L2 Tense and Time Reference

Author(s): Eli Hinkel

Source: TESOL Quarterly , Autumn, 1992, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 557-572
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

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 TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 26, No. 3, Autumn 1992

L2 Tense and Time Reference

ELI HINKEL
The Ohio State University

The meanings and forms of tenses are complex and o

for nonnative speakers to acquire. The concepts asso
time which differ among language communities can
additional level of complexity for learners. In a sur
students were asked to describe the meanings of Eng
terms of time concepts used in ESL grammar texts.
suggest that speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
and Arabic associate different temporal relations
terms right now, present, and past than do native
implication of this finding is that grammar teaching
descriptions of time accepted in English-speaking com
explain usages and meanings of English tenses can p
rate of learner comprehension.

Few ESL researchers doubt that learners' L1 conc

time and lexical and/or grammatical time marker
on their acquisition of English tense. In all lan
referred to in some fashion. However, time
perceptual, conceptual and cultural divisions of tim
societies. One obvious example of this is the bound
nonsecular Muslim and Jewish cultures, days begin
at midnight as in Western civil convention. On th
Japanese consider sunrise the beginning of a new
Time attributes are bound to reflect on the system
languages represent these divisions (Levinson,
references to time attributes can take many forms
such as Chinese and Japanese refer to time lexical
nouns and adverbs; others, like English, also uti
references (i.e., verb tense). If both Li time attribu
guistic references differ from those in L2, learners
selves in an environment where they cannot pick out
tribute to which tense is a grammatical reference (
English aspect can be morphologically mark
example, the verbs in both sentences He runs and H

557

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in the present tense. However, the present simple runs carries
iterative (or habitual) implicature, whereas -ing in the second
sentence imparts progressive implicature to the verb's present tense
meaning. Aspects, which Comrie (1976), Lyons (1977), and
Richards (1987) view as additional features of time deixis (or means
of locating events in time), can present the same potential
dichotomy between the time attributable and its reference.
In order to gain insight into how ESL learners acquire morpho-
logical tense, numerous studies have examined the order of
morpheme acquisition (e.g., Andersen, 1977; Bailey, Madden, &
Krashen, 1974; Dulay & Burt, 1974; Larsen-Freeman, 1976; Makino,
1979; Pienemann, 1985). In addition, a great deal of research has
been devoted to ESL learner acquisition of tense and morpheme
meaning (Andersen, 1983; Bailey, 1989a, 1989b; Hatch, 1978).
Whereas some specialists on language and tense acquisition believe
that learners acquire tense meanings before their morphological
forms, others hold the opposite view. This paper will address the
issue of whether nonnative speakers (NNSs) who have received
extensive L2 training and have achieved a relatively high L2
proficiency intuitively perceive English conceptualization of time
and its grammatical references to deictic (or indexical) time, that is,
morphological tense, in ways similar to native speakers (NSs).
Another focus of this study is NNSs' perceptions of English
aspectual implicature.
ESL teachers and L2 researchers recognize that English tenses are
difficult to acquire (DeCarrico, 1986; Richards, 1981; Riddle, 1986).
Guiora (1983) notes that speakers of Hebrew encounter difficulty
mastering the meanings and usages of several of the English past
tenses which, to them, seem redundant and without an easily
discernible function. He also notes that speakers of Chinese may be
faced with establishing an entirely new hypothesis of how time is
used and referred to. Sharwood Smith (1988) indicates that his
Polish students had difficulty relating to the past progressive and its
form. Richards (1981) discusses the complexity of introducing
English progressive tenses and their explicit and implied meanings.
Dialect variations even within English-speaking societies make for
significant differences in tense usage and meanings (Leech, 1971).
Coppetiers (1987), who conducted a study of highly educated
NNSs with near-native proficiency in French, found that whereas
they had obviously acquired tense forms, their perceptions of tense
meanings were not NS-like. Coppetiers contends that the NNSs'
perceptions of tense meanings were strongly affected by tense
meanings in the L1 so that the speakers of Romance languages
interpreted the meanings of French tenses differently from speakers
of Germanic and tenseless languages (pp. 560-561).

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 To date, whether speakers of the many languages without mor-
phological tenses can fully master the English verbal system of
tenses has not been determined. Richards (1973) observes that ESL
learners' omissions of tense markers represent a damaging and
confusing type of error. Chappel and Rodby (1983) note that ESL
students' tense-related errors often detract from the overall
comprehensibility of their text. They further mention that despite
the fact that verb tenses occupy a prominent role in the teaching of
ESL, students seem to choose verb tenses arbitrarily. In their view
tense errors may result from the learners' lack of understanding of
the impact of tense on text.

BACKGROUND: PRAGMATICS OF TIME AND TENSE

The issue of the relationship between grammatical tense a

and the acquisition of tense systems *is complex. Wh
connection exists between the detailed marking of time in
and its morphological tense as a grammatical category has
established with certainty. Comrie (1985) mentions that
cultural groups "have radically different conceptualiza
time" (p. 3) and only some measure time and occurring eve
exactitude. Fillmore (1975) notes that, in most language
markers, such as today, tomorrow, and yesterday, can ref
variety of time lengths within a relevant span. These relevan
however, differ from one language to another. Levinso
claims that in "languages without true tenses, for example
or Yoruba" (p. 78), the concept of time is realized through
and implicit and contextual assumptions. Southeast Asian la
require a strict discourse frame which delineates tim
therefore, the time reference.
The numerous studies of the meaning relationships in
between attribute and reference-the thing and its nam
demonstrated that they are vague (Bach, 1981) and l
specific. Kripke (1991) views notions of meanings as "det
by the conventions of the language" which can be treated
conjunction with the related linguistic phenomena of the l
(p. 84). Bach (1981) advances this argument stating that, in o
be understood, the speaker and his audience must have
contextual beliefs. Linguistic meanings of tense also inc
mutual beliefs and shared perceptions of the members of a
community. The expression of such beliefs and perceptions
be shared by members of other speech communities (Searle
As Donnellan (1991) notes, if descriptions of time a
referentially, the subjects to whom these descriptions are ad

L2 TENSE AND TIME REFERENCE 559

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are thus enabled to "pick out" (p. 60) the references and their
attributes. However, if the reference does not fit the subjects'
perceptions of the attribute, they may be unable to establish a
correspondence between them.
For example, if the NS instructor states that the morpheme -ed
marks the verb for past simple tense but the student's conceptual-
ization of past differs from the instructor's, the student may not use
this morpheme in the contexts where the instructor would. Learners'
abilities to establish the referential relationships between L2 time
deixis, tense, and morphological markers necessarily affects their
perceptions of the meanings and functions of tense morphemes.
Recanti's (1991) availability principle assumes that linguistic
meanings must be available or accessible to our "ordinary,
conscious intuitions" (p. 106). Because time-span conceptualizations
and their lexical references differ for NSs and NNSs, English
grammatical references to time may not be readily available for
pragmatic interpretation by speakers of tenseless languages. If this
is the case, morphological time reference (i.e., linguistic meaning of
tense) may not be accessible to these speakers' conscious intuitions.
Another complication is that even developed morphological tense
structures in two languages may differ greatly (Fillmore, 1975).
Levinson (1983) sees English time reference as calendrical
reckoning and observes that most Amerindian languages, Japanese,
and Hindi differ from it and one another in names and lengths of
days and time spans. In his brief examination of how the time
attribute corresponds to tense, Levinson mentions that in languages
with tense, sentences are anchored to a context by morphological
tense, whereas other languages utilize other linguistic and social
means of contextual anchoring. If mutual contextual beliefs (Bach,
1981) and calendrical time deixis (Levinson, 1983) are necessary for
picking out a time attribute and its morphological reference in
English, NNSs lacking intuitions and access to knowledge
associated with the English time deixis and linguistic tense may face
problems in using and interpreting English time references.
Usually, instructors teach tenses by presenting rules, explaining
the meanings of tenses, and by identifying the time deixis and
lexical contexts in which certain tenses are called for (Eisenstein,
1987). Such presentations are usually accompanied by exercises in
which the students are expected to apply the instructor's explana-
tions. In order to do so successfully, the students have to perform a
series of tasks. They need to be aware of the lexical and syntactic
markers of time and their environments in the sentence, understand
their meanings and implications, analyze them for time and tense

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reference and aspect implicature, pick out one or more correspond-
ing auxiliaries or morphemes, put them in the relevant form, and
produce a correct verbal structure. In this study, ESL students were
asked in a questionnaire to reverse this process and describe the
meanings and implications which tenses and aspects have for them
through the reference terms associated with English time deixis.
(The descriptions of English time deixis and the framework of
temporality were adopted following Leech, 1971, and Comrie,
1985.)

METHOD

Questionnaire Design
In the questionnaire, the students were asked to describ
sentences for each of the 8 English tenses excluding future, a
32 sentences: 4 present (present simple, present progressive,
ent perfect, and present perfect progressive) and 4 past (pas
ple, past progressive, past perfect, and past perfect pro
sive). If responses for 2 sentences with the same tense and a
differed, they were averaged independently for tense and asp
order to circumvent the issue of the respondents' possible c
sion when performing the required task, responses to the firs
tences per tense were considered invalid and excluded fro
analysis.
In the questionnaire, time attributes and references were listed
with the immediate present first, moving back to the past perfect,
which is the most deictically distant from the present moment. To
assure that the tense descriptors were accessible to the NNSs, the
selection of terms describing the meanings of tenses and aspectual
implicatures were chosen from intermediate/advanced ESL and
grammar texts: right now (Azar, 1989) and at the moment of
speaking (Leech, 1971); in the present and in the past (Leech &
Svartvik, 1975); in the past and before another past event (Azar,
1989; Leech, 1971; Leech & Svartvik, 1975); progressive (Azar, 1989;
Leech, 1971; Leech & Svartvik, 1975); and repetitive/habitual
(Azar, 1989; Leech & Svartvik, 1975).
The semantics of the contexts were made uniform for grammat-
ical gender, animacy, and number. The choice of sentences in the
questionnaire reflected several considerations:

1. The verbs did not carry momentary or durational meanings

(Leech, 1971) (as in, respectively, blink or love) and only three
verbs were used: walk, talk, and visit.

L2 TENSE AND TIME REFERENCE 561

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2. Explicit time markers were excluded, with the exception of
before, to motivate the past perfect tenses (Azar, 1989; Leech,
1971).
3. Vocabulary was restricted to fewer than 100 high-frequency
words.
(See the Appendix for a listing of the questionnaire sentences. These
are presented in an order different from that in the actual
questionnaire.)
The NNS and the NS controls were instructed to choose however
many of the multiple-choice items they wished and thus describe
their own perceptions of temporal references and the progressive
and iterative/habitual aspects (Comrie, 1985; Leech, 1971;
Richards, 1981). However, true to the multiple-choice testing
tradition, almost all participants selected only one answer per
multiple-choice selection. The first multiple-choice selection had a
general heading, The time of the action is, and required the subjects
to identify the English verb time reference regressively from the
present to the past. The second selection had the heading The action
is and dealt with the respondents' perceptions of aspect. The
aspects addressed in the questionnaire included the progressive
aspect and the iterative/habitual aspect. The perfective aspect and
0 aspect were not included and, for the purposes of this study, are
termed nonprogressive/nonhabitual. (The selection in the question-
naire corresponding to these aspects was none of the above.) The
multiple-choice options remained uniform for all 32 sentences.
For example, the students read the sentence Bob is talking to his
brother. Then they saw two multiple-choice selections for tense and
aspect descriptors, respectively:
1. The time of the action is:
a. right now/at the moment of speaking
b. in the present and in the past
c. in the past
d. before another past event
e. cannot decide
2. The action is:
a. progressive
b. repetitive/habitual
c. none of the above
d. cannot decide

The survey was administered at the conclusion of the Autumn

Quarter, immediately following 9 weeks of instruction in daily or
thrice-weekly ESL classes. There was no time limit for the subject
to respond to the questions.

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Subjects
Of the 130 ESL students who participated in this study, 70
students were speakers of Chinese (CH); 17, Korean (KR); 13,
Japanese (JP); 11, Vietnamese (VT); 12, Spanish (SP); and 7, Arabic
(AR). Of the 21 NS included as controls, 19 were graduate students
enrolled in various departments at The Ohio State University
(OSU), most of whom had minimal training in linguistics. The
remaining 2 were ESL instructors. The total number of participants
was 151.
All NNS participants had been admitted to OSU and were taking
classes at the university. Their TOEFL scores ranged from 500
617, with a mean of 563. Unlike the majority of NNSs, th
Vietnamese and some speakers of Spanish were U.S. resident alien
or citizens and thus were not required to take the TOEFL.
The NNS subjects' ESL training ranged from 4 to 18 years with
mean of 9.6 years. All NNS students included in the study, with th
exception of the Vietnamese, had been residing in the U.S. for
period of time ranging from 2.5 to 30 months, with a mean of 6
months. The Vietnamese students' residence in the U.S. rang
from 4 to 11 years, with an average of 5.7 years, and the duration
their formal ESL training ranged from 9 to 33 months, with a mea
of 10.3 months.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

The sizes of the NNS groups were not equalized. After the d
were compiled for each sentence, they were converted to perc
ages. The NS values were compared to those for other groups.
temporal reference for each tense chosen by the highest numb
NSs was accepted as the tense temporal reference against whic
those of the NNSs were compared. (See Table 1.)
Only in the present progressive were the NNSs' perceptio
tense meanings close to those of NSs. Otherwise, NSs gene
chose descriptions of temporal references substantially differ
from members of all groups of trained NNSs. In fact
differences between NSs and NNSs were statistically signif
(p < .01) for each row of Table 1 except the present progre
which is not significant.- The NNSs' temporal reference fo
present progressive right now/at the moment of speaking indi
1 This is based on Fisher's exact test for each row, grouping all NNSs together. A chi
test for independence would not have been appropriate due to small cell sizes ass
with percentages near 0 or 100%. Since results for 2 sentences were used and avera
Table 1, care was taken to perform the test separately for each sentence.

L2 TENSE AND TIME REFERENCE 563

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 TABLE 1

Temporal Reference (%)

(N= 151)

NS CH KR JP VT SP AR
(n=21) (n=70) (n=17) (n=13) (n=11) (n=12) (n=7)

Right now/at the moment of speaking

Present progressive 100 90 88 85 100 100 100

In the present and in the past

Present simple 95 40 24 38 0 83 72
Present perfect progressive 96 49 64 62 9 75 72

In the past

Present perfect 97 34 29 23 36 58 57
Past progressive 100 60 71 85 46 67 57
Past simple 100 81 88 0 55 58 57

Before another past event

Past perfect progressive 95 41 35 92 27 58 86

Past perfect 98 61 70 85 27 67 71

that, for them, it is the most int

finding is consistent with that o
showed that even a speaker of
the present progressive earlier t
attribute provides the secon
reference because present, pas
meanings within the conceptu
(Comrie, 1985). The unanimity
perceived it to mark the past,
system of naming a certain num
can be included in both the pres
The Chinese perceived the deict
and past simple most nearly a
terms of distance from the NS
followed by the past perfect a
present simple, present perfect
sive, and present perfect, respect
Koreans followed approximately
values for the present progre
highest for this group and are s
gressive. As has been mentioned,
ent.

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 With the exception of the speakers of Spanish and Arabic, the
values for the other present tenses reflect the considerable difficulty
most NNSs had when choosing the temporal descriptions listed
within the selections. The past perfect tenses presented less
difficulty, which can be partially explained by the lexical (as
opposed to grammatical) reference of before. Levinson (1983)
indicates that most tenseless languages provide for lexical and
discourse sentence anchors. In this case, the adverb before is an
explicit lexical marker congruent with the concepts of time
reference intuitively available to the speakers of such languages.
Linear conceptualizations of time may not be common to all
societies (von Stutterheim & Klein, 1987). Among the 6 groups of
NNSs, only the speakers of Spanish and Arabic were speakers of
languages with developed morphological tenses. The very fact that
Spanish and Arabic have deictic time reference provides an
established conceptual structure and morphological temporal
reference which the speakers of these languages can draw on when
exposed to L2 conceptualizations of time and morphological tense.
To some degree, they share more mutual conceptualizations of time
with NSs and were more successful in picking out appropriate L2
time attributes than speakers of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and
Vietnamese.
The NSs' behavior in the analysis of tense-marked temporality
demonstrates that they appear to know that auxiliaries and
morphemes represent deictic time reference and were, therefore,
able to pick out the more appropriate time attribute (Donnellan
1991). They appear to have access to the linguistic meanings which
auxiliaries and morphemes encode in English. The NNSs, however,
do not seem to have the NS-like intuitive knowledge of the linear
conceptualization of time and its linguistic references.
Morphological references to deictic time are inextricably linked
to tense reference. If a grammatical reference to temporality
implies a deictic time, we assume that the NNS knows and intends
that meaning (Recanti, 1991); that is, we assume that NNSs' choice
of morphemes implies their knowledge of morphological meanings
Even if the NNSs' intuitive knowledge of deictic time attribute is
NS-like but their choice of morphemes is not, their NS-like intuitive
knowledge of deictic time would still appear seriously flawed.
In the second task, the study participants were requested to assign
aspectual implicature (Comrie, 1976, 1985) to each temporal
reference of tense. The implicature of linear temporal aspects tends
to increase the distance between the NS and NNS perceptions of
temporality. (See Table 2.)

L2 TENSE AND TIME REFERENCE 565

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 TABLE 2

Aspectual Implications (%)

(N= 151)

NS CH KR JP VT SP AR
(n=21) (n=70) (n= 17) (n= 13) (n= 11) (n= 12) (n=7)

Progressive

Present progressive 100 64 59 100 36 75 86

Present perfect progressiw 95 56 65 85 0 67 71
Past progressive 99 53 71 92 27 50 71
Past perfect progressive 96 49 65 85 27 58 43

Interactive/habitual

Present simple 97 47 59 77 18 50 85

Nonprogressive/nonhabitual

Present perfect 97 34 29 23 36 42 43
Past simple 98 47 82 62 46 42 86
Past perfect 96 56 53 38 28 34 57

The NNSs' perceptions of asp

their choices were also analyze
majority of NSs. NSs chose des
significantly differently (p
including present progressive (b
by-cell comparison of same-tens
perceptions of L2 aspectual im
average decline of 7.8% compar
perceptions of temporality (see
with Bailey's (1989a, 1989b) ac
simple and past progressive, whi
combined with the meaning of
of complexity for L2 learner
progressive aspect were generall
their perceptions of the habitua
Durative and continuative, and
some form, can be found in all L
exception of Vietnamese. N
referential implicature thus hav
conceptualization. Chinese (Li
(Comrie, 1976, 1985) have the
(Joo Hwang, 1987), Japanese
1987) have both types of impl
and iterative and repetitive. How

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these languages is different from that of English-so much so that,
as the cited authors indicate, it is rather difficult to describe in terms
of English. Vietnamese, however, is unique in that it does not have
tenses or aspects, and its word order is the sole means of indicating
grammatical relations (Nguyen, 1987).
The NNS perceptions of aspect and temporality in the present
perfect are the most distant from those of NSs. Among the speakers
of tenseless languages, the Koreans and the Japanese more closely
approximated NS values over the range than did the Chinese, who
have only durative Li aspect. In turn, the values for the Chinese
were nearer NS values than the Vietnamese. The fact that the Span-
ish continuative and the situational repetitive are not similar to the
English progressive and iterative (Comrie, 1976, 1985) is presum-
ably reflected in the values for the Spanish speakers.
Leech (1971) and Comrie (1976, 1985) strongly distinguish be-
tween the basic meanings of tenses and the secondary meanings of
aspects. The NNSs' interpretations of L2 time deixis that are, in
Donnellan's (1991) framework, restricted by their Li conceptualiza-
tion are made additionally difficult by the need to infer aspectual
implicature. The fact that the distance between NNS and NS
perceptions was greater in regard to aspectual implicature than with
temporal reference supports the earlier observation that NNSs'
intuitions regarding morphological references to deictic temporality
may not be fully developed by years of L2 training.

CONCLUSION

Independent of the NNSs' perceived meanings of time

morphological references to time impose obvious constraint
learner performance. The fact that NNSs with extensive lan
training and TOEFL scores above 500 consistently made t
reference analyses and choices of time attributes signif
different from those of NSs in nearly all cases can be accoun
by four interrelated hypotheses which require further invest
1. NNSs' intuitive conceptualizations of time are not linear
deictic and, therefore, removed from those of NSs. Exten
instruction may diminish this conceptual distance on
limited extent.

2. Because English, unlike some other languages, requires m

logical reference to time deixis, NNSs' intuitions associate
deictic tense may not be based on linear temporality and
phological tense as fully as those of NSs are.

L2 TENSE AND TIME REFERENCE 567

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3. Despite their years of language training, compared to NSs, NNSs
have limited access to the means of interpreting morphological
deictic time.
4. As is apparent from the data for the Vietnamese speakers, many
years of exposure to L2, combined with instruction, may have a
limited impact on NNSs' perceptions of L2 deictic tense.
The marked differences which have been noted between the NS
and NNS perceptions of time and its associated morphology a
described in the terms accepted in L1 research and L2 methodology
can also imply that tense-related instruction does not always strik
a familiar chord or provide for a point of reference in NNSs' con-
ceptualizations of time and its grammatical encoding.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING

The data presented in this study are preliminary and

further investigation. For this reason, only some general s
and implications for teaching can be offered. The sub
differences between NS and NNS perceptions of tense
seem to indicate that NSs and NNSs view time spans
divisions and measurements differently. If this is the
teacher cannot assume that the terminology and the conc
tions associated with English time deixis are understoo
students in the same way as they are understood by NSs. S
ly and thoroughly explaining English time attributes and
the reference terms used to describe them, and their impa
meanings of tenses can possibly help L2 learners associate
labels and morphemes which refer to time divisions.
The data further show that for these L2 learners, the pr
gressive, past simple, and past progressive, respectivel
sented the most accessible deictic time spans. It is reasona
the teaching of English tenses should begin with these thr
As has been noted, Japanese speakers may have particular
with the meanings and morphology associated with the pa
Because NNSs tend to rely on lexical time markers such a
and after when interpreting the meanings of tenses and t
phological references, these may be included in t
explanations of the English tense system to facilitate the
understanding of time-span relationships and tense mean
Because morphological tense markers impose constr
learner performance, they may be specially addressed in
tion with tense meanings. The speakers of Spanish seem to
ficulty distinguishing between English tense-related m

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and false cognates associated with the Spanish tense system and its
morphology (Andersen, 1983; Comrie, 1985). The intuitions of
Vietnamese speakers regarding tense morphological markers seem
to be notably different from those of other groups of NNSs, pre-
sumably due to the absence of morphological deixis in their L1. For
speakers of Arabic, as opposed to Chinese and Korean, English no-
tions of temporality seem to impose somewhat reduced constraints
associated with notions of temporality. However, their acquisition
of the meanings and forms for the perfect tenses, such as the past
perfect, past perfect progressive, and present perfect, appears to
present substantial difficulty. In very general terms, the teaching of
English conceptual notions of time, its divisions, and the relation-
ships between these divisions can underlie or even precede the
teaching of the tense system and its morphological references.

THE AUTHOR

Eli Hinkel received her PhD in linguistics from The University of Mich
and has taught in intensive and ITA-training programs for the past 10
research interests include concept-based transfer and L2 teaching meth
She is employed as Coordinator of the ESL Composition Program a
State University.

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 APPENDIX

SENTENCES USED IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Used for data analysis Excluded from data analysis

1. Bob is talking to his brother. 1. Bob is visiting his cousin.
2. John walks to school. 2. John talks to Peter.
3. The student talked to his friend about 3. The student walked to school from the
the new movie. meeting.
4. The students had been talking to Bob 4. Peter had been walking quickly before
before the meeting. meeting Bob.
5. Peter was walking quietly. 5. John was talking quietly.
6. Peter has walked to school. 6. Bob has talked to Peter.

7. John talks to his brother about his 7. The student visits his brother at school.
friends.

8. Bob is walking to the movies. 8. John is talking to a friend.

9. John has been talking to Bob on the 9. Peter has been visiting his brother in
phone. Hawaii.

10. John had been visiting Bob before 10. The student had been walking home
leaving for school. before the rain.

11. John has visited his brother at school. 11. Bob has talked about his new school.

12. Bob has been walking. 12. John walked to the meeting.
13. Peter visited his brother in Hawaii. 13. Peter has been talking on the phone.
14. The student had visited Bob before 14. The student had talked to Bob before
going to school. going home.
15. John had talked to Peter before lunch.15. Bob had walked to school before
talking to Peter.
16. John was talking to Bob. 16. Peter was visiting Bob.

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