conceptual units or again the "translation" of a conceptual language in a formal language.

Nevertheless, for the moment we touch serious limits in the representation of knowledge -lexikal ones or generic ones. The reasons for these limits are quite the same as those we have already C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris met in traditional componential semantics as well as in the structural versions of it.

Not only Greimas but also Sowa emphasizes strongly that every tentative of lexical or generic knowledge-representation must be based on a canon or a canonical basis of semantic or conceptual models. The establishment of a canon or a canonical basis of descriptive or, as it is said more commonly, of declarative schemes doesn't imply any philosophical or even psychological committement concerning the structure or the nature of the language or of the worldit can be considered exclusively as an operational devise in order to establish selectional constraints that hold, for instance, for a linguistic unit if it should be represented by a canonical scheme or again by a scheme that can be derived from a canonical scheme. In this sense I have said that a canon constitutes only the principles and rules of a description that serves a certain purpose or a certain goal. A canonical basis, for instance, is constituted by the primitive acts in Schank's conceptual dependency theory. These acts allow, more or less well, the representation of a certain variety of narratives and other texts.

In order to establish a canonical basis for a semantic interpreter, [START_REF] Sowa | Conceptual Structures[END_REF] enumerates following conditions that should be fulfilled:

German verbal thesaurus

Undoutedly, one of the actually most popular ways to conceptualize and formalize knowledge is that one opend by frametheory. Nevertheless, it seems also "that there is still lacking a coherent research program which aims at a systematic empirical underpinning of the notion of frame" (Ballmer/Brennenstuhl 1981:297). In order to fill up, at least partially, this lack, the two linguists, Ballmer and Brennenstuhl, propose to focus on a systematic classification of the lexical thesaurus of a natural language (German, in their case), especially on a systematic semantic classification of the verbal thesaurus.

There are at least two major claims that underly the work of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl:

1) to provide a linguistic base for frametheory;

2) to provide a set of stereotyped frames that serve for the elaboration of more complex frames representing, for example, specialized knowledge. The descriptive procedure itself takes into consideration on the one hand the verbal root and on the other hand the syntactic frame to which a verb belongs.

Naturally, given our little and uncertain knowledge of the organizational principles of the lexicon, there are several more or less psychological requirements on which the descriptive procedure of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl is based, as, for instance, the ability to distinguish between more or less typical usages of a verbal expression, the ability to judge the relative similarity of two or more verbal expressions, the ability to infer presuppositional relations that may hold between two or more verbal expressions, as well as, finally, the ability of paraphrasing in order to establish more generic features that group together a set of verbal items.

In assuming such abilities of a speaker, Ballmer and Brennenstuhl, in fact, announce already the descriptive method they employ in order to structure the verbal thesaurus:

-to group together those verbal expressions that reveal to be adjacent or similar in meaning; -to order verbal groups following presuppositional relations that may hold between them in order to obtain typical planstructures in the verbal lexicon; -to stratify the verbal thesaurus with the help of the two following parameters: number and "identity" of actants as well as [TUN]

[ANFANGEN]

[PLANEN]

[WOLLEN]

[WÜNSCHEN]

Before continuing, I want to make some remarks concerning the approach of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl:

1) As you see, the two linguists proceed in a fairly empirical way, i.e. in a way that privileges, at least during the period of the construction of verbal categories and models, the speaker's ability to distinguish between several groups of verbs. This means that they try to reduce C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris maximally (not completely, that's quite clear) references to already established conceptual or formal theories of, for example, action and action-planning. This methodological decision is, to my opinion, justified from a descriptive point of view. Nevertheless, you see too, that purely empirically established categories suffer in general and even necessarily from the lack of principles which allow to establish and justify them in a theoretically acceptable way. For instance, if you apply to a theory of action as proposed by G.H.von Wright distinguishing between intentions, motivations, preferences and so, state changes and succes conditions, than it seems more justifiable to consider the eight categories as falling in three major groups: We have therefore to distinguish between:

-verbal items, -categories, and -models.

In generalizing this approach, Ballmer and Brennenstuhl propose for the structuration of the corpus of 8.000 verbal items about fourty models and 1000 categories. Well, I will not discuss neither 2) The change from models with a simple, causally connected phasestructure to models possessing real plan-structures is rather strictely correlated by a progressive involvement of the actants in the process, by an increasing number of actants that participate, and finally by an increased individuation of the actants -from purely grammatical places to unpersonal constructions, to constructions that have as a selsectional constraint the presence of animate and even human agents.

'The presuppositionally ordered structure of the model system can (...) be interpreted in the following way. Models which stand at the "bginning" of the model system, -i.e. which do not presuppose other models or only a few models -concern simple states of affairs and processes, whereas models which occur towards the "end" of the model system concern complex processes, in which several actants are involved in an active way. Thus, the number of participants of the verbs in the models increases throughout the model system. This can be seen in the syntactic form of the verbs which have a tendency to be intransitive towards the beginning of the model system, transitive from the middle on and to have three or more places at the end of the model system. Apart from the number of participants the degrees to which the process is controlled by the participants in the process C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris increases, and this we call an increase in the degree of involvement. At the beginning of the model system we are concerned with the mere being the case of states of affairs and proceeding of processes, where it is clear that the question of degree of involvement in the state of affairs or the process does not arise. The following models are about the existence of individuals and objects, their properties and movements, events that happen to them,all states of affairs and processes in which individuals are involved without a possibility of controlling them, i.e. their degree of involvement is zero or very low. In the models higher up in the hierarchy, which are about the controlled interference with and manipulation of their environments by individuals (the individuals designated by the verb subjects), the degree of involvement is higher, since states of affairs are actively changed. The degree of involvement is even higher when individuals influence the degree of (dislocational or other kinds of) freedom and the existence of objects in a controlled, active manner. So, in other words, the degree of involvement is the degree of control which the individuals (denoted by the verb subjects) have over the process (denoted by the verbs of a model) in which they are involved.' (Ballmer & Brennenstuhl 1981:312) Following the stratificational principles of the verbal model system, we are therefore able to detect presupppositional relations that hold not anymore between categories of a model but between several models as, for instance: -to logical or modal prerequists that determine not only the categorized (perceived and conceptualized) reality but also the categorization-process itself; -to the fact that intentional state-changes produce or prevent a state-change in the physical or animate world; -to the fact that intentional state-changes can possess an higher internal complexity introducing two agents whereas the first one determine the acting of the second one (cf. the case of factitive verbs, ...).

Conclusion

Ballmer and Brennenstuhl give different arguments that their semantic classification system has some good linguistic motivations (cf. the hypothesis of the priority of semantics over syntax).

In examining grammatical operations like causation, inanimation, reflexivization and it-insertion, they show that the more or less high degree of agentivity depends rather systematically of the stratificational character of the verbal model groups. Following J. Sowa, there are two conditions that must be satisfied in order to elaborate a canonical basis of conceptual graphs for a semantic interpreter:

1) an ontology of concept-types, 2) a set of actantial relations I don't like to speak of an "ontology" of concept-types but, nevertheless, I think that my suggestion to consider the semantic categories and models as a good and empirically interesting systematization of concept-types, is rather conform with Sowa's first request. Given also the fact that there is a systematic variation of the number, of the individuation and of the involvement of actants in reference to a particular verbal category and model I would also emphasize that the second request of J. Sowa could be satisfied in a conceptually and empirically more interesting manner than by means of traditional case grammar of the type of Fillmore or of purely syntactically oriented approaches à la L. Tesnière.

I think, that one may apply more or less directly the Ballmer's and Brennenstuhl's classification system to descriptive and C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris representational tasks. In this sense the model group MOTION, LOCOMOTION, and TRANSPORT can serve in order to typify verbal items referring to movement. Naturally, if a descriptive goal implies the distinction between verbal items like, for instance, 'to hurry' and 'to rush', one has to introduce more specific features. In this sense Pottier's and Rastier's distinction of three semantic levels are very useful for the description of lexical fields: on the level of the semantic dimension, there are those features that distinguish between the several verbal models; on the level of the semantic domain, there are those features that allow to differenciate between the categories of a model, and on the taxemic level there are finally those features that permit the distinction between different aspects of an activity-or a process-type represented by one category.

  1 C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris F r o m l e x i c a l m e a n i n g t o c o n c e p t u a l m e a n i n g P e t e r S t o c k i n g e r C . N . R . S . -I n a L F ( U R L 7 ) C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris

[

  TRANSPORT] or again to the taxemic level like [CARREER] or [PILOTE]; -the conceptual relations correspond to the semantic relations that hold between the semes -relations that are typically qualificational like the famous 'is-a'-relation ([CARREER]---(is-a)--->[PERSON]), locative (cf. (src), (dest)) and actantial ((agt), (obj), (inst)).

  1) the definition of an ontology of concept-types; 2) the ordering of the types in a lattice (in a conceptual hierarchy); C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris 3) the analysis of all variations of case grammar in order to develop a standard set of conceptual relations; 4) the development of guidelines and tests in order to identify the relations associated with each concept-type; 5) the application of those guidelines to a large number of linguistic items in building up a lexicon. If you join to these five conditions a sixth one, i.e. the choice of an experiential field than you have a methodological rule of the conceptualization processing (i.e. of the the description and modelization) of knowledge in general and of the lexicon in particular. C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris Ballmer's and Brennenstuhl's semantic classification of the

  The first claim refers to two different hypothesis:1) the hypothesis of the priority of semantics over syntax (this is a purely linguistic hypothesis); C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris 2) the hypothesis that the set of objects and relations that give form to the different frames could be determined by a systematic description of the lexicon of natural languages (this is a constructional hypothesis that envisage to solve the problem of the conceptualization of knowledge in a principled way by means of a systematic lexical description). The second claim refers to the actually discussed hypothesis that categories, concepts and relations which are needed in order to represent more technical knowledge or expert knowledge should be elaborated in reference to the so-called common sense -common sense classifications and common sense reasoning. Semantics of natural language is for such a research programme an obviously interesting candidate because, in fact, most of our social, cultural or individual experiences are organized and vehiculated by natural language. I want to discuss now briefly how Ballmer and Brennenstuhl try to realize these to claims as well as to show the validity of the three hypothesis. From some 20.000 verbal items in German, they constitute a corpus of about 8.000 items omitting on the one hand specialized expressions and on the other hand all those prefixed verbs that don't introduce a categorial semantic change in comparision to the corresponding non-prefixed or simple verbs. C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris

  C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris involvement of actants in the process actualized by a verbal expression. Let me give an example, how Ballmer and Brennenstuhl proceed.From the verbal thesaurus you extract a list of verbs that you judge to have some relations with the notion of "action" in assuming that the notion of action implies an intentional state-change, special phases like orientation, planning and execution and evaluations concerning succes and failure, and so on. Naturally, the list that will be constituted is an open one that may be completed and rearranged several times during the descriptive phase. A first descriptive phase is characterized by the constitution of an open list of such verbs which -at least intuitively -seem to belong to the notion of action. The list itself is semantically not yet organized and arranged only in an alphabetical order: abschlieszen (conclude) zum Abschlusz bringen (bring to an end) in Angriff nehmen (set about) .R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris gerne haben würden (would like) phase consists in the ordering of this list in several groups of verbs which exhibit a close semantic similarity. The result of this procedure is the following one distinguishing eight groups that depict, each one, a special aspect of the notion of action: be anxious to) sich sehnen nach (lonf for) gerne haben würden (would like) C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -time, every group receive a category name that is common to the verbal expressions belonging to a group. The category names of the eight groups are the following ones: a) [WÜNSCHEN] ([WISH]) b) [WOLLEN] ([WANT]) c) [PLANEN] ([PLAN]) d) [ANFANGEN] ([BEGIN]) e) [TUN] ([DO]) f) [ZUM-ABSCHLUSZ-BRINGEN] ([BRING-TO-AN-END]) g) [ERFOLG-HABEN] ([SUCCEED]) h) [MISZERFOLG-HABEN] ([FAIL]) C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 ParisThe category names form together a model, the action model that has a

-

  [WISH], [WANT], and [PLAN]; -[BEGIN], [DO], and [BRING TO AN END]; -[SUCCEED] and [FAIL]. 2) To my opinion, the importance of the work of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl depends not such much if each category or each model they introduce in order to structure the verbal thesaurus, is well defined and well established; it's also, to my opinion, not so important for the moment to decide if there are more or less categories and models than Ballmer and Brennenstuhl pretend that there exist in the verbal thesaurus. The very importance of the work of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl is represented, I think, by the following two fact: firstly the succeed in giving us a general picture of the global organization of the verbal thesaurus, and secondly, they are able to render explicit, at least partially, which verbal items belong to such or such category, to such or such model. The first point, naturally, should be seen in C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris connection to J. Sowa's requirement that, in order to establish a canononical basis of conceptual graphs for a semantic interpreter, we need an ontology of concept-types belonging either to the level of semantic dimension or to the level of semantic domain; the second point should be seen in connection to the complete lack in componential and even structural semantics to enumerate those verbal items that can be classified either by a special paradigmatic or a special syntagmatic relation.3) Ballmer and Brennenstuhl are very explicit concerning the fact that a verbal expression which is classified by a category name can also belong to other categories and models: either because of its appurtenance to more than one syntactic frames or because of an inherent polysemy. Therefore there is not at all a one-to-one relationship between categories and models on the one side and verbal items on the other side.Let me come back now to the semantic classification itself of the verbal thesaurus. We have already seen that : 1) there is an unordered (open) list of verbal items belonging more or less intuitively to the notion of action (and not, for instance, to the notion of interaction or transaction); 2) this unordered and open list contains several groups of verbal items that are distinguished from one another by meaning similarities; C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris 3) each group receive a category name which is a kind of metalinguistic expression referring to one and only one similarityrelation; 4) the categories themselves are presuppositionally ordered and form a model which is "baptized" by a model-name.

  foundational and numerical problems nor problems concerning the motivation of the metalinguistic denominations of several models and categories -I have already mentioned that a purely empirical description have only very little chances to hold as such. Nevertheless there are some good reasons that the general organization of the semantic classification due to Ballmer and Brennenstuhl is defendable. C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris In order to start, I will give you an already abbreviated and simplified list of Ballmer's and Brennenstuhl's models: a) STATE-OF-AFFAIRS ((es) unmöglich sein (dasz); (es) falsch sein (dasz); (es) scheinen (jmd3) (dasz), (jmd1) müssen (+inf.), ...) b) PROCESS ((etw1) ausbleiben; (etw1) anfangen; (etw1) sich ereignen; (etw1) währen; (etw1) stagnieren; (etw1) ablaufen; (etw1) aufhören; ...) c) INDIVIDUALS-OBJECTS-EXISTENCE ((etw1) sich bilden; (etw1) bestehen; (etw1) verfallen; (etw1) vergehen, ...) d) MOTION ((jmd1/etw1) liegen; (jmd1/etw1) bleiben; (jmd1/etw1) sich regen; (jmd1/etw1) sich drehen; ...) e) EXPERIENCE ((etw1) passieren (jmd3); (etw1) widerfährt (jmd3); (jd2) beeindruckt (etw1); ...); ...) f) PASSIVE-PERCEPTION (etw1) sich darbieten (jmd3); (etw1) schmerzt (jmd3); ...) g) ACTION h) LOCOMOTION ((jmd1) liegen; (jmd1) sich erheben; (jmd1) laufen; (jmd1) ankommen, ...) i) ACTIVE-PERCEPTION ((jmd1) blicken nach (etw3/jmd3); (jmd1) anschauen (etw2/jmd2); ...) j) PROCESS-CONTROL ((jmd1) verhindern (etw2); (jmd1) zulassen (etw2); (jmd1) steuern (etw2); ...) k) GRASP ((jmd1) langen nach (etw2); (jmd1) fassen (jmd2/etw2); (jmd1) drücken (jmd2/etw2); ...) C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris l) TRANSPORT ((jmd1) befrachten (etw2); (jmd1) versenden (etw2); (jmd1) schleppen (etw2/jmd2); ...) m) PRODUCTION ((jmd1) brechen (etw2); (jmd1) schneidern (etw2); (jmd1) flechten (etw2); ...) n) CONSUME ((jmd1) trinken (etw2); (jmd1) naschen (etw2); (jmd1) schlecken (etw2), ...) o) TRANSACTION ((jmd1) geben (jmd3) (etw2), (jmd1) borgen (jmd3) (etw2); (jmd1) erhalten (etw2) von (jmd3); ...) p) SPEECH-ACTS (group of models: EXPRESSIVE, ENACTION, DISCOURSE, ...) This list of a certain variety of verbal models reflects partially the stratifcational principles that seem to underly the verbal thesaurus. What are the decisive moments of this stratification? I want to quote brievly two of them : 1) more you go down the list, more there is a growth of an internal semantic complexity peculiar to every model. In the State-of-Affairs-Model there doesn't exist, for instance, neither a propre plan-structure nor a structure of several proces-phases: there aren't, strictly speaking, different phases at all, but only modalities -alethic, deontic or epistemic ones -that determine a state of affairs. Proces-phases come into existence with the physical or causal Proces-Model as well as in the Existence-Model where you have expressions that represent temporal or qualitative aspects of a proces or of the constitution of physical or animate objects. Nevertheless, in comparision to intentional state-changes represented, for instance, by the Action-C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris Model, the Production-Model or again the Model-of-Controlled-Property-Transaction, the phasic structure in the Proces-Model and the Existence-Model is a quite simple one because it excludes, by definition, motivational and other intentional preconditions of a state change as well as evaluative postconditions that imply judgements not only of the success but also of the excellency -of the "goodness" in a von Wrightian sense -of state-changes. Here, in fact, you can speak properly of a plan-structure and not only of a structure of different phases of a process that follow causally one another.

  .R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris The existence of semantic relations of similarity and presupposition between verbal models permits Ballmer and Brennenstuhl to group the several models together and to reduce them to a few verbal model-groups: a) verbs concerning states of affairs b) verbs concerning (non-intentional) processes and states c) verbs concerning existence d) verbs referring to properties and relations e) motion verbs f) experience verbs g) effect verbs h) verbs referring to controlled interference i) verbs referring to controlled manipulation k) production and destruction verbs l) transaction verbs m) speech-acts verbsGiven the possibility of the reduction or, properly speaking, of the generalization of a quantitatively important number of categories and models to some few model groups, it is not anymore so unrealistic to look for a conceptual framework that encompasses these model groups and renders explicit their relevancy for a general theory of action and cognition. With some imagination, I think, we may postulate that there is some evidence that the several model groups point: C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris -to the cognitively or pragmatically relevant distinction between causal and intentional state-changes; -to the experiential prerequists of intentional state changes as internal or external perception and locomotion;

  Here is an example: C.N.R.S. -InaLF (URL 7) 10, Rue Monsieur le Prince -75006 Paris i) etwas bewegt sich (= NON-ACTIVE-MOTION) ii) jemand bewegt sich (= ACTIVE-MOTION) iii) jemand bewegt sich von + Loc. nach + Loc. (= LOCOMOTION) iv) jemand bewegt etwas von + Loc. nach + Loc. (= TRANSPORT) Let me come now to the constructional hypothesis that underly the work of Ballmer and Brennenstuhl.

Routledge & Kegan Paul 1963