Table Of ContentA Grammar of Saramaccan Creole
Mouton Grammar Library
56
Editors
Georg Bossong
Bernard Comrie
Matthew Dryer
De Gruyter Mouton
A Grammar of
Saramaccan Creole
by
John H. McWhorter
Jeff Good
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-3-11-027643-5
e-ISBN 978-3-11-027826-2
ISSN 0933-7636
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress.
BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de.
”2012WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/Boston
Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen
(cid:2)(cid:2)Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Table of contents
Abbreviations xi
Introduction xiii
1 Segmental phonology 1
1.1. Segment inventory 1
1.1.1. Introduction 1
1.1.2. Consonants 2
1.1.2.1. Oral stops 2
1.1.2.2. Plain nasals and prenasalized stops 7
1.1.2.3. Fricatives 10
1.1.2.4. Approximants 12
1.1.3. Vowels 15
1.1.3.1. Basic vowel qualities 15
1.1.3.2. Nasal vowels 17
1.1.3.3. Long vowels and vowel combinations 18
1.2. Phonotactics 24
1.2.1. Syllable structure and epenthetic vowels 24
1.2.2. Co-occurrence restrictions and related kinds of patterns 25
1.2.3. Ideophones 27
1.3. Lexical strata 28
1.4. Sporadic alternations 29
2 Prosodic phonology 30
2.1. Introduction 30
2.2. Word-level prosody 30
2.2.1. Introduction 30
2.2.2. Accentual words 32
2.2.2.1. Words with high tones and TBU’s unspecified for tone 32
2.2.2.2. Accented words with short syllables 33
2.2.2.3. Accented words with “heavy” syllables 35
2.2.2.4. Manifestations of stress and possible foot structures 36
2.2.2.5. Minimal pairs 39
2.2.3. Tonal words 39
2.2.3.1. High tones and low tones 39
2.2.3.2. Indeterminacy in determining if a word is marked for tone or accent 41
2.2.3.3. Minimal pairs and tonal features of morphological processes 42
2.2.3.4. Lack of evidence for stress 43
2.2.3.5. Ideophones 44
2.2.4. Word-level prosody: Exceptions 44
2.3. Phrasal prosody 45
2.3.1. Tonal plateauing 46
2.3.1.1. Compounds and regular reduplication 46
2.3.1.2. Noun phrases 47
2.3.1.3. Adpositional phrases 49
2.3.1.4. Tones in the verbal complex 50
vi Table of contents
2.3.1.5. Simple clauses 50
2.3.1.6. Adverbial expressions 51
2.3.1.7. Interaction between intonational processes and plateauing 52
2.3.2. Tones in serial verb constructions 53
2.4. Intonational processes 57
2.4.1. Overview 57
2.4.2. Utterance-final lowering 57
2.4.3. Negative lowering 58
2.4.4. Emphasis within a clause 60
2.4.5. Yes/no questions 61
2.5. Notes on tonal and intonational phonetics and problems of analysis 62
3 Morphology and morphophonemics 63
3.1. Derivational morphology 63
3.1.1. Reduplication 63
3.1.1.1. Deverbal resultatives 63
3.1.1.2. Intensification 64
3.1.1.3. X-like 64
3.1.1.4. Aggregate plural 64
3.1.1.5. Nominalization 65
3.1.1.6. Tone plateauing in reduplicated words 65
3.1.2. The nominalizers -ma and -wa(cid:791)(cid:766) 66
3.1.3. An incipient derivational affix? 66
3.2. Inflectional morphology 67
3.2.1. Imperfective tá with gó ‘to go’ 67
3.2.2. Tonal marking of verb serialization 67
3.2.3. Nominal marker a-? 68
3.3. Morphophonemics 68
3.3.1. Possessive (f)u 68
3.3.2. Other morphophonemic processes with fu 69
3.3.3. Negation and pronouns 69
3.3.4. Third-person singular (cid:1107)(cid:766) 69
3.3.4.1. After a verb 69
3.3.4.2. With locative marker a 70
3.3.4.3. With negator ná 71
3.3.4.4. With copula da 71
3.3.4.5. With nja(cid:791)(cid:766) ‘eat’ and f(cid:1778) ‘beat’ 71
3.3.5. Locative (n)a 71
3.3.6. Hortative verb bé 72
3.4. Compounding 72
3.5. Rapid speech phenomena 74
4 The noun phrase 76
4.1. Determiners 76
4.2. Demonstratives 79
4.3. Possession 80
4.4. Relative clauses 85
4.4.1. The accessibility hierarchy 85
4.5. Quantifiers 88
Table of contents vii
4.6. Coordination 92
4.7. Gerunds 92
4.8. Adjective + wa(cid:791)(cid:766) ‘one’ 93
5 Personal pronouns 94
5.1. Pronominal inventory 94
5.2. Clitic status 95
5.2.1. Third-person singular oblique (cid:1107)(cid:766) 95
5.2.2. First-person singular m 96
5.3. Second-person singular ju 97
5.4. Pleonastic pronoun 97
5.5. Reflexives 97
5.6. Reciprocals 99
6 Adjectives 100
6.1. Definition of adjectival class 100
6.2. Adjectives and reduplication 102
6.3. Irregularities in reduplication of property items 103
6.4. Resultative adjectives 106
6.5. Comparative constructions 108
6.5.1. Positive comparison 108
6.5.2. Degree of comparison 110
6.5.3. Equal comparison 110
6.5.4. Negative comparison 110
6.5.5. Superlatives 111
6.5.6. Excessives 111
6.6. Color terms 112
7 Core predicate phrase modifiers: Negators, tense, aspect, and modals 113
7.1. Negation 113
7.1.1. Predicate negation 113
7.1.2. Irregularity in surface manifestation of negative marking 115
7.1.3. Negative quantifiers 116
7.2. Tense markers 117
7.2.1. Past marker bi 117
7.2.2. Future marker ó 121
7.3. Aspect markers 121
7.3.1. Imperfective marker tá 121
7.3.2. Grammatical status of bi, ó, and tá 123
7.3.3. Habitual marker ló 123
7.3.4. Past habitual marker náa 124
7.3.5. Durativity 125
7.3.6. Completive marker kaa 125
7.3.7. Kó as completive marker 128
7.3.8. Continuative marker gó dóu 128
7.4. Modal markers 129
7.4.1. Deontic 129
7.4.2. Epistemic 131
7.4.2.1. Probability 131
viii Table of contents
7.4.2.2. Ability 132
7.4.2.3. Possibility 133
7.5. Order of occurrence 135
8 Verb serialization 137
8.1. Diagnostic issues 137
8.1.1. Taxonomy 137
8.1.2. Constraints on argument sharing 138
8.2. Directional serials 139
8.3. Serials encoding core grammatical distinctions 141
8.3.1. Dá ‘give’ 141
8.3.2. Degree 142
8.3.3. Repetition 143
8.3.4. Complementation 143
8.3.5. Hortative marker 144
8.4. Serials with moderately grammaticalized meaning 145
8.5. Verbs used serially without change in meaning 147
8.5.1. Kabá ‘finish’ 147
8.5.2. Other verbs 147
8.5.3. Téi ‘take’ as “instrumental”? 148
8.6. Verb serialization as Sprachgefühl 149
9 Coordination and subordination 150
9.1. Coordination 150
9.1.1. Conjunction 150
9.1.2. Disjunction 151
9.1.3. Exclusion 151
9.2. Subordination 152
9.2.1. Finite complements 152
9.2.1.1. Factive complements 152
9.2.1.2. Hortative complements 152
9.2.1.3. Complements of perception and causation verbs 152
9.2.2. Nonfinite complements 154
9.2.2.1. Control verbs 154
9.2.2.2. Small clauses 155
9.2.2.3. Gerund complements 156
9.2.3. Subordination: Adverbial complement clauses 157
9.2.3.1. Temporal complements 157
9.2.3.2. Purpose complements 158
9.2.3.3. Locational complements 160
9.2.3.4. Manner complements 160
9.2.3.5. Causal complements 160
9.2.3.6. Conditional complements 161
9.2.3.7. Concessive complements 162
9.2.3.8. Substitutive complements 163
10 Passive and imperative 164
10.1. Valence-decreasing operations 164
10.1.1. Passive voice 164
Table of contents ix
10.1.2. Middle voice 167
10.1.3. Object omission 168
10.2. Valence-increasing operations 168
10.2.1. Ditransitives 168
10.2.2. Causatives 170
10.3. The imperative mood 171
11 Questions 173
11.1. Yes/no questions 173
11.2. Information questions 175
11.3. Indirect questions 176
12 Nonverbal predication and be-verbs 178
12.1. Identificational equative predicates: Da 178
12.1.1. Basic traits 178
12.1.2. Irregularities 178
12.1.3. Omission 180
12.1.4. Allomorphy 181
12.1.5. Da as sentential presentative 182
12.2. Class equative predicates: D(cid:1107)(cid:791) or da 182
12.3. Locative and other predicates: D(cid:1107)(cid:791) 183
12.4. Existential predicates 184
13 Position, direction, and time 186
13.1. Spatial indicators 186
13.2. Deictic adverbials 188
13.3. Direction 190
13.3.1. Some directional verbs 190
13.3.2. Allative and ablative movement 190
13.3.2.1. Ablative 190
13.3.2.2. Allative 192
13.4. Time expressions 193
13.4.1. Units of time 193
13.4.2. Timeline placement of events 194
14 Adverbial modification 196
14.1. Intensifiers 196
14.2. Time adverbials 197
14.3. Adverbs of quantity 199
14.4. Adverbs of manner 200
14.5. Adverbs of frequency 201
14.6. The evidential adverbial construction 202
14.7. Ideophones 202
14.8. Placement of adverbs 204
15 Information structure 205
15.1. Contrastive focus 205
15.1.1. Impressionistic prominence 205
15.1.2. Contrastive focus on verbs 205
x Table of contents
15.1.3. Contrastive focus on arguments and adjuncts 206
15.1.3.1. Fronting 206
15.1.3.2. Contrastive focus marker w(cid:1107) 206
15.1.3.3. Contrastive focus marking with h(cid:1107)(cid:791)(cid:766) 208
15.1.3.4. Focus marker h(cid:1107)(cid:791)(cid:766) da 209
15.1.3.5. Reduplicated pronouns? 209
15.2. Pragmatic markers 209
15.2.1. Given-information marking 209
15.2.2. New-information marking: N(cid:1101)(cid:791)(cid:1101) and h(cid:1107)(cid:791)(cid:766) 210
15.2.2.1. Position of n(cid:1101)(cid:791)(cid:1101) 211
15.2.2.2. N(cid:1101)(cid:791)(cid:1101) and adverbial complements 212
15.2.2.3. New information versus focus-marking 213
15.2.2.4. H(cid:1107)(cid:791)(cid:766) as new-information marker in the bounded past 214
15.3. Combinations of focus and pragmatic markers 214
15.4. Pragmatic-marking adverbs 216
15.4.1. N(cid:1101)(cid:791)(cid:1101) ‘just, only’ 216
15.4.2. N(cid:1101)(cid:791)(cid:1101)m(cid:1101) ‘indeed’ 216
15.4.3. Seéi 217
15.4.4. Awáa ‘at last’ 218
15.4.5. Interjection é 220
15.4.6. Interjection o 220
16 Numerals and other time expressions 221
16.1. Cardinal numbers 221
16.2. Ordinal numbers 221
16.3. Distribution 222
16.4. Fraction 222
16.5. Time by the clock 222
16.6. Days of the week 223
16.7. Months 223
17 Lexical variation 224
17.1. Dialects 224
17.2. Free variation 224
Word list 226
Folktale transcription 228
Conversational passage 232
References 235
Index 239
