Abstract

The study investigates the second language (L2) acquisition of English tense morphology among Pakistani ESL learners, focusing on the distinction between morphosyntactic accuracy and morphosemantic interpretation. Learners frequently generate grammatically accurate tense morphology but encounter difficulties in connecting these forms to their corresponding temporal meanings, showing more extensive problems with acquiring the English tense–aspect system. Grounded on the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, the study explores the developmental trajectory of form–meaning mapping across proficiency levels. A Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) was conducted with distinct groups of learners (Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced) and a native-speaker control group. The task included four conditions: morphosyntactic and morphosemantic correctness/violations across the simple present, simple past, and present progressive. The findings reveal a clear developmental asymmetry: learners showed stronger performance on morphosyntactic judgments than on morphosemantic interpretations. Mismatches between temporal adverbs and tense morphology were the most common mistakes. MANOVA results verified that language proficiency significantly affects both structural accuracy and interpretive ability, indicating a need for feature reassembly to correctly integrate L1 and L2 features. The findings also confirm a significant L1 effect in the early phases of acquisition, underscoring the necessity of pedagogical practices that directly connect tense morphology with its semantic and temporal meanings.