This article surveys the development of second language acquisition research in the area oftense and aspect. Research in the area has grown from the incidental investigation of tense-aspectmorphology as part of the morpheme-order studies to investigations of the construction ofinterlanguage temporal semantics. Going beyond verbal morphology, many studies investigate afull range of temporal expression, including the use of pragmatic and lexical means. Much recentresearch also draws on theories of inherent, or lexical, aspect. An emphasis on the relation ofform and meaning characterizes both the form-oriented approach and the semantic-orientedapproach, the competing research paradigms that currently guide our work. The increase inscholarly activity in this domain of second language acquisition, as reflected not only in thenumber of studies undertaken but in the number of target languages investigated, bodes well forthe understanding of temporality in second language.