Nachzustand, Distanz und Aspektualität als Komponenten einer formfokussierten Steuerung von Perfekt und Präteritum

Abstract

The fascinating complexity of the German past tenses has created many scientific contributions within the pedagogic, linguistic and SLA communities. Not often though the findings of the theoretical branches have been applied for pedagogic purposes. The article aims at bridging this gap by elaborating the semantic respectively pragmatic concepts of post-state, distance and aspect within a focus on form approach. The concepts of post-state and distance help to present systematically the different readings of the German present perfect and past tense. Reflections on aspectual meanings lead to insights into L2 decoding and coding preferences of learners whose L1 grammaticalises aspect. I propose several proactive and reactive focus on form activities (input flood, input enhancement, metalinguistic feedback, dictogloss) to increase the salience of the elaborated concepts within the L2 instruction of the German past tenses.