Word-Formation and Creolisation: The Case of Early Sranan 9783484970229, 9783484305175

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Herausgegeben von Klaus von Heusinger, Gereon Mller, Ingo Plag, Beatrice Primus, Elisabeth Stark und Richard Wiese

Maria Braun

Word-Formation and Creolisation The Case of Early Sranan

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tbingen 2009

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Dissertation Universit t Siegen Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet !ber http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-484-30517-5

ISSN 0344-6727

+ Max Niemeyer Verlag, T!bingen 2009 Ein Imprint der Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG http://www.niemeyer.de Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich gesch!tzt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzul ssig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere f!r Vervielf ltigungen, >bersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbest ndigem Papier. Druck und Einband: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, Kempten

Table of contents

List of abbreviations ..........................................................................................................................VIII Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... IX 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................

1

2 Creolisation and word-formation: some central issues ................................................................. 3 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3 2.2 The issue of creole genesis ................................................................................................. 3 2.3 Word-formation in creole genesis: sources, mechanisms and factors ................................. 6 2.4 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 11 3 The socio-historical and demographic background of Early Sranan............................................. 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3.2 Suriname in the 17th – 19th centuries: a socio-historical overview...................................... 3.3 The demographic development of Suriname ...................................................................... 3.4 The ethnolinguistic make-up of the Surinamese population ............................................... 3.4.1 The European population and its languages........................................................... 3.4.2 The African population and its languages .............................................................. 3.5 The emergence of Early Sranan .......................................................................................... 3.6 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................

12 12 12 14 18 18 19 22 25

4 Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4.2 Sources of Early Sranan...................................................................................................... 4.3 Procedure............................................................................................................................ 4.4 Sources of English and Dutch............................................................................................. 4.5 Sources of the substratum languages .................................................................................. 4.6 Methodological problems ................................................................................................... 4.6.1 General problems ................................................................................................... 4.6.2 Problems with measuring productivity................................................................... 4.6.3 Problems with the orthography of complex words................................................. 4.6.4 Problems with the information about stress ........................................................... 4.7 General remarks on the presentation of the data .................................................................

27 27 27 29 30 32 34 34 35 36 40 41

5 Early Sranan word-formation: establishing a descriptive framework ........................................... 5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5.2 Word-formation, words and complex words....................................................................... 5.2.1 The notion of word................................................................................................. 5.2.2 Defining complex words ........................................................................................ 5.2.3 Defining complex words in Early Sranan............................................................... 5.3 An overview of word-formation processes in Early Sranan................................................

43 43 43 43 45 47 50

VI 5.4

5.5

5.6

Affixation and compounding: establishing the borderline.................................................. 5.4.1 Defining affixation and compounding.................................................................... 5.4.2 Distinguishing affixes and elements of compounds in terms of their properties .... 5.4.3 Affixation and compounding in some morphological theories............................... 5.4.4 Early Sranan affixation and compounding: a descriptive framework..................... Distinguishing compounding and syntax............................................................................ 5.5.1 The problem of distinguishing compounding and syntax....................................... 5.5.2 Compounds and phrases in two morphological theories ........................................ 5.5.3 Distinguishing compounds and syntactic phrases in terms of their properties ....... 5.5.4 Early Sranan compounding-syntax borderline: a descriptive framework ............... Conclusion..........................................................................................................................

52 52 54 58 62 63 63 64 67 71 74

6 Multifunctionality of lexical items in Early Sranan ...................................................................... 76 6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 76 6.2 Multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes: methodological aspects ................................ 77 6.2.1 Establishing word-class membership of Early Sranan lexemes.............................. 77 6.2.2 Identifying multifunctional lexemes in Early Sranan ............................................. 88 6.3 Multifunctionality in Early Sranan: an empirical overview ................................................ 91 6.4 Multifunctionality in Early Sranan: in search of a theoretical account ............................... 97 6.4.1 Multifunctionality as a directional process............................................................. 97 6.4.2 Multifunctionality as underspecification ................................................................ 102 6.4.3 A theoretical account of multifunctionality in Early Sranan .................................. 107 6.5 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 108 7 Concatenative patterns.................................................................................................................. 109 7.1 Introduction: terminological and methodological preliminaries ......................................... 109 7.1.1 Defining mechanisms operating in creole word-formation .................................... 109 7.1.2 Defining linguistic factors operating in creole word-formation: markedness......... 113 7.1.3 Defining the sources of creole word-formation ...................................................... 120 7.1.4 Methodological remarks on the ways of systematising data description ................ 123 7.2 Formation of nouns............................................................................................................. 125 7.2.1 Patterns with the person marker -man .................................................................... 125 7.2.2 Patterns with the gender markers uman- and man(n)-............................................ 138 7.2.3 Patterns with the diminutive marker pikíen-........................................................... 148 7.2.4 Patterns with the augmentative marker mammá-.................................................... 156 7.2.5 Patterns with the abstract nominaliser -fasi............................................................ 159 7.2.6 N-N pattern ............................................................................................................ 162 7.2.7 A-N pattern ............................................................................................................ 174 7.2.8 V-N pattern ............................................................................................................ 182 7.2.9 N-V/N pattern ........................................................................................................ 189 7.2.10 A-N-N, Num-N-N and V-N-N patterns.................................................................. 192 7.2.11 Num-de-worké pattern............................................................................................ 195 7.2.12 X-fo-X pattern ........................................................................................................ 198 7.2.13 Constructs structurally similar to non-naming units............................................... 202 7.2.14 Constructs containing bound elements................................................................... 207

VII 7.3

7.4

7.5 7.6

7.7

Formation of numerals........................................................................................................ 209 7.3.1 Tien-na-Num pattern: numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’.................................. 209 7.3.2 Num-ten-tien pattern: numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ ..................................... 215 7.3.3 Num-na-Num pattern: numerals from ‘twenty one’ to ‘ninety nine’...................... 218 Formation of verbs.............................................................................................................. 221 7.4.1 V-deictic element pattern ....................................................................................... 221 7.4.2 V-V pattern ............................................................................................................ 225 Formation of adverbs.......................................................................................................... 227 Formation of functional categories ..................................................................................... 231 7.6.1 Indefinite pronouns ................................................................................................ 231 7.6.2 Negative pronouns ................................................................................................. 233 7.6.3 Wh-words............................................................................................................... 235 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 240

8 Reduplication patterns .................................................................................................................242 8.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................242 8.1.1 Reduplication: a definition .....................................................................................242 8.1.2 Defining the sources of Early Sranan reduplication ...............................................243 8.2 Nominalising reduplication ................................................................................................244 8.3 Stative reduplication ...........................................................................................................248 8.4 Approximative reduplication ..............................................................................................251 8.5 Intensifying reduplication ...................................................................................................253 8.6 Iterative reduplication.........................................................................................................256 8.7 Distributive reduplication ...................................................................................................259 8.8 Reduplication expressing variety and collection.................................................................264 8.9 Reduplications without attested bases ................................................................................266 8.10 Residual cases.....................................................................................................................271 8.11 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................272 9 The emergence of Early Sranan word-formation: a conclusion ....................................................276 9.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................276 9.2 Early Sranan word-formation: sources, mechanisms and factors........................................276 9.2.1 A summary of the results........................................................................................276 9.2.2 Sources...................................................................................................................278 9.2.3 Mechanisms............................................................................................................281 9.2.4 Factors....................................................................................................................283 9.3 Theoretical implications .....................................................................................................284 9.3.1 Implications for the scenarios of the emergence of Early Sranan...........................284 9.3.2 Implications for some theories and accounts of creole genesis ..............................286 References ......................................................................................................................................... 293

List of abbreviations

A Adv AM AN AP CNT CM Conj COP DEF DEF.PL DEM Det DM Eng/Engl. erg ES FLA Fo FUT GM INDEF inst Ki N NEG nom NP Num OED PM Pr Prep PST RED REL QM QW Sch SG SLA

adjective adverb augmentative marker abstract nominaliser adjectival phrase continuous marker coordinative marker conjunction copula definite marker with the singular meaning definite marker with the plural meaning demonstrative (pronoun) determiner diminutive marker English ergative case Early Sranan first language acquisition Focke (1855) future marker gender marker indefinite marker instrumental case Kikongo noun negation marker nominative case noun phrase numeral Oxford English Dictionary person marker pronoun preposition past tense marker reduplication/reduplicated relativiser question marker question word Schumann (1783) singular second language acquisition

TMA V Vtrans Vintr VP VD Wu

tense-mood-aspect verb transitive verb intransitive verb verb phrase Van Dyk (c1765) Wullschlägel (1856)

Acknowledgements

This book is a revised and abridged version of my dissertation submitted at the University of Siegen. Although writing this book was a lonely undertaking, many people brightened this process with their help and their presence. I am deeply grateful to my academic mentor Ingo Plag for introducing to me the intriguing area of creole morphology, for encouraging me to go ahead and present my work at conferences, for his enlightening comments on the earlier version of this book. He showed me that academic life is not only a challenge and hard work, but also great fun. I also wish to express my appreciation to the late Jacques Arends for his useful comments on my work and for sharing with me his invaluable knowledge of Sranan. His untimely death is a great loss for creole linguistics. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Galina Zavalskaja for her support during the early stages of my academic career and for her putting the crazy idea into my head – that of becoming a scholar. Thanks are also due to my colleagues at the University of Siegen, especially to Sabine Arndt-Lappe, Sandra Herling, Sabine Jautz, Kristina Kösling, Gero Kunter, Taivi Rüüberg, Mareile Schramm, Ute Wagner and Linda Zirkel for their help in many respects, for devoting their time to commenting on parts of this book and for the wonderful potluck dinners. They brightened my working days with their wit and their presence. I am also grateful to our student assistants Guido Bongard, Andreas Ganacki, Christian Grau, Julia Homann, Lena Hüsch, Christina Kellenter, Jennifer Schluer, Josephine Thomschke, who did a great amount of useful preliminary work for my dissertation project and to Gisela Schwung for her help in many organisational matters. Special-special thanks go to Taivi Rüüberg for her persistent ‘control’ of my progress with this book and her insightful comments. Special-special-special thanks go to Linda Zirkel for the invaluable technical support. Besides, I would like to thank Darlene LaCharité for her helpful comments on the reduplication chapter and Peter Mühlhäusler for providing me with some useful material on Tok Pisin. I am also grateful to Tanja Argast and Birgitta Zeller-Ebert from the Max Niemeyer Verlag for their patience with what threatened to become a never-ending story. Of course, I alone am responsible for all shortcomings that remain. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family, especially to Stefan, Rosemarie, Rolf and my mother, for investing their time in daily trifles thus providing me with precious time for work. Thanks to Stefan for his limitless patience, support and great sympathy with my work. And for many other things which would take pages to list. Thanks to Sasha for often enduring turbulent and messy times and for creating bilingual compounds which – in their own way – proved to be rather useful for this piece of research. This book is for Stefan and Sasha, who have lived with Sranan words for so many years, and in memory of Kaya, who decided to never hear them. It is also for Kosha, who brightened the last stages of this book with his sunny nature and who finally put an end to this langa-langa tori va Sranan wortu.

1

Introduction

For many years, the study of pidgin and creole languages was paid little attention, and it is only in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century that it established itself as an academic discipline (Holm 2000: 3). Today creole studies are believed to offer a unique perspective in several areas of linguistics, such as historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, language contact studies, language acquisition, language change and applied linguistics (Lefebvre 2000: 130). In recent years, many aspects and areas of creole linguistics witnessed extensive study, and the last decades have seen an enormous increase in theoretical generalisations about creole genesis. However, the area of creole morphology, and especially word-formation, has received relatively little attention so far. The long-lasting belief which shaped the debate in creole linguistics for years was that pidgin and creole languages have little or no morphology (Seuren and Wekker 1986: 66, Thomason 2001: 168), or that in language contact situations morphological markers are lost and never reconstituted later (Bickerton 1988: 278). Recent work on this topic (Bhatt and Plag 2006, Plag 2003a, 2003b, 2005b) has shown that morphological markers and processes are neither non-existent nor marginal in creole languages and that morphological formatives can be either preserved or developed in language contact situations. Despite a number of enlightening contributions to the field of creole morphology (Bhatt and Plag 2006, Braun and Plag 2003, Brousseau 2005, Brousseau et al. 1989, DeGraff 2001, Dijkhoff 1993, Jones 1995, Lefebvre 2003, Mühlhäusler 1995a, Plag 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2005b, Sebba 1981, Van den Berg 2000), which have provided us with many insights into this terra incognita of creole studies, there is a range of issues that have been hardly investigated so far. Thus, little is known about the emergence and development of whole word-formation systems in situations of language contact, and very few studies trace this development at the initial stages. Such investigations are, however, of crucial importance since most drastic restructuring of linguistic systems (morphological systems included) takes place at the initial stages of language contact. Moreover, very few studies deal with the mechanisms and the factors which play a role in the emergence of creole word-formation systems. It is unclear, for instance, in how far the emergence of creole word-formation can be attributed to the universals of language acquisition and how much it owes to the input languages, for instance, to transfer from the substratum languages or takeover from the superstratum. The present study focuses on the emergence of the word-formation system of Early Sranan, an English-based creole language spoken between the middle of the 17th and the middle of the 19th century in Suriname, a former Dutch colony on the north-east coast of South America. An investigation of Early Sranan word-formation is of special interest on two grounds. First, Sranan is a radical creole, which developed relatively rapidly and in a relative isolation from English, its major superstratum language. Second, Sranan is one of the few creole languages which boasts a fairly large amount of reliable early data. Given the considerations above, the present study pursues two major aims. The first aim is to show what word-formation processes developed in Early Sranan and how this development took place. The second aim is to investigate what sources, mechanisms and factors

2 played a role in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation and how they shaped the final outcomes. This study will offer insights into the origin, nature and development of creole wordformation systems. Besides, it will also bear implications for some recent theories and accounts of creole formation, such as the superstratist hypothesis (Chaudenson 1992, 2001), the relexification hypothesis (Lefebvre 1998), the semantic transparency approach (Seuren and Wekker 1986) and some others. It will be shown in the present study that the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation was a complex process in which different sources, mechanisms and factors played a role. It will become clear that reanalysis of free morphemes as derivational markers, adaptation of superstratum complex words, transfer of lexical items and patterns from the substratum languages, borrowing from other input languages and the creation of innovations were the major mechanisms involved in the development of Early Sranan word-formation and that markedness is an important factor determining the linguistic outcomes of creolisation. The linguistic data for the analysis are taken from three major early sources of Sranan: Van Dyk’s (c1765) language manual of Sranan, Schumann’s (1783) Dictionary of Sranan and Focke’s (1855) Dictionary of Sranan. Several other sources of Sranan, both early and modern, were consulted for additional information and additional data. The analysis of the data draws on Booij’s (2005, 2007) Construction Morphology. The book is organised as follows. In the next chapter, some recent theoretical claims about creole genesis and about the nature of creole word-formation will be discussed. Since the socio-historical matrix of creolisation is crucial for understanding the linguistic processes underlying creole genesis, chapter 3 will provide an overview of the demographic and linguistic situation in Suriname in the 17th – 19th centuries and point out the major substratum languages of Early Sranan. The sources of the data and the methodology of this study are introduced in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 addresses theoretical and practical problems arising with the analysis of complex words in general and in Early Sranan in particular. The theoretical framework used for the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation is explained in the same chapter. Chapter 6 is devoted to the empirical and the theoretical description of the multifunctionality of Early Sranan words. The analysis of Early Sranan concatenative patterns is provided in chapter 7. A special focus is on the sources, mechanisms and factors involved in the development of different concatenative patterns. Chapter 8 is devoted to the study of the nature and the origin of the reduplication patterns attested in Early Sranan. Chapter 9 contains a summary of the findings and their discussion in the light of some theories and accounts of creole genesis.

2

Creolisation and word-formation: some central issues

2.1

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of some issues in creole linguistics in general and in creole word-formation in particular relevant for the present study. Since the issue of the emergence of creole word-formation will be of central importance in the present study, some current approaches to creole genesis will be introduced in this chapter in order to provide a general basis for the discussions to follow. Besides, some major claims about the nature and the origin of creole word-formation advanced so far will be discussed.

2.2

The issue of creole genesis

The issue of creole genesis has been one of the most challenging issues in creole studies. Almost every investigation in the area of creole linguistics touches upon the question of how creole languages emerge or what factors influence creole formation. Generally, the approaches to creole genesis advanced so far differ in their view of the factors and mechanisms responsible for the emergence of creole languages. They can be placed along a continuum ranging from the approaches that assign a decisive role in creole formation to the superstratum input through the approaches that consider substratum influence to be most important to those which regard universals of language acquisition and/or language-internal development as the crucial factor in creole genesis. One of the much debated approaches at the ‘superstratist’ end of this continuum is the approach developed by Chaudenson (1992, 2001). Within this approach, creoles are viewed as modifications of non-standard varieties of European superstrates with little influence from the native languages of the slaves. Imperfect learning of the European languages repeated with every new arrival of slaves is believed to be the major mechanism operating in this process. Within this scenario, creolisation proceeds as a gradual shift away from the superstratum through subsequent stages of imperfect language learning: whereas the first group of slaves acquired, although imperfectly, the European language of their masters, the second generation targeted the variety spoken by the first group because of the shift to sugar economy and the resulting reduced access to the superstratum. The second group’s output then became the input for the third group and so on. Although there is no denying that superstratum structures influence creole grammars, Chaudenson’s scenario has been criticised on different grounds, of which two are relevant here. First, Baker (1996: 109) points out in his review of Chaudenson (1992) that the superstrates were possibly not exactly the targets slaves acquired. Smith’s (2006) suggestion that the slaves did not have the motivation to learn the colonial languages also casts doubt on the assumption that slaves targeted superstratum languages. Second, the outstanding role

4 Chaudenson assigns to superstratum structural features has been challenged in numerous works which show that a substantial number of substratum structures are traceable in creole grammars (Keesing 1988, Lefebvre 1998, 2004, Migge 2003a, 2007, Parkvall 2000a, Siegel 1999, Singler 2000). The ‘substratist’ part of the continuum is occupied by the relexification hypothesis developed in Lefebvre (1998, 2004). Within this hypothesis, creole genesis is regarded as the process of adult second language acquisition with limited exposure to the superstratum. Relexification, reanalysis and dialect levelling are regarded as crucial mechanisms operating in creole genesis. According to Lefebvre (1998: 35), relexification is a process by which creole creators replace the lexical entries of their substratum lexicons with phonetic strings they identify in the superstratum language. Those substratum entries for which no corresponding superstratum forms can be identified by creole creators are relabelled with a null form. They are later assigned an overt phonological form through the process of reanalysis by which a major category item starts to be used in the function(s) of a minor category item. Speakers of different substratum languages relexify their lexicons individually. Lefebvre (1998: 46) argues that those relexified features which are common to all lexicons will be most likely maintained in a given creole, whereas idiosyncratic features will be levelled when speakers target this creole. Although some of Lefebvre’s (1998) analyses show that relexification can be used to explain certain features of Haitian grammar, like any theory claiming the validity of only one particular mechanism in creolisation, the relexification hypothesis is not free from problems. Two central problems are mentioned by Singler (1996: 218, 220). First, mere parallels between a given creole and its substratum language(s) established within the relexification hypothesis do not present convincing evidence for substratum influence. Second, within the relexification hypothesis, no distinction is made between substratum influence in general and relexification in particular. A further, conceptual, problem, pointed out by Mather (2006: 240), is that at least some degree of bilingualism is necessary for relexification to occur since relexification is a mechanism that normally operates in situations of full or partial bilingualism rather than SLA. Mather remarks that, given Lefebvre’s (1998) statement that creole creators had limited access to the superstratum, it is unclear how they could identify L2 items corresponding semantically and syntactically to L1 items. Another point of criticism concerns the role of superstratum languages, which is restricted mainly to the phonological strings of morphemes within the relexification account. It has been shown that the superstratum input played a role at different levels of creole grammar, and not only in phonology (Chaudenson 1992, Migge 2003a). Moreover, it has been pointed out (Good 2003, Migge 2003a: 107–120) that there are internallymotivated features which arise neither due to substratum nor to superstratum influence and which therefore cannot be accounted for within the relexification hypothesis. One of the prominent and very much discussed theories at the ‘universalist’ end of the theoretical continuum is Bickerton’s ‘language bioprogramme hypothesis’ (1981, 1984, 1999). Bickerton (1981, 1989) argues that creoles emerge as the result of first-language acquisition by children who receive a limited linguistic input (a pidgin) from their parents. Children elaborate this pidgin, which is perceived by them as a deficient means of communication, to the size and expressive power of a ‘normal’ language. This ability to elaborate the pidgin is attributed to the genetically-transmitted innate language bioprogramme common to all members of the human species. Bickerton (1999: 64, 54)

5 suggests that creoles are created by children rather than by adults because adults need “rich” and “robust” input in order to acquire a language, and the input into creole formation is a pidgin characterised by impoverished grammatical structure. According to Bickerton (1989: 21–22), superstratum and substratum languages do not play any considerable role in this process. Bickerton’s theory has caused a lot of discussion. For reasons of space and relevance, only some of the problematic aspects of this theory will be mentioned here. One controversial aspect is whether children have played any role in creolisation at all and how children’s contribution might differ from adults’ contribution. There are studies which show what children’s part might have been in creole formation (Bruyn, Muysken and Verrips 1999, Roberts 2000, Siegel 2000, Veenstra 2006, see also Hudson Kam and Newport 2005, Newport 1999). There are also studies that show parallels between SLA and creole formation and/or argue that adults were the major agents in creole formation (Lefebvre, White and Jourdan 2006, Mather 2006, Migge 2003a, Winford 2005). As to the contribution by children, Bickerton (1984: 177) himself observes that a high number of children would lead to a greater divergence from the superstratum and thus greater radicalness of a creole, whereas Singler (1995: 220), for instance, argues that the opposite is the case since children probably had greater contact to the speakers of the superstratum language and consequently were the introducers of superstratum linguistic features into the creole. DeGraff (1999: 495) remarks in his overview of different studies touching upon the role of children and adults in creole genesis that the evidence presented in these studies generally points to the fact that adults might be primarily responsible for innovations, whereas children seem to play the regularising and stabilising role in creole genesis. Hudson Kam (2005: 348–349) integrates these different views in an interesting suggestion that children’s contribution into a given creole might depend on the kind of input they get from adults. If children are exposed to the variable adult language which is close to the lexifier target, they would regularise this language and make it look very much like the lexifier, even without any direct exposure to it. If, however, the adult language is rather different from the target, the regularised and stabilised language produced by children would then also look even more different from the target. All in all, much more future research, both socio-historical and linguistic, is required to shed more light on the role of these two groups in creole genesis. Another important point of criticism is that Bickerton provides no clear metric for defining and estimating universal influence (cf. Lefebvre (2004: 21) for a similar point). This is especially problematic since the notion ‘universals’ is used differently in different areas of linguistics, such as language typology, generative grammar and language acquisition (Battistella 1996, Hyltenstam 1987, Mairal and Gil 2006). Finally, Bickerton’s assumption that universals constitute a unique mechanism operating in creolisation suffers from essentially the same problem as the relexification theory: the claim about the validity of only one mechanism in creolisation. Recently, there is an emerging consensus about the fact that creole formation is a complex process which cannot be attributed to one general mechanism or one type of influence (DeGraff 1999: 497, Holm 1986: 259, Mufwene 2001, Roberts 2000, Smith 2001). In a growing number of investigations, creole formation is viewed as a complex process in which different factors, such as universals of language acquisition, substratum and superstratum influence, play a role and interact (Brousseau 2003, Migge 2003a, Plag 2005a,

6 Siegel 1999, Smith 2001, Uffmann 2003, Winford 2005). These approaches reflect a general agreement on the fact that one of the major tasks for the future research in creole linguistics is, as Winford (2003: 340) puts it, to integrate the conflicting accounts, such as substratist, superstratist and universalist, in a “unified explanation of creole creation”. Therefore, the present study will take different factors into account and will subsequently evaluate several of the current approaches to creole genesis using Early Sranan wordformation data.

2.3

Word-formation in creole genesis: sources, mechanisms and factors

Word-formation has been a relatively little investigated area of creole linguistics, and many investigations of creole word-formation have followed a descriptive rather than a theoretical line. In fact, many challenging questions, both theoretical and empirical, arise with respect to creole word-formation. What happens to the word-formation markers and patterns of the input languages in language contact? What are the most common wordformation processes in creoles and do they differ from those used in ‘older’ languages? What factors constrain the operation of these processes? What are the sources of creole word-formation patterns? By which mechanisms do these patterns emerge in creole languages? Despite the relative scarcity of research in this area, there are some investigations that deal with at least some of these questions and advance claims about the nature and the development of word-formation in creole genesis. In what follows, an overview of these claims will be presented in order to document the current state of research in the area of creole word-formation. The first question to be addressed here is what happens with the word-formation markers of input languages in contact situations. It has often been claimed that affixes of the input languages are lost. Mühlhäusler (1997: 169) insists that morphological markers are “the first victims of language contact and the last features to be restored” (cf. Jones 1995: 121). McWhorter (1998: 798) notes: Derivational apparatus, be this affixes or particles, tends to be semantically irregular and, especially in affix form, less salient than free, stressed items; therefore, it tends to be eschewed by creole creators or incorporated in fossilised form.

In a similar vein, Bickerton (1988: 278) asserts that derivational morphemes are “almost never retained” and never reconstituted. The reason for the loss of target language morphology, as given by Bickerton (1988: 276), lies in the already simplified and reduced morphological input which is “too impoverished for the original functions of surviving morphemes to be determined from”. There is, however, ample evidence that the loss of derivational formatives is not always the case in creole genesis. Bakker (2003c) insightfully shows that morphological markers can be inherited from the lexifier languages in both pidgins and creoles. Indeed, a number of creole languages, for instance, Haitian, Papiamentu and Chabacano, productively use

7 derivational morphemes originating from their lexifiers (Dijkhoff 1993: 141, Lefebvre 1998: 303–317, Steinkrüger 2003). In view of this evidence, Bickerton’s explanation in terms of “impoverished input” cannot account for the whole story, and the question of why some creole languages inherit parts of the derivational inventory of the source languages whereas others do not still has to be pursued. With respect to the question of what word-formation processes are used in creoles, it has been pointed out that although a number of creole languages show a general preference for one particular word-formation process, e.g. compounding, they in fact use the same range of processes as ‘older’ languages do: affixation, reduplication, compounding and multifunctionality1 (DeGraff 2001, Dijkhoff 1993: 32–60, Mühlhäusler 1997: 192–198, Sebba 1981: 101, Steinkrüger 2003, Wekker 1996: 36–38). Two interesting opposite claims have been advanced about the nature of affixation in creoles. For instance, it has been pointed out by Boretzky (1983: 79) that creoles do not use affixes for creating new words. In most cases, however, it has been argued that creoles do make use of productive affixation (Brousseau 2005, DeGraff 2001, Lefebvre 2003, Steinkrüger 2003). It has also been argued that derivational morphology in creoles is semantically regular and semantically transparent (McWhorter 1998: 798, Seuren and Wekker 1986: 65, 68). These claims have been critically assessed in Braun and Plag (2003), who maintain that it is an oversimplification to assume that creole word-formation exhibits few idiosyncrasies. The present study will address the role of semantic transparency in creole genesis once more. With respect to the nature of creole compounding, there are two opposite positions as well. For instance, Boretzky (1983: 79) argues that creoles do not have any nominal compounds and that instead of compounding, they make use of syntactic constructions in which nouns are attached attributively to head nouns. By contrast, Holm (2000: 130) mentions that compounding is a process especially favoured in creoles. These claims still require verification on a broader empirical basis. Reduplication is often regarded as a word-formation process typical of creoles and the one heavily influenced by the substratum languages (Hall 1966: 65, Holm 2000: 121, Wekker 1996: 37). Reduplication has been devoted greater attention in comparison to other word-formation processes in creole studies (see e.g. contributions in Kouwenberg (2003a)). The role of different factors, such as markedness and substratum influence in the development of creole reduplication has received a detailed analysis in some recent studies (Kouwenberg 2003a, Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004), but there is definitely a great need for more investigations going in this direction. Multifunctionality is another frequently cited feature of creole word-formation systems (Bakker 2003c: 10, Lefebvre 2001, Mühlhäusler 1994, 1997: 137). However, although many researchers mention the fact that multifunctionality is very common in pidgins and creoles, there are very few detailed accounts of the overall system of multifunctional patterns of one particular creole language. Apart from this, little is known about the respective roles of the substratum and superstratum languages and universals in the emergence of multifunctionality in creoles. Finally, there are very few investigations that – 1

In this study, the term ‘multifunctionality’ is used to refer to the phenomenon of word-class change without overt marking. The terminological and theoretical discussion of the term will be provided in section 5.3.

8 deal with the theoretical conceptualisation of multifunctionality in creoles. For instance, it is still unclear whether multifunctionality should be best conceptualised as a morphological, i.e. directional, process in creoles or not. Turning now to the question about the sources of creole word-formation, it can be pointed out that the following sources of creole structures are commonly discussed in creole studies in general: superstratum, substratum or other languages involved in contact, language-internal developments and language universals (Siegel 2004b: 336, Winford 2005). Almost all of them have also been discussed as being relevant in the context of creole word-formation, as will be demonstrated below. As to the role of the superstratum languages in creole word-formation, Lefebvre (1998: 348, 2004: 49–52, 84–88) argues within her relexification account that the superstratum languages provide creoles with the phonetic matrices for derivational affixes and influence the order of elements in complex words. Migge (2003a: 122) suggests that in the case of the Surinamese creoles, superstratum structures functioned as frames for the projection of substratum word-formation patterns. The role of substratum languages in creole word-formation is a matter of dispute. For instance, Mühlhäusler (1997: 198) claims that “in fact, I have to see hard evidence to convince me that substratum languages have played an important role in the development of word-formation in any Creole”. This assumption is untenable in view of the ample evidence that substratum languages do play a role in the emergence of creole wordformation (Brousseau et al. 1989, Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004, Lefebvre 2004: 84–88, Migge 2003a). It has been argued that substratum languages contribute the structural and the semantic properties of derivational affixes (Brousseau et al. 1989, Lefebvre 1998: 303–348, 2004: 84–88, Migge 2003a: 84). By contrast, evidence for the substratum languages providing the phonetic form of creole derivational morphemes is rather scarce (see, however, Steinkrüger (2003: 260), Stolz (1989: 52–53) for some examples). Besides, substratum languages have also been claimed to influence creole word-formation in other respects. For instance, Lefebvre (1998: 303–348, 2004: 49–52) suggests that the substratum languages also contribute the inventory of derivational affixes and the structural and the semantic principles of concatenation of simplexes into compounds. It has also been pointed out that language-internal developments constitute a source of word-formation in creoles (Jones 1995, Koefoed and Tarenskeen 1996, Mühlhäusler 1980, 1995a, 1997, Winford 2003: 321–322). Mühlhäusler (1995a: 119) even argues that internal processes are the major source of creole derivational morphology and he considers derivational morphology to be relatively independent of substratum and superstratum influence. Comparatively little is known about universals as a source of creole word-formation structures. One of the few observations about the role of universals is made by Mühlhäusler (1980: 36), who suggests that universal grammar is the major source of structural expansion in derivational morphology. There are still some open questions with respect to the sources of creole word-formation patterns. For instance, with the exception of Lefebvre (1998), the interplay between the different sources in the emergence of creole word-formation systems has hardly been studied. Another unclear aspect is how to assess the credibility of substratum (and actually, superstratum) influence on creole word-formation. This problem is not new in creole linguistics and different methodologies have been applied to estimate substratum influence

9 in creole genesis in general (Parkvall 2000a: 17–24, Sebba 1997: 182–185). However, such methodologies are hardly discussed and/or established in the studies of creole wordformation. Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) make an important step in this direction and establish a metric for assessing the credibility of claims about substratum influence in their study of reduplication processes in several creole languages. It should be investigated how such a metric can be employed in the studies of other word-formation processes. Finally, the role of universals as a source of creole word-formation is a poorly investigated issue, and it is unclear which universals and how influence creole word-formation. Another important aspect of investigation are the mechanisms by which creole languages develop word-formation markers and patterns. Grammaticalisation is regarded as one of the mechanisms by which derivational affixes can arise in creoles (McWhorter 1998: 798). However, there are quite a number of problems with applying the traditional concept of grammaticalisation in the context of creole genesis (Bruyn 1996, Plag 2002), and it will be shown in chapter 7 that Early Sranan word-formation does not make an exception in this respect. Reanalysis is another mechanism commonly mentioned in the context of creole wordformation. For instance, DeGraff (2001) explains that creole derivational affixes can emerge via borrowing of superstratum complex words followed by the reanalysis of parts of these words as derivational affixes (cf. Brousseau et al. 1989: 31). A similar mechanism is described by Migge (2003a: 84), who suggests that some derivational morphemes in the Eastern Maroon Creole of Suriname emerged through the projection of the substratum patterns onto the superstratum patterns followed by the reinterpretation of the superstratum patterns in terms of substratum structures. Lefebvre (1998: 333, 2004: 84) considers relexification to be the major mechanism by which derivational affixes develop in creole languages: the lexical entries of substratum derivational affixes are copied and relabelled on the basis of superstratum phonetic matrices. Other mechanisms mentioned with respect to creole word-formation are borrowing of words from different languages, calquing of substratum complex words (Holm 2000: 119, Jones 1995: 126, Mühlhäusler 1997: 220, Wekker 1996: 37–38), innovative word coinage (Koefoed and Tarenskeen 1996, Winford 2003: 321–322), and lexicalisation/reanalysis of phrases to word-level units (Dijkhoff 1993: 170–189, Mühlhäusler 1995a). Thus, for instance, Mühlhäusler (1995a: 119) views the latter as the central language-internal mechanism in the emergence of word-formation. Mühlhäusler (1995a: 111, 1997: 177, 181) shows that in Tok Pisin, circumlocutions of the type he look daylight a long time meaning ‘to lie awake’, preferred at the initial stages of the pidgin-creole continuum, gave way to lexicalised phrases, such as man bilong slip ‘sleepy, lazy person’. The lexicalised phrases, in their turn, were gradually substituted by word-level units, such as paitman (to fight-man) ‘fighter/warrior’, at more advanced stages. In general, most of the mechanisms mentioned above are in principle not different from the mechanisms believed to operate in other areas of creole grammars. However, because large-scale empirical investigations of creole word-formation are deplorably few, many questions still remain to be answered. For instance, is relexification indeed the major mechanism by which derivational affixes emerge in creoles? And how can substratuminfluenced calquing be distinguished from innovative word-coinage? How quantitatively prominent is lexicalisation? For many creoles, it remains to be clarified to what extent

10 which mechanism plays a role and how different mechanisms interact with each other. Besides, there are also some terminological problems with the terms for the mechanisms mentioned. For instance, the difference between reanalysis and reinterpretation is not clearcut, and it is also unclear whether takeover of superstratum patterns into creoles should be regarded as borrowing. Some of these questions will be addressed in chapter 7. The final question to be addressed here is what constrains the operation of different processes and mechanisms in creole word-formation, or in particular, what constrains superstratum and substratum influence. There is no doubt that both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors influence creole formation in general. However, much research is required in order to identify which of these factors are indeed relevant for creole word-formation. Thus, among the non-linguistic factors, limited access to the superstratum languages (Lefebvre 2003: 69) and the use of the simplified structures by the superstratum speakers (Migge 2003a: 52) have been mentioned as factors shaping the nature of morphological outcomes. However, there are indeed too few large-scale studies investigating how these and other types of non-linguistic factors, for instance motivation, language attitude or patterns of social interaction, influence the emergence of creole word-formation. Linguistic factors which are considered to play an important role in creole word-formation include markedness, simplicity, perceptual salience and semantic transparency (Jones 1995: 122, Migge 2003a: 44, Mühlhäusler 1995a: 118, Seuren and Wekker 1986). Besides, there are two other linguistic factors that have been argued to constrain superstratum and substratum influence in creole word-formation: availability of certain derivational morphemes or patterns in the source languages (Migge 2003a: 106) and the degree of the semantic and syntactic correspondences between substratum and superstratum morphemes and patterns (Stolz (1989: 51–52), see also Siegel (1999) for some general discussion of the role of congruence in creole formation). However, in general, claims about the role or non-role of certain factors in the emergence of creole word-formation systems have not been tested on a broad empirical basis. An additional problem lies in the fact that the definitions of some factors, such as, for instance, markedness, are not clear-cut. The term ‘markedness’ has been used in a variety of different meanings and contexts (Battistella 1996, Croft 2003: 87, Hyltenstam 1987: 55, Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 289, Siegel 2004a, 2006, Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 26), and this term is often not clearly explained in wordformation studies dealing with creole languages. Besides, the differences between the notions of markedness, simplicity and semantic transparency are often not distinguished from each other. One insightful recent contribution dealing with some of the definitional problems just mentioned is provided by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004), who formulate plausible principles according to which markedness of reduplication processes in creole languages can be measured. All in all, it can be said that greater definitional clarity is required when investigating factors influencing the development of word-formation in creoles. To summarise the discussion done in the present section, it can be pointed out that a lot of research is still necessary to understand sources, mechanisms and factors involved in the emergence of creole word-formation. There is a strong need for systematic, historicallyoriented investigations of not only separate aspects of word-formation, but of the overall development of creole word-formation systems from early stages of creolisation on. Besides, there is a need for a critical assessment of the – sometimes solitary – claims about creole word-formation made so far.

11

2.4

Conclusion

The present chapter introduced some current approaches to creole genesis and some central claims about the origin and the development of creole word-formation. It became clear that although there is no general consensus on the ultimate scenario of creolisation, there is a growing tendency to regard creole genesis as a complex process in which different mechanisms and different types of influence play a role. It has also been shown that a number of interesting observations and claims about the nature and the development of creole word-formation have been made so far. Thus, it has been claimed in several studies that many superstratum derivational morphemes do not make their way into creoles and that many new means of word-formation develop. Besides, it has been observed by some researchers that creole languages make use of the same wordformation processes ‘older’ languages do, such as affixation, compounding, reduplication and multifunctionality. Moreover, several interesting observations have been made about the sources and the mechanisms involved in the emergence of creole word-formation structures and about the factors that influence their development. But insightful as they are, many claims and observations about creole word-formation often lack broad empirical basis and are mostly based on modern data. Besides, there is no consensus on some of the points, for instance, which sources and factors indeed play a central role in the emergence of creole word-formation. Finally, some aspects of creole word-formation, such as multifunctionality, remain poorly investigated. Therefore, claims and observations about creole wordformation discussed in this chapter are in need of verification and a number of them will be assessed in the present study which is a systematic, historically-oriented investigation of Early Sranan word-formation.

3

The socio-historical and demographic background of Early Sranan

3.1

Introduction

Since socio-historical circumstances considerably shape linguistic outcomes in creole formation, the present chapter is devoted to the description of the historical, social and ethnolinguistic situation in Suriname between the late 17th and the early 19th century: the time of Early Sranan. In the present study, the term ‘Early Sranan’ will be used to refer to the ancestor of Modern Sranan, a creole language that emerged in Suriname on the plantations along the coastal region and the capital Paramaribo. The time span for Early Sranan assumed in the present study comprises the period between the end of the 17th and the middle of the 19th century. Although, as will be shown in this chapter, the exact date of Sranan’s creolisation is a matter of controversy, the end of the 17th century is regarded here as the lower temporal limit for Early Sranan because it is the earliest of the dates assumed for the emergence of a creole language in Suriname (Migge 2003a, Smith 2001, 2002, 2006). The upper limit has been dictated by practical considerations: since Focke (1855) is one of the valuable early sources of Sranan, the date of its publication was taken as the upper limit for Early Sranan. After the description of the socio-historical and the demographic situation in Suriname around the time of creole formation in sections 3.2 and 3.3, the major substratum languages of Early Sranan will be introduced in section 3.4.2. This will be followed by the discussion in section 3.5 of how and when Sranan has emerged as a creole language. The information presented in the present chapter is based on a variety of sources dealing with the sociolinguistic history of Suriname, such as Arends (1995a, 1999, 2001, 2002a), Migge (2003a), Parkvall (2000a), Postma (1990, 2005), Rens (1953), Smith (2001, 2002, 2006) and Van Stipriaan (1993). As will become clear, many of the facts presented in this chapter are hypothetical in nature because of the scarcity of the historical sources available, as well as because of the general difficulty to predict the exact linguistic effects of demographic and social developments. Nevertheless, the knowledge of these facts is indispensable for the understanding and the description of linguistic phenomena encountered in creole languages, and the information provided in this chapter will be employed in the subsequent chapters for verifying certain analyses.

3.2

Suriname in the 17th – 19th centuries: a socio-historical overview

The colony of Suriname was founded in 1651 by the English expedition sent by Lord Willoughby, the Governor of Barbados, with the purpose of finding new land for sugar plantations. Later, the first settlers were joined by new English planters from Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat (Rens 1953: 14). The English presumably brought a small

13 number of slaves already from Barbados, whose exact numbers are, however, unknown (Arends 1995a: 240). In the 1660s approximately 200 Jews came to Suriname and started the plantation business along the upper Suriname and Commewijne Rivers. On the basis of sociohistorical data, Arends (2002a: 118) assumes that the Jews came from north-east Brazil, Essequibo (Guyana) and Europe (Livorno and Amsterdam) and could hardly have brought any slaves with them since most of them came from Europe. However, Smith (1999, 2002: 137), using linguistic evidence, argues that the Jews came from Cayenne and Pernambuco and brought some slaves with them. The origin of the Jews and/or of their slaves, as well as the origin and the nature of the language spoken on Jewish plantations and of Portuguese lexical items in the Surinamese creoles, still remains a matter of debate (Arends 1999, 2002a, Smith 1999, 2001, 2002). In 1667 Suriname was taken by the Dutch and assigned to the Dutch under the treaty of Breda in 1668, as the result of the second Anglo-Dutch war. The English planters started to leave Suriname. Between 1668 and 1680 most of approximately 617 English planters and 1,693 slaves left Suriname. Only 39 Englishmen and some slaves are supposed to have remained in Suriname of the Dutch rule (Arends 1995a: 237). This raises the question of how an English-based contact variety used as a means of communication by that time could exist even after the English exodus. Several facts are crucial in this respect. One important fact, pointed out by Arends (2002a: 120), is that several English planters returned to Suriname after some time and new English planters came from other Caribbean colonies after 1680. Linguistically, this has the consequence that English continued to be spoken at least by some proportion of the Surinamese European population even after the English exodus. However, as Smith (2001: 54, 2006: 56) points out, since many English planters left in 1671 and 1675, by 1680, “the English superstrate linguistic influence can be regarded as negligible”. Although this might be true in principle, an important fact is that English or some variety of English was used as a means of inter-group communication during the transition period from the English to the Dutch rule. The evidence for this is provided by Rens (1953: 26, 86–87) who mentions that even after the Dutch began to settle in the colony, English was maintained as a means of communication. As Rens points out, the Dutch needed the English for their experience in tropical agriculture and were therefore interested in keeping them. Besides, the Dutch had to communicate with the slaves, who spoke a variety of English. As Rens (1953: 87) observes, the Dutch could not use their own language and therefore resorted to (a variety of) English. Another important fact that might have played a role in the transmission of the existing English-based variety is that, as Smith (2001: 54–55) states, some of the old slaves were confiscated by the Dutch because they belonged either to absentee owners or to the planters who did not swear allegiance to the Dutch. According to Smith, the old slaves might have played a crucial role in the transmission of the contact variety existent by that point to the newly arriving slaves in the period when the majority of English planters were no longer present in the colony. Socio-economically, Suriname started as a comparatively small-scale agricultural society (Rens 1953: 61). Planters and their families, indentured labourers from Europe (e.g. volunteer bond servants, prisoners of war, convicts, etc.) and African and Amerindian slaves were the major groups that populated the colony at the beginning (Arends 2002a: 117–118, Rens 1953: 58, 61). As pointed out by Rens (1953: 59, 61, 76–77), there were close contacts between the whites and the blacks at that time. The indentured labourers must have

14 worked together with the slaves, as the social conditions were similar for the two groups. Rens (1953: 59, 76–77) suggests that at this stage of the colony’s development, there were frequent interactions between European indentured labourers and African slaves. All these facts indicate that Africans must have had sufficient access to the superstratum during this period. The linguistic consequences of this fact will be discussed in section 3.3 below. The small-scale agricultural society was replaced by large-scale sugar plantation economy relatively quickly in Suriname as compared to some other colonies, by possibly already the mid 1660s (Arends 2002a: 116, Smith 2001: 52). The reason for this might lie, as Arends (2002a: 116) points out, in the fact that Surinamese planters came from other colonies and were therefore experienced in sugar production. The plantation economy had led to changes in the social structure of the colony. The owner, the resident manager, the white overseer, the basya (the black overseer), the elite slaves (domestic servants and skilled workers) and the field workers were now the main actors of the social scene on plantations (Van Stipriaan 1993: 276–307). The plantation owner and his European assistants occupied the highest position in the social hierarchy, the elite slaves the intermediate one and field workers were placed on the lowest level. The basyas, who were often African-born, occupied a special and important position in this hierarchy: they supervised the slaves, executed punishments and acted as a link between the slaves and the European management (Arends 2001: 296–297, Van Stipriaan 1993: 278). As pointed out by Arends (2001: 296–297), the basyas might have been of significance as linguistic role models because of their contacts to both the white and the black population. The slaves, besides working in sugar production, were also involved, as Arends (2001: 301–302) shows, in quite a number of other activities, such as trade on and outside the plantations and various leisure activities (religious gatherings, foods and goods distributions around New Year, dancing parties, sexual relations). As to the linguistic impact of these social facts, Arends (2001: 303) suggests that the social stratification of the plantation society favoured linguistic differentiation, whereas the external contacts maintained by the slaves led to linguistic homogenisation. Besides, it can be assumed that the joint activities and interactions might have led to the development of a sense of communal identity among the slaves that promoted a common means of communication (cf. Rens 1953: 89, Smith 2006: 55). During the 100 years following the English exodus, Suriname continued its path as a plantation economy until the financial crisis in the 1770s triggered an economic decline of sugar production. This slowly led to the end of the slave importation in 1830. However, it took several decades until slavery was officially abolished in 1863. In 1799 Suriname was seized by the British as the result of the Napoleon’s war and many British planters again settled in Suriname (Arends 2002a: 126). In 1816 Suriname came back under the Dutch rule and remained a Dutch colony until 1975 when it gained full independence.

3.3

The demographic development of Suriname

The socio-economic changes which took place during the transition from a small-scale agricultural society to a large-scale sugar production economy described in the previous

15 section had also caused significant demographic changes. Three types of demographic changes in Suriname at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century had crucial linguistic consequences: the increase of the black-to-white ratio, the decrease of the old-tonew slaves ratio and the development of the number of children. These changes and their linguistic relevance and consequences will be the focus of the present section. As to the black-to-white ratio, whereas the very initial years of the colony’s existence were characterised by the relatively equal number of Africans and Europeans, the black-towhite ratio grew steadily: during the first two decades, it increased up to 3:1 (Arends 1995a: 260, Migge 2003a: 28). The following years witnessed a drastic increase in the black-to-white ratio due to the emergence of sugar plantation economy: in the second half of the 1680–1690 decade, the black population “had more than quintupled” because of constant new arrivals of slaves (Arends 2002a: 121), reaching its culminating point of 1:25 in 1780. The black-to-white ratio is generally assumed to be linguistically relevant for estimating the probability and degree of access of the black population to the superstratum language. Following the general assumption about the linguistic consequence of the blackto-white ratio, it can be pointed out with respect to Suriname that whereas the African population had sufficient access to the superstratum language at the beginning of the colony’s existence, this access became limited later. Linguistically, sufficient access to the superstratum language is generally supposed to lead to contact varieties which are closer approximations of the superstratum. Limited access is then supposed to cause a greater divergence from the superstratum and thus a heavier influence of the African component on creole structures (Arends 2002a: 116–117, Winford 2003: 312, 334). However, it has been pointed out by Smith (2006: 49, 50, 63) that although sufficient access is crucial for the development of a creole language since creole creators must adopt some of the superstratum structures to develop a new language, it is wrong to assume that enough access automatically means that the slaves would acquire the language spoken by the Europeans. As mentioned in section 3.2 above, Smith (2006: 53, cf. Baker 2000, McWhorter 1999) suggests that there was little motivation for the slaves to learn the colonial language even in the period of sufficient access because it was the language of the “enemy enslavers”, and therefore, the slaves developed their own “means of ethnic communication”, a creole language. The idea of motivation is plausible and insightful, but raises the question of what linguistic effect on creole formation can be triggered by the absence of motivation. Smith (2006: 63) points out that the lack of motivation made the slaves not to acquire “any more English than was sufficient to form an English interlanguage adequate to function as an MEC” (means of ethnic communication, M.B.). This remark is still imprecise since it raises the question of how “sufficient” should be interpreted in this context. Note that motivation is a complex notion whose nature and impact on L2 acquisition are not yet sufficiently clear (Gass and Selinker 2008: 426–432). It is generally observed in SLA research that motivation is a predictor of learning success. Hence, it can be suggested that in the context of creole formation, the lack of motivation, similarly to limited access, triggers a greater divergence from the lexifier, and consequently, heavier reliance on L1 and on universal strategies of language development and communication. Parkvall (2000b: 196) suggests that if motivation is indeed a crucial factor in creole formation then investigating L2 acquisition would be of little benefit for creole studies, and “successful creation” rather than “failed acquisition” would be responsible for the results of the restructuring processes in creoles. However, since L2 acquisition is

16 generally regarded as a creation of interlanguage, it can be principally viewed as a kind of language creation as well. Therefore, the difference between successful creation and failed acquisition is possibly not a principled one, but largely a matter of perspective. In general, then, it can be assumed that processes and strategies involved in language creation and language acquisition at initial stages are to some extent similar. To generalise, it seems that both limited access and little motivation are important social factors influencing the outcomes of language contact in Suriname. Besides, Sranan’s considerable divergence from the superstratum English in comparison to other creoles can possibly be explained by the fact that not only one, but both of these factors operated in the Surinamese contact setting. As far as the old-to-new slaves ratio is concerned, in the second decade of the colony’s existence (1660–1669) there were approximately 2,000 old slaves and 2,800 new slaves in Suriname (Arends 1995a: 264). The number of new slaves was constantly increasing because of the massive importations from Africa during the following two decades (1670– 1690): the old-to-new slaves ratio changed drastically from 1:1.8 in 1669 to 1:6.6 by 1689 (Migge 2003a: 31, cf. Arends 1995a: 264). In the decades thereafter, the number of slave importations reduced to some extent, but remained comparatively high through the most part of the 18th century. The old-to-new slaves ratio is assumed to be important linguistically in primarily two respects: the possibility of access of the new slaves to the variety spoken by the old slaves and the transmission of a contact variety from old to new slaves. Arends (1995a: 263) suggests that since the number of new arrivals far exceeded the number of the old slaves already at the early stages of the colony’s existence, it was more and more difficult for the new slaves to get access to the language of the old slaves, especially in the period between 1680 and 1690. However, in general it is difficult to estimate with greater precision the true extent of the possibility or impossibility of transmission and access and their linguistic consequences because many aspects are unclear or unknown. First, the new slaves outnumbered the old slaves drastically only in one decade, 1680–1690, and did not do so to the same extent before and after this period. This raises the question in how far this one decade might have been crucial in terms of transmission and preservation of whatever contact variety was already there. Second, Smith (2001: 54) remarks that 168 slaves who left the colony together with their English planters were allegedly removed illegally and thus were ordered back by the Dutch authorities. Smith suggests therefore that between 1668 and 1675, when the number of the new slaves was yet not as high as it became a few years later, the newcomers might have had sufficient access to the contact variety that existed in the colony by that time. Third, the basyas (the black overseers), given their intermediate position in the social hierarchy and their constant presence, might have been important in terms of access and transmission. Finally, slaves participated in numerous activities beyond the working hours and this – at least to some extent – might have dissolved the daily social patterning. This raises the question of how such activities might have promoted contacts between the old and the new slaves. All in all, it is difficult to assess precisely the frequency and the intensity of contact between the old and the new slaves. Given all these considerations, three assumptions can be made. First, the transmission of the already existing contact variety from the old to the new slaves might not have been as problematic as thought before. Second, given the really great proportion of the new slaves for the time between 1680 and 1690, it can be suggested that at least during

17 this period, the general consequences of limited access mentioned above might have been more prominent than during other periods. Another important demographic feature is the number of children present in Suriname during and beyond the formative period of Sranan. As mentioned section 2.2 above, the number of children is interesting for, among other things, estimating the respective contributions of adults and children to creole genesis. In general, Surinamese plantations were associated with high mortality rates and low birth rates. The proportion of locallyborn and African-born children among the overall black population in Suriname as calculated by Arends (1995a: 265) was 27.4 percent in 1684 and approximately 20 percent between 1715 and 1754. Arends remarks therefore that this proportion is low in comparison to that for the French colonies such as Haiti and Martinique. Arends (2002a: 123) assumes that since even as late as 1750 three of every four blacks were African-born, Sranan was the second rather than the first language for the overwhelming proportion of the Surinamese population. However, Smith (2001: 51) suggests that the figure of 27.4 percent of slaves under 12 in 1684, provided by Arends (1995a: 265), is not low and thus it cannot be claimed that there were too few children in the colony. To make the extent of the controversy even greater, it can be added that little is known about the number of children present on the plantations prior to 1684, the period especially interesting in terms of creole emergence, as will be shown in section 3.5 below. There are at least two facts that might be interesting in terms of the number of children prior to 1684. Since the socio-demographic situation was not so dramatic at least at the beginning of the colony, higher numbers of children, especially of locally-born children, can be hypothesised for this time. Besides, greater numbers of children are supposed to have been present in Barbados and St. Kitts from which many planters and slaves came to Suriname (see Winford (2000: 220, 223–224) for Barbados, Parkvall (1998: 67) for St. Kitts). This fact can, in consequence, be used to assume that at least some of the children had been brought to Suriname from Barbados. To even deepen the ‘children controversy’, Smith’s (2006: 57, 61) more recent view of the role of children can be mentioned. He argues that on the assumption that creoles arise very rapidly there is no need to “assign any special role to children” because children are able to learn any colonial and any natural language if there is sufficient exposure to them. Although Smith’s idea seems to be plausible, some remarks arise with respect to it. For the children to learn enough of the superstratum and thus not to play a significant role in creole formation, indeed good access to the colonial language is necessary. However, although we know that the contacts between the speakers of the colonial language and the slaves were closer and more common in the initial period, we know almost nothing about the possibility of interactions between children and European adults. Even if children had enough access and would learn English, wouldn’t they also learn the contact variety spoken in the slave community? If so, could they influence this variety and how? To pursue these questions, more knowledge is needed about how a change initiated by children can spread in a community, given the complex socio-linguistic situation most creoles emerge in. Besides, the fact that children might have played an insignificant role in the emergence of creoles does not necessarily exclude the possibility of such an influence later and thus the necessity to investigate it. All in all, the ‘children issue’ still requires considerable empirical research and theoretical dispute. And it makes sense to involve linguistic evidence into the discussions of this issue. Denying the role of children on the basis of socio-historical facts before giving it

18 a chance to be investigated linguistically is as problematic as regarding adults as the major creole creators without providing any linguistic evidence of this fact. To summarise the discussion of the demographic developments, it can be pointed out that despite the difficulty to predict the effects of the demographic developments in Suriname exactly, it is uncontroversial that the specific demographic make-up of the Surinamese population had a considerable impact on the nature of linguistic outcomes. Therefore, the demographic situation should be taken into account in the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation.

3.4

The ethnolinguistic make-up of the Surinamese population

3.4.1 The European population and its languages Suriname was a multiethnic and multilingual society not only in terms of African, but also in terms of European population from the very beginning on. This ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity had serious consequences for the development of Early Sranan. Until approximately 1667 the Surinamese European population consisted of English planters and indentured labourers. The planters spoke different regional dialects of English. The regional origin of these dialects is not quite clear. What is known is that the British settlers in Barbados, the colony many Surinamese settlers came from, were primarily speakers of different south-western dialects and secondarily of south-eastern dialects of English (Winford 2000: 225). Besides, there were possibly speakers of Midland and some other dialects among the Barbados settlers as well (Winford 2000: 225). The indentured labourers in Suriname were presumably Irish and Scots (Arends 2002a: 117). Another interesting fact is that the white population of St. Kitts, another island from which some settlers came to Suriname, consisted of English settlers and Irish immigrants (Parkvall 1998: 66). As to the Jews, who arrived between 1665 and 1667, most of them were presumably speakers of Judeo-Portuguese varieties (Arends 1999, 2002a: 118, Smith 1999: 273–274). It has also been assumed by Arends (1999, 2002a: 118) mainly on the basis of socio-historical evidence that at least some of the Jews were speakers of Judeo-Spanish, but this view has been criticised by Smith (1999: 294–295) on the basis of (mainly) linguistic evidence. After the English exodus in 1667, the situation became even more heterogeneous. The white population consisted mainly of the people of English, Dutch, French, German and Jewish origin (Arends 1995a: 262). As mentioned in section 3.2 above, even despite the exodus, a proportion of English population still existed in Suriname until at least 1775. The Jews, another important population group in the history of Suriname, constituted one third of the European population in the colony from the 1670s until the second half of the 18th century (Arends 2002a: 121). Quite remarkably, although Suriname was under the Dutch rule, the Dutch were not the numerical majority among the European population in Suriname until the beginning of the 19th century. The heterogeneity of the European population is considered to have at least three types of linguistic consequence. Arends (1995a: 262) suggests that this heterogeneity might have

19 promoted the use of Sranan as a common means of communication in Suriname (cf. Rens 1953: 26, 86–87). Another consequence suggested by Arends (1995a: 238, 262, 2002a: 124) is that Dutch possibly played a marginal role in Suriname well into the 19th century because of a small number of the Dutch in the colony. Support for this suggestion can be found in Rens (1953: 87) who argues that Dutch overseers and plantation directors did not use their own language in their communication with slaves not only during the English-Dutch transition period, but also even after the English had left the colony. The third important linguistic consequence of the linguistic heterogeneity of the European population is the presence of Portuguese linguistic elements in the Surinamese creoles, the result of the Jewish influence on the linguistic scene (Smith 1999). However, the degree of the Portuguese influence varied among the Surinamese creoles, and it is considered to be less significant in Sranan than in, for instance, Saramaccan (Smith 1999: 276).

3.4.2 The African population and its languages The African population of Suriname was heterogeneous in both ethnic and linguistic terms. It can be assumed on the basis of extensive socio-historical research about slave trade conducted by the Dutch, who were the main suppliers of slaves at that time, that the slaves working on the Surinamese plantations came from three major areas: the Slave Coast, the Loango region and the Gold Coast (Postma 1990: 103, 2005: 37–43). The Slave Coast refers to today’s Togo, Benin and the (south)-western Nigeria (Arends 1995a: 245, Parkvall 2000a: 11). The Loango region designates the area of southern Cameroon and the coastal regions of Congo, Zaire and southern Gabon.1 The Gold Coast refers to the central and eastern area of the present day Ghana up to Accra (Arends 1995a: 245, Parkvall 2000a: 11). Besides, two other areas have been mentioned as potential slave suppliers for Suriname, although presumably to a much lesser extent: the Windward Coast,2 which refers to approximately today’s Liberia and the Ivory Coast (Arends 1995a: 244–245), and the Biafra region, which roughly corresponds to south-eastern Nigeria (Parkvall 2000a: 11, 120, 124).3 Each of the areas can be associated with particular linguistic group(s) since their distribution has hardly changed after the period of slave trade (Arends 1995a: 247). Thus, slaves coming from the Slave Coast were mainly the speakers of the Gbe cluster of the Kwa group which belongs to the Niger-Congo language family (Arends 1995a: 248, Parkvall 2000a: 120). However, Parkvall (2000a: 120) mentions that besides the Gbe speakers, speakers of Delto-Benuic languages (e.g. Yoruba) might have come from the Slave Coast as well, however, presumably later: after 1730. The Gbe cluster consists of the five branches of languages: the Aja, Fon, Gen, Vhe (Ewe) and the Phla-Phera (Capo 1988: 95–102). It has been suggested on the basis of historical evidence that out of the Gbe languages, Ewe and Fon were possibly of most crucial importance in Suriname

– 1 2

3

Note that Parkvall (2000a: 12) refers to the area stretching from Cameroon to Angola as “Buntu”. For greater details concerning the term ‘Windward Coast’, see Arends (1995a: 244–245) and Parkvall (2000a: 11). They are avoided here for reasons of space. Note that Arends (1995a) does not mention the Biafra region separately, but includes it into the Slave Coast for reasons that will be mentioned below.

20 (Arends 1995a: 248–249, Postma 1990: 99). In general, the Slave Coast is considered to be the major area from which slaves for the Dutch and the English colonies came (Arends 2002a: 118, Parkvall 2000a: 126, Smith 2001: 55–58). In the Loango region, the Dutch recruited mainly Kikongo-speaking slaves. Kikongo belongs to the Kongo cluster of the Bantu group of the Niger-Congo language family. It is also assumed that after 1740 some speakers of Kimbundu, a Bantu language related to Kikongo, were imported from the non-coastal parts of Loango (Arends 1995a: 250, Parkvall 2000a: 120). Arends (1995a: 250) suggests that their influence was probably not significant because of the late arrival. The slaves from the Gold Coast, according to Arends (1995a: 250), were speakers of Akuapem (Twi) and Abron of the Akan subgroup, and of Ga of the Ga-Adangme subgroup of the Kwa group, as well as Anyi-Baule speakers. Parkvall (2000a: 120) also mentions Asante and Fante. However, Arends (1995a: 249) is doubtful about Asante and Fante being possible substratum languages for the Surinamese creoles because of the fact that the Asante and Fante kingdoms, situated in the area of the Gold Coast, were rather powerful in the 18th century and thus very unlikely to become the object of slave raids. The slaves from the Windward Coast were mainly speakers of the coastal languages, such as Kru, southern Mande and southern Atlantic, as well as speakers of western Kwa languages (Arends 1995a: 250). Arends notes that the influence from the Windward Coast may have been rather small because of the late arrival of their speakers on the linguistic scene in Suriname (cf. Postma 1990: 116). According to Parkvall’s (2000a: 126) interpretation of Postma’s (1990) data on the general Dutch slave trade, slaves from the Biafra region might have made up five percent of the slave imports in 1650s, nine percent in the 1660s and again five percent in the 1670s, with no imports in the following decades. Parkvall (2000a: 120) notes that this region might have provided the speakers of Delto-Benuic languages, such as Igbo, Ijo or Edo. Notably, Arends (1995a) does not treat the Biafra region as a separate one, but includes it into the Slave Coast because, as he remarks (1995a: 270–271), only two ships are mentioned to have supplied slaves to Suriname from this region. Since the numbers are really small, it can be suggested that the influence of the speakers from this area might have been small. However, as will be shown later in this section, Parkvall (2000a: 150–151) argues that there are linguistic traces of the Delto-Benuic languages in the Surinamese creoles. The numerical distribution of slaves from the four areas just mentioned, and hence, their impact on the emergence of the creole languages, were different in different periods in the history of Suriname. Although the information about the ethnolinguistic origin of the African slaves during the ‘English period’, prior to 1675, is rather scarce, Arends (1995a: 340–341) admits that it is possible to make a prediction on the basis of the figures available for the Dutch slave trade in general that most of Africans came from the Slave Coast and the Loango area (cf. Parkvall 2000a: 125). They were mainly speakers of Gbe and Kikongo. It is also noteworthy that in his discussion of the ethnolinguistic make-up of the slaves imported to Suriname, Parkvall (2000a: 125–126) provides numbers of the slave imports to the Lesser Antilles prior to 1650s since he believes that the predecessor of the Surinamese creoles came from the Lesser Antilles. This is interesting since the Lesser Antilles include, among others, Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis, i.e. locations from which the first English planters came to Suriname and which might be relevant for Suriname in terms of ethnography. However,

21 even these numbers show the preponderance of the slaves from the Slave Coast and the Loango area, with higher numbers of the slaves from the Loango area. For the post-English era, more reliable information is available about the origin of the slaves on Surinamese plantations. Thus, Gbe-speaking slaves from the Slave Coast and Kikongo-speaking slaves from the Loango region dominated the scene in the two decades between 1680 and 1700. Given the figures in Postma (1990: 308–348), the two groups were of roughly equal numbers with a slight numerical preponderance of Kikongo-speaking slaves during 1680–1689. The numbers of the slaves speaking other languages, e.g. Twi and Ga, were rather small. The following two decades, between 1700 and 1720, witnessed a considerable decrease in the number of slaves coming from the Loango region, i.e. Kikongo-speaking. Gbe speakers made up approximately 70 percent of new arrivals. The speakers of Twi and Ga were rather few. The post-1720 period is characterised by a steady decline of the Kikongo-speaking, and even more of the Gbe-speaking slaves. The Windward Coast and the Gold Coast became the major recruitment areas for new slaves, whose main languages were Twi, Abron, Ga, Anyi and Baule. However, given their comparatively late arrival, it is unclear in how far these languages might have affected the existing creole. In conclusion, it can be assumed on the basis of the socio-historical evidence that Gbe and Kikongo are the two most important substratum languages of Early Sranan (Arends 1995a: 253, Parkvall 2000a: 126). As Arends (1995a: 250) suggests, other African languages involved into the formation of the Surinamese creoles at different times and with different intensity, such as Twi, Abron, Ga, Anyi and Baule, can have played only a secondary role. This socio-historical evidence is also corroborated by linguistic evidence. For instance, Gbe influence or parallels to the Gbe languages have been shown for various areas of grammar of the Surinamese creoles, such as, for instance, lexicon (Huttar 1985), morphology (Migge 2003b), syntax (McWhorter 1992, Migge 1998, 2003a) and phonology (Plag and Schramm 2006). Bantu linguistic influence has been argued to be traceable in the Surinamese creoles by, for instance, Parkvall (2000a: 150–151). Furthermore, some DeltoBenuic influence has been pointed out by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 321), who found parallels between Sranan and Igbo (Delto-Benuic) in the area of deverbal nominalising reduplication, and by Parkvall (2000a: 150–151).4 However, in general, it seems that parallels to Kikongo and to other relevant African languages, for instance, Twi, have not been investigated to the same extent as the parallels to Gbe have been. On the basis of the discussion above, Gbe (mainly Ewe and Fon) and Kikongo will be regarded as the most crucial substratum languages of Early Sranan in the present study, and

– 4

However, one aspect in Parkvall’s (2000a: 151) summary of substratum influence in Surinamese creoles seems to be controversial. His overall conclusion about this influence is as follows: “In sum, the presence of Kwa, Delto-Benuic and Bantu traits in the Suriname ECs (English creoles, M.B.) is expected – all three groups were well represented, and speakers of each formed an absolute majority of the substrate population at various points in time during the 17th or early 18th centuries”. However, the numbers he provides for the slaves from the Biafra region (2000a: 126), from which many of the Delto-Benuic speaking slaves came, are rather low. Although he mentions that the Delto-Benuic-speaking slaves also came from the Slave coast, he also notes (2000a: 120) that this was so mainly after 1730.

22 in most cases, the term ‘substratum languages’, if used in the context of Early Sranan, will refer to these two. Because Akan (Twi), Kimbundu and Delto-Benuic have also been mentioned as at least being present on the linguistic scene, occasionally, data from some of these languages (mainly Twi) will also be included into the analysis, although to a lesser extent than the data from Gbe and Kikongo. Given the overall ethnolinguistic diversity of the Surinamese population demonstrated above, the question is what means of communication was used between the different ethnic groups and how it emerged. This question will be addressed in the next section.

3.5

The emergence of Early Sranan

Sranan was historically the language of the slaves living in the plantation zone of the coast and the lower reaches of the Suriname River. Today Sranan is spoken around Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, and along the coast. Besides Sranan, there are other creoles spoken in Suriname, which emerged as the result of the slaves’ escapes from the plantations: Western Maroon (Saramaccan, Matawai) and Eastern Maroon (Ndjuka, Boni/Aluku, Kwinti and Paramaccan) creoles. Their speakers live in the interior of the country. It is still a matter of dispute when exactly and how Sranan emerged as a creole language. Three pertinent views will be discussed below. Arends (1993, 2002a: 124–125) holds a gradualist view of creolisation of Sranan, according to which the emergence of the creole took place over several generations. He suggests that since the extract from Herlein (1718), one of the earliest sources of Sranan, contains both features typical of creoles such as bimorphemic question words, but also some pidgin-like features such as the absence of the copula and of articles, Sranan was probably not a stable creole language at the beginning of the 18th century but rather a contact variety still “recognisable as English”. Besides, he notes that the linguistic make-up of the later sources, such as Van Dyk (c1765), Nepveu (1770) and Schumann (1783), is indicative of the emergence of an “autonomous”, although possibly not fully stabilised creole language by the middle of the 18th century. A problematic point of Arends’ account is that the evidence he presents for the earlier stage, i.e. the beginning of the 18th century, comes from only one small source. It is also surprising that Arends does not take into consideration another important source of Early Sranan, Van den Berg (2000), which contains Sranan data dated earlier than Herlein (1718). All in all, as long as any sufficient linguistic evidence from the 17th century is lacking, statements about the linguistic nature of Sranan in that period remain a speculation. Another problematic point is the reliability of such rather general overall comparisons. The comparison done by Arends is unbalanced in terms of the size of the sources and their temporal distribution: he uses one small source from the beginning of the 18th century, three larger ones from the middle and from the end of the 18th century. A final objection to Arends’ scenario is mentioned by Smith (2001: 53) who states that if Sranan were a pidgin well into the 18th century, it should have experienced much stronger influence from Dutch and Portuguese. This is, however, not the case, as Smith states on the basis of lexical evidence from Schumann’s (1783) dictionary.

23 Smith (2001: 53, 2002: 131, 135, 2006: 62) argues against the gradualist scenario of Sranan’s creolisation in favour of what he calls “very rapid creolisation” (Smith 2006: 50), i.e. creolisation that takes place within few years, when slaves have sufficient access to the superstratum language and thus can learn at least some linguistic aspects from the speakers of the superstratum language. Smith (2006: 52) points out that it is wrong to assume that creoles arise when new slaves arrive in large numbers and therefore cannot learn the colonial language because of limited access. According to Smith, already a smaller number of slaves, with sufficient access to the colonial language can create a creole because of the desire and need to have a means of ethnic communication for the slave community and because of lacking motivation to learn the language of the colonisers. The slaves therefore created their own new language (cf. Koefoed and Tarenskeen 1996: 132). Smith assumes that Sranan might have come into existence as a fully fledged creole language at the very beginning of Suriname’s existence, approximately by 1665, before the majority of English planters left the colony. Smith (2002: 135) suggests that Sranan must have been creolised before Saramaccan came into existence around ca. 1680 since the two languages bear a rather close resemblance to each other in terms of features that are absent in other Caribbean English-based creoles, for instance the use of participial reduplicated adjectives. Note that similar dates are mentioned by Rens (1953: 54), who points out that what he calls “slave language” must have been formed between 1651 and 1680 in the colony. Besides, Rens (1953: 28) also remarks that before the Jewish settlements became numerically prominent, “NE (Negro-English, M.B.) had been established, not only among the slave population, but also among the white inhabitants of the region, not just manifesting itself in a number of words and expressions, but really becoming the base of the language”. Smith (2002: 134) also argues that Sranan emerged in Suriname on the basis of a pidgin English used all over the English Caribbean, “Caribbean Plantation Pidgin English”. This pidgin probably spread through the colonies via the movement of the slaves. Smith’s argumentation is based on a number of (mainly) linguistic facts, such as Sranan’s close resemblance to the Maroon Spirit Language and Krio, a large amount of lexical elements originating from a variety of different African languages, which is typical of pidgins, as well as striking phonological, lexical and grammatical similarities to other Caribbean creoles which cannot be accidental and thus suggest a common origin. This scenario bears some similarity to the one advanced by McWhorter (1995, 1997) (cf. Parkvall (1999) for French creoles). McWhorter suggests on the basis of both linguistic and socio-linguistic evidence that the ancestor pidgin of Caribbean creoles emerged on the Ghanaian coast and was diffused in the Caribbean through slaves. This pidgin is then supposed to have been developed further in Barbados where from it might have been brought to Suriname. One of McWhorter’s major linguistic arguments consists in the presence of a number of rather close and striking similarities between the Surinamese and other Caribbean creoles which can hardly be accidental. McWhorter’s approach has been criticised on both linguistic and socio-historical grounds. For instance, Migge (2003a: 3) remarks that the similarities are not close enough to exclude independent developments. However, this remark is rather vacuous since Migge provides no clear empirically-based counterevidence to McWhorter’s observations. Smith’s account is based on a number of plausible arguments and allows us to avoid some problems faced by other accounts. Thus, the idea that Sranan developed during the English presence in Suriname would explain why Sranan, despite the early English exodus,

24 retained a very large number of English lexical items and at least some traces of English grammatical features. It seems that before the English left, Sranan should have been robust enough as a means of communication to resist any considerable influence on the part of other varieties/languages and/or to be substituted by any other means of communication. This explanation is difficult to offer within accounts claiming later dates of emergence. Migge (2003a: 27–35) provides a different scenario which might be regarded as an in between one if compared to those advanced by Arends and Smith. She suggests that the emergence of the contact varieties in Suriname at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century took place within three contact settings: the first setting lasted from 1652 to 1679, the second from 1680 to 1695, and the third from 1695 to 1720. As Migge (2003a: 29) assumes, the major means of communication between the participants during the first contact setting (1652–1679) were L2 and pidgin varieties of English. She suggests that there might have been a continuum of such varieties: from reduced early L2 varieties to “close approximations to available L1 models”, and that the majority of speakers might have used L2 varieties characteristic of intermediate stages of language acquisition. These varieties, as Migge assumes, most likely did not become the starting basis for the formation of the Surinamese creoles. One of the reasons might be a close contact between Europeans and Africans, which enabled the latter to learn the varieties of English available. However, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, Smith (2006: 49, 55) casts doubt on this wide-spread assumption that good access to the colonial language would automatically result in the slaves acquiring the varieties spoken by the Europeans. Smith argues that there was little motivation for the slaves to acquire the language of the colonisers, merely because they had no reason to feel sympathetic with those who deprived them of their freedom. Instead, there was, according to Smith (2006: 55, 56–57), a need to develop a means of interethnic communication because there was a slave community, which required such a means to distinguish itself from other communities (cf. Rens 1953: 89). All in all, it can be assumed that a creole variety might have developed already during this setting. However, Migge might be right in saying that there was variation in the varieties, because even if the slaves indeed had little or no motivation to learn the colonial language, the degree of motivation might have differed from individual to individual. As Migge (2003a: 30–32) suggests, the second contact setting (1680–1695) was characterised by the change to the plantation economy and the rapid and constant decrease of the whites-to-blacks ratio. Therefore, she assumes that the early plantation creole emerged during this setting and actually became the predecessor of the modern Surinamese creoles. Migge (2003a: 32) suggests that new slaves, i.e. slaves who arrived during this period, were “the main agents in the formation of the creole” because first, they were the only group who did not have common linguistic conventions available to those who were already present on the plantations and second, because they had limited access to the speakers of the earlier varieties and less motivation to learn these varieties. Migge also points out that the new slaves acquired a reduced set of structures and elements from L2 varieties of English, retained their L1 structures and used general contact-induced strategies of communication. The reasons Migge provides to support the assumption that the slaves arriving between 1680 and 1695 were the major agents of creole formation are arguable. With respect to the first reason, the question arises: why shouldn’t the new slaves, even if they lacked, as Migge (2003a: 32) puts it, the “common social and linguistic conventions”, acquire these

25 conventions from the slaves who were already there? In this connection objections to the second reason arise. It is problematic to assume that the new slaves had less motivation than the old slaves to learn the existing varieties. As mentioned earlier in this section, there was little reason already for the old slaves to have more motivation to learn the superstratum language. Moreover, although the new slaves were placed on the lowest level of the social hierarchy, they were not living in a social vacuum totally isolated from everybody (see, for instance, Arends (2001: 299) for social interactions among the slaves). It can be suggested that even during this period, the new slaves were in a principally similar position to the old slaves, that of slavery, and therefore became members of the overall slave community. Hence, the new slaves might have felt associated with the community language that was already there. It is also problematic to suggest that the limited access of the new slaves to the existing varieties should have led them to be the major agents of creole formation. Limited access is a plausible reason for the new slaves to retain a number of L1 structures, or in general for a creole language to diverge from its superstratum. However, as already pointed out above in the discussion of Smith’s scenario, limited access is not a plausible reason for the new slaves to become the major agents in creole formation because it does not explain how the new slaves have managed to acquire a great number of superstratum lexical items and even some of the superstratum grammatical features. In fact, given the numbers of the new slaves and the near-absence of the superstratum models, it seems that if the new slaves indeed created the creole between 1680 and 1695, they must have created it out of nothing. Migge (2003a: 33) calls the subsequent period (1695–1720) “the period of stabilisation of the creole” and argues that the creole varieties which emerged during the second contact setting were the major means of interethnic communication since the newly arriving slaves had a close contact to the speakers of these varieties. However, because of the factors mentioned in this section and also because of the absence of solid linguistic evidence, it is rather difficult to prove that the stabilisation took place exactly in this period. Socio-demographic facts alone can hardly be used to make predictions about the nature of the language spoken at a certain point in time. And this is exactly the problem with Migge’s subdivision: it is based on socio-historical rather than linguistic evidence. In conclusion, Smith’s (2006) account seems to be rather plausible. However, the discussion in this section also shows that the precise scenario of Sranan’s emergence is difficult to establish because the socio-demographic data can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and sufficient linguistic evidence is not always available. But each of the accounts introduced in this section provides useful insights into the overall complexity of creole genesis in Suriname.

3.6

Conclusion

In has been shown in this chapter that socio-historical and demographic data are important for the understanding and the correct description of the emergence of Early Sranan because the socio-historical and demographic situation in Suriname had a number of linguistically

26 relevant effects, which seem to have crucially shaped the progress and the outcomes of creole formation. The most important social factors in Sranan’s history include early disappearance of significant English influence from the linguistic scene, presumably limited access of the new slaves to the superstratum variety and presumably little motivation of the African population to learn the colonial language. The discussions of the socio-historical evidence presented in this chapter also bear important consequences for the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation. First, the discussions show that English is the primary and more important superstratum language at least at the initial stages of Early Sranan whereas the influence of Dutch seems to have been less significant until approximately the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, in this study, the term ‘superstratum language’ will refer to English if not otherwise specified. The term ‘lexifier’ will be used to refer to English and to Dutch to show the fact that both have supplied Early Sranan with a considerable number of lexical items. Besides, the fact that Dutch might have played a minor role until the 19th century raises the question of whether comparisons to Dutch word-formation patterns should be made in the present study. This question will be dealt with in section 4.4. Second, the discussions in the present chapter also show that a number of suggestions about the nature and the development of Sranan have been advanced on the basis of socio-historical evidence. Thus, it has been argued that Sranan was rather a second language for the majority of its population during at least the first 100 years of its existence. It has also been suggested that the slaves on the Surinamese plantations were creating a new language in the first place, a means of interethnic communication. Besides, it has been assumed that Sranan emerged out of an earlier Caribbean pidgin. In order to shed more light on these assumptions and suggestions, and thus to acquire a more comprehensive picture of the genesis of Early Sranan, more and more linguistic evidence is necessary. In this study, these assumptions will be borne in mind and some of them will be discussed on the basis of the linguistic evidence gained through the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation.

4

Methodology

4.1

Introduction

It is an undeniable fact that using historical data is of great significance for the field of creole studies since the earliest data are much closer to the period of creolisation and thus offer us much better insights into the process of creole genesis. However, as possibly any study based on early data, a historically-oriented study of a creole language presents a host of difficult methodological problems. One of the problems is the assessment of the reliability of the early data available for this kind of study. Another problem is variability in forms across the different sources and lack of information on some crucial aspects. The present chapter is devoted to such problems. It introduces the major sources of Early Sranan used in the present study and discusses their reliability. Besides, it describes the procedure of data collection and data classification, as well as the problems encountered during the analysis of Early Sranan data.

4.2

Sources of Early Sranan

Early Sranan is one of the few creole languages that boasts a considerable number of reliable early sources. The availability of such sources, as Arends (2002b: 56) notes, makes it possible to “develop a historically realistic theory of creole formation”. The data on Early Sranan used in the present study come from three early sources of this language: Van Dyk’s Nieuwe en nooit bevoorens geziene onderwyzinge in het Bastert Engels, of Neeger Engels, zoo als het zelve in de Holladsze Colonien gebruikt word, etc (‘New and unprecedented instruction in Bastard English, or Negro English, as it is used in the Dutch colonies’) of c1765 (published in Arends and Perl 1995), Christian Ludwig Schumann’s Neger-Englisches Wörterbuch of 1783, Editio Tertia (published in Kramp 1983) and Focke’s Neger-Engelsch Woordenboek (Negro-English Dictionary) of 1855. Van Dyk (c1765; 1221 types, 11405 tokens) is the first manual on Sranan, which includes a small vocabulary, twelve dialogues and a story about daily life on a plantation. It was written for those who did business in Suriname with the purpose of providing them with an opportunity to learn Sranan. The exact date of this manual is highly disputable, although it is assumed that it must have been written between 1740 and 1770. It has been suggested on the basis of socio-historical and linguistic data that the manual must have been written in the 1760s, and common reference for this source is c1765 (Arends 1995c, Bruyn 1995b). Therefore, this date, c1765, will be used in the present study as well. It is also highly disputable which variety of Sranan is reflected in Van Dyk’s manual. Thus, Schuchardt (1914: XXIII) argues that Van Dyk’s text reflects the language spoken on plantations. Arends (1995b: 40) remarks that Van Dyk (c1765) represents an earlier and only

28 partially creolised variety of Sranan. On the basis of linguistic analysis, Bruyn (1995b: 156) suggests that it is closer to vernacular speech than other 18th-century sources and reflects spontaneous spoken language. The particular value of Van Dyk (c1765) for this study lies in the fact that it contains a relatively large body of text, which is not the case with the other two sources, Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855). Textual data are valuable because they can help to identify the lexical categories of constituents in complex words. Schumann’s dictionary (1783; 2391 types, 17731 tokens) is one of the best and the largest sources of Early Sranan. It is assumed that Schumann had worked with informants who were native speakers of Sranan and that he himself might have been very proficient in the creole since he provides accurate and exhaustive information, both linguistic and cultural, in his dictionary (Arends 1989: 19, Bruyn 1995b: 154–155, Plag 1993: 57–58). Schumann’s dictionary is valuable since it makes reference to two major varieties of Sranan, Bakkratongo (‘White man’s tongue’) and Ningretongo (‘Negro language’) and provides the author’s and the informants’ numerous comments on the differences between the two varieties. It is generally agreed that Schumann (1783) is a highly reliable source of Early Sranan (Arends 1989: 19, Bruyn 1995b: 154–155, Kramp 1983: 3). Focke (1855; 3725 types, 14923 tokens) is a Sranan-Dutch dictionary by a Creole who is assumed to have been a native speaker of Sranan (Arends 1989: 16). It is a highly reliable source, especially valuable for the present investigation because of the information about the lexical categories of the entry words and a considerable number of complex words it contains. It also provides etymological information about many Early Sranan words. Additionally to these three major sources, other sources of Early and Modern Sranan were used in the present study with the purpose of testing different hypotheses and gaining more information about different simplex and complex words. These additional sources of Early Sranan include Van den Berg’s (2000) collection of Early Sranan words and sentences in court records of 1667–1767, a fragment from Herlein’s (1718) Description of the Colony of Suriname (published in Arends and Perl 1995), a fragment from Nepveu’s Annotations to Herlein’s (1718) Description of Suriname (1770) (2nd edition, published in Arends and Perl 1995), Wullschlägel’s Deutsch-Negerenglisches Wörterbuch (GermanNegro-English Dictionary) (1856) and Wilner’s Wortubuku fu Sranan Tongo (Dictionary of Sranan) (2007). Van den Berg (2000) is the investigation of 561 Early Sranan words and 54 sentences in Early Sranan extracted from the court records found in the Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA) in the city of the Hague, the Netherlands. This is an accurate and reliable source of information about Early Sranan, with a chronological overview and a linguistic description of all words and sentences found in the depositions, testimonies, statements and minutes of the examinations of black slaves in the colony of Suriname between 1667 and 1767. Herlein (1718) is a sample of Early Sranan containing several phrases and sentences. Nepveu (1770) is a correction of Herlein’s (1718) sample of Early Sranan which contains, additionally to Herlein’s examples, a list of Early Sranan words, phrases and sentences. Both Herlein’s and Nepveu’s Sranan are probably examples of Bakkratongo, a variety of Sranan spoken by Europeans (Arends 1995b: 17, 19). Wullschlägel’s dictionary of 1856 is the largest available dictionary of Sranan, written by a Moravian missionary who was the head of the Moravian Mission in Paramaribo for some time (Bruyn 1995a: 36). As Wullschlägel (1856: IV) notes, his dictionary is based on some previous work, such as Schumann’s (1783) dictionary and the work by another Mora-

29 vian missionary, Brother W. Treu. Besides, he mentions that his dictionary was looked through “word by word” and commented on by H. C. Focke, who is assumed to have been a native speaker of Sranan, Brother C. Döhrmann, who learnt Sranan through his long-time communication with the blacks, and Brother Ch. U. Graf, a black teacher, also presumably a native speaker of Sranan. Therefore, despite the fact that Wullschlägel’s Sranan was possibly heavily influenced by the missionary variety of Sranan, called ‘Church Sranan’ (Plag 1993: 60), it can be regarded as a reliable source. Wilner (2007) is a dictionary of Modern Sranan and a creation of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. As Wilner (2007: 2) remarks, the dictionary is “a snapshot of Sranan Tongo as it is spoken today”, and the intention behind it is to serve “as a help for English speakers wishing to learn Sranan Tongo”.

4.3

Procedure

Because of the diversity of phenomena this study deals with, methodological remarks will be made not only in this chapter, but in almost all of the following chapters. In this section, the procedure of data collection applied in this study will be outlined for a general orientation. The first question arising in any study of word-formation is what should be regarded as a word, or in more general terms, what items should be included into the analysis. Determining what may count as a word in general and as a complex word in particular is a matter of debate (Bauer 2003: 8–15, Katamba and Stonham 2006: 17–24) and will be discussed in the next chapter, together with other morphological issues. For the time being, it can be pointed out that in order not to miss any potentially pertinent items, a rather generous policy of what might count as ‘putatively complex word’ was applied in the present study. The items for the analysis were chosen on the basis of three properties usually associated with words: insertability into X° slots at the level of syntax, syntactic atomicity and referential function.1 Items that can occupy X° slots at the level of syntax, are syntactically atomic and fulfil the referential function were included into the analysis here. For instance, the Early Sranan item tinnatu (ten-and-two) ‘twelve’ was included into the analysis because it has a syntactic category specification of the X°-level (it is a numeral), is syntactically atomic (no linguistic material can be inserted into it without a fundamental change in meaning) and fulfils the referential function (names a numeric concept). The details and the justification of this approach will be discussed in the next chapter. There is one more group of items which were included into the analysis, although they do not exhibit the properties mentioned above. Some of the Early Sranan sources contain a number of circumlocutions which describe some concepts, e.g. occupations, such as wan myki zoe zoe (one-to make-shoe(s)) for ‘shoemaker’ or homan disi nay klossi (woman-whoto sew-clothes) for ‘seamstress’. The status and the role of such circumlocutions in Early

– 1

Note that a different procedure was applied in order to extract multifunctional items from the sources of Early Sranan. This procedure will be introduced in section 6.2.

30 Sranan word-formation are unclear. Therefore, they were included into the analysis here with the purpose of investigating their function and their role in Early Sranan wordformation. In order to extract the types of items described above, the three major sources of Early Sranan were computerised, and data-lists were extracted from each source with the help of the text retrieval programme TACT. From each data-list, all items exhibiting the three properties mentioned above were then extracted manually. In the next step, all three sources were additionally searched manually for the pertinent items that had not made it into the data-list for orthographical reasons, for instance, items which were spelt without a hyphen, or as two or three orthographic words instead of a single orthographic word. Besides, those items in which a combination of letters was homographic with a certain morpheme were excluded from the analysis in the present study. An instance of such a word is kaiman ‘crocodile’, where the orthographic sequence man is a homograph of the Early Sranan person-forming morpheme -man, as in dressiman (to cure-PM) ‘doctor’. By this procedure, 293 items were obtained from Van Dyk (c1765), 690 from Schumann (1783) and 1300 from Focke (1855).2 All borderline cases are included in these numbers. All items obtained by the procedure described above were classified in terms of their syntactic structure and their semantics. In the final step, Early Sranan complex constructs were compared to the constructions in English and in the substratum languages. For the purposes of this comparison, a metric for measuring markedness and a metric for assessing the credibility of superstratum and substratum influence have been developed. Out of structural considerations, they will be discussed in section 7.1. In some cases, explained below, comparisons to Dutch patterns were made as well. Information about wordformation in English, Dutch and the substratum languages was gained from a number of sources which will be discussed below.

4.4

Sources of English and Dutch

As mentioned in the previous chapter, English seems to have played a greater role than Dutch at the initial stages of Sranan’s development, and Dutch influence on Sranan was of minor importance until approximately the beginning of the 19th century (Arends (1995a: 238, 2002a: 124), see also Smith (2006: 62) for a remark on Dutch words in Schumann (1783)). So the question arising here is whether Dutch word-formation patterns should be taken into account in the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation in the present study. On the one hand, there are reasons for doing so. First, 1300 complex words analysed in the present study come from Focke (1855), which is a source compiled in the 19th century, when Dutch influence became more prominent. Second, Koefoed and Tarenskeen (1996: 130) mention

– 2

For the sake of simplicity, hereafter the three major sources of Early Sranan used in the present study will be referred to only by the name of the author, without mentioning the date of their publication. The date of publication will be mentioned only if it is crucial for the line of argumentation.

31 that many Dutch words entered Sranan between 1783 and 1856 and replaced English elements.3 So in general, it is not improbable that lexical borrowing from Dutch might have given rise to some new word-formation patterns in Early Sranan. On the other hand, certain limitations should be made in the present study because of its comparatively large scope. Therefore, since English was the primary lexifier of Early Sranan and since Dutch influence seems to have become prominent later, approximately at the beginning of the 19th century, i.e. after the publication of Van Dyk (c1765) and Schumann (1783), systematic comparisons will be done mainly between the word-formation patterns of Early Sranan and English whereas comparisons to the Dutch patterns will be done in a small number of cases, predominantly to extend certain analyses, especially when the data from Focke (1855) are involved. A detailed study of the parallels between Dutch and Early Sranan word-formation patterns will thus be left for future research. One of the major problems arising with comparative historical research is the lack of the necessary data on all varieties included in the comparison. To provide a reliable comparison between the word-formation processes and devices of English and Early Sranan, ideally, the sources of those English dialects which were spoken by the colonisers in Suriname should be used. This is problematic on two grounds. First, as pointed out in section 3.4.1, the information about English dialects spoken by English planters in Suriname is very scarce. Second, it would burst the limits of the present investigation to do historical research on the word-formation processes in these dialects. The alternative, though not ideal, is to use contemporary sources dealing with diachronic research on English word-formation. This is the method used in the present study. At least some justification for this method comes from sociolinguistic research. Chambers (2003: 65) observes that during the colonialisation in the 16th and 17th centuries striking linguistic homogenisation took place in the colonial settlements already in the first generation. Since many English planters came to Suriname not directly from England, but from other colonies, it can be assumed that at least some homogenisation had taken place before the colony of Suriname was founded. And although this homogenisation possibly did not affect the level of individual lexical items, since there is evidence for the presence of a number of complex words from different regional dialects in creoles (Winford 2003: 321), it might have affected more abstract word-formation patterns. The historical data on English word-formation, i.e. on the availability and productivity of certain affixational and compounding patterns in the 15th – 17th centuries, were mainly drawn from the OED, as well as from Marchand (1969) and Koziol (1972), both comprehensive and highly reliable overviews based on a vast variety of other sources. Additionally, information on Middle English affixation was gained from a study by DaltonPuffer (1996) which was especially valuable for the present analysis since it contains data on type and token frequencies of different affixes in English between mainly 1150 and 1420, with additional information on the period between 1420 and 1500. This information was used in order to formulate hypotheses about the probability of occurrence of certain affixes in the input creole creators were exposed to.

– 3

However, Koefoed and Tarenskeen (1996) do not provide any exact numbers so that the true extent of Dutch borrowings into Early Sranan during this period remains unclear.

32 The problems mentioned above with respect to the comparison between English and Early Sranan patterns also arise for those few cases where comparisons to Dutch wordformation patterns were made. Therefore, similarly to the data used for comparisons with English, the data on Dutch word-formation were taken mainly from a historical grammar, Van Loey’s (1970) Schönfelds Historische Grammatica van het Nederlands.

4.5

Sources of the substratum languages

The problem arising with the comparison between Early Sranan and the substratum languages is that, as Arends (2002b: 54) remarks, the substratum languages influenced Sranan three centuries ago, a time during which diachronic changes might have taken place in these languages. One of the methods applied for comparative historical research is to use the modern varieties of the input languages. Two arguments have been advanced to justify this method. First, as Thomason (1993: 288) notes, 300 years “is not a very long period in language history”, and most structures attested in the substratum languages today are likely to have been present in them at the time of creole genesis. Second, in at least some of the substratum languages, including Sranan’s substratum languages, no extensive diachronic change took place. Thus, Westermann (1954: XXII) observes that the Gbe language Ge underwent little change in the last 300 years, and Migge (2003a: 61) states in general that the present-day Gbe varieties did not undergo considerable contact-induced change since the period of slave trade. However, Arends (2002b: 55) notes that the more reliable method is to use the available early sources of the substratum languages. Although there can be little doubt about the validity of Arends’ (2002b) remark, the present investigation is based on the 19th- and 20th-century sources of the substratum languages because of one major reason. Since Early Sranan complex words will be compared structurally and semantically to substratum words, the sources of the substratum languages containing large amounts of complex words with their detailed translation are necessary for the present investigation. Such sources, mainly dictionaries, are more numerous for the 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, the major sources of Ewe come from the work done by the members of the North-German Missionary Society. These include Schlegel’s Schlüssel zur Eẃe Sprache (Key to the Ewe Language) (1856), Westermann’s Grammatik der Ewe-Sprache (Grammar of the Ewe Language) (1907) and Westermann’s Wörterbuch der Ewe-Sprache. I. Teil. Ewe-Deutsches Wörterbuch (Dictionary of the Ewe Language, Part I: Ewe-German Dictionary) (1905) and Wörterbuch der Ewe-Sprache. II. Teil. Deutsch-Ewe Wörterbuch (Dictionary of the Ewe Language, Part II: German-Ewe Dictionary) (1906). Besides, Westermann’s Evefiala or Ewe-English Dictionary. Gbesela Yeye or English-Ewe Dictionary (1928) and some other articles and work by Westermann were consulted for different purposes as well. Schlegel (1856) is a book written with the purpose of providing a reference source of the Ewe grammar for other missionaries of the North-German Missionary Society (Schlegel 1856: III). It was the result of approximately two-year work during which the

33 author learnt the language himself from the indigenous population. It contains extensive grammatical information and a small Ewe-German and German-Ewe dictionary. It seems to be a reliable source, because most of the information, especially on word-formation, corresponds to the information provided in Westermann (1907) which is a reliable and widely used source of Ewe. Westermann’s Grammatik der Ewe-Sprache (Grammar of the Ewe Language) (1907) is an excellent grammar of Ewe which serves the purpose of an “exhaustive description of the Ewe language” (Westermann 1907: 3*) and provides a rather sophisticated description of all major levels of the language, such as phonology, morphology and syntax. Additionally to the Ewe sources, three sources of another Gbe language, Fon, were used: Lefebvre and Brousseau’s A Grammar of Fongbe (2002), Höftmann’s (2003) Dictionnaire Fon-Français and Dictionnaire Français-Fon by Rassinoux (1987). The major sources of Kikongo were Bentley’s Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language As Spoken at San Salvador, the Ancient Capital of the Old Kongo Empire, West Africa (1887) and Laman’s Grammar of the Kongo Language (Kikongo) (1912). Bentley (1887) consists of an extensive dictionary and a grammar guide with detailed descriptions of different word-classes. It was written by a missionary of the English Baptist Society who gained his knowledge of the language during a five-year stay in Kongo. The data presented in the dictionary are based on the San Salvador dialect of Kikongo which is spoken at San Salvador, “the Ancient Capital of the old Kongo Empire” (Bentley 1887: the title page), and were collected by the author and his colleagues during their missionary work. The author also conducted some work in the interior parts of the Kongo state (Bentley 1887: XVI–XVII), but it is unclear in how far the linguistic information he gained there is included into the dictionary. Although in general, it is difficult to judge the reliability of this source, several facts indicate that it is a reliable source. Thus, Bentley and his colleagues took field notes when communicating with the natives (Bentley 1887: XVI). The information provided in the dictionary was checked for correctness by an informant, who was a native speaker of Kikongo (Bentley 1887: XVIII) and with whom the author communicated in Kikongo. Finally, Bentley’s work is considered “valuable and monumental” by Laman (1912: 8), another researcher of Kikongo. Another Kikongo source, Laman’s Grammar of the Kongo Language (Kikongo) (1912) is written by a missionary of the Swedish Missionary Society. It contains a detailed description of the phonetics, morphology and syntax of Kikongo. Laman (1912: 11) notes that his Grammar is based on the Mazinga dialect, which was spoken in the “lower Belgian Kongo” and is well understood in other parts of Kongo. The intention behind his Grammar was to be of help for the Missionary Institutes and for general study of Kikongo. In addition to his own field work, Laman used native informants and checked other work on Kikongo and other Bantu languages (Laman 1912: 12). Besides the sources of the two major substratum languages of Early Sranan, some sources of two other substratum languages of Early Sranan, Twi and Kimbundu were used in the present study. The major source of linguistic information about Twi used in the present investigation is Christaller’s A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi [Chwee, Twi]: Based on the Akuapem Dialect with Reference to the Other (Akan and Fante) Dialects (1875), which is a reliable source of this language (Reineke 1982: 2, 7, 11–12). It is based on both previous linguistic work on Twi and on field work with native speakers of this language (Christaller 1875: II). The grammatical descriptions it contains show the

34 author’s high linguistic awareness, since they raise problems which are still relevant today. The Kimbundu sources include Johnson’s (1930) Mbundu (Kimbundu) English-Portuguese Dictionary and Chatelain’s (1888–1889) Grammatica Elementar do Kimbundu ou Lingua de Angola.

4.6

Methodological problems

4.6.1 General problems As in any investigation based on historical sources, several problems emerged in the present study, mainly arising from the nature of the early sources. One problem lies in estimating the status of the differences attested in the wordformation patterns between the three sources. Given the time span between the sources, especially between Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855), can these differences be regarded as a result of language-internal diachronic developments? Clarifying this question would be particularly interesting for the gradualist hypothesis of Sranan’s creolisation (Arends 1989, 1995b, 2002a). As will become clear in chapter 7, some word-formation patterns attested in Schumann and Focke do not appear in Van Dyk. So principally, it can be hypothesised that such patterns developed later and thus are a result of a diachronic development. However, there is a significant difference between Van Dyk and the other two sources in terms of size and genre. First, Van Dyk is a much smaller source: it contains 1221 types in contrast to 2391 in Schumann and 3725 in Focke. Second, it is not a dictionary, like the other two sources, but a language manual, which contains word lists, dialogues and texts. It represents spoken rather than written language. And on the assumption that, for instance, derivational affixes are in general not very frequent in spoken language (Plag, Dalton-Puffer and Baayen 1999), it can be suggested that the presence of some additional patterns in Schumann and Focke might be due to their being dictionaries. To generalise, the idea of diachronic development is not completely rejected in the present study, but treated with due caution because it is assumed to be problematic to attribute the differences between the three sources entirely to a diachronic development. Another problem is that potential regional and social differences in the use of different complex words could not be taken into account in the present investigation. First, as mentioned in section 4.2, it is not clear what variety of Early Sranan is represented in Van Dyk (c1765). Second, even if comments on the differences between Bakkra-tongo and Ningretongo are provided, as is the case with Schumann (1783), they are often made with respect to simplex words and syntactic constructions, but are scarce with respect to complex words. A further problem is that for some complex words, it was difficult to identify their translations in the Early Sranan sources because either the translation of a given complex word or the translation of one of its components was missing. In such cases, translations were made by the author of the present study if it was possible on the basis of the context, or other sources, e.g. Wullschlägel (1856), were consulted. If the identification of the mea-

35 ning of a given word or of one of its components was nevertheless not possible, a question mark was put instead of a translation in front of such a word or of its component. Another problem with translations arises through the fact that Van Dyk often provides literary, but not literal translations of Sranan words and sentences, as demonstrated in (1): (1)

Ai mi zi ma zingi man no de yes 1SG see but sing person NEG be-there Arends (1995b: 234): ‘Yes I do, but there’s nobody to sing.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 108): ‘Ja dat zien ik wel, maar ik hoor jelui niet Zingen.’

In (1), the sequence ma zingi man no de is translated by Van Dyk as “but I don’t hear you singing”, which does not render the original Sranan version ‘but there are no singer(s)’. In such cases, Van Dyk’s translations were not employed for the analysis, and Arends’ translations and/or translations made by the author of the present study were used instead. A problem concerning the substratum sources is that no sufficient information on compounding could be found in the sources of Kikongo used in the present study. This information is necessary for a comparison between compounding in Kikongo and in Early Sranan and hence for tracing the origin of Sranan’s structures. Thus, Bentley (1887) does not at all mention compounding in his Grammar. Laman (1912: 247–248) asserts that there are two types of compounds in Kikongo, compound nouns and compound verbs. He subdivides compound nouns into “permanent” and “not permanent”. Non-permanent compounds are further subdivided into “nouns whose component parts are so closely connected in pronunciation that they may be considered to be on the boundary of permanent compounds”, “nouns in the genitive case” and “nouns with usually more than two parts”. However, Laman (1912) describes neither the structural/semantic types of compounds nor the internal composition of individual examples. Moreover, it is unclear what exactly is meant by “permanent compounds”. In general, the information provided by Laman (1912) is not sufficient and clear enough to be used for a systematic comparison between Kikongo and Early Sranan with regard to compounding patterns. Hence, such a comparison will not be made in the present study.

4.6.2 Problems with measuring productivity Since Early Sranan word-formation patterns were described in terms of their productivity in the present study, this created the problem of measuring productivity, which will be briefly discussed below. Defining and measuring productivity is generally a problematic issue (Plag 1999: 11–35, 2006, Rainer 1993: 29–35). Productivity has been often defined as the ability of a wordformation pattern to be used to create new words (Bauer 2003: 70, Spencer 1991: 49), and there are two broad approaches to productivity, qualitative and quantitative (Plag 1999, 2006). Within qualitative approaches, productivity is regarded as a yes/no phenomenon, and thus word-formation processes are viewed as either productive or unproductive. One of the major empirical problems with this approach is that there are presumably unproductive word-formation patterns which nevertheless are used by speakers to create new words. Within quantitative approaches, productivity is regarded as a cline ranging from fully un-

36 productive to fully productive, with many different possibilities in between. Within such approaches, productivity is conceptualized as a statistically measurable probability of a word-formation pattern to be used to create new words. Measures of productivity advanced so far include counting the type or token frequency, counting the number of neologisms or hapaxes, as well as counting the probability of encountering new creations among the derivatives produced by using a given pattern (Plag 2003c: 51–59). So the question arising now is how productivity will be defined and measured in this study. Because of the historical orientation and the small database of the present study, productivity will be regarded here as a gradual rather than an absolute phenomenon. This means that some word-formation processes will be viewed as more productive whereas others as less productive. This assumption is necessary in the present study, since it allows us to avoid absolute ‘yes/no’ decisions problematic for the study in which only small amounts of data can be employed for the verification of certain analyses. The major method of measuring productivity used in the present investigation consists in counting the number of types created according to a given word-formation pattern in a given source of Early Sranan. This seems to be the least problematic method on two grounds. First, methods based on counting neologisms, hapaxes and tokens are problematic given the small textual database and the nature of the sources (two dictionaries, only one manual with a larger proportion of textual material). Second, the central problem pointed out with regard to this method (e.g. by Plag (2003c: 52)) is that it might reflect past rather than present productivity. However, since the present investigation covers a comparatively short period of time, this problem is not so severe.

4.6.3 Problems with the orthography of complex words Apart from the general problems discussed above, a more specific problem with the sources lies in a considerable inconsistency in the spelling of complex words. This partially lies in the lack of standardisation of Sranan’s spelling system that lasted for a long time. Kramp (1983: 21) argues that since the 18th century, several spelling systems had been devised for Sranan, but no one had been standardised, and even the official “provisional spelling” introduced in 1960 did not result in greater consistency. This inconsistency manifests itself to a different extent in each of the three sources used for the present study. As far as Van Dyk is concerned, two conventions of spelling complex items are attested in this source: writing the elements of complex words separately, as e.g. blakke stom ‘vitriol’, hasi man ‘groom’, drinki hosse ‘inn’ or together, as e.g. tiriman ‘oarsman’ or koekroehoman ‘kitchen maid’. Interestingly enough, no hyphenated complex entities are attested in Van Dyk (c1765), which makes this source different from the other two in this respect, Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855), where hyphenated complex items are quite common. The general and most frequent tendency in Van Dyk (c1765) is that of spelling the constituent morphemes of complex items separately, and it seems to hold across various types of complex structures. Thus, out of 44 combinations of two simplex nouns analysed for the purposes of the present study, spelling together is the only attested orthographic variant for just three items. Spelling does not reflect the morphological status of complex items. For instance, items with non-compositional meaning are written separately, e.g. kaka

37 gout (to shit-gold) ‘squanderer’ or blakke stom (black-stone) ‘vitriol’. Out of 22 concatenations with the person morpheme -man, only two, granman ‘governor/king’ and tiriman ‘steersman’, are written together, and one word has two spelling variants, together and separately: schrifi man/schribi man and schrifiman (to write-PM) ‘bookkeeper’. Even reduplications are spelt predominantly separately: out of 21 cases of reduplication, none has spelling together as the only variant, and only three have both spelling variants, together and separately: balibali/bali bali (to shout-to shout) ‘noise’, koni koni/konikoni ‘rabbit’ and wan wan/wawan ‘only/alone/by oneself’. Component morphemes in reduplicated words are written separately even in the cases of opaque reduplication, in which the reduplicated morpheme is not attested independently in any of the three sources used in the present study, as in kesi kesi ‘monkey’ or wiri wiri/werri weri ‘hair’. Similarly, words containing bound morphemes can exhibit writing separately. For instance, the Early Sranan word for ‘yesterday’ can be written together, as in esteredé/estrede/estredé/isterede, but it also has the spelling variants istre de/estre de where the bound morpheme istre/estre is written separately from the free morpheme de. The number of items whose components are written together is rather small: only ten out of 2184 complex items extracted for the analysis from Van Dyk (c1765) have the together variant as the only spelling variant. The group of these ten items is not homogeneous in terms of its structure since it comprises various types of constructions, such as, for instance, N-N concatenations (e.g. koekroehoman ‘kitchen maid’), concatenations with the person marker -man (e.g. granman ‘governor/king’) and concatenations containing bound roots, such as lydom meaning ‘to lie (down)’, where ly- is a bound morpheme.5 In very few cases (16 items out of 218 items extracted from Van Dyk), complex items have both spelling variants, together and separately, as e.g. balibali/bali bali ‘noise’ or schrifi man/schribi man/schrifiman ‘bookkeeper’. Words belonging to this group have different types of structure, such as concatenations with the morpheme -man, concatenations with bound roots, reduplications, etc. so that no regularity can be observed in this respect. There are also two specific cases of words attested in both spelling variants, mamamtem/mamantim/mammantim/manmantem/manmatim/man mantim meaning ‘morning’ and kommote/kom motte/kommotte ‘to come from/to come out’. In these words, it is the syllable or the letters of the first component that are written separately in the separate variant, and not the two constituent morphemes. Therefore, they were not included into the number of 16 items given above. Another general problem with the orthography in Van Dyk is that complex words often have a number of orthographic variants which differ not only in the together or the separate spelling of the constituent morphemes, but also in a number of other aspects. Thus, on the one hand, there are complex words whose orthographic variants differ in the spelling of word segments (e.g. letters or syllables), as in (2):

– 4

5

Phrases and opaque formations have been excluded from this calculation, but borderline and unclear cases are included. A detailed discussion of opaque formations and of the problems arising with their definition is provided in section 5.2.3. Note that the morpheme dom is not bound in Van Dyk (c1765) since it occurs independently, as in Zon dom kaba. (sun-be down-already) ‘The sun goes/is down already.’ (Arends (1995b: 127): ‘The sun has gone down.’; Van Dyk (c1765: 22): ‘De Zon gaat onder.’).

38 (2)

botte man/bootie man go we/go wee/goe we hondi man/hontje man hossi homan/hosse homan wiri wiri/werri weri

‘oarsman’ ‘to go away’ ‘hunter’ ‘woman servant’ ‘hair’

On the other hand, there are complex words whose orthographic variants differ in both the spelling of word segments and the separate vs. together way of spelling word segments (e.g. letters or syllables), as in (3): (3)

dia metti/di ja metti kommote/kom motte/kommotte krokte hant/kroeke te hand a rey tem/ry tem

‘venison’ ‘to come from/to come out’ ‘the left hand’ ‘the rainy season’

Besides, the problem of orthographic inconsistency in Van Dyk affects not only complex, but also simplex words. The same simplex word can have different orthographic variants. These variants can differ either in the together/separate way of writing letters and syllables or in the ways of writing the same segment, or both. This complicated the electronic search for words in Van Dyk. In general, it can be suggested that since Van Dyk’s manual was printed in Amsterdam, the printer may have played a role in the orthography of Van Dyk’s manual and the inconsistency might be the result of this fact. The orthographic inconsistency of Van Dyk had two major consequences for the present investigation. First, the source was mainly searched for complex words manually. Second, orthography could not be used as a criterion for identifying words in this source. The other two sources, Schumann and Focke, exhibit a greater degree of orthographic consistency. However, their orthography also caused problems similar to those discussed above, although to a lesser extent. For instance, there are three ways of spelling complex words in Schumann. There are words spelt together, e.g. dringihosso (to drink-house) ‘pub/guesthouse’, hyphenated, e.g. boy-areen (boy-rain) ‘small rain’, banna-watra (banana-water) ‘banana juice’ and separately, e.g. bunne heddi (good-head) ‘luck’, lala bredi (raw-bread) ‘bread dough’. Moreover, one and the same word can have two orthographic variants, e.g. honifrei/ honi-frei (honey-fly) ‘bee’, kákkabrudu/kaka brudu (to excrement-blood) ‘dysentery’, krukkutu-tereh/krukkutu tereh (crooked-tail) ‘scorpion’ or even three, e.g. Bakkratongo/ Bakkra-tongo/Bakkra tongo (white person-tongue) ‘white man’s tongue’. This variability of spelling reminds of English where the same problem has been pointed out. Thus, Marchand (1969: 21, cf. Katamba and Stonham 2006: 306–307) notes that there is a complete “lack of uniformity” in the spelling of compounds in English since they may be spelt together (wordformation), separately (word formation) and hyphenated (word-formation). To conclude, as was the case with Van Dyk, the orthographic inconsistency of Schumann’s presentation of complex words caused problems with electronic search and urged caution in the use of orthographic information for establishing the morphological status of items.

39 However, in contrast to Van Dyk, there are certain regularities behind Schumann’s orthography. For instance, it is mainly words consisting of two free bases that have several spelling variants. In contrast to them, for those complex words in which one of the elements is a bound morpheme or a morpheme which serves a specific derivational function (e.g. morphemes that form numerals) spelling together dominates, whereas spelling with a hyphen or separately is rather rare. For instance, out of the 67 words with the personforming morpheme -man attested in Schumann, only one has two spelling variants, boonjamman/boon-jam-man (gout-PM) ‘person who has gout’, all the other are written together. Interestingly, this word does not have the variant where the constituent elements are written separately. Out of eight words with the morpheme -tentîn (< Engl. time + Dutch tien), which is used to form tens from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’, only one has two spelling variants, tu tentîn and tutentîn. All seven words with the bound morpheme -weh (< Engl. away/way) are spelt together. Note also that Schumann (1783: 133, 187, 194) refers to some words as “dictio enclitica”, e.g. peh (< Engl. place) ‘place’, tron (< Engl. turn) ‘time’, wan (< Engl. one) ‘one’, and such elements are spelt predominantly together when they occur in a combination with other words. Out of 23 words with the element -tron, one word has two spelling variants: together, fotron ‘four times’, and separately, fo tron, and there is one word in which the element -tron is written separately from the base: som tron ‘sometimes’. The discussion above suggests that Schumann relied on his own linguistic knowledge and/or his intuition in the spelling of complex words. This is demonstrated by the fact that words with bound morphemes are spelt together in most cases, whereas combinations of free bases are often spelt separately or with a hyphen. Interestingly, Kramp (1983: 21) remarks with respect to Schumann (1783) that “the spelling and accents used in the manuscript are not necessarily an accurate representation of those of his (i.e. Schumann’s, M.B.) informants”. It is arguable, however, that Schumann’s informants could write, and even on the assumption that they could, there is no way to know how they would spell the words presented in Schumann’s dictionary. It is an undeniable fact, however, that Schumann’s orthography of complex words is not totally random and can therefore, although with due caution, be employed for the morphological analysis. Similarly to Schumann, Focke uses three ways of spelling complex words: together, as in bégiman (to beg-PM) ‘beggar’, hyphenated, as in doifi-pési (dove-pea) ‘a special kind of shrub (Sesbania picta)’, and separately, as in gran mamà (grand-mother) ‘grandmother’. As in Schumann, complex words in Focke may have different spelling variants, e.g. koni-kónibíta and konikoni-bíta (rabbit-bitters) ‘name of a plant (Aristolochia Surinamensis)’, or krassi-krássi and kraskrassi (to scratch-to scratch) ‘rash’, or krobói-sódro and krobói sódro (last-ceiling) ‘attic’. All this led to problems similar to those mentioned with regard to the other two sources above. There is also one more problem with Focke’s orthography. As Focke (1855: XIII) notes himself, he uses different accents to mark stress. Therefore, one and the same complex word may exhibit several variants which differ in the type of the accent or in the absence or presence of the accent-marking, e.g. lái-tori/lái-tóri/lai-tóri (to guess-story) ‘riddle’ or loángoe-tetéi/loängoe-tetéi (Loango-rope) ‘name of a plant’. This fact complicated not only the electronic search of this source, but also the identification of all possible orthographic variants of one and the same complex word. In general, however, Focke’s orthography should not be left completely ignored in morphological analysis since it displays certain regularities and consistencies. For instance,

40 none of the reduplications or words with the person-forming morpheme -man is written separately in this source. The number of complex words written separately is in general rather small. Another problem attested in all sources was that some word-combinations which are not morphologically complex are occasionally written together or hyphenated, as for instance, kómpe-bákka ‘friend again’ (Focke 1855: 62). Such combinations were excluded from the data. In conclusion, the inconsistency in the orthographic presentation of complex words resulted in the fact that orthographic information was used marginally and with caution in the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation in the present study.

4.6.4 Problems with the information about stress Another problem arising with the Early Sranan data lies in the fact that the sources do not contain sufficient and straightforward information about stress and/or tone patterns of Early Sranan complex words. Such information, however, is useful for drawing some borderlines in morphology, e.g. the borderline between compounds and phrases. In Van Dyk, for instance, several complex words bear accentuation marks, as e.g. zondè ‘Sunday’ or toe de workè ‘Tuesday’. However, such cases are very few, and it is unclear whether these marks indicate stress, tone, vowel length or something else. Therefore, accentuation marks provided in Van Dyk cannot be used to establish the morphological status of different complex items attested in this source. As pointed out by Kramp (1983: 22), Schumann provides information about stress assignment mainly for those simplex words in which the stress pattern deviates from the general rule according to which stress “seems to fall generally on the penultimate syllable” in Early Sranan. Kramp notes that Schumann uses a grave accent < ` > to mark stress on the final syllable, an acute accent < ´ > if stress is on a non-final syllable (including the penultimate) and a circumflex accent < ^ > over e and i to mark their stress and “relative length”. With respect to complex words, Kramp (1983: 23) makes an observation that “the main stress of a word remains on the same syllable when it forms a compound with another word”. In (4), some of the examples provided by Kramp are listed: (4)

asêh awara kákka

→ → →

asêhman awara-fattu mankákka

Kramp’s observation is not quite unclear on two grounds. First, Kramp (1983) applies the term ‘compound’ to all kinds of complex words attested in Schumann’s dictionary, without differentiating between, e.g. compounds and affixed words. Consequently, it is unclear for which groups of complex words this observation is indeed valid. Second, it is not quite clear how Kramp’s observation should be interpreted. Does it mean that each word preserves its individual stress pattern when becoming a part of a compound so that there are two main stresses in each compound? All in all, many questions about stress marking in Schumann remain open, and it was therefore not used for establishing the morphological status of pertinent items in the present study.

41 In Focke (1855), by comparison to the other two sources, most words carry some kind of stress marking. As Focke (1855: XIII) notes in the introduction to his dictionary, he uses an acute accent < ´ > to mark stress, a grave accent < ` > to mark stress on the final sound thus showing the shortness of the vowel, and a circumflex accent < ^ > to mark long stressed vowels. In general, four types of stress marking in complex words attested in Focke’s dictionary can be singled out: (5)

a. b. c. d.

the first element is stressed: the second element is stressed: both elements are stressed: no stress marking:

boési-meti (bush-animal) ‘wild animal’ bobi-wátra (breast-water) ‘mother’s milk’ béri-plési (to bury-place) ‘cemetery’ tigri-ston (tiger-stone) ‘a type of grass’

Besides, three other patterns can be distinguished depending on the position of the element which bears stress on the final short vowel: (6)

a. b. c.

the second element bears stress on the final short vowel: the first element bears stress on the final short vowel: both elements bear stress on the final short vowel:

kiskíssi-makà (monkey-thorn) ‘palm-tree of special kind’ pinà-wíki (to suffer-week) ‘Passion Week’ adjidjà-makkà (hedgehog-thorn) ‘spine of a hedgehog’

However, despite the stress marking, no connection between a particular stress pattern and a particular morphological type of words can be established. For instance, among the 64 complex words containing the person marker -man, all variants enumerated in (5) are attested: stress on the first element, as in azéman (witchcraft-PM) ‘magician’, stress on the morpheme -man, as in ferfimán (to paint-PM) ‘painter’, stress on both elements, e.g. bótomán (boat-PM) ‘oarsman’, and no stress marking at all, as in sidon-man (to sitPM) ‘person who sits’. The same is true for other types of complex words, e.g. N-N concatenations or reduplications. Besides, one and the same complex word can appear with different stress patterns, as e.g. bére-mán/beremán (belly-woman) ‘pregnant woman’ or láitori/lái-tóri/lai-tóri (to guess-story) ‘riddle’. In general, it is unclear whether the accents indicate the stress pattern of the whole complex word or rather that of its constituent parts. To conclude, because of the problems discussed above, stress patterns provided in the sources of Early Sranan will not be used for establishing the morphological status of complex constructs in the present study.

4.7

General remarks on the presentation of the data

This section introduces several general remarks on the organisation and the presentation of the data in the present study.

42 The original spelling of all Sranan words used in the present study has been preserved. However, for reasons of space, only one spelling variant, randomly chosen, will be provided for each complex word mentioned in the course of discussion. Explanations for the accentuation marks used in the sources of Early Sranan have been provided in section 4.6.4 above. An additional remark on orthography due here is that Focke also uses a circumflex accent < ^ > over the letter m, as in tem$, nem$, kom$, to indicate, as he mentions, that the sound [m] is pronounced in word-final position differently from the word-initial or the word-medial position (Focke 1855: XII). For reasons of space, the sources of Early Sranan examples used in the present study will often be referred to by means of the following abbreviations: VD for Van Dyk (c1765), Sch for Schumann (1783) and Fo for Focke (1855). These abbreviations will be employed especially when examples from different sources are provided together in a list. All German and Dutch translations have been translated into English by the author of the present study. In cases where translations of Sranan sentences provided by the authors of the sources do not, in the opinion of the author of the present study, accurately render their sense, English translations of Sranan sentences are translations made directly from Sranan by the author of the present study. The same procedure was applied to Arends’ (1995b) translations of Van Dyk’s (c1765) sentences. All original sentences from the sources are provided in both English and the original language of the author of the source, i.e. German or Dutch. Translations of the numerous names of plants and animals from Focke (1855) were often shortened for the sake of simplicity to ‘name of a plant’ or ‘name of an animal’ since in most cases, detailed specifications of their biological properties were unnecessary in the present study. For reasons of space, the data lists illustrating a particular word-formation pattern provided in the course of discussion often contain only a choice of complex words built according to this pattern. Data lists do not reflect any diachronic order: examples provided for the later sources might or might not appear in the earlier sources and vice versa. References for citations and sentences from the Early Sranan sources indicate the pages of the original manuscripts, and not of their modern editions. References to the pages for the examples from the substratum languages are provided in the order they appear in the data lists in the present study. For reasons of space and readability, page numbers for Early Sranan examples of complex words are not provided. For the same reasons, some examples of Early Sranan words are provided without any specific reference to the source when this is not necessary for the line of argumentation.

5

Early Sranan word-formation: establishing a descriptive framework

5.1

Introduction

In the present chapter, an array of theoretical and practical questions relevant for a study of word-formation in general and in a creole language in particular will be addressed. In section 5.2, a number of pertinent key notions, such as ‘word-formation’, ‘word’ and ‘complex word’ will be clarified. Section 5.3 contains a brief overview of word-formation processes attested in Early Sranan and shows problems arising with the analysis of word-formation based on historical data. The remainder of the chapter will be devoted to the discussion of these problems and to the development of a coherent descriptive framework for the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation.

5.2

Word-formation, words and complex words

Word-formation is defined as the “investigation and description of processes and rulegoverned formation of new complex words on the basis of already existing linguistic resources” (Bussmann 1996: 522). This definition suggests that three phenomena are crucial in a study of word-formation: already existing resources out of which a language coins new complex words, newly created complex words themselves and the processes by which complex words are created. This means that in order to develop a framework for the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation, three aspects should be clarified: what will be regarded as a word in the present study, what words will be treated as complex and what word-formation processes are attested in Early Sranan. The present section will deal with the first two aspects, whereas section 5.3 will be devoted to the third aspect.

5.2.1 The notion of word Defining the term ‘word’ is a notoriously controversial issue in linguistics (cf. Anderson 1992: 17–21, Dixon and Aikhenvald 2002, Packard 2000: 7–20, Plag 2003c: 4–9, Singleton 1999: 10–14). The notion of word has been defined on the basis of several criteria: orthographic, phonological, semantic and syntactic. In the orthographic sense, a word has been defined as written material between two spaces. Although this definition might work for languages such as Russian or German where written texts usually contain spaces between words, it creates problems for languages such as Chinese where texts are segmented into characters usually representing morphemes (Packard 2000: 8). Besides, the way of presenting words, especially complex words, is often a matter of orthographic conventions. For instance, in German, spelling together of separate elements in a compound

44 is conventionalised. In English, however, it is not uncommon to write the elements of a compound separately, as in word formation (Katamba and Stonham 2006: 306–307). This has the consequence that the orthographic notion of word is probably too restrictive to cover all word-like entities of a language. According to the orthographic criterion mentioned above, such a compound as word formation in English will not be regarded as a word. However, by morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria, it is a word. Early Sranan orthography causes problems similar to those mentioned for English. In all three sources used for the present study, some of the two-component compounds are written separately or have an orthographic variant where the components are written separately. This causes problems with identifying words in Early Sranan on the basis of their orthography. Another problem lies in the inconsistent use of together vs. separate spelling of a number of words in the sources, especially in Van Dyk (c1765). In Van Dyk, spaces are sometimes inserted between the syllables of the same word, as shown in (1), where the syllables of the word wandi meaning ‘to want’ are separated by a space: (1)

Hendrik joe wan di wan zopi fossi. Hendrik 2SG want INDEF rum first ‘Hendrik, do you want a rum first?’ Arends (1995b: 179): ‘Hendrik, would you like a drink first?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 60): ‘Hendrik will je eerst een Mondje vol hebben.’

On the other hand, there are cases in Van Dyk where two simplex words are not separated by a space. This case is illustrated in (2), where two words – the indefinite article wan and the noun dija meaning ‘deer’ – are spelt together: (2)

mi ben de na wandija bakke 1SG PST be-there at/on INDEF-deer back Arends (1995b: 192): ‘I was after a deer.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 71): ‘...ik heb niets gezien als een Harten-Beest.’

Although, as mentioned in section 4.6.3, this problem does not arise in the other two sources of Early Sranan to the same extent, the orthographic notion of word can hardly be applied to Early Sranan data. The notion of word has also been defined in phonological terms. For instance, Dixon and Aikhenvald (2002: 13) suggest that a phonological word is a phonological unit of minimally a syllable or larger than a syllable which exhibits certain segmental, prosodic or other phonological property(ies). In English, for instance, words usually have one main stress, which is an important criterion for distinguishing words from phrases. However, as shown in section 4.6.4, information about stress and tone phenomena in Early Sranan is scarce. Hence, the phonological criterion will not be applied in the present study. From a semantic point of view, a word has been defined as an expression of a “unified semantic concept” (Plag 2003c: 7). As Plag observes, this definition is problematic in two respects. First, the notion of “a unified semantic concept” is vague. Second, unified semantic concepts can also be expressed by phrases and even parts of sentences. Because of these problems, the semantic definition will not be used in the present investigation.

45 The syntactic definition states that words are minimal unit of syntax which occupy X° category slots (Selkirk 1982: 6). Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 1, 49–54) maintain that words are syntactic atoms which can be moved in a sentence in accordance with syntactic rules but whose internal structure is invisible to these rules. Syntactic atomicity of words manifests itself through a number of properties, one of them being their inseparability, which means that no linguistic material can be inserted into a word without a fundamental change in meaning. In Early Sranan, words occupy X° category slots at the level of syntax and are syntactically atomic. For instance, in the Early Sranan sentence Koti da meti na pisipisi ‘Cut the meat into many small pieces’ (Schumann 1783: 88), the following words can be identified using the syntactic criteria mentioned above: koti, da, meti, na and pisipisi. All of them occupy X° category slots at the syntactic level: for instance, koti occupies a V° slot, meti and pisipisi occupy N° slots and so on. And all of them are syntactically atomic since no linguistic material can be inserted into them, as the following examples show: *ko-meti-ti, *me-da-ti or *pisi-na-pisi. The syntactic definition is less problematic than the definitions discussed above because all words are syntactic atoms, but it also bears one problem. It does not make it possible to distinguish words from atomic phrases, such as the English forget-me-not. But since, as will be shown in section 5.5, atomic phrases bear similarities to words, they will be included into the analysis in the present study. Words can also be defined from the functional perspective, as units employed to name objects, events, states, etc. (Bauer 1983: 86, Plag 2003c: 59, Rainer 1993: 42–43). Words are in fact linguistic labels for mental concepts. This function has been called ‘labelling’ or ‘referential’ function (Plag 2003c: 59) and will be referred to as ‘referential function’ in the present study. However, not only words can serve this function, but also units traditionally regarded as atomic phrases. For instance, the Early Sranan items blakka vo tappo (black-ofheaven) ‘cloud’ and watra va hai (water-of-eye) ‘tear’ have a structure similar to many Early Sranan non-atomic phrases, but a function similar to words. Such items are relevant for the present study because together with prototypical words, they represent naming strategies used by Early Sranan creators. To conclude, in the present study wordhood will be established mainly on the basis of the syntactic and the functional criteria discussed in this section. Word-formation will therefore be regarded in a broader sense than in many traditional studies, namely, as the study of atomic naming items. Although such a definition is not without problems, it is rather useful in the present study. The empirical justification of such a broad definition of word-formation will be discussed in greater detail in section 5.5.4.

5.2.2 Defining complex words There are basically two types of definitions of complex words: those based on the structural aspects of complex words and those that define complex words in terms of the processes by which they are formed. Both types will be discussed below. Definitions of the first type are based on the ‘technical’ idea of complexity: certain units are described as formally complex because they can be divided into smaller units. For instance, Katamba and Stonham (2006: 20) define complex words as words which “can be broken down into smaller units that are meaningful”, and Spencer (1991: 5) argues that a

46 morphologically complex word contains a “central morpheme which contributes the basic meaning, and a collection of other morphemes serving to modify this meaning in various ways”. These definitions require a clarification of what should be regarded as a unit/morpheme. A morpheme is traditionally defined as the smallest meaningful element of language (e.g. in Katamba and Stonham (2006: 20)). Besides, it is often viewed as a unit of form and meaning (Bussmann 1996: 313, Haspelmath 2002: 16, Matthews 1974: 11–12, Plag 2003c: 20). It has often been pointed out, however, that this kind of definition raises various problems (Bauer 2003: 110–120, Plag 2003c: 22–27). These problems will be mentioned briefly below in order to show that the definitions of the notion ‘complex word’ provided by Katamba and Stonham (2006) and by Spencer (1991) are problematic and should be revised. In this section, some data from English will be used for illustration and the following section will be devoted to the question whether the revised definition can be applied to the data from Early Sranan. First, there are units in a language that have a certain form, but no clearly identifiable meaning. For instance, ‘cranberry’ or ‘unique’ morphs, such as the English cran- and bil- in cranberry and bilberry are units that do not have a clearly identifiable meaning. Such words should be treated as simplex. However, this is not reasonable since, as Bauer (2003: 48) points out, the structural complexity of the word cranberry becomes evident through the comparison with such words as blackberry, blueberry, goldenberry. As Bauer (2003: 48) argues, the meaning of a cranberry morph can be determined by “subtracting the meanings associated with the known morphs in the construction from the meaning of the construction as a whole”. A similar problem arises with the elements in blends. For instance, in the English blend stagflation (< stagnation + inflation), the meaning of the constituents becomes clear when the derivational bases of the blend are taken into account. The relation between stagflation and its bases stagnation and inflation allows us to determine the meaning of the constituents stag and flation and consequently to view the blend as a complex word. To conclude, identifying the meaning of a given morpheme is not always straightforward. The second problem with the notion of morpheme is the existence of units that have a certain meaning but no ‘visible’ form. This is the case with the English verb to wolf which is created from the noun wolf without any change in form and thus seems to consist of one morpheme. But since there is an evident change in meaning, an ‘invisible’ form can be assumed in this case, and the converted verb to wolf can be regarded as a complex word. Similarly, English truncations lab, fridge, veg might seem to be simplex words because only one unit is formally recognisable in them. However, as Plag (2003c: 117) argues, the deletion process can be associated with a certain meaning (familiarity of the speaker with the referent) and a certain form (the truncation itself). Hence, one might argue that truncations consist of at least two morphemes and are therefore complex words. All these cases show that the notions ‘complexity’ and ‘morpheme’ are interconnected: decisions about the complexity of a particular word depend on the definition of the term ‘morpheme’. As Plag (2003c: 23) shows, if morphemes are treated not only as visible elements, but also as processes rendering certain meanings, then converted words, truncations, blends and words built by vowel alternation can be viewed as complex words (cf. Spencer 1991: 5–20). Two generalisations can be made on the basis of the discussion above. First, a morpheme can be regarded either as a ‘physical’ entity of form and meaning or as a process. Second, all problematic cases mentioned above have one feature in common: they contain at least

47 one morpheme which is an entity of form and meaning. For instance, in the complex word cranberry, the morpheme berry is a unit of form and meaning, and the same is true for wolf in wolf (V), lab in lab. Given these considerations, it can be concluded that a complex word should be regarded as a word consisting of at least two elements one of which is a unit of form and meaning and the other one can be either a unit of form and meaning, or a cranberry morph, or a process. Consequently, it can be pointed out that the definitions of ‘complex word’ provided by Katamba and Stonham (2006) and Spencer (1991) are too vague because both employ the notion ‘meaningful’ which is problematic, as shown above. Complex words can also be defined in terms of processes by which they are created. For instance, Plag (2003c: 9–13) describes two major ways of creating complex forms: concatenation, i.e. combining bases with each other (i.e. compounding) or combining bases with affixes “as in a chain” (i.e. affixation), and non-concatenative ways, such as conversion, truncation, blending (cf. Adams 2001: 2, Bauer 1983: 29–30). Definitions of complex words discussed above have been created using the data from languages other than creoles. Therefore, the question that will be addressed here next is what should be regarded as a complex word in a creole language such as Early Sranan.

5.2.3 Defining complex words in Early Sranan In the majority of cases, complex words in Early Sranan can be identified without any problems using the definition of the term ‘complex word’ elaborated in the preceding section. For instance, baäna-wátra (banana-water) ‘banana juice’ is uncontroversial, since both elements are units of form and meaning. The unit jabà-foetoe ‘name of a plant’ can also be uncontroversially regarded as a complex word. Its first element is a bound root whose meaning cannot be established and the second element is a free morpheme meaning ‘foot/leg’. The whole unit thus consists of two elements, one of which is a unit of form and meaning. However, some cases are probably less straightforward and require a special comment here. Three broad sets of such cases can be established. The first set is represented by reduplicated items whose base is not independently attested, as in gurrugurru ‘a container for crabs’ where gurru is not a free morpheme. Such items will be treated separately in section 8.9, and therefore, the discussion below will not refer to them. The second set is presented in (3). Elements not attested elsewhere are set in bold. The examples are from Schumann (1783). (3)

word

meaning

hurukuku/wurukuku kumsakka

‘owl’ ‘damp festering itching on the feet’ ‘crayfish’ ?sirri

sirrisirra

hypothetical base meaning of the base ?huru1 ‘to whore’ ?sakka ‘sack/to lower’ ‘seed’

– 1

In (3), the question mark indicates that a given hypothetical base and the pertinent element of the corresponding complex word have the same phonological form, but seem to have no semantic relation to each other.

48 The words in (3) might seem complex at first sight since at least one of their elements is attested independently. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the relation between the independently attested elements and the elements that are parts of the examples in (3) is not always straightforward. For instance, it is not clear how the meaning of huru in hurukuku might be related to the verb huru ‘to whore’, and the same is true for the remaining examples. It can be concluded that although there is a phonological relation between the forms in question, the semantic and the etymological relation between them is difficult to establish. Consequently, the examples in (3) should be regarded as consisting of two elements with no clearly identifiable meaning and thus as simplex according to the definition provided in section 5.2.2. They will not be examined in the present study. The third set consists of Early Sranan words that have complex counterparts in the source languages, but whose internal structure is difficult to establish in Early Sranan. A similar phenomenon has been observed in other creole languages (see e.g. Lefebvre (1998: 303) for Haitian). This is probably not surprising since morpheme boundary shift is wide-spread in language contact situations (Dijkhoff 1993: 37–38, Holm 2000: 127–130). As Holm (2000: 129) suggests, the frequent occurrence of free morphemes together in a phrase and the frequent occurrence of a word in one of its forms are possible reasons of morpheme boundary shift. The question which arises in connection with such cases is whether complex words of the source languages should be regarded as complex words in creoles. To discuss this question, several groups of Early Sranan words originating from English or Dutch complex words will be examined below. The first group is illustrated in (4) with the examples from Schumann (1783): (4)

djusnu/jusnu kukru paman kakkubehn kneiptang

‘just now’ ‘kitchen/oven’ ‘payment’ ‘chin’ ‘pincers/nippers’

< Engl. just now < Engl. cook room < Engl. payment < Dutch kaakbeen < Dutch knjiptang

All English and Dutch examples in (4) are complex items. However, it is a vexed issue whether any internal structure can be claimed for their Early Sranan counterparts. If the Early Sranan examples in (4) are complex, then, according to the definition of complex word adopted in this study, they should contain at least one morpheme that is a unit of form and meaning. Using etymological information, it can be suggested that the words in (4) consist of morphemes djus and nu, kuk and ru, pa and man and so on. However, it is not possible to assign any meaning to these ‘morphemes’ from a synchronic perspective. In some cases, there is an accidental phonological relation between the hypothetical ‘morphemes’ in (4) and free morphemes attested in Sranan, as, for instance, in the case of man, which is attested in Early Sranan as a noun meaning ‘man’. But since no semantic or etymological relation between the two can be established, the problem of identifying the meaning of the element man in paman remains unsolved. Given these considerations, the question arises whether etymologically complex entities should be regarded as morphologically complex, too. Plag (2003c: 25) notes in this connection that morphology should not be confused with etymology, and that morphemes which had a meaning in the past, may have lost it in the course of time and are no longer meaningful today. This is

49 exactly the case with the examples in (4). Though they can be viewed as derived from complex entities, they are monomorphemic in Early Sranan because neither of their parts can be identified as a unit of form and meaning. The examples in (4) show that in creolisation, complex entities of the input languages may enter the emerging creole without morphological decomposition and undergo a radical restructuring of their original internal structure. Words of the type in (4) cannot be regarded as complex in Early Sranan and will not be analysed in the present study. The second group consists of words which also originate from complex entities of the source languages. They might seem to consist of two elements at first glance because one of the elements is attested in other Early Sranan words and has a phonological and an etymological relation to them. The reason for this lies in the fact that different complex units of the source languages containing the same morpheme (such as the English tree in bully tree and cotton tree) ended up as the same phonological sequence in different Early Sranan words, whereas the morpheme itself was not taken over: there is no free morpheme tri in Early Sranan. The elements attested elsewhere are set in bold. The examples are from Schumann (1783): (5)

bambei

‘Wait! Be patient!’ < Engl. by and by

also: klossibei < Engl. close by

tamarra

‘tomorrow’

< Engl. tomorrow

also: gumarra < Engl. good morrow

boltri

‘a type of tree’

< Engl. bully tree

also: kattantri < Engl. cotton tree

The meanings of the bold elements in (5) can again be figured out etymologically, but not synchronically, and the same is true for the meanings of the remaining elements. Therefore, all words in (5) should be regarded as simplex according to the definition of ‘complex word’ adopted in the present study. Besides, it can be assumed that since the meanings of the elements -bei, -marra and -tri are unclear, the words they occur in would be interpreted as opaque by speakers. This is another indicator of their simplicity since, as psycholinguistic investigations show, non-transparent forms might be treated as simplex in the mental lexicon (McQueen and Cutler 1998). Such words as in (5) are thus beyond the scope of this study. Finally, there is yet another group of Early Sranan words originating from complex entities of the source languages. These words contain a bound morpheme (either attested as a part of another Early Sranan word or not attested at all) and a free morpheme whose form and meaning are identifiable in Early Sranan (examples from Schumann (1783)): (6)

guneti

‘good night’

mammantem

‘morning’

< Engl. good night, also: gumarra < Engl. good morrow < Engl. morning time mamman unattested elsewhere

neti

‘night’

tem

‘time’

50 The meaning of the first elements in (6) can be established etymologically, but not synchronically. The second elements are free morphemes. The morphological makeup of the items in (6) is the result of partial reanalysis of corresponding superstratum items. According to the definition of ‘complex word’ provided in section 5.2.2, such words as in (6) can be regarded as morphologically complex and will be examined in the present study. To conclude, the definition of ‘complex word’ developed in section 5.2.2 provides a clear basis for the identification of complex words in Early Sranan. Another conclusion is that one and the same definition can be used for classifying words as simplex or complex in both creole and non-creole languages. The discussion also shows that morphological complexity in Early Sranan should not be treated from the point of view of its source languages. A similar observation can be made for non-creole languages. For instance, English has borrowed the Russian compound samovar, which consists of the morphemes sam ‘self’ and varit’ ‘to cook’. This compound has entered English without any morphological decomposition: samo and var are meaningless in English, and samovar is thus a simplex word. This shows that morphological rather than etymological criteria should be used when defining complex words in both creole and non-creole languages.

5.3

An overview of word-formation processes in Early Sranan

As mentioned in section 5.2.2 above, complex words can also be analysed in terms of processes by which they are created. In the case of Early Sranan, such an analysis creates a number of theoretical and methodological problems. To show these problems, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the word-formation processes attested in Early Sranan. Therefore, this section introduces the major word-formation processes of Early Sranan which have been identified in the course of the present study, points out the problems arising with the analysis of Early Sranan data in terms of word-formation processes and provides references to the chapters where these processes and problems will be dealt with in detail. The majority of complex words attested in the Early Sranan sources are created by compounding. However, a number of words are created by patterns similar to what is traditionally regarded as affixation. Such words contain morphemes exhibiting properties characteristic of both affixes and free morphemes. For instance, the Early Sranan morpheme fasi (< Engl. fashion) surfaces in the following pattern (examples from Schumann (1783)): (7)2 Early Sranan word brojafasi kondrefasi laufasi pori fasi

word-by-word translation ‘disorder-manner’ ‘worldly-manner’ ‘stupid-manner’ ‘to spoil-manner’

meaning ‘disorder’ ‘worldliness’ ‘stupidity’ ‘depravity’

– 2

If not otherwise specified, the presentations of Early Sranan examples hereafter will follow the pattern in (7): the first column provides the Early Sranan word, the second its word-by-wordtranslation, the third its meaning.

51 Fasi displays such affix-like properties as a fixed position within complex words, abstract meaning, serialness and selectiveness. However, it is also attested as a free morpheme meaning ‘fashion’. The question is: should such cases be regarded as instances of affixation or of compounding? The answer to this question is not always easy to provide since the information about certain words and patterns is often limited, which is partially due to the historical nature of the data. Therefore, a more general question that arises here is how such patterns can be adequately described. To answer these questions, some approaches dealing with the borderline between affixation and compounding will be discussed in section 5.4. Early Sranan data also raises another question which can be illustrated by means of the data in (8): (8)

njam$ dótti watra va hai kassi fo klossi tîn na dri jâgi man-na-dóro

‘to eat-dirt’ ‘water-of-eye’ ‘case-for-clothes’ ‘ten-and-three’ ‘to drive away-man-to-door’

‘a type of disease’ ‘tear(s)’ ‘wardrobe’ ‘thirteen’ ‘simple banana mush’

Fo Sch VD Sch Fo

The examples in (8) are similar to Early Sranan syntactic phrases in their structure and in their headedness. However, they are also similar to complex words since they are syntactically atomic and serve a referential function. This raises the question that has plagued the study of morphology for decades: how to determine whether a given unit is an instance of compounding or of a syntactic construction. This question will be discussed in section 5.5. A number of Early Sranan words seem to be created by the process of word-class change without an overt change of form. Different terms have been used to refer to this process, such as ‘zero-derivation’, ‘conversion’, ‘multifunctionality’, ‘transcategoriality’, ‘categorial underspecification’, ‘functional shift’ or ‘recategorisation’ (Bauer 2003: 38, Don, Trommelen and Zonnenveld 2000: 944–946, Vogel 1996). Different terms reflect different theoretical conceptualisations of the phenomenon of word-class change. For instance, the terms ‘zero-derivation’ and ‘conversion’ presuppose that word-class change is a morphological, directional process. The terms ‘multifunctionality’ and ‘transcategoriality’ are often used to refer to word-class change in languages such as Chinese, where almost every lexeme is attested in different syntactic functions. Vogel (1996: 231) argues that it is more reasonable to speak of multifunctionality in those cases where there is much overlap between different categories. It will be shown in chapter 6 that it is difficult to establish the directionality of word-class change in Early Sranan. Indeed, word-class change affects quite a number of items in Early Sranan and often involves more than two word-classes. For instance, the Early Sranan morpheme bun can be a verb, meaning ‘to be good’, an adjective, ‘good’, an adverb, ‘well’, and a noun, ‘luck/goodness’. Therefore, the term ‘multifunctionality’ will be employed in the present study to refer to word-class change phenomena without an overt change of form. Whereas the term ‘conversion’ rather refers to a process, the term ‘multifunctionality’ primarily refers to a property, namely, to the property of a given lexeme to manifest features typical of more than one word-class. The term ‘multifunctionality’ is neutral in terms of directionality and also implies that wordclass change is wide-spread in a given language. Multifunctionality raises a number of

52 interesting theoretical and methodological questions (Plag 2003c: 107–116, Vogel 1996) and therefore will be devoted a separate chapter, chapter 6, in this study. Another process by which Early Sranan words can be formed is reduplication. Early Sranan reduplicated items exhibit a number of semantic and structural properties different from, for instance, compounds, and therefore deserve a separate treatment. Besides, the analysis of reduplication requires a prior clarification of some issues. One issue is whether reduplicated items should be regarded as the products of affixation or as the products of compounding in this study (Bauer 2003: 31–32, Katamba and Stonham 2006: 180–192, Spencer 1991: 150–156). Another issue is the distinction between reduplication and iteration. Early Sranan reduplication will be discussed in chapter 8. Since hardly any Early Sranan complex words are created by means of truncation or blending, these processes will not be examined in the present study. The sections to follow will be devoted to the discussions of the problems of drawing the borderline between affixation and compounding, as well as between compounding and syntax. The insights gained in these discussions will be used to elaborate a descriptive framework for the analysis of Early Sranan complex words created by processes other than multifunctionality and reduplication.

5.4

Affixation and compounding: establishing the borderline

5.4.1 Defining affixation and compounding Affixation is generally regarded as the process of attaching affixes, such as suffixes, prefixes or infixes to a base3 (Bauer 1983: 18). An affix is usually defined as a bound morpheme which occurs only in combination with other morphemes, such as roots or bases (Bauer 2003: 13, Katamba and Stonham 2006: 44). Since the present study deals with the process of creating new words, only derivational affixes are of relevance here. For the term ‘compound’, several distinct definitions have been advanced. One set of definitions includes definitions based on the notion of word. For instance, Fabb (1998: 66) regards a compound as “a word which consists of two or more words”. Such word-based definitions are generally problematic on two grounds. First, as already mentioned in section 5.2.1 above, the definition of the term ‘word’ remains a matter of much controversy (see Packard (2000: 7–14), Singleton (1999: 10–14) for discussion). And second, compounds can also involve units that are not words, such as combining forms4 in English neo-classical

– 3

4

Hereafter, the terms ‘base’, ‘root’ and ‘stem’ are defined according to Bauer (1983: 20–21). ‘Base’ is “any form to which affixes of any kind can be added”, ‘root’ is the further unanalysable form, and ‘stem’ is “the part of word form which remains when all inflectional affixes are removed”. Combining form will be defined in the present study as a bound morpheme of Greek or Latin origin that can occur in combination with bound roots, affixes or other combining forms, i.e. bound morphemes of the same type. Combining forms will therefore be distinguished from bound roots, which are defined in footnote 5 below.

53 compounds, e.g. pathy in telepathy, or bound roots,5 e.g. the Sranan laka in lakasíri (?6-seed) ‘name of a tree’, the English huckle in huckleberry, or even phrases, e.g. the Sranan tóe mofo in tóe-mofo-gon (two-mouth-gun) ‘two-barrelled gun’, the English word-and-paradigm in word-and-paradigm morphology (see Bauer (1983: 213–214), Plag (2003c: 134) for discussion). Another set of definitions includes those in which the notion of compound is defined through the notions such as ‘root’ or ‘base’. Carstairs-McCarthy (2002: 59) defines compounds as words formed by combining roots (cf. Katamba and Stonham 2006: 55). This definition does not exclude compounds containing bound roots and combining forms which can be regarded as further unanalysable forms. However, it would exclude such compounds as the Sranan potimanjakketi (poor-PM-jacket) ‘name of salted fish brought from North America’ or the English driving school where the elements potiman and driving are not roots, but bases (or, in fact, words) (see also the discussion of synthetic compounds in Spencer (1991: 324–343)). A general problem with many definitions of the term ‘compound’ is that they often reduce constituents of compounds to one certain type of morphological formatives. But since constituents of compounds comprise a whole range of morpheme types, such as bound roots, free roots, bases, words and even phrases, it seems more reasonable to define ‘compound’ in broader terms, as done by, for instance, Plag (2003c: 135): “a compound is a word that consists of two elements, the first of which is either a root, a word or a phrase, the second of which is either a root or a word”. In the present study, the term ‘compound’ will be employed in the way specified in this definition, with the only amendment that roots in compounds can be both free and bound. As the discussion above shows, affixation and compounding differ in terms of the types of morphemes they employ: affixes vs. roots, bases and phrases. Traditionally the borderline between affixation and compounding has been drawn on the basis of the presumably different properties of affixes and elements of compounds. Besides, in some theoretical work, affixation and compounding have been conceptualised as processes different in terms of their rules. However, it has also been pointed out (Booij 2005: 111, Ten Hacken 2000) that a sharp demarcation line between affixation and compounding is difficult to draw in general. And as illustrated in section 5.3 above, drawing the borderline in Early Sranan does not make an exception in this respect. Therefore, in section 5.4.2 below, some properties used to argue that affixes are crucially different from elements of compounds will be discussed in order to see whether a clear-cut borderline between affixation and compounding can be established in terms of the properties of morphemes they operate with. In section 5.4.3, an overview of how affixation and compounding have been conceptualised in some morphological theories will be provided with the purpose of discussing whether the two processes can be held apart on the basis of their structural principles. All this will lead

– 5

6

In this study, the term ‘bound root’ is defined as a root that is not attested independently, but only in combination with either affixes or free morphemes (cf. Carstairs-McCarthy 2002: 20–21). Cranberry morphs will therefore be regarded as bound roots, whereas combining forms will be regarded as a separate class of units (see their definition in footnote 4 above). The question mark indicates that the meaning of a given morpheme could not be identified in the sources and is therefore unclear.

54 us to establishing a framework for the analysis of Early Sranan affixation-compounding borderline data in section 5.4.4.

5.4.2 Distinguishing affixes and elements of compounds in terms of their properties Affixes are generally believed to exhibit a number of properties that make them distinct from elements of compounds and these properties have been dealt with in numerous works on morphology (Adams 2001, Bauer 1983, Dalton-Puffer and Plag 2001, Dressler, Kastovsky, Pfeiffer and Rainer 2005, Fleischer and Barz 1995, Hansen and Hartmann 1991, Haspelmath 2002, Kastovsky 1982, Marchand 1969, Rainer 1993, Ten Hacken 1994, 2000). Below, these properties will be introduced and discussed. Since many discussions of the properties of affixes have been based on data from English, and since both English and Early Sranan are isolating languages, both English and Early Sranan examples will be used when considering the affixal properties. The purpose here is not only to comment on whether the properties allow us to draw a clear demarcation line between affixation and compounding in Early Sranan, but also on whether they allow us to draw the borderline in general. Two commonly cited phonological properties of affixes are their reduced form and their weak stress or absence of stress. For instance, the English suffix -ful, as in dreadful, is unstressed and has the reduced form /fl/ or /f´l/ (Adams 1973: 30). By contrast, elements of compounds are ascribed the property of being stressed. For instance, in English compounds, one base carries primary stress and the other secondary stress, as in wátchmàker, súnrìse, stéambòat (Marchand 1969: 20–30). Besides the differences in form and stress, affixes can also differ from compounds in other phonological properties. For instance, in Fon, a substratum language of Early Sranan, many affixes are semantically related to free morphemes, but differ from them in such phonological properties as nasalisation and rounding (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 185–195). However, phonological properties of any type, be it loss of stress, vowel reduction or tonal distinctions, can hardly be applied to Early Sranan data since, as mentioned in section 4.6.4, the information about stress patterns and pronunciation of complex words is either unclear, inconsistent or not available at all in the sources. Note also that even in English, reduced form and loss of stress are not exclusive properties of affixes. For instance, as Allen (1980: 15–16) shows, some elements of English compounds can also undergo vowel reduction, as e.g. land in highland (haIl´nd) or berry in strawberry (st®O…b´®I). As to stress, there are affixes in English that carry primary stress, as e.g. -ee, -eer and -ette and compounds whose final elements are unstressed, as e.g. mádman, blúeberry, Scótland, etc. (Bauer 1983, Kastovsky 1982, Marchand 1969). It seems that certain phonological properties should be regarded as properties of individual morphemes, and not of a certain morpheme-type. All in all, the discussion above suggests that phonological properties do not show a clear demarcation line, but rather a cline between affixes and elements of compounds: although vowel reduction and loss of stress might be characteristic of some affixes, they are not characteristic of affixes only. One of the most crucial properties of affixes is their boundness: affixes are by definition bound morphemes, whereas elements in compounds are often free. However, there are two problems with using this property in order to distinguish instances of affixation from instances of compounding. First, boundness is a property which is not restricted to affixes

55 only. In Early Sranan, for instance, bound forms also include bound roots, such as -tri in babóentri ‘name of a tree’. Similarly, English bound morphemes comprise, additionally to affixes, bound roots, e.g. hap- in hapless, and combining forms, such as morpho- and -logy in the neo-classical compound morphology (Bauer 1983: 37–39). All this shows that boundness does not draw a clear borderline between affixation and compounding because elements of compounds can be bound as well. The second problem with applying the criterion of boundness to distinguish affixation from compounding arises with borderline cases, i.e. morphemes which are attested independently and also serially as elements of complex words. Thus, English has a number of such morphemes, as, for example, -like, -wise, -worthy. It has been suggested (e.g., by Marchand (1969: 356–358)) that morphemes of this kind should be regarded as a separate class called ‘semi-affixes’ or ‘affixoids’. However, Plag (2003c: 73) maintains that in such cases there is a difference in the properties of the two occurrences of these morphemes. For instance, the English morpheme wise can occur on its own and in a number of complex words, e.g. education-wise. The independently occurring morpheme has the meaning ‘clever’ and is an adjective, whereas the one occurring in complex words means ‘in terms of’ and creates adverbs. Plag suggests that the two are homonymous morphemes, an affix and a free base, and argues that there is no need to postulate the additional category of an affixoid which is theoretically undesirable (cf. Bauer 2005: 98–100, Dalton-Puffer and Plag 2001). Although the solution advanced by Plag (2003c) works nicely for the morpheme wise, it might cause problems in other cases. In Early Sranan, there are a number of such problematic borderline cases of morphemes which are attested independently and also serially with semantic consistency in a whole set of complex words. This is, for instance, true for the morpheme fasi. It occurs independently and has the meaning ‘kind/manner/nature’ (Schumann 1783: 40). At the same time, it occurs serially and with semantic consistency in a number of complex words, such as kondrefasi ‘worldliness’ (< kondre ‘worldly’), laufasi ‘stupidity’ (< lau ‘stupid’), santafasi ‘holiness’ (< santa ‘holly’). Similarly to the case of the morpheme wise above, it can be tested whether the meanings of fasi as the independent word and as part of complex words are different. But the problem here is that there are two possible ways of interpreting the meaning of fasi in the complex words provided. On the one hand, these words can be paraphrased using the meaning ‘state’: kondrefasi as ‘state of being worldly’, laufasi as ‘state of being stupid’ and santafasi as ‘state of being holly’. The meaning of the morpheme fasi in this case would be different from the meaning of the independent word fasi. On the other hand, the meaning of fasi can be interpreted as ‘manner/nature’, as the following paraphrases show: kondrefasi as ‘worldly manner/nature’, laufasi as ‘stupid manner/nature’ and santafasi as ‘holly manner/nature’. In this case, the paraphrases exhibit the meaning of the independent word fasi. It seems that the decision about the morphological status of fasi depends on how the meaning of fasi is interpreted in the examples. Hence, it can be pointed out that testing the difference in meaning between the two occurrences of the same morpheme is problematic for drawing the borderline between affixes and elements of compounds in Early Sranan (cf. Hansen and Hartmann (1991: 40–41) for German). Therefore, a more adequate framework, possibly outside the traditional affixation-compounding distinction, is necessary in order to describe such morphemes. All in all, it can be concluded with respect to the property of boundness that at least in some cases, it does not seem to show a clear-cut demarcation line between affixation and compounding.

56 Another property of affixes is their fixed position with respect to the bases to which they are attached (Scalise 1984). Free components of compounds may vary their position: cold war vs. war crime or time-scale vs. dinner time. However, again, fixed position is not an exclusive property of affixes. Bound roots also seem to exhibit this property. For instance, the Early Sranan bound root -furu is attested only in the second position in complex words: prefuru ‘to play fool’, tronfuru ‘to wonder’, tanfuru ‘(be) stupid’. Similarly, the English bound root wort, as in banewort, colewort, liverwort (taken from Marchand (1969)) and the combining form -cide, as in suicide, genocide, occur only in word-final position. It can be suggested that fixed position is possibly a property which is in some way connected with the property of boundness. In general, fixed position does not sharply show the distinction between affixation and compounding. Besides, the issue of flexibility of free bases in compounds has been hardly investigated. Affixes are also ascribed the property of being serial which means that they combine with words for which they are categorised “with semantic consistency” (Fleischer and Barz 1995: 28, cf. Scalise, Bisetto and Guevara 2005: 144). For instance, the English adjectival suffix -less as in fieldless, breathless, spotless, pennyless, etc. is serial since it exhibits a semantically consistent pattern (Bauer 1983: 224, Koziol 1972: 200). However, there are also elements of compounds that can be regarded as serial. The English morphemes -type, as in question-type, skin-type, text-type, trial-type (see Dalton-Puffer and Plag (2001) for discussion) and -man as in coalman, timber-man, postman, milkman, boatman (see Bauer (1983: 36–37), Marchand (1969: 60–61, 64, 66–67) for discussion) exhibit semantically consistent patterns. Bound roots, such as the English -wright, as in cartwright, shipwright, playwright, and combining forms, such as the English -phobe in anglophobe, bibliophobe, can also occur serially. Therefore, serialness is probably not an exclusive property of affixes. There is also another problem with the notion of serialness: it is not quite clear how many derivatives with a given affix should be attested for it to qualify as serial. In the Early Sranan sources used for the present study, several semantically consistent patterns are represented by only a few examples. For instance, there are only 12 words (types) with the element man(n)-, but in all of them the element consistently marks male gender. It is unclear whether 12 attestations are enough to argue for the serial status of this element. Since the database of the present study is comparatively small, it may not contain all complex words which were actually in use in Early Sranan. Another criterion which has been used to distinguish affixes from compound elements is selectiveness. Affixes are believed to select their bases since they may impose restrictions of different kinds on the shape of the bases they attach to. However, the nature and the mechanisms of selection in affixation are still under debate. Thus, whether the restrictions are rather of syntactic or of semantic nature or of any other kind is a matter of controversy (Barker 1998, Plag 2004). And as long as this issue is not clarified, it also remains unclear when a given affix should be regarded as selective. A superficial look at English affixes shows that at least some of them do not seem to be significantly selective with respect to their bases. For instance, the English suffix -er attaches to bases of different syntactic and semantic kinds. The same observation can be made about the Early Sranan person marker -man, the most affix-like of all Sranan morphemes from the point of view of its properties. Moreover, selection in compounding is also an unclear and a relatively little investigated issue. A look at English compounds suggests that not every combination of two bases is available, as e.g. *flat-house, or *to walk-go. Furthermore, selection also operates in neo-

57 classical compounding: there are combining forms which can occur only with other combining forms, but there are also combining forms which can be attached to both other combining forms and free bases (Bauer 1983: 270–278, Plag 2003c: 156). Similarly, little is known about the selectiveness of bound roots. In general it is unclear whether restrictions imposed by affixes are in principle different from those imposed by free bases or combining forms, or whether selectiveness is rather a property of individual morphemes than an absolute property of affixes. An interesting recent contribution to the study of selection in affixation and compounding is provided in Scalise, Bisetto and Guevara (2005) who argue that both affixes and heads in compounds select their non-heads, but that the mechanisms of selection are different in affixation and compounding. They suggest that in contrast to selection in compounding, selection in affixation is more strict (non-heads must have the properties required by a given affix), more predictable (it is theoretically possible to identify all bases a given affix can select) and less syntax-like (non-heads in affixation do not satisfy the arguments of the corresponding heads). However, although Scalise, Bisetto and Guevara (2005) show tendencies of selection, the question still remains whether these tendencies indicate a sharp demarcation line between the two processes. In terms of their semantics, affixes are regarded as units with abstract and general meanings (Fleischer und Barz 1995: 28, Haspelmath 2002: 18) or even units that do not have any meaning by themselves, but acquire it only in combination with free morphemes (Marchand 1969: 215). Beard (1995) argues that meanings of affixes are limited, similar across languages and can often be paraphrased by very general words such as ‘action’, ‘agent’, ‘event’, ‘state’, ‘quality’, etc. Although this might be true for quite a number of affixes in different languages, there are also affixes which have more concrete meanings. For instance, Mithun (1996) argues that in many North American languages affixes carry meanings that are expressed by nouns and verbs in Indo-European languages. Besides, elements of compounds can also have rather abstract meanings. For instance, the meaning of the base place in the English compounds meeting place, show-place or burial place is not less abstract than the meaning of the suffix -(e)ry in the derivatives bakery, pottery and fishery. So it seems that both affixes and elements of compounds can have abstract meanings and hence can hardly be clearly distinguished in terms of the abstractness of meaning. A general overview of properties of different morphemes involved in affixation and compounding in Early Sranan and English is provided in (9) below. A question mark indicates those cases where it is unclear or controversial whether a given type of morpheme indeed exhibits a given property. The phonological properties are excluded since they cannot be used in the analysis of Early Sranan data. (9)

AFFIXATION affixes bound fixed position

COMPOUNDING bound roots bound fixed position

selecting serial general and specific meanings

can be selecting can be serial general and specific meanings

combining forms bound free and fixed position can be selecting serial specific meanings

free bases free free position ?selecting can be serial general and specific meanings

58 Several generalisations arise on the basis of the discussion above and the summary in (9). First, whereas affixation involves only affixes, compounding involves a range of morphemes of different types. The consequence is that affixes and elements of compounds overlap in properties. Second, affixes and elements of compounds display a number of similarities in terms of properties. Third, some differences between affixes and elements of compounds originate in the individual characteristics of certain morphemes, and not in their morphological type (i.e. affixes vs. free bases). As a conclusion, it can be pointed out that the traditional distinction between affixation and compounding is based on prototypical exemplars and thus allows us to distinguish clearly only the polar instances of the affixation-compounding continuum, i.e. those instances of affixes and of elements of compounds which bear an array of prototypical properties. As a consequence, in both Early Sranan and English, a strict demarcation line between affixation and compounding is difficult to draw on the basis of the properties of the morphemes involved in the two processes. The same is true for some other languages, for instance German (Hansen and Hartmann 1991: 16–38). Since the clear-cut distinction in terms of properties is problematic, the question arises whether affixation and compounding can be distinguished in other respects, for instance, in their structural principles. To answer this question, the next section deals with the question of how affixation and compounding have been modelled in some morphological theories.

5.4.3 Affixation and compounding in some morphological theories There are generally two types of theoretical approaches to the distinction between affixation and compounding. In the approaches of the first type (e.g. Anderson 1992, Aronoff 1976), it is assumed that there is a principled difference between affixation and compounding. In the approaches of the second type, it is suggested that affixation and compounding are similar processes governed by the same set of grammatical principles (e.g. Höhle 1982, Lieber 1992, Selkirk 1982). This section provides a brief overview of some of these approaches most relevant for the discussion here. It will not be the purpose of this overview to present the approaches and the problems arising with them in every detail. Rather, the focus will be on how the structural principles of affixation and compounding are described in these approaches and which approach offers a perspective of an adequate modelling of affixation-compounding borderline in general and in Early Sranan in particular. One of the prominent approaches of the first type is Aronoff (1976). Aronoff (1976: 21) assumes that the lexicon consists of simplex and complex words that have a fully specified lexical entry and of a system of word-formation rules which are completely separate from the rules of syntax and phonology. For Aronoff (1976: 22), a word-formation rule is a rule which specifies a unique phonological operation performed on a given base, a syntactic label and subcategorisation for the resulting word, and a semantic interpretation of this word (cf. Anderson 1992). Aronoff assumes that all word-formation processes are wordbased, and therefore all words must have lexical entries. Affixes, by contrast, do not have lexical entries as they are introduced through word-formation rules. Affixes are thus regarded as phonological reflexes of word-formation rules and not as independent entities. The difference in the conceptualisation between affixes and words leads to two different

59 systems of rules: the rules of affixation are conceptualised differently from the rules of compounding. To summarise, Aronoff (1976) does not show any principled difference between affixation and compounding in terms of their structural principles. In fact, the difference between affixation rules and compounding rules arising in his account results from the fact that affixes are conceptualised as fundamentally different from words. However, as will be shown later in this section, there is also no straightforward justification for conceptualising affixes as different from words. Since affixes share some properties with words and similarly to words, can be used as construction elements for creating new structures, they can be conceptualised as similar to words. For instance, Lieber (1992: 21) argues that similarly to words, affixes can be regarded as having their own lexical entries which differ from the lexical entries of words only in the fact that they additionally contain information about the subcategorisation frames which indicate the environment they are inserted into. An account of quite a different type is outlined in Lieber (1992). Lieber (1992) elaborates an approach within which no strict separation between affixation and compounding is postulated. The major assumption behind Lieber’s approach is that the same set of (revised X-bar) principles can be used to account for the structures both above and below word-level (Lieber 1992: 38). These principles are based on the linear order of heads with respect to non-heads and can be established for each language individually. As Lieber (1992: 54) shows, the following set of structural principles can be set for English (emphasis original): (10) a. b. c.

Heads are initial with respect to complements. Heads are final with respect to specifiers. Heads are final with respect to modifiers.

Complements are regarded by Lieber (1992: 38) as the obligatory internal arguments of the verb, and modifiers as units limiting “potential reference, typically, of a noun”. The explanations provided by Lieber (1992: 39) for what should be regarded as a specifier are more vague. She observes that specifiers form a heterogeneous group including “quantifiers, degree forms, subjects, and perhaps modals”. Lieber suggests that not only phrases and compounds can be analysed in terms of the principles in (10), but also sublexical elements, such as affixes. She assumes that affixes have lexical entries and argues that similarly to lexical elements, affixes can be classified as complements, modifiers and specifiers. For instance, the prefix semi (as in semi-coherent) might be regarded as a specifier since it seems to function similarly to specifiers in syntactic phrases (Lieber 1992: 39). Lieber admits, however, that the issue of describing bases in affixed words as specifiers or modifiers is problematic. She argues that at least in some of such structures, as, for instance, in happiness, the relation between the base and the affix is hardly one of restrictive modification. Therefore, happy in happiness might be regarded as a specifier since the class of specifiers is rather heterogeneous. Verbal suffixes, as, for instance, -ise are treated as heads assigning theta roles outside their derived words: unionise is ‘to make X a union’, and their stems are then predicates. As to prefixes which do not change the category of the base, Lieber (1992: 56) argues that some of them are similar to adjectives (ante-, co-) or adverbs (re-, mis-) and can therefore be regarded as

60 modifiers. Other prefixes, such as the negative un-, can be viewed as specifiers. Categorychanging prefixes, such as de- and en- in English are regarded as verbal heads assigning theta roles to the right. To conclude, Lieber (1992) actually shows that similar structural principles operate in affixation and compounding. Moreover, she provides an insightful account of how patterns traditionally regarded as different from each other can be analysed in a uniform way. However, there are also some problems with Lieber’s approach. The first problem is mentioned by Sproat (1992: 241), who points out that Lieber does not convincingly explain why primarily left-headed English has quite a number of right-headed morphology. As Sproat (1992: 241) notes, Lieber’s argument that at least some of the derived words with suffixal heads can be analysed as specifier-head structures, which are right-headed in English syntax, is “less than satisfactory”. Note, however, that Sproat’s remark that English is primarily left-headed is disputable since there are a number of syntactic structures in English which exhibit a modifier-head order and are thus right-headed, as for instance A-N combinations, such as good prospects, or Adv-A combinations, such as really beautiful. The second problem lies in Lieber’s way of classifying affixes and stems into modifiers or specifiers. For instance, there seems to be no convincing reason to regard the prefix semias a specifier, but the prefixes ante- or re- as modifiers. Besides, the category of specifiers seems to be a mixbag of all cases which cannot be classified otherwise and is therefore illdefined. This means that although Lieber’s approach in general makes it possible to avoid the problem of drawing a sharp borderline between affixation and compounding by modelling them as essentially the same in terms of their headedness principles, it at the same time creates new problems, such as classifying morphemes as complements, modifiers and specifiers. There is one more general point of criticism to be mentioned in connection with Lieber’s account. Beard (1987, 1988) raises a number of objections against the idea that affixes are similar to lexical items and argues that affixes differ from lexical items in a number of properties. For instance, affixes do not undergo derivation in the way lexical items do. Besides, lexical items usually belong to one syntactic category whereas affixes can belong to different categories (as, for instance, -ing which can belong to the categories of noun and adjective). Finally, affixes are closed-class items whereas lexemes belong to open-class items. However, Beard’s arguments cannot seriously undermine accounts which regard affixes as lexical items on two grounds. First, some of the differences between affixes and lexical items mentioned by Beard are controversial. For instance, it is doubtful whether lexical items belong to one syntactic category since many lexical items exhibit multifunctionality in a number of languages. Second, Lieber (1992) and similar lexicalist accounts (e.g. Höhle 1982) do not actually claim that affixes are the same as lexical items, but rather that both affixes and lexical items can be treated in the same way, i.e. as having lexical entries. In general, it can be pointed out that Lieber (1992) does not claim that all morphemes are alike, but shows that different types of morphemes can be described in a uniform way without postulating additional categories. Another ‘uniformist’ approach to affixation and compounding is Booij’s (2005, 2007) Construction Morphology. Booij (2005: 112–117) observes that since free bases can be grammaticalised into affixes (e.g. the English -wise as in clockwise) and affixes can be degrammaticalised into free bases (e.g. the English affix ex-, which can be used as a noun meaning ‘former partner’), the border between affixation and compounding cannot be

61 sharp. According to Booij, this has the consequence that the mechanisms of compounding cannot be seen as completely different from the mechanisms operating in affixation, and hence, there cannot be two completely different formal accounts of these two wordformation processes. Booij (2005, 2007) maintains that the structural similarity between compounding and affixation can be conceptualised in the form of specific word-formation schemas, called “constructional idioms”, i.e. multiword units of which some positions are lexically specified (cf. Jackendoff 2002). Constructional idioms occupy an intermediate position between more abstract patterns of word-formation and individual complex words in the lexicon. Booij (2005: 122) suggests that right-headed compounding patterns, as well as suffixation and prefixation patterns attested in Dutch can be generally represented in the way of the following abstract schemas: (11) compounding: suffixation: prefixation:

[[X]X[Y]Y]Y [[X]XY]Y [X[Y]Y]Y

As Booij shows, the pattern for the English suffix -er, for instance, can be presented as the constructional idiom [[X]Ver]N which renders the meaning ‘one who Vs’. This idiom occupies an intermediate position between more abstract patterns of word-formation, such as [[X]XY]Y, and individual complex er-words in the lexicon, such as [[bak]Ver]N (Booji 2005: 124). The structure of other combinations can be presented in a similar way. For instance, constructs with the Dutch morpheme boer, which actually means ‘farmer’, but is consistently used to create complex words with the meaning ‘trader in X’, and is thus somewhere in between affixes and elements of compounds, can be presented as the constructional idiom [[X]N[boer]N]N, which stands in between the more abstract pattern [[X]N[Y]N]N and individual complex words with boer, such as [[cigaren]N[boer]N]N ‘cigar seller’ and [[kolen]N[boer]N]N ‘coal merchant’. Booij (2005: 124) also argues that speakers acquire their knowledge of constructional idioms via the knowledge of a number of words that instantiate this idiom. When speakers have encountered a considerable number of words of a certain type, they are able to infer a constructional scheme and will be able to use it to form other words. Booij’s approach shows that affixation and compounding can be viewed as processes essentially similar in terms of their structural principles. Besides, this approach also offers some practical advantages for the analysis of affixation and compounding of a given language: since constructional idioms do not make reference to some controversial features, such as for instance, the type of non-head in Lieber’s (1992) approach, they avoid the classificatory problems arising with other approaches. Besides, since it is a pattern-oriented approach, and not a process-oriented or a type-of-morpheme-oriented one, it enables us to carry an analysis of a word-formation system of a language without differentiating between affixation and compounding. In such an analysis, the focus could be on establishing the word-formation patterns of a given language without making decisions about the type of the process according to which every given pattern is built. Such a pattern-oriented approach seems reasonable since, as recent psycholinguistic research on child language acquisition (e.g. Tomasello 2005) shows, language acquisition can be viewed as the process of patternfinding. This means that when acquiring language, children try to find patterns among a

62 variety of item-based constructions via schematising and analogy rather than constructing language by combining individual morphemes and words according to some rules (Tomasello 2005: 143). To conclude, the discussion above shows that there are fundamental similarities between affixation and compounding in terms of their structural principles. Both can generally be viewed as the processes of using abstract constructional schemas by speakers. The differences in the properties of individual morphemes or types of morphemes thus need not be expressed by postulating different types of processes or different systems of rules. They can be expressed through the differences in their lexical entries. All in all, this means that both patterns of affixation and patterns of compounding can be uniformly analysed without drawing a strict demarcation line between affixation and compounding. The outline of such an analysis of Early Sranan data will be discussed in the next section.

5.4.4 Early Sranan affixation and compounding: a descriptive framework In this section, problems arising with the analysis of Early Sranan data will be summarised with the purpose of showing that the data can be meaningfully analysed within a framework which does not draw a borderline between affixation and compounding, such as Booij’s Construction Morphology. There are a number of morphemes in Early Sranan whose morphological status is difficult to determine. An overview of these morphemes is provided below: (12) a.

person marker -man (< Engl. man) [N/A/V-man]N

bótomán (boat-PM) ‘oarsman’ lésiman (lazy-PM) ‘lazybones’ hóntiman (to hunt-PM) ‘hunter’

b.

gender markers uman- and man(n)(< Engl. woman/man) [uman-/man(n)-N]N

uman doksi (GM-duck) ‘duck’ mann-doksi (GM-duck) ‘drake’

c.

diminutive marker pikíen(< Port. pequeno) [pikíen-N]N

pikíen hási (DM-horse) ‘colt’

d.

abstract nominaliser -fasi (< Engl. fashion) [V/A/N-fasi]N

laufasi (stupid-AN) ‘stupidity’

e.

augmentative marker mammáorigin unclear [mammá-N]N

mammá-ston (AM-stone) ‘huge stone’

On the one hand, these morphemes bear a number of properties of prototypical affixes. First, as prototypical affixes, they fulfil the specific function of marking certain categories, such as ‘person’, ‘gender’, ‘diminutive’, ‘state’ and ‘augmentative’. Second, they occupy a

63 fixed position with respect to the base when fulfilling these functions and occur serially with semantic consistency. On the other hand, however, their status as bound morphemes is controversial since all of them have free counterparts. In some cases, the difference in meaning between the free counterpart and the morphemes in question can be established, as in the case of the person marker -man, whose meaning can be identified as ‘person’ in most cases, in contrast to its free counterpart man(n), which means ‘man’. However, in other cases, such as in the case of the gender marker man(n)- or of the nominaliser -fasi, this difference is not straightforward or is difficult to establish because of the lack of sufficient information or data. To generalise, Early Sranan data present classificatory problems since several Early Sranan morphemes are difficult to classify in terms of morpheme type. This is partially triggered by the historic nature of the data and by the analytical character of Early Sranan morphology. Besides, drawing a sharp demarcation line would mean that possibly some pertinent and interesting patterns would fall prey to classificatory decisions. For instance, classifying some of the morphemes in (12) as free bases and consequently regarding them as N-N compounds might lead to the loss of some important generalisations about Early Sranan word-formation, namely, that in Early Sranan free morphemes can be employed in functions similar to affixes in other languages. To avoid the problems just mentioned, it makes sense not to draw a demarcation line between affixation and compounding. Therefore, in the present study, complex words will not be classified in terms of affixation and compounding. Rather, complex words will be investigated in terms of the structural and the semantic patterns they exhibit. Complex words will mainly be referred to as ‘constructs’, and not as ‘derivatives’ and ‘compounds’. Those patterns in which one position is lexically specified will be regarded as ‘constructional idioms’ along the lines of Booij’s Construction Morphology. This has the advantage that patterns containing the morphemes in (12) can be conceptualised as constructional idioms and thus investigated without making any problematic classificatory decisions. Such morphemes as in (12), which serve a specific derivational function, e.g. ‘agentive’, ‘diminutive’, etc., will be called ‘markers’. So far the Early Sranan data which create problems for the affixation-compounding distinction have been discussed. There are also some Early Sranan data which create problems for the compounding-syntax distinction. Therefore, the next section will deal with the discussion of the compounding-syntax borderline.

5.5

Distinguishing compounding and syntax

5.5.1 The problem of distinguishing compounding and syntax As mentioned in section 5.3, another problem arising with Early Sranan data is the problem of distinguishing instances of compounding from syntactic constructions. This problem is by no means new in linguistics and has been extensively discussed in both theoretical and empirical works (Bauer 1998, Di Sciullo and Williams 1987, Dressler, Kastovsky, Pfeiffer and Rainer 2005, Giegerich 2004, Liberman and Sproat 1992, Lieber 1992, Olsen 2000a,

64 2000b; see also overviews in Scalise and Guevara (2005) and in Spencer (2005)). In general, modelling the morphology-syntax interface is a controversial issue, and there are two different views of it. The proponents of the first view (Aronoff 1976, Bisetto and Scalise 1999, Di Sciullo and Williams 1987, Jackendoff 1975) regard morphology and syntax as two different areas of grammar and argue that words and phrases are constructed by two different types of rule systems. The supporters of the second view (Ackema 1994, Hale and Keyser 1993, Lieber 1992) believe that syntax is a single component of grammar able to generate phrases as well as words even if words and phrases have different properties. The problem of distinguishing compounding and syntax has also been touched upon in some creolist work (Dijkhoff 1993, Mühlhäusler 1979). It has been claimed that creoles do not use nominal compounds at all, but syntactic constructions in which nouns are attached attributively to other nouns (Boretzky 1983: 79) or that most word-formation in some creole languages is of syntactic nature (Dijkhoff (1993: 10) for Papiamentu). It remains to be clarified whether such claims are indeed substantiated or whether they result from the problems of establishing the difference between compounding and syntax. In section 5.5.2 below, two pertinent theoretical approaches to the borderline between morphology and syntax will be introduced in order to see whether a clear-cut difference can be established between compounds and syntactic items in terms of their structural principles. Then, in section 5.5.3, some properties traditionally used to distinguish compounds from phrases will be discussed. The discussion of the theoretical approaches, as well as of the properties, will provide a background for the development of an adequate descriptive framework for the analysis of Early Sranan data which are problematic in terms of drawing the demarcation line between compounding and syntax. This framework will be described in section 5.5.4.

5.5.2 Compounds and phrases in two morphological theories Two of the most prominent approaches dealing with the difference between compounding and syntax are Di Sciullo and Williams (1987) and Lieber (1992). It will be discussed below how the difference between compounding and syntax, especially the difference in terms of their structural principles, is modelled within these two approaches. One of the central assumptions of Di Sciullo and Williams’ model (1987: 1) is that morphology and syntax differ in two respects. First, they differ in the rules by which their objects are formed. The rules of word-formation are right-headed. By contrast, the rules of phrase formation are left-headed in English. The second difference between morphology and syntax lies in the objects they operate with. Whereas syntax deals with phrases and sentences (together regarded as “the phrases”), morphology deals with stems, affixes, morphemes (which are collectively regarded as “the words”) (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987: 19). Words and phrases differ in terms of syntactic atomicity: words are opaque to syntactic descriptions and operations whereas phrases are not, and syntactic rules do not have access to the internal constituency of words. Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 50–52) argue that words are generic, do not allow pronominal reference and are atomic with respect to wh-movement. To show the fact that syntax also has its atoms, Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 1, 46) distinguish between three “conceptually and empirically” distinct

65 notions of word: words as morphological objects, as syntactic atoms and as listemes. The properties of these three types of words described by Di Sciullo and Williams (1987) are summarised in the overview below: (13) morphological objects right-headed are X°s syntactically atomic can be listed have non-compositional meanings are referentially opaque and generic in meaning are created by the rules of morphology

syntactic words right-headed are X°s syntactically atomic are listed have non-compositional meanings are referentially opaque and generic in meaning are created by specific non-morphological reanalysis rules

listemes left-headed are Xmaxs syntactically transparent are listed have non-compositional meanings are not referentially opaque or generic in meaning are created by the rules of syntax

Compounds such as light-house or affixed words such as robber are morphological objects. Syntactic words include, for instance, Romance compounds containing a verb and a complement, as well as exocentric V-N compounds, such as the French essui-glace (to wipe off-mirror) ‘windscreen’ or the English V-Prep combination push-up. Besides, the category of syntactic atoms also includes full syntactic phrases like NP or PP which function as X° lexical items, as e.g. the French pince-sans rire (tongs-without-laugh) ‘wry comedian’ (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987: 79–83). For listemes, Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 5–7) provide the following examples: the Big Apple, all wet, take to task, the cat that has got NP’s tongue. As can be inferred from the discussion above, besides the difference in the properties between compounds and phrases, which will be dealt with in the next section, one of the central differences between morphology and syntax Di Sciullo and Williams postulate is the difference in terms of the headedness principles. However, this postulate is problematic. For instance, Liberman and Sproat (1992: 170–171) argue that even in English, syntactic modifier-head constructions can be right-headed. Indeed, for instance, NPs whose structure is A-N are right-headed, and the same is true for APs consisting of adverbs and adjectives, as e.g. truly important. Lieber (1981, cited from Lieber 1992: 31) observes that there are instances of left-headedness in English derivational morphology since some English prefixes are category-changing and thus create left-headed derivational structures. Besides, it seems that the line of argumentation suggested by Di Sciullo and Williams is circular. They actually suggest that a given item is a syntactic phrase because it is left-headed and that it is left-headed because it is a syntactic phrase. There seems to be no independent evidence in their account which would justify the assumption that syntax is something different from morphology. In fact, the question which should be raised in connection with Di Sciullo and Williams’ account is: how do we know that many syntactic phrases in English are left-headed? Or in more general terms, what is the independent evidence for regarding something as a phrase? It seems that English syntax is not left-headed per

66 definitionem. Rather, the assumption about the left-headedness of English syntax, and hence the idea of what should be regarded as a phrase, is based on the fact that there is a higher amount of non-atomic items among left-headed structures in English than among right-headed structures, and vice versa. Indeed, many non-atomic units in English have such left-headed structures as V-N (e.g. catch malaria), Prep-N (e.g. to Paris), N-Prep-N (e.g. tons of paper), etc., whereas among the atomic ones, right-headed structures, such as N-N, are very common, as e.g. windmill, sandcastle. So, catch malaria would be regarded as a phrase not because it has some unique kind of headedness or of syntactic structure, but rather because it is a non-atomic item that has a structure very common among non-atomic items. All in all, the discussion above shows that drawing the difference between compounds and phrases in terms of headedness principles seems to be problematic and that in fact there is an overlap between compounds and phrases in terms of their structural principles. It is exactly the idea that compounding and syntax are not fundamentally different in terms of the principles of headedness that forms the basis of Lieber’s (1992) approach. Lieber (1992: 21) assumes that syntax and morphology are not two separate components of grammar and that there is one general set of structural principles behind the generation of both well-formed words and well-formed phrases. Lieber (1992) uses headedness principles to show that headedness in morphology is related to headedness in syntax and that both morphology and syntax can be analysed applying the same set of general principles. For English, Lieber (1992: 54) formulates the following language-specific headedness principles which have been mentioned in section 5.4.3 above and are repeated here for convenience (emphasis original): (14) a. b. c.

Heads are initial with respect to complements. Heads are final with respect to specifiers. Heads are final with respect to modifiers.

These principles can be used for a uniform analysis of both compounds and phrases. For instance, the linear non-head-head order in the right-headed compound towel rack and in the phrase a large, gray dog conform to the same structural principle formulated in (14c). Lieber’s account demonstrates important parallels between compounding and syntax in terms of their structural principles and thus once again suggests that the distinction between compounding and syntax is not absolute. In fact, Lieber shows that the position of the head does not depend on the type of construction (morphological vs. syntactic), but is somehow connected with the syntactic relation between the constituents of a given construction. This supports the assumption mentioned in the discussion of Di Sciullo and Williams’ (1987) approach that headedness does not provide any principled basis for distinguishing compounds from phrases. However, Lieber’s account raises two questions. First, it is unclear what kinds of entities should be regarded as specifiers in compounds and whether there is any reasonable number of compounds whose first elements can be regarded as specifiers. Whereas the structure Det-N is rather common in English NPs, there are hardly any compounds of this type. The second question is why, given the similar principles of construction, a great number of English compounds exhibit the modifier-head structure and not so many the head-complement structure of, for instance, N-Prep-N type. These facts call for an explanation and will be discussed in section 5.5.4 below.

67 The discussion above suggests that compounding and syntax exhibit similarities in terms of their structural principles. So, the question arising now is whether the difference between the two can be established in terms of the properties of compounds and phrases. Some of these properties have been mentioned above in the discussion of Di Sciullo and Williams’ (1987) approach. In the next section, a more detailed look will be taken at the properties of compounds and phrases in order to see whether a clear-cut borderline can be established between the two with respect to their properties.

5.5.3 Distinguishing compounds and syntactic phrases in terms of their properties Much of the empirical work on the morphology-syntax distinction concentrated on the properties various constructions exhibit and tried to correlate a certain behaviour with a certain type of construction, morphological or syntactic. This section is devoted to the discussion of how morphological vs. syntactic status of a particular unit can be figured out on the basis of its mainly syntactic and semantic properties. The overview will be based on the discussion of the properties of compounds done in a variety of morphological studies (Bauer 1978, 1998, Haspelmath 2002, Matthews 1974, Olsen 2000b, Rainer 1993, Ten Hacken 1994). Since the purpose of the overview is to discuss whether these properties show a clear demarcation line between compounding and syntax, the data from English will be mainly used because much of the discussion of the properties of compounds has been based on English. Early Sranan data will then be examined in the next section. Several properties will be beyond the scope of the discussion here. For instance, since phonological information about Early Sranan complex words is problematic, the phonological properties, such as stress patterns, which are used to distinguish compounds from phrases in, for example, English, will not be discussed below. The same holds for the property of morphological cohesion (Allen 1980: 12, Bloomfield 1933), i.e. the property of compounds not to take inflection inside their structure. Since plurality in Early Sranan is not marked on the nouns themselves (cf. Bruyn 2002: 177), this property will not be discussed either. One of the properties by which words in general, including complex words, are supposed to differ from phrases is syntactic atomicity. As pointed out in the previous section, Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 49) observe that words are atomic at the level of phrasal syntax and phrasal semantics: the features of words have no structure, and the relation of these features to the internal composition of the word is irrelevant in syntax. Atomicity of compounds manifests itself in a number of properties: usually, elements of compounds cannot be coordinated, or separated from each other by other linguistic material, or referred to by a pronoun. In what follows, some most crucial of these atomic properties will be discussed in greater detail. Thus, syntactic inseparability is one of the manifestations of the syntactic atomicity of compounds and can be used to distinguish compounds from phrases. For instance, Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 186) argue that syntactic atomicity of compounds can be tested by inserting a lexical item inside a complex structure and suggest that whereas syntactic phrases allow this insertion, compounds cannot be interrupted in this way. Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 186) provide the following example to illustrate their suggestion:

68 (15) a. b.

We bought [black satin sheets] NP *We bought [black-sweet-berries] Compound N

In a similar vein, Ten Hacken (1994: 52) notes that elements of compounds cannot be separated by parentheticals, e.g. Shakespeare has written several classical love *so-called stories. However, as Ten Hacken remarks, it is unclear how ordering restrictions on adjectives may interact with this property. He argues that the failure to insert an item between the components of a given combination might be blocked by such an ordering or by semantic restrictions, and not by the fact that a combination is generated by morphological rules. Lieber (1992: 140–145) also advances an alternative explanation of the atomicity issue. She shows that the impossibility of movement into and out of words can be explained by the operation of some general syntactic constraints which restrict movement out of phrases in the same way. There seems to be a good point in Ten Hacken’s and Lieber’s suggestions that inseparability of compounds can be explained by factors other than their being morphological objects. For instance, the inseparability of the compound blackberry can be explained by its referential function and its specific, lexicalised meaning. Indeed, the compound blackberry can be regarded as a “single referential unit” (term taken from Lieber (2004: 10)) since it designates a certain set of extra-linguistic entities. Its meaning is ‘a special kind of berry’, and not ‘berry which is black in colour’. Its being a single referential unit and its specific meaning block separation. Note that the equivalent phrase a black berry meaning ‘a berry which is black in colour’ can be separated, as in a black sweet berry, because it does not function as a single referential unit and does not have any specific, lexicalised meaning. Rather, it is a descriptive unit since it describes a given entity. Besides, the ordering black sweet is syntactically and semantically acceptable in English. It general, it seems that functional, semantic and syntactic factors are responsible for the inseparability of a given item rather that its grammatical status. Other examples can support this line of reasoning as well. For example, the English phrase big house is separable as in big new house because first, big house is not a single referential unit. Second, such a separation does not destroy the meaning of the combination big house, but merely changes it in a grammatically acceptable way and adds another descriptive element to it. And finally, such an ordering as big new is acceptable semantically and syntactically in English. By contrast, the phrase to kick the bucket is inseparable because it functions as a single referential unit, it does not describe the process of kicking the bucket, but refers to the process of dying. Besides, it has an idiomatic meaning. The phrase the house of my parents cannot be separated by, for instance, inserting an adjective between house and of: *house big of my parents. This can be explained by the fact that the ordering house big is unacceptable in English because there is a syntactic principle that adjectives should usually be placed prenominally in noun phrases. To conclude, although all compounds are indeed inseparable, inseparability is nevertheless not a compound-specific property since phrases can have this property as well. This means that inseparability does not result from the fact that compounds are created in a different component of grammar than phrases are. Inseparability of compounds seems to be closely connected to their referential function and their specific meaning. Compounds function as single referential units, whereas many

69 phrases do not. Notably, exactly those phrases which function as single referential units are also inseparable. Another manifestation of syntactic atomicity of compounds is that they do not allow pronominal reference within them. For instance, as Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 50) maintain, there is no such a compound as it robber where it would refer to some bank. However, there seem to be other explanations of why pronouns are not attested within compounds. For instance, Liberman and Sproat (1992: 173) suggest that items of the kind it robber may be ruled out by a constraint that does not allow derivation from closed class items or by the fact that projections of functional categories cannot serve as modifiers. Haspelmath (2002: 159) observes that the failure of pronominal expressions to occur inside compounds results from the semantic condition that the dependent component of a compound must be generic. Since anaphoric pronouns cannot be interpreted generically, they cannot occur as dependent members of compounds. It has also been suggested that compounds differ from phrases in terms of referential properties: non-heads of compounds cannot be antecedents of pronouns. For instance, Ten Hacken (1994: 75–77) suggests that the use of anaphora as in the sentence He’s a ladyi-killer because he likes themi so much (from Matthews 1974: 192) is a case of “doubtful normality” (cf. Bongartz 2002: 35). Ten Hacken (1994: 75–76) argues that specific referential properties of compounds can be formulated in a so-called Pronominal Reference Test that allows us to distinguish between compounds and non-compounds: Construct a discourse with the alleged H-compound (i.e. headed or determinative compound, M.B.) Z in one sentence and a pronoun referring to the non-head of Z in the next sentence. If the discourse is correct, Z is not an H-compound.

Ten Hacken (1994: 76) illustrates this test by means of the following example: (16) Yesterday, we watched a wari film. *Iti was very cruel. However, it is arguable whether this test really allows us to identify the morphosyntactic status of a given complex construction. In (16), the ungrammaticality of the second sentence is not triggered by the fact that war film is a compound. It is rather triggered by the fact that war film functions as a single referential unit, since it designates one set of objects: war films, and not two separate ones, i.e. wars and films. Note that the same is true for phrases functioning as single referential units. Their elements cannot serve as antecedents of pronouns either. For instance, the element box in the phrase jack-in-the-box cannot be referred to by means of it. Besides the problem with the test just mentioned, there are also other problems with the idea that elements of compounds do not serve as antecedents for pronominal reference. Ward, Sproat and McKoon (1991) argue that acceptability judgments about possible or impossible use of parts of complex words as antecedents of pronouns are influenced by pragmatic, semantic and lexical factors rather than by grammatical restrictions. Moreover, it has been demonstrated (Bauer 1998, Liberman and Sproat 1992, Ward, Sproat and McKoon 1991) that in compounds whose first element is a proper name, the name can be an antecedent of a pronoun. To summarise, referential properties discussed above first, do not necessarily result from compounds being morphological objects, and

70 second, can hardly allow us to draw a strict demarcation line between compounds and phrases. Besides the syntactic properties discussed above, there is also a semantic property which has often been attributed to compounds and used to distinguish them from phrases: the noncompositionality or idiomaticity of meaning. Thus, Jespersen (1942: 137), for instance, observes that a combination of words should be regarded as a compound if “the meaning of the whole cannot be logically deduced from the meaning of the elements separately”. However, as Haspelmath (2002: 156) argues, idiomaticity is “neither a necessary nor a sufficient criterion for compound status” because, on the one hand, there are quite a number of compounds with semantically regular, compositional meaning, e.g. piano-turner, spring festival, and on the other hand, there are idioms which are not compounds, such as to kick the bucket or to buy a white horse. It seems that an idiomatic meaning can arise as the result of metaphorical extension, lexicalisation or, as Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 14) put it, a need for “short expressions for complicated ideas”. Consequently, it can be argued that non-compositional meaning often goes hand in hand with a referential function. This is supported by the fact that exactly those phrases which function as single referential units often have non-compositional, idiomatic meanings. For instance, merry-go-round or jackof-all-trades function as single referential units and have an idiomatic meaning. By contrast, descriptive phrases, such as a nice day or to walk quickly, have fully compositional meanings. Therefore, it seems that the property of non-compositionality of meaning does not allow us to draw a clear-cut demarcation line between instances of compounding and instances of syntax. Moreover, it has been pointed out (Grimm 1991: 99–100) that the notion of compositionality is problematic, which can partially be explained by its gradual nature. For instance, in the case of the Early Sranan fowloe-mamà (hen-mother) meaning ‘the maid who takes care of the poultry’, it is not quite clear whether its meaning should be regarded as compositional, non-compositional or an in-between case because of the metaphorical nature of this unit. Such items are abundant in Early Sranan. To generalise, it has been shown above that properties of compounds traditionally used to draw the demarcation line between compounding and syntax, such as syntactic atomicity and idiomatic meaning do not show this line in a straightforward way. Quite remarkably, it seems that these properties rather show a different borderline. As argued earlier in this section, syntactic atomicity and idiomaticity are not triggered by the grammatical status of compounds and phrases, but are, among other things, the ‘by-products’ of a referential function. Therefore, it can be suggested that syntactic atomicity and idiomatic meaning rather enable us to draw a demarcation line between different structural units of a language in terms of their function. And since, as mentioned in section 5.2.1 above, word-formation serves a referential function because words are created to name objects, persons, states, etc., the question that seems to be interesting for word-formation studies is possibly not what is a compound and what is a phrase, but rather, which units in a given language serve a referential function and which units fulfil a descriptive function. In general, it can be suggested that placing the focus of word-formation studies on units serving a referential function can offer interesting insights into the nature of word-formation strategies used by speakers. Besides, such a focus would neutralise the problem of drawing the compounding-syntax borderline. Additionally, it would allow morphologists to consider alternative naming strategies which might escape their attention if a neat boundary is drawn. Whether such a focus is indeed reasonable will be discussed for the case of Early Sranan below.

71 5.5.4 Early Sranan compounding-syntax borderline: a descriptive framework It has been argued above on the basis of English data that drawing a clear-cut demarcation line between compounding and syntax is problematic. This section will be devoted to the question of whether it makes sense to analyse Early Sranan data in terms of the compounding-syntax distinction or whether a functional approach provides a better alternative to the traditional analysis. Every language has a number of semantically coherent multiword units. In Early Sranan, as in any language, there is a variety of such units. Some common types are presented in (17) and (18) below. (17) a. b. c. d. e. f.

areen-jakketi biggi-futtu watra va hai wan de worké njam$ dótti tîn na dri

‘rain-jacket’ ‘big-foot/leg’ ‘water-of-eye’ ‘one-day-work’ ‘to eat-dirt’ ‘ten-and/with-three’

‘rain jacket’ ‘thigh’ ‘tear(s)’ ‘Monday’ ‘a type of disease’ ‘thirteen’

Sch Sch Sch Sch Fo Sch

(18) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

mi brara wyfie wan bunne dressi brudu va somma wan pisi Gron brokko plantasi na kerki mi nanga ju

‘my-brother-wife’ ‘a-good-medicine’ ‘blood-of-people’ ‘one-piece-earth/land’ ‘to break-plantation’ ‘in-church’ ‘I-and/with-you’

‘my brother’s wife’ ‘a good medicine’ ‘people’s blood’ ‘one piece of land’ ‘to break plantation’ ‘in church’ ‘you and me’

VD Sch Sch VD Sch Sch Sch

Since both compounds and phrases can be regarded as semantically coherent multiword units, in a traditional word-formation study, the major focus would be on determining which of the semantically coherent multiword units attested in a given language are products of word-formation and which are products of syntax. So in the case of Early Sranan, the question is which units in (17) and (18) are compounds and which are phrases. Besides, another question is which of the units above are atomic or lexicalised phrases. To answer these questions, the units in (17) and (18) can be analysed in terms of the properties traditionally used to distinguish compounding from syntax. As mentioned in the previous section, phonological and morphological criteria of compoundhood are difficult to apply to Early Sranan data, and the criterion of idiomatic meaning is problematic in general. Hence, the units in question should be analysed in terms of other properties that have generally been used to distinguish compounds from phrases, such as syntactic atomicity. Besides, they should be analysed in terms of their structure. The analysis of the data in (17) and (18) in terms of atomicity shows that all items in (17) are syntactic atoms, since they cannot be separated by inserting some linguistic material. For instance, it is impossible to insert an adjective such as nju ‘new’ into areenjakketi in (17a): *areen nju jakketi is an impossible structure. The same is true for any other unit in (17). By contrast, all items in (18) are non-atomic units since they can be separated

72 by inserting some linguistic material.7 For instance, mi brara wyfie in (18a) can be separated by inserting grang ‘elder’: mi grang brara wyfie ‘my elder brother’s wife’ and wan pisi Gron in (18d) by moi: wan moi pisi Gron ‘a nice piece of land’. So, in terms of atomicity, all units in (17) behave as words whereas those in (18) should be phrases. However, as mentioned above, it has often been argued in morphological studies that although all compounds are atomic units, not all atomic units are compounds since phrases can be atomic as well. This means that although all units in (18) can be regarded as phrases, it is still unclear which of the units in (17) are compounds and which atomic phrases, if at all. To clarify this, it should be examined whether the Early Sranan phrases in (18) exhibit any features that are unique to them and thus would make it possible to distinguish them from compounds. Since, as shown in section 5.5.2 above, it has also been assumed that compounds and phrases tend to differ in terms of headedness principles, it should be investigated whether the Early Sranan phrases in (18) exhibit one certain type of headedness, which can then be used as an indicator of their phrasal status. The analysis of the Early Sranan phrases in (18) in terms of headedness reveals that the first two phrases are right-headed and the next four are left-headed. The components of the example in (18g) stand in a non-hierarchical relation of coordination to each other. Such units can be regarded as headless because of the equal syntactic status of their components (cf. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1275) for English). To summarise, the phrases in (18) exhibit three different types of headedness: they can be right-headed, left-headed and headless. Even though left-headedness seems to be more common among Early Sranan phrases because four out of seven phrase types are left-headed, there is no straightforward correlation between headedness and phrasal status. Therefore, headedness does not provide us with a basis for distinguishing compounds from atomic phrases in (17). Besides headedness, the internal syntactic structure of the Early Sranan phrases in (18) could also be worth investigating here since it can be assumed that if phrases indeed make up a distinct class of constructions in Early Sranan, they might also exhibit some unique type of syntactic structure different from compounds. In terms of their syntactic structure, the phrases in (18) present a heterogeneous group. For instance, mi brara wyfie in (18a) has the structure Det-N-N, where the first two words form an NP of their own, the phrase wan bunne dressi in (18b) has the structure Det-A-N, brudu va somma in (18c) consists of the noun brudu and the prepositional phrase va somma, etc. However, if the internal structure of the atomic units in (17) is compared to the internal structure of the phrases in (18), a rather interesting observation emerges. This comparison is presented in (19):

– 7

Using the separability test was problematic in the present study, given the fact that the data come from historical sources and the author of the present study is not a native speaker of Early Sranan. In general, the following procedure was applied. The sources were searched for examples where a given construction was attested in a separated form. If such examples were not attested, the sources were searched for analogical constructions that occur in a separated form. The separation test was then carried out with the construction under analysis by analogy to a similar construction attested in a separated form. For instance, the phrase wan pisi Gron was not attested in a separated form, but an analogical construction, wan hipi somma ‘a group of people’, was attested in a separated form: wan pikin hipi somma ‘a small group of people’ (Schumann 1783: 136). Therefore, it was assumed that it would be possible to separate the phrase wan pisi Gron by inserting an adjective in front of pisi.

73 (19) a. a´. b. b´. c. c´. d. d´. e. e´. f. f´.

areen-jakketi mi brara wyfie biggi-futtu wan bunne dressi njamm dótti brokko plantasi watra va hai brudu va somma wan de worké wan pisi Gron tîn-na-dri mi nanga ju

[N-N] [[Det-N]-N] [A-N] [Det-[A]-N] [V-N] [V-[N]] [N-[Prep-N]] [N-[Prep-N]] [[Det-N]-N] [[Det-N]-N] [[Num]-Conj-[Num]] [[Pr]-Conj-[Pr]]

The observation that can be made on the basis of (19) is that in the first two pairs, the first, atomic, members of each pair differ from the second, phrasal members in terms of structure. In the last four pairs, the first, atomic, members and the second, non-atomic, members of each pair have very similar structures. An assumption that can be made on the basis of this comparison is that those atomic constructs whose internal structure is different from the structure of corresponding phrases could be regarded as compounds, whereas the atomic constructs whose syntactic structure is similar to the structure of phrases can be regarded as atomic phrases. This would, however, mean that the only reason why such units as watra va hai in (19d) and wan de worké in (19e) should be regarded as atomic phrases, and not as compounds, is their similarity in syntactic structure to such non-atomic phrases as brudu va somma in (19d´) and wan pisi Gron in (19e´) respectively. In fact, there is no other independent reason that would justify this analysis. But since atomic units such as watra va hai share similarities not only with phrases, but also with compounds (in terms of atomicity), the question arises: why is the similarity in terms of internal structure usually taken as the basis for claiming that such units are atomic phrases, whereas the similarity of these units to compounds in terms of atomicity is generally not taken as the basis for regarding them as compounds? It can be assumed that the reason might lie in the fact that atomic units with the structures [N-[Prep-N]] and [[Det-N]-N] are less common than the atomic units which have an [N-N]-structure and that the structures [N-[Prep-N]] and [[Det-N]-N] can therefore be regarded as typically phrasal structures. However, the predominance of certain types of structures among compounds can also be explained by pragmatic reasons, such as, for instance, condensation of information and semantic interpretability (see Motsch (2004: 26) for the discussion of these principles). Hence, the difference in frequency again does not in itself justify the reason of regarding atomic constructs which have structures similar to non-atomic units as atomic phrases instead of regarding them as compounds. Besides the similarity in terms of atomicity, atomic phrases in (17) also bear a similarity to compounds in terms of function. All units in (17) are single referential units: they serve a referential function since all of them name some entities, such as objects, as in (17a–d), diseases, as in (17e), or numeric concepts, as in (17f). By contrast, the units in (18) are not single referential units: each constituent word in them is a single referential unit, but together they do not form such units. These entities serve a descriptive function: they describe persons, as in (18a), objects, as in (18b) and (18d), events, as in

74 (18e), etc. To generalise, although atomic phrases are similar to phrases in terms of their syntactic structure, they exhibit a greater similarity to compounds, namely, in terms of their atomicity and their function. The discussion above shows that a more or less clear-cut difference can be drawn between compounds and non-atomic phrases. But the distinction between atomic and nonatomic phrases, and consequently, the distinction between compounds and atomic phrases seems to be problematic. In this connection, the question arises: why should this distinction be made at all? It seems that such a distinction is essential if word-formation is regarded from a purely structural perspective, as a module of grammar used to produce structures of some fixed set of types. However, if word-formation is regarded from a functional perspective, as a collection of different structural resources of a given language that can be employed in a referential function, drawing the distinction between atomic phrases and compounds seems to be unnecessary. From a functional perspective, all constructions attested in a given language can be regarded as a pool out of which different types of structural possibilities can be employed in different functions. Word-formation can then be regarded as a subset of structural possibilities within this pool. This subset includes only those structural resources of a given language that can be used in a referential function. Which constructions are more suitable for which function and hence are used in a given function more often is largely determined by pragmatic principles. Motsch (2004: 26–27), for instance, mentions such pragmatic principles of word-formation as condensation of information, semantic interpretability and pragmatic usefulness of a certain concept. For instance, the principle of condensation of information might explain why units such as in (17a) are more often employed to name some concept than the units in (17d–f). The function of a given construct often shapes its properties. Thus, constructs fulfilling a referential function usually exhibit such a property as syntactic atomicity. Given the considerations above, it seems unnecessary to draw the borderline between compounding and syntax along the traditional lines in the present study. Word-formation of Early Sranan can be regarded as a pool of constructions naming objects, states, events, etc., i.e. serving a referential function. As was the case with the examples involving specific markers in section 5.4.4 above, the term ‘construct’ can be used to refer to the outputs of different structural and semantic patterns employed in the referential function. Those patterns where certain positions are fixed, such as N-fo-N constructs (e.g. kassi fo klossi (boxfor-clothes) ‘wardrobe’) can again be presented in the form of Booij’s (2005) constructional idioms, i.e. multiword units with certain positions fixed. Since the same convention has been suggested for the affixation-compounding borderline above, this would make possible a uniform analysis of all types of units serving a referential function in Early Sranan.

5.6

Conclusion

This chapter dealt with the theoretical background of the present study. First, some pertinent notions, such as ‘word-formation’, ‘word’ and ‘complex word’, have been clarified. It has been shown that wordhood in the Early Sranan data will mainly be estab-

75 lished on the basis of syntactic (atomicity) and functional criteria (referentiality). Complex words have been defined as words that consist of at least two elements one of which is a unit of form and meaning, and the other one can be either a unit of form and meaning, or a cranberry morph, or a process. Additionally, it has been argued that complexity in creole languages can be defined in the same way as in non-creole languages and that decisions about complexity of words should be based on morphological rather than etymological evidence. Another concern of the present chapter was to find ways of dealing with affixationcompounding and compound-phrase distinctions which are problematic in general and in Early Sranan in particular because of the historic type and the analytic nature of the data. With respect to both distinctions, it has been shown that neat boundaries are difficult to establish on the basis of the criteria and approaches advanced so far. Besides, it has been pointed out that traditional distinctions might also distract morphologists from other important distinctions and insights the data might have in store for them. It has been suggested that a descriptive framework along the lines of Booij’s (2005, 2007) Construction Morphology makes possible an adequate analysis of Early Sranan data. Within this framework, the boundaries between affixation and compounding, as well as between compounding and syntax are not drawn, and the data analysis focuses on individual constructs and wordformation patterns which can be established on the basis of the constructs attested. Moreover, it has been suggested that a functional perspective might be rather useful for an analysis of word-formation data. Before starting the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation patterns, it has to be clarified how the issue of multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexical items can be treated in the present study. This is necessary in order to find out whether multifunctionality is a wordformation process and in order to be able to make observations about the types of syntactic categories involved in Early Sranan word-formation patterns. Therefore, the next chapter will be devoted to the analysis of multifunctionality.

6

Multifunctionality of lexical items in Early Sranan

6.1

Introduction

Multifunctionality1 is the property of a given lexeme to manifest functions and features typical of more than one word-class (cf. Lefebvre 2001: 109). Multifunctionality is a widespread phenomenon in creole languages (Lefebvre 2001, Voorhoeve 1981: 25), and Early Sranan does not make an exception in this respect. For instance, out of 902 simplex word entries in Schumann’s (1783) dictionary, 238 are multifunctional.2 Quite a number of studies have touched upon or dealt with multifunctional items in Sranan (Bruyn 1995a, 1996, Plag 1993, 1994, Sebba 1981, 1986, Seuren 1986, Voorhoeve 1981). However, there is no detailed general account of multifunctionality in Early Sranan. Such an account is necessary since the presence of a not inconsiderable number of multifunctional items in Early Sranan raises interesting empirical and theoretical questions. For instance, what is the extent and the nature of multifunctionality of lexical items in Early Sranan? How can word-class membership be determined in Early Sranan, a language with analytical morphology? And is multifunctionality of lexical items in Early Sranan a directional process? The present chapter deals with these and a number of other questions concerning multifunctionality. In section 6.2, some general methodological issues and problems arising with the study of multifunctionality in Early Sranan will be addressed. For instance, it will be discussed on the basis of which criteria Early Sranan lexemes can be grouped into wordclasses and how word-class membership of a given item can be established. Besides, it will be shown when a given item will be regarded as multifunctional in Early Sranan. In section 6.3, the discussion of methodological issues will be followed by an empirical analysis of the multifunctionality patterns attested in Early Sranan. In addition to an overview of multifunctional patterns attested in Early Sranan, this section will also contain some observations about the parallels between Early Sranan and its substratum languages in terms of multifunctionality. Section 6.4 will be devoted to the discussion of different theoretical approaches to the issue of multifunctionality. The purpose of this discussion will be to find an adequate theoretical account of multifunctionality in Early Sranan.

– 1 2

See section 5.3 for reasons of preferring the term ‘multifunctionality’ in this study. Counting the percentage of multifunctional items is not quite unproblematic since it is unclear in relation to what they should be counted. In the present study, only simplex word entries were counted because complex items are first, derived items, and second, they are almost never multifunctional in Early Sranan. The reasons for the non-multifunctionality of complex items will be discussed in section 6.4.3. It is also worth mentioning here that Schumann (1783) contains a relatively large number of names of animals, plants and diseases: approximately 100 items. These items are also never multifunctional for reasons which will be discussed in section 6.4.3. This fact should be borne in mind because if the number of these items is subtracted from the overall number of simplex entries, the number of multifunctional items among the simplex word entries attested in Schumann’s dictionary amounts to approximately 35 percent.

77

6.2

Multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes: methodological aspects

6.2.1 Establishing word-class membership of Early Sranan lexemes An important methodological issue that has to be clarified in any empirical study of multifunctionality is how, i.e. on the basis of what properties or criteria, words in a given language can be grouped into classes, or, more specifically, how word-class membership of a given lexeme can be identified. This section is devoted to the discussion of this issue with respect to Early Sranan. From antiquity on linguists have tried to group words into classes, and criteria for classifying words into word-classes are still a matter of heated debate (see Knobloch and Schaeder (2000, 2005) and contributions in Vogel and Comrie (2000)). Generally, four types of criteria have been used for establishing word-classes: morphological (i.e. the morphological make-up of lexemes, such as the presence of inflection), syntactic (i.e. the syntactic positions of lexemes and their combinability with other lexemes), semantic (i.e. their meaning) and functional (i.e. the pragmatic (or communicative) functions of the items in discourse, such as reference, modification, predication (Croft 2000, Vogel 1996, 2000, 2005, cf. Hopper and Thompson 1984)). These criteria have been used separately and in combination with each other, and consequently, word-class systems that differ in both the types and the number of word-classes have been developed. Each set of criteria bears a number of problems and until now there is no uncontroversial classification of lexemes in terms of word-classes (Evans 2000, Kaltz 2000, Knobloch and Schaeder 2000). However, there is a growing agreement about the fact that different criteria correlate with each other. It has been argued, for instance, that the semantic meaning of a word correlates with its syntactic behaviour (Beck 2002, Bhat 1994, Croft 2000) or that the syntactic behaviour of word-classes is a reflection of cross-linguistic pragmatic functions such as reference, modification and predication on the one hand, and semantic classes, such as object, property, action on the other (Croft 2000, 2001). Early Sranan words, similarly to words in Classical Chinese, cannot be grouped into classes on the basis of morphological criteria because they do not have any inflections. But Early Sranan words can be grouped into classes on the basis of their pragmatic functions and their semantic and syntactic properties. In the remainder of this section, Early Sranan lexemes will be investigated with respect to their pragmatic functions, as well as semantic and syntactic properties. It will be shown how specific combinations of certain functions with certain syntactic and semantic properties allow us to group words into classes and thus to establish word-class membership of a given lexeme. The analysis below draws to a certain extent on the ideas expressed in Croft (2000) and in Hopper and Thompson (1984). The types of most common pragmatic functions which will be employed in this study, such as reference, modification and predication, are taken from Croft (2000) and Vogel (2000, 2005). Their definitions are based, although with some modifications, on Croft (2000) and Hopper and Thompson (1984). Definitions of other pragmatic functions are partially based on a number of definitions advanced in works dealing with word-class typology which will be mentioned in the course of discussion below. An important remark due here is that word-classes will be regarded in the present study as categories which can be assigned to

78 lexemes at the level of syntax when lexemes fulfil certain pragmatic functions and occur in certain syntactic contexts. The justification of this view will be provided in section 6.4.3. A great number of Early Sranan items refer to participants in discourse, i.e. they are used in the function of reference. Such items are illustrated in (1). (1)

a.

b.

c.

d.

mi bakka hati mi my back hurt me ‘My back hurts me.’ Schumann (1783: 9): ‘Der Rücken tut mir weh.’ da mann gi mi da belle DEF man give me DEF belly ‘The man made me pregnant.’ Schumann (1783: 14): ‘Ich bin von diesem Mann schwanger.’ pratì dem boi, joe no si dem$ de féti separate DEF.PL boy 2PL NEG see 3PL CNT fight ‘Separate the boys, don’t you see that they are fighting?’ Focke (1855: 108): ‘Scheidt die knapen, ziet gij dan niet dat zij vechten?’ wi pikkado platti wi nanga Gado our sin separate 1PL with God ‘Our sins separate us from God.’ Schumann (1783: 139): ‘Unsere Sünden scheiden uns von Gott.’

All items in (1) serve to refer to participants in discourse: for instance, bakka in (1a) refers to the body part which is the source of pain, mann in (1b) to a person who is the agent of the action expressed by gi, boi in (1c) to a person who is the patient, pikkado in (1d) to the source of separation. Items fulfilling the function of reference usually exhibit specific syntactic behaviour: they can take determiners, as is the case with the lexemes bakka ‘back’ in (1a), mann ‘man’ in (1b) and pikkado in (1d). Besides, they can be pluralised, as boi ‘boy’ in (1c). Semantically, such items normally denote physical entities (objects, persons, substances, etc.), as in (1a–c), or abstract entities, as in (1d). The function of reference is often associated with nouns in the languages of the world. Hence, Early Sranan items which fulfil the function of reference and exhibit the properties just described can be regarded as nouns. There are many items in Early Sranan that serve to provide a narrower description of referents in discourse by assigning certain properties to them (cf. Croft 1991: 52), i.e. they fulfil the function of reference modification. Examples of such items are provided in (2): (2)

a.

b.

wan óuwroe mamà INDEF old woman ‘an old woman’ Focke (1855: 94): ‘een oude bes’ datti wan morro bunne somma that INDEF more good person ‘That is a better person.’ Schumann (1783: 25): no translation provided

79 c.

d.

wan tóemoesi moi Mísi INDEF very beautiful lady ‘a very beautiful lady’ Focke (1855: 139): ‘eene zeer schoone dame’ ju wanni jam boli banna? 2SG want eat cooked banana ‘Do you want to eat cooked banana?’ Schumann (1783: 20): no translation provided

The function of reference modification goes hand in hand with a number of specific semantic and syntactic properties. As can be inferred from (2), in Early Sranan, items fulfilling this function usually denote properties. Syntactically, such items occur in attributive position in NPs: they precede the head nouns. Besides, they usually occupy the innermost position with respect to the noun, i.e. they occur after determiners, such as wan. Furthermore, they can form degrees of comparison by means of morro ‘more’, as in (2b), and can take preposed adverbial modifiers, such as tóemoesi ‘very’ in (2c). Another property of these items is that they can be used in the nominalising construction with the postposed pronoun wan ‘one’, as in ourewan ‘old one’, wan bunnewan ‘a good one’, da moiwan ‘the beautiful one’, boliwan ‘boiled one’ (Schumann 1783: 128, 25, 195, 20). Since the function of reference modification is usually associated with the class of adjectives in the languages of the world, lexemes attested in this function and exhibiting the semantic and the syntactic properties just listed can be regarded as adjectives in Early Sranan. Many Early Sranan items which can fulfil the function of reference modification are also attested in a different function. They can additionally assign states and actions to the referents of the subject, i.e. fulfil the function of predication. This is illustrated by means of the items óuwroe and boli which, besides the function of reference modification shown in (2a) and (2d) above, also serve the function of predication, as illustrated in (3a) and (3b): (3)

a.

a óuwroe so té a fou 3SG old so till 3SG be-wrinkled ‘He/she is so old that he/she is wrinkled.’ Focke (1855: 35): ‘hij (zij) is krom van ouderdom.’

b.

mi boli janjam 1SG cook food/meal ‘I cook the meal.’ Schumann (1783: 20): ‘Ich koche Essen.’

In (3a), óuwroe assigns the state of being old to the referent of the subject expressed by the pronoun a. In (3b), boli assigns the action of boiling to the referent of the subject. Items serving the function of predication are often regarded as verbs cross-linguistically. However, items attested in both functions, reference modification and predication, especially such items as óuwroe, which are often referred to as ‘stative verbs’ because they denote states when used in the function of predication, have raised a lot of discussion in word-class typology research (Bhat 1994, Dixon 1982, Rijkhoff 2000). It has been a matter of debate whether such items should be regarded as adjectives or as verbs. For instance,

80 Hengeveld (1992) has suggested for Chinese that a separate category should be established for such items. With regard to Modern Sranan, there are two different approaches to the analysis of the items of the óuwroe-type.3 Advocates of the first approach (Migge 2000, Sebba 1986, Winford 1993, 1997) argue that items of the óuwroe-type should be regarded as verbs when they occur in predicative position without a copula and as adjectives when they are attested in attributive position. Arguments in favour of such an analysis are based on a number of syntactic and semantic properties of these items. It has been argued that when such items occur in predicative position, they behave like all other verbs: they take TMA markers, can be predicate clefted, take adverbial modifiers, can be used inchoatively and occur without the copula de. When used in attributive position, they behave like adjectives: they can occur with other adjectives in NPs and can be modified by degree adverbs (Migge 2000: 223). The advocate of the second approach, Seuren (1981, 1986), argues that adjectives in the predicative slot should be treated as adjectives with an underlying copula. This copula either fails to manifest itself or surfaces as de in some constructions, e.g. questions like O bradi a liba de? meaning ‘How broad is the river?’. Seuren also suggests that since the position of predication is typical of adjectives, items like óuwroe should be regarded as adjectives when they occur in this position. In the present study, such items as óuwroe will be regarded as adjectives when they function as reference modifiers and as verbs when they assign states to the referents of subjects. This will be done because of a number of considerations. First, contrary to what Seuren (1986) reports, the predication position is prototypically verbal, and not adjectival (Bhat 1994, 2000, Evans 2000: 714, Vogel 1996: 193). For instance, Bhat (2000: 53) argues that in languages with no overt distinction between nouns, verbs and adjectives, adjectives are often decategorised as verbs when occupying predicative position, which means that they retain some of the characteristics of their basic category and also acquire the properties of the category which is prototypically reserved for this position. Second, such items as óuwroe display two different types of combinations of functional, semantic and syntactic features. As mentioned earlier in this section, when they function as reference modifiers, they exhibit a set of specific semantic and syntactic features: they denote properties, occur in attributive position, can take degrees of comparison, can be modified by preposed adverbs and occur in the nominalising construction with the pronoun wan ‘one’. By contrast, when fulfilling the function of predication, they exhibit a different set of semantic and syntactic properties, which will be discussed below. These are properties which are in general characteristic of the items attested in the function of predication. One of the properties of Early Sranan items serving the function of predication is their ability to be used inchoatively, as is shown in the following examples. Schumann (1783: 174) provides these examples together as a pattern. De is a continuous marker in these examples:

– 3

Note that there is a difference in terminology applied to the items such as óuwroe which, besides assigning properties to referents, can also assign states to the referents of subjects. Sebba (1986) calls them ‘stative verbs’, whereas Migge (2000) uses the term ‘property items’. Migge (2000: 216) shows that since such verbs as siki ‘to be sick’, biggi ‘to be big’, etc. may display inchoative and completive meanings, they should be regarded as non-stative.

81 (4)

tappo de blakka tappo de krini tappo de bari

‘The heaven is getting black.’ ‘The heaven is getting clear.’ ‘The heaven is crying.’ (‘It is thundering.’)

The items blakka ‘to be black’ and krini ‘to be clean/to be clear’ are attested in both attributive and predicative positions in Early Sranan. The item bari ‘to cry’ is not attested in attributive position. Remarkably, all three items behave similarly in (4): like bari, the items blakka and krini do not additionally take the Early Sranan copula de. Similar behaviour can be observed with other TMA markers, for instance, with the past tense marker ben (< Engl. been): (5)

a.

No pikin siki ju ben siki NEG small illness 2SG PST be-sick ‘Not a small illness you were ill with.’ Schumann (1783: 155): ‘Du bist sehr hart krank gewesen.’

b.

Mi no ben zi joe. 1SG NEG PST see 2SG Arends (1995b: 128): ‘I didn’t see you.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 22): ‘Ik zag u niet.’

In (5), both the lexeme siki ‘sick’ and the lexeme zi ‘see’ occur with the past tense marker ben. The lexeme siki is attested in both functions in Early Sranan, the function of reference modification and the function of predication, whereas the lexeme zi is attested in the function of predication only. However, the lexeme siki behaves similarly to the lexeme zi with respect to the marker ben: like zi, it does not take the copula de. Note that in sentences with predicative complements expressed by PPs, the copula de is used in Early Sranan, as in Wi ben de na hem (1PL-PST-COP-on-3SG) ‘We were at his place’ (Schumann 1783: 27). Another syntactic property of items fulfilling the function of predication is that they can take adverbs as postposed modifiers, as in (6a) and (6b). By contrast, items fulfilling the function of reference modification take preposed modifiers in NPs, as in (6c), where tóemoesi ‘very’ is an adverb: (6)

a.

Joe lau te moesi. 2SG be-crazy too much Arends (1995b: 126): ‘You are completely crazy.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 22): ‘Je bent al te gek.’

b.

mi hatti tappa, teh mi ronn tumussi my breath empede if 1SG run too much ‘I am short-winded, if I run a lot.’ Schumann (1783: 61): ‘Von starkem Laufen krieg ich kurzen Atem.’

c.

wan tóemoesi moi Mísi INDEF very beautiful lady ‘a very beautiful lady’ Focke (1855: 139): ‘eene zeer schoone dame’

82 Note that a number of items which can fulfil the function of predication exhibit, besides the syntactic properties mentioned above, an additional property: they can take complements such as NP complements, as in (7a), or clausal complements, as in (7b): (7)

a.

boli wan ham cook INDEF ham Arends (1995b: 173): ‘Cook a ham.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 54): ‘Kookt een Ham.’

b.

mi bribi, a sa ben komm 1SG believe 3SG FUT PST come ‘I believe he will have come.’ Schumann (1783: 15): ‘Ich glaube, er wird mal gekommen seyn.’

Semantically, items used in predication function usually denote states, as in (6a), or actions, as in (6b) and (7). To conclude, Early Sranan items which assign states or actions to the referents of the subject exhibit semantic and syntactic properties different from items which serve the function of reference modification. The former denote states and actions and exhibit the following syntactic properties: take TMA markers, can be used with postposed adverbial modifiers and occur without the copula de in predicative position. Such items will be regarded as verbs in Early Sranan. A number of Early Sranan words serve to help the hearer to identify participants verbally mentioned and/or physically present in a given discourse context or serve to inquire about participants (cf. Evans 2000: 716, Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 425, Schwarz 2000: 783, 790). Such items are exemplified in (8): (8)

a.

grantanki mi go na koekeroe fo jam please 1SG go to kitchen for eat ‘Can I please go to the kitchen to eat.’ Arends (1995b: 193): ‘Can I please go to the kitchen to have dinner?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 72): ‘Ik zal als het u beliefd na de Keuken gaan om te Eeten.’

b.

platti datti na fo pisi divide that into four piece ‘Divide that into four pieces.’ Schumann (1783: 139): ‘Teile das in 4 Stücke.’

c.

Gi mi ini-wan give 1SG any-one ‘Give me anyone.’ Focke (1855: 146): ‘Geef mij welke gij wilt, ‘t is mij onverschillig.’

d.

Hoe zomma kalle mi QM person call me Arends (1995b: 128): ‘Who’s calling me?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 23): ‘Wie roept myn.’

83 e.

a go we lange den bakkera disi ben de ja. 3SG go away with DEF.PL white REL PST there Arends (1995b: 216): ‘He went with the whites who were here.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 93): ‘Hy is uitgegaan met de Blanken, die hier geweest zyn.’

Items such as in (8) share some syntactic properties with nouns: they occur in similar syntactic positions nouns do and are heads of NPs. However, they also differ from nouns in a number of syntactic properties. First, they do not take determiners and cannot be modified by adjectives. Second, they substitute noun phrases. The function of participant identification in a given context is usually ascribed to pronouns. Items which serve this function and exhibit the syntactic features just mentioned will be regarded as pronouns in the present study. As the data in (8) show, there are different semantic types of pronouns in Early Sranan, e.g. personal pronouns, such as mi ‘I’ in (8a), resumptive pronouns, such as datti ‘that’ in (8b), indefinite pronouns, such as ini-wan ‘anyone’ in (8c), interrogative pronouns, as in (8d), and relative pronouns, as in (8e). There are also items in Early Sranan whose function is to specify participants in discourse in terms of their “discourse or spatial status” (Schwarz 2000: 783), e.g. in terms of definiteness, as in, for instance, (9a), or indefiniteness, as in (9b): (9)

a.

hutem da biggi areên sa setti? QM-time DEF big rain FUT start ‘When will the big rain-season begin?’ Schumann (1783: 7): ‘Wann wird die große Regenzeit anfangen?’

b.

wan Mamà ben de INDEF old-woman PST be-there ‘There was an old woman.’ Focke (1855: 10): ‘Daar was eens een oude vrouw.’

c.

dissi netti mi drem this night 1SG dream ‘I dreamt this night.’ Schumann (1783: 36): ‘Diese Nacht träumte ich.’

d.

da Ningre dissi DEF black this ‘this black’ Schumann (1783: 32): ‘dieser Neger’

e.

da wan tákroe doe datti it-be INDEF evil deed that ‘That is an evil deed.’ Focke (1855: 24): ‘Dat zijn slechte manieren.’

f.

Mastra mino kan tappe mi moffe master 1SG-NEG can close my mouth Arends (1995b: 198): ‘I can’t keep my mouth shut, master.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 77): ‘Meester ik kan niet zwygen.’

84 The items in (9) exhibit a number of specific semantic and syntactic properties. They can denote definiteness (e.g. da, datti, dissi), indefiniteness (e.g. wan), or belonging (e.g. mi). Syntactically, they normally occur in the outmost position in NPs, as illustrated in (9a). Besides, some of the items in (9) can appear either only in postposition with respect to the head noun, as datti ‘that’ in (9e),4 or in both pre- and postposition with respect to the head noun, as e.g. dissi ‘this’ in (9c) and (9d). Early Sranan items exhibiting the function of specification in combination with the semantic and the syntactic features just mentioned will be regarded as determiners.5 There are a number of items in Early Sranan whose function is to quantify or to order participants within a given set (cf. Greenberg 2000: 770). Some examples of such items are provided in (10): (10) a.

toe joe ben hábi, en wan mi gi joe de, a komm dri two 2SG PST have and one 1SG give 2SG there 3SG come three ‘You had two, and I gave you one, together it makes three.’ Focke (1855: 61): ‘Twee hadt gij er reeds, nu geef ik u er een bij, – dat maakt drie.’

b.

Mi za kom bakke toe offe drie moen. 1SG FUT come back two or three month Arends (1995b: 144): ‘I’ll be back in two or three months.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 33): ‘Ik kom over twee of drie Maanden weêrom.’

c.

effi tu tarra somma go if two other people go ‘If two other people go.’ Schumann (1783: 189): ‘Wenn 2 andere Leute gehen.’

As can be inferred from (10), the items in question denote numerical concepts (e.g. numbers). Syntactically, they exhibit similarities to nouns and adjectives. For instance, in (10a), the items toe, wan and dri are heads of noun phrases and hence similar to nouns in syntactic terms. In (10b), the items toe and drie immediately precede nouns and thus bear some similarity to adjectives in terms of their position. However, there are also syntactic differences between the items in (10) and adjectives. Thus, as the example in (10c) shows, the position of tu is not exactly the same as that of adjectives since tu occurs in a more external position than the adjective tarra with respect to the head noun in the noun phrase tu tarra somma. The functional, semantic and syntactic characteristics described above are generally attributed to numerals (see Greenberg (2000) for a general discussion of numerals). Hence, such items as in (10) will be regarded as numerals in the present study. Some Early Sranan items serve to provide additional, circumstantial, information about actions, properties or propositions, i.e. they fulfil the function of action, or property, or proposition modification:

– 4

5

According to Bruyn (1995a: 129–130, 1998: 34), this postposition might have been influenced by the substratum languages. A detailed description of Sranan determiners is provided in Bruyn (1995a).

85 (11) a.

hoe fa joe kan takki zo QM fashion 2SG can talk so ‘How can you say so?’ Arends (1995b: 163): ‘How can you say that?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 46): ‘How kan U Ed. zulks zeggen.’

b.

Mi slibi zo lange tem 1SG sleep so long time ‘Did I sleep for so long a time?’ Arends (1995b: 183): ‘Did I sleep for so long?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 63): ‘Heb ik zoo lang Geslaapen.’

c.

issredeh mi planti da siri yesterday 1SG plant DEF seed ‘I planted the seeds yesterday.’ Schumann (1783: 139): ‘Gestern habe ich den Saamen gesäet, od. die Körner gesteckt.’

The item zo in (11a) modifies the action denoted by takki in terms of manner, and in (11b) it modifies the property ‘long’ expressed by the item langa in terms of degree. The item issredei in (11c) modifies the whole proposition in temporal terms. Syntactically, such items display a greater range of positions within sentences than items serving the function of reference modification: they can immediately follow verbs, as in (11a), or precede adjectives, as in (11b), or occur sentence-initially, as in (11c). In contrast to reference modification items, whose position is mostly restricted to NPs, items serving the function of property/action/proposition modification are not immediate constituents of NPs. Items such as in (11) denote a relatively wide range of concepts, such as manner, as in (11a), degree, as in (11b), time, as in (11c), etc. Since modification of non-nominal heads is often associated with adverbs (cf. Vogel 2000: 272), Early Sranan items exhibiting the combination of functional, semantic and syntactic properties just described will be regarded as adverbs. Another class of words that can be identified in Early Sranan includes items serving to establish relations between different participants in discourse. They are exemplified in (12): (12) a.

Potti hatti na hede. put hat on head Arends (1995b: 124): ‘Put on your hat.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 20): ‘Zet uw Hoed op.’

b.

wan va dem ben du one of 3PL PST do ‘One of them did it.’ Schumann (1783: 191): ‘Einer von Ihnen hats getan.’

c.

pótti na táppoe táfra put on top table ‘Put (it) on the table.’ Focke (1855: 86): ‘Zet het op de tafel.’

86 The function of relation correlates with a certain syntactic behaviour: many of the Early Sranan items whose function is to indicate relations take NP complements, as shown in (12a) and (12b). In terms of their meaning, such items denote spatial, temporal, causal, etc. relations. The function of relation is generally associated with the word-class of prepositions, therefore, the items in question will be viewed as prepositions here. However, the example in (12c) is a less straightforward case and needs a more careful examination. It differs from the items in (12a) and (12b) in the following two features. First, it occurs after another preposition, na ‘on/at/to’. Second, as shown in (13) below, it is also attested as a noun meaning ‘top/heaven’. (13) A didón na mi táppoe 3SG sit on my top ‘He/she/it sits on me/on my top.’ Focke (1855: 132): ‘Hij (zij, het) ligt op mij.’ There are several other items in Early Sranan similar to táppoe in these two features, such as fesi ‘face/in front of’, middri ‘middle/in the middle of’, bakka ‘back/behind/after’. There has been a discussion with respect to such items whether they should be regarded as prepositions when they occur after the preposition na and take an NP complement. For instance, Bruyn (1996: 33) suggests that such items as táppoe should be regarded as compound prepositions when they occur with the preposition na ‘on/at/to’ and as simple prepositions when they occur without na. The latter use is attested in 20th-century Sranan only. Plag (1994) argues on the basis of various syntactic tests (independent occurrence as a sentence fragment, coordination, stranding, pied-piping) that when occurring after na and in front of an NP, táppoe and similar items should be regarded as prepositions taking NPs as their complements. Plag (1994: 339) suggests that the structure of such phrases as na táppoe táfra can be presented as follows (cf. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 640) for English): (14) [PP na [PP táppoe [NP táfra]]] All in all, it can be pointed out that similarly to other prepositions, for instance, those illustrated in (12a) and (12b), such items as táppoe exhibit a combination of a certain function (to indicate relation) with certain syntactic properties (e.g. the use with an NP complement) and can be regarded as prepositions in Early Sranan. Besides, the structure in (14) shows that prepositions in Early Sranan can take not only NP complements, but also PP complements. In general, it seems that there is no need to postulate the category of compound prepositions, as Bruyn (1996) does, because although na and táppoe surface together, each of them can be regarded as a preposition in its own right on the basis of its functional, semantic and syntactic properties. Finally, there is a group of items in Early Sranan whose function is to connect two or more parts of discourse to each other. Examples of such items are provided in (15): (15) a.

ju teki sanni, kaba ju no pai mi 2SG take thing but 2SG NEG pay 1SG ‘You take things, but you do not pay me.’ Schumann (1783: 129): no translation provided

87 b.

Aránja moe groen, bifósi a lépi orange must be-green before 3SG be-ripe ‘An orange must be green, before it becomes ripe.’ Focke (1855: 11): ‘Een oranjeappel moet eerst groen zijn, eer hij rijp wordt.’

c.

Tê joe kabà, joe kann go. when 2SG finish 2SG can go ‘When you have finished, you can go.’ Focke (1855: 133): ‘Als gij ‘t afhebt, kunt gij gaan.’

Thus, the items kaba, bifósi and tê in (15) connect two propositions with each other. Syntactically, the items in question often occur clause-initially and either coordinate constituents of equal status, as in (15a), or subordinate constituents of unequal status, as in (15b) and (15c). Another syntactic feature is that they connect constituents of the same syntactic type: for instance, in the examples above, the elements kaba, bifósi and tê connect two clauses. Such items have been traditionally classified as conjunctions. However, as Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 599) maintain, within such a traditional approach, conjunctions are viewed as different from prepositions because they take clauses as complements whereas prepositions take NPs, PPs, AdvPs and AdjPs as complements. For instance, the English lexeme before would normally be regarded as a preposition in (16a) below because it takes an NP complement, but as a conjunction in (16b) because it takes a clause complement: (16) a. b.

They wanted to arrive before dawn. Before they went back to Italy, they visited Mary.

Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 599–600) argue that the difference in complements is not a principled ground to draw the borderline between prepositions and conjunctions. Their argument is based on the fact that although verbs in English can generally take both NP and clause complements, they are not divided into two different word-classes on this ground. There is no doubt that prepositions and conjunctions have some features in common. In the present study, however, the difference between prepositions and conjunctions will be made because of two considerations. First, there seems to be a difference in function between them. Whereas conjunctions serve to establish connections, prepositions establish relations. Second, syntactically, conjunctions connect constituents of the same syntactic type, whereas prepositions do not show this restriction. To conclude, word-class membership of Early Sranan lexemes can be established on the basis of their pragmatic functions and on the basis of semantic and syntactic features which go hand in hand with a particular function. Note that the functions and features described above are prototypical, and some items do not exhibit the full range of features usually associated with a given word-class. For instance, not all items used in the function of reference can be pluralised and not all reference modification items take adverbial modifiers. In general, a more detailed investigation of word-classes in Early Sranan is called for. But in the context of the present study, the procedure of combining pragmatic function with semantic and syntactic features described in this section proved to be a useful tool for identifying word-class membership of Early Sranan lexemes in a straightforward

88 way in the majority of cases. This procedure was used in the empirical analysis of Early Sranan multifunctional lexemes whose results will be presented in section 6.3 below.

6.2.2 Identifying multifunctional lexemes in Early Sranan Besides the procedure required for the identification of word-class membership of Early Sranan lexemes discussed in the previous section, another important methodological issue which has to be clarified in a study of multifunctionality is how multifunctionality of a given item can be established, or, in other words, what method can be applied to find out which items are multifunctional in Early Sranan and which are not. In the present study, mainly two methods can be employed to find this out. The first method consists in investigating the function, as well as the semantic and the syntactic properties of each item attested in the sources on the basis of examples provided. If a given item exhibits a combination of properties typical of more than one word-class, it can then be regarded as multifunctional. This method, which can be called ‘example-based’, will be exemplified by means of the lexeme pikin (< Portug. pequeno) below. This lexeme is attested in a number of sentences and phrases, as shown in (17): (17) a.

da mi pikin it-be my child ‘That is my child.’ Schumann (1783: 135): ‘Das ist mein Kind.’

b.

da pikin dringi bobbi DEF child drink breast ‘The child drinks from the breast.’ Schumann (1783: 19): ‘Das Kind trinkt an der Brust.’

c.

dem pikin DEF.PL child ‘the children’ Schumann (1783: 29): ‘die Kinder’

d.

wan pikin hangisa INDEF small towel ‘a small towel’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘ein kleines Tuch’

e.

da hosso pikin tumussi DEF house be-small very much ‘The house is too small.’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘Das Haus ist allzuklein.’

f.

fumm hem pikin beat 3SG a little ‘Beat him a little.’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘Schlag ihn ein bisgen!’

89 g.

mi wanni wan pikin-langawan 1SG want INDEF a little long-one ‘I want one which is a bit long.’ Schumann (1783: 195): ‘Ich möchte einen etwas langen (z.B. Stock).’

In (17a–c), pikin refers to participants in discourse. Syntactically, it can take determiners, as in (17a) and (17b), or can be used with the plural marker dem, as in (17c). Semantically, it denotes a person. On the basis of this combination of function and semantic as well as syntactic features, it can be concluded that pikin can be regarded as a noun in (17a–c). In (17d), pikin serves to modify the referent of hangisa by assigning it the property of being small. It occurs in attributive position in an NP and denotes a property. On the basis of these properties, pikin can be regarded as an adjective in (17d). In (17e), pikin denotes a state, more precisely, a state of being small, and assigns this state to the referent of the subject. Besides, it takes the subject da hosso and is modified by the postposed adverb tumussi. It is therefore a verb in (17e). In (17f), pikin provides circumstantial information about the action expressed by fumm and in (17g) about the property expressed by langa, i.e. it modifies an action and a property respectively. In (17f), it occurs after the complement of the verb fumm ‘to beat’. In (17g), it occurs in front of the adjective langa ‘long’. It denotes a degree in both cases. Hence, it can be regarded as an adverb in (17f–g). It can be concluded on the basis of the example-based method applied to the lexeme pikin that it should be regarded as multifunctional since the analysis of the examples from the Early Sranan sources shows that it exhibits combinations of properties attributable to more than one word-class. Ideally, for the example-based method to be employed successfully, whole sentences should be investigated. Unfortunately, the usage of a given item in the sources of Early Sranan is often exemplified in phrases, and not in whole sentences. Phrases can quite often be as useful as whole sentences in an investigation of multifunctionality. For instance, the examples in (17c) and (17d) are phrases, but they suffice to establish the properties of pikin. Therefore, in the present study, both whole sentences and phrases will be used to find out whether a given item is multifunctional. However, the problem with the example-based method described above is that in the two larger sources used in the present study, Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855), which are dictionaries, a number of lexemes are either exemplified in just one sentence/phrase or not exemplified at all. This has the consequence that not all multifunctional items can be detected by this method. Therefore, besides using the example-based method, one more method of detecting multifunctionality can be employed with respect to Early Sranan data. The second method, which will be referred to as ‘author-based’ here, is to check whether any information about multifunctionality of a given item is provided explicitly by the authors of the sources. There is no such explicit information in Van Dyk (c1765). This can be explained by the fact that this source is a language manual. Schumann (1783) also does not provide any word-class labels in the entries he lists in his dictionary. But he provides translations that often enable us to make assumptions about word-class membership of a given item. For instance, in the entry for the word bíta, Schumann (1783: 18) provides the following translations: “bitter; bitter seyn; die Galle” (bitter/to be bitter/bile). These translations allow an assumption that the item bíta is multifunctional and can be an adjective, a

90 verb and a noun. However, Schumann (1783: 151) provides only one sentence with this item: sedru hudu bita, worm no jam hem (ceder-wood-bitter-worm-NEG-eat-it) ‘Ceder wood is bitter, worm does not eat it.’ which illustrates its verbal usage only. Focke (1855) provides word-class labels for almost every lexical item which has a separate entry in his dictionary. But examples illustrating different types of use of a given lexeme are missing in a number of cases. For instance, in the entry for the word spóiti, Focke (1855: 126) indicates that it can be a verb and a noun and translates the two into Dutch as spuiten (‘to squirt’) and spuit (‘squirt’) respectively. However, no examples illustrating the use of this item as a verb and/or as a noun are provided. Given these observations, the question arises: can the authors’ comments be relied on in order to find out whether a given item is multifunctional or not? As mentioned in section 4.2, Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855) are highly reliable and linguistically sophisticated sources. Moreover, items whose multifunctional nature can be established by means of the example-based method are often multifunctional according to the author-based method as well. In other words, if both methods described above can be applied to a given item, they often yield the same results. For instance, Schumann (1783: 135) provides the following translations for the lexeme pikin discussed in (17) above: “small/a little/young/child/to be small/to be young”. According to these translations, pikin should be a multifunctional item. The application of the example-based method yields the same result. Hence, it seems reasonable to use the linguistic knowledge of the authors when making decisions about multifunctionality of a given item. This means that when no example sentences with a given item are attested in the sources, but the authors’ translations or comments point to its multifunctional nature, this item will be regarded as multifunctional in the present study. To conclude, a given Early Sranan item will be regarded as multifunctional in the present study if it meets at least one of the following requirements: if it exhibits functional, semantic and syntactic features typical of more than one word-class in the examples provided in the sources and/or if the comments (i.e. translations or word-class labels or both) provided by Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855) point to its multiple word-class membership. So far only the question of whether a given item is multifunctional or not has been clarified. However, the discussion above also raises another methodological question: how can it be tested what word-classes and how many of them can a given item belong to? In other words, how can the types and the range of word-classes of a given multifunctional item be established? In those cases, where examples are available, the functional, semantic and syntactic criteria discussed in the previous section can and will be applied. But how can this be done if only few or no examples with a given item are provided in the sources? Can Schumann’s translations and Focke’s word-class labels be used for this purpose as well? As mentioned above, Schumann’s translations are in most cases rather accurate. For instance, the translations he provides for the lexeme pikin point to the same types and range of wordclasses as the functional and syntactic analysis done on the basis of the examples in (17). The same is true for many word-class labels provided by Focke (1855). Therefore, when the use of a given multifunctional item is not illustrated by examples, Schumann’s translations and Focke’s word-class labels will be used to establish the range and the types of word-classes of a given multifunctional item. Note, however, that if available, examples rather than the authors’ comments will be given primacy in establishing the range and the types of word-classes of a given item. For instance, Focke (1855: 61) classifies kom$ as a

91 verb meaning ‘to come’ and as an adverb meaning ‘here’. However, the analysis based on the examples with kom$ provided in the sources shows that in those examples in which Focke analyses kom$ as an adverb, it should rather be regarded as the second verb of the serial verb construction because it exhibits properties typical of verbs attested in such constructions (cf. Migge 2003a: 90–99). The final methodological remark due here is that the identification of multifunctional items and the analysis of the types and the range of word-classes of a given multifunctional item will be done using examples and the authors’ comments from all three sources. This means that if a given item exhibits the functional, semantic and syntactic features of only one word-class in one of the sources, but of two or more classes in at least one other source, it will be regarded as multifunctional. Besides, the types and the range of word-classes of a given multifunctional item will be regarded as the sum of the types and the range attested in all three sources. This is illustrated by means of the lexeme brei in (18): (18) a.

brei

V A

‘to knit’ ‘knitted’

Sch Sch

b.

brei

V N

‘to knit’ ‘knitting’

Fo Fo

In Van Dyk (c1765), this item is not attested at all. However, in Schumann (1783), brei functions as a verb and as an adjective. In Focke (1855), it is attested as a verb and a noun. By putting these pieces of information together, it can be assumed that brei is a multifunctional item in Early Sranan, which can function as a verb, an adjective and a noun. Such a procedure seems reasonable because, given the comparatively small size of the sources, the absence of some word-class types of a given multifunctional item in one or two of the sources can be accidental. The methodology described in this section has been used as the basis for the empirical analysis of Early Sranan multifunctional items. The results of this analysis are presented in the next section.

6.3

Multifunctionality in Early Sranan: an empirical overview

The present section deals with the analysis of multifunctional patterns attested in Early Sranan. Besides the general description of the patterns, parallels between the multifunctional patterns and items in Early Sranan and in its substratum languages will be drawn where possible. This is necessary in order to see whether substratum influence might have played any role in the emergence of multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes. A considerable number of Early Sranan lexemes can be used as both verbs and nouns, as in (19): (19) a.

drinki

V N

‘to drink’ ‘drink’

92 b.

du

V N

‘to do’ ‘deed’

c.

wánni

V N

‘to want’ ‘will/desire’

Verbs in the multifunctional pattern exemplified in (19) can belong to different subcategories. For instance, the lexeme fervi, besides functioning as a noun, is attested as a transitive and as an intransitive verb: (20) fervi

Vtr/Vintr N

‘to paint/to be painted’ ‘paint’

Multifunctional V/N pattern6 is also attested in Ewe (Schlegel 1856: 18), as is shown in (21): (21) fia

V N V N V N V N

gbe gbo2 nyi

‘to lead’ ‘king’ ‘to say/to talk’ ‘word/language’ ‘to come/to arrive’ ‘side’ ‘to know/to understand’ ‘awareness/knowledge’

However, the common way of creating nouns from verbs in Ewe and Fon is through reduplication. Such reduplicated items often denote results or actions expressed by the corresponding verbs, as e.g. the Fon gba! ‘to construct’, gbI~-gba! ‘construction’ (Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 200), cf. Westermann (1907: 67) for Ewe). In Early Sranan, reduplication is unproductive as a means of forming nouns from verbs, whereas V/N multifunctionality is wide-spread. Another common multifunctional pattern attested in Early Sranan is illustrated in (22): (22) a.

rosi

Vtr/Vintr A

‘to roast/to be roasted’ ‘roasted’

b.

lépi

Vintr A

‘to be ripe/to become ripe’ ‘ripe’

This pattern has interesting parallels in different Gbe varieties. Verbs indicating states can also function as attributive adjectives in Ewe, Fon and other Gbe varieties (Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 349) for Fon, Migge (2000: 227) for Gbe in general, Westermann (1907: 67, 77) for Ewe). However, there is also one significant difference between

– 6

In the present study, the order of elements in multifunctional patterns under discussion is chosen arbitrarily and does not indicate any derivational direction.

93 Early Sranan and Gbe in this respect: whereas most Gbe verbs appear in a reduplicated form in attributive position, Early Sranan attributive adjectives are not reduplicated. Note, however, that in Twi, another substratum language of Early Sranan, attributive adjectives do not always have a reduplicated form, but can appear in their simple form as well, as the following examples show (Christaller 1875: 47): (23) a. b. c.

o2bo! de~nne!ṅ ṅko)de!ṅ dade! ye2~ deṅ

‘a hard stone’ ‘a hard fighting’ ‘iron is hard’

Two other Early Sranan multifunctional patterns include items which can function as adjectives, verbs and nouns or as adjectives, verbs, nouns and adverbs. These patterns are exemplified in (24a) and (24b) respectively. (24) a.

b.

krien

krukkutu

A Vintr/Vtr N

‘clean/pure/clear/bright’ ‘to be clean or pure or clear or bright/to clean/ to shine’ ‘light/shine’

A Vintr N Adv

‘crooked/wrong’ ‘to be crooked/to be wrong’ ‘injustice’ ‘wrong’

Some parallels to the substratum languages of Early Sranan can be drawn on the basis of the data in (24). For instance, the Early Sranan item krien in (24a) bears a similarity to the Ewe item ko~2 (Schlegel 1856: 251): (25) ko~2 ko~2ko~2 ko~2ko~2

V N A

‘to shine/to be bright’ ‘light/shine’ ‘clear/bright/shining/marvelous/holly’

The Early Sranan krien and the Ewe item ko~2 differ in their form: ko~2 has a reduplicated form when it surfaces as an adjective or a noun. The Early Sranan krien, by contrast, can be used as an adjective or a noun without being reduplicated. Despite this difference in form, the two items share many meanings as well as word-classes, as can be inferred from the comparison between (24a) and (25). Items exhibiting A/V/N/Adv pattern also have interesting parallels in another substratum language, Twi. As Christaller (1875: 47) shows, some Twi items can be used as adjectives, verbs, nouns and adverbs. The Twi item fe~2 (fe2w) ‘fine/nice’ is such a case: (26) mfonI!ni fe~2fe!2 agorufe!2w dua! yi ye2~ fe2 ne! fe!2w wo!go~ru fe2fe@⁄fe2

‘a fine picture’ ‘a fine play’ ‘this tree is fine’ ‘its beauty’ ‘they play very nicely’

94 Again, the difference between the Early Sranan multifunctional items of the A/V/N/Adv type and the Twi items of the fe~2-type is that the Twi items surface in a reduplicated form when they function as attributive adjectives and as adverbs, whereas Early Sranan items are not reduplications. Several Early Sranan multifunctional items exhibit the pattern A/Adv/V, as illustrated in (27): (27) a.

b.

róntoe

A Adv V

‘round’ ‘around/round about’ ‘to stand around/to surround’

nuffe

A Adv V

‘enough/many’ ‘enough’ ‘to be enough’

Patterns somewhat similar to the pattern in (27) are attested in Fon. Some Fon verbs, nouns and adjectives can be used as adverbs (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 384), as is shown in (28): (28) a.

su~kpO!

V Adv

‘to be numerous’ ‘a lot’

b.

nu~gbo!

N Adv

‘truth’ ‘frankly’

c.

xwI!I!

A Adv

‘quiet’ ‘quietly’

A small number of Early Sranan words can function as nouns and as prepositions. Some of such words are additionally attested as adverbs and/or adjectives: (29) a.

tappo

N Prep

‘top/heaven’ ‘on/on top of’

b.

middri

N A Prep

‘middle’ ‘middle’ ‘in the middle of/among’

c.

bákka

N Prep Adv A

‘back/the back part’ ‘after/behind’ ‘back/again’ ‘back/last’

Multifunctional items attested as nouns and prepositions also exist in Ewe and Fon. For instance, the Ewe item megbe! bears some semantic similarity to the Early Sranan bákka in (29c) since the former occurs as a noun, ‘back’, and a preposition, ‘behind’ (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 134), for a detailed account of the parallels see Bruyn (1996: 36–37)). Fon has a number of postpositions which are also attested as nouns, such as ta~ ‘at the top

95 of/head’, glu!wE~ ‘under/bottom’ or tE!ntI~n ‘in the middle of/centre/middle’ (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 323). Another Early Sranan multifunctional pattern is illustrated in (30): (30) tak(k)i

V N Conj

‘to say/to mean’ ‘talk’ ‘that’

Takki displays some similarity in terms of word-class membership and meaning to the Fon

∂O~ which, according to Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 115), is attested as the verb ‘to say’ and the complementiser introducing complements of the verbs of saying such as ‘to remember’, ‘to say’, ‘to see’, ‘to think’ and ‘to know’. Three other multifunctional patterns involve conjunctions: (31) a.

leki

V Prep Conj

‘to resemble/to be similar to’ ‘like/than’ ‘than/like/as’

b.

kaba

V Adv Conj

‘to finish/to be finished’ ‘already’ ‘but/and’

c.

tê

Conj Prep Adv

‘till’ ‘till’ ‘much/for a long’

Two multifunctional patterns involve determiners, as shown in (32): (32) a.

wan

Det Pr Num

‘a’ ‘one’ ‘one’

b.

dissi

Det Pr Conj

‘this’ ‘who/the one(s) that’ ‘when/since/because/while’

There are parallels between the items in (32) and some items in the substratum languages. For instance, the Early Sranan wan shows some similarity in terms of word-class membership to the Fon indefinite determiner ∂e! which, according to Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 39), seems to be the reduced form of the numeral o!∂e! ‘one’. Dissi, as Bruyn (1998: 30) shows, has direct correspondences in terms of its word-class membership in several substratum languages, such as the Gbe languages and Kikongo. Bruyn demonstrates that the Ewe demonstrative pronoun e!sI~ can also be a conjunction meaning ‘when/since/because/while’ (cf. Westermann 1907: 61–62). The Early Sranan multifunctional patterns introduced in this section are summarised in (33). The order of word-classes in (33) is arbitrary and should not be interpreted as an indication of the derivational direction in the patterns listed.

96 (33)

N N

N N N N

V V V V V

V V V

A A A A A A

Adv Adv Adv

Prep Prep Prep

Adv Adv

Prep

Conj Conj Conj Conj Conj

Det Det

Pr Pr

Num

Several generalisations can be made on the basis of the discussion above and the overview in (33). The first generalisation is that Early Sranan exhibits a not inconsiderable variety of multifunctional patterns in terms of the types of word-class combinations within each pattern. The second generalisation is that some Early Sranan multifunctional patterns and individual multifunctional items have interesting parallels in the substratum languages in terms of word-class membership. For instance, in the case of bákka, dissi and tak(k)i, the parallels are rather close. However, in most other cases, it is difficult to say whether the parallels observed are the result of transfer of either abstract multifunctional patterns or of individual items from the substratum languages because multifunctionality is not uncommon in a number of languages, especially in isolating languages. Besides, multifunctionality is also documented as one of the strategies used by L1 and L2 learners of English. For instance, Clark (1993: 116–117) reports that at the initial stages of acquisition, children acquiring English as their first language often use noun-roots to designate an activity into which the object expressed by the noun is involved. Examples provided by Clark include to button meaning ‘to press the button on a calculator’, to flag ‘to wave like a flag’, to cello ‘to play the cello’ and to key ‘to put a key into’. Clark explains the preference for conversion over affixation or compounding first, by the fact that the input children get contains items built according to similar conversion patterns, and second, by the structural simplicity of such items in comparison to the root-affix combinations which can be sometimes marred by morphophonological processes. In a study of lexical innovation by Spanish L2 learners of English, González Álvarez (2004: 193) shows that conversion, similarly to affixation, made up 11 percent of the total number of lexical innovations at the initial and intermediate stages of acquisition. Another noteworthy fact is that multifunctionality is attested in many other creoles, including, for instance, Tok Pisin, which does not share substratum languages with Early Sranan (Mühlhäusler 1994).7 To summarise, the use of multifunctionality by the

– 7

Mühlhäusler (1994: 144) argues that although Tolai, which is assumed to be the major substratum language of Tok Pisin, has multifunctional patterns, it is difficult to make a case for substratum influence because out of all multifunctionality patterns attested in Tok Pisin, only seven are also attested in Tolai, whereas approximately twenty have correspondences in English.

97 creators of Early Sranan might have had multiple reasons and the exact sources of multifunctional items are difficult to establish. On the one hand, multifunctionality might be one of the universal strategies of enriching the lexicon employed in language acquisition because it is documented in the acquisition of other languages and is also attested in other creoles which do not share substratum languages with Early Sranan. On the other hand, the emergence of multifunctionality in Early Sranan might have been facilitated by the presence of similar patterns and items in the substratum languages. For some items, such as krien in (24) or dissi in (32), which have close equivalents in the substratum languages exhibiting a very similar range of word-classes and meanings, it can be hypothesised that their multifunctionality is due to substratum influence. The third generalisation is that because of a substantial number of multifunctional patterns in Early Sranan and a comparatively wide range of word-class combinations within individual multifunctional patterns, it is problematic to establish the derivational direction within each multifunctional pattern. This raises the question of whether multifunctionality in Early Sranan should be viewed as a directional process or whether it is rather an inherent property of certain lexemes. In other words, the question is how multifunctionality in Early Sranan can be modelled theoretically. This question will be dealt with in the following sections.

6.4

Multifunctionality in Early Sranan: in search of a theoretical account

There are different ways of conceptualising word-class phenomena theoretically, and three central ones, zero-derivation, conversion and underspecification will be introduced below. Within the concepts of zero-derivation and conversion, word-class change is usually regarded as a directional process by which one member of a given multifunctional set is derived from another one. Within the concept of underspecification, directionality usually plays no role, and lexical items are considered underspecified with respect to the word-class distinction. So the question is whether multifunctionality of lexical items in Early Sranan should be analysed as a directional process, i.e. the result of either zero-derivation or conversion, or whether it should be conceptualised as some kind of underspecification. In the following sections both possibilities will be discussed in order to advance a suitable theoretical account of multifunctionality in Early Sranan.

6.4.1 Multifunctionality as a directional process The purpose of the present section is to briefly introduce the concepts of zero-derivation and conversion and to discuss whether multifunctionality in Early Sranan can be regarded as a directional process. Zero-derivation is usually regarded as a derivational process of word-class change by which a zero morph is attached to a base word. Zero morphs are defined as affixes that have a certain meaning, but lack an overt form (Bauer 2003: 37, Plag 2003c: 111). It is generally

98 acknowledged that the postulation of a zero morph makes sense in those cases where there is a corresponding overt form that serves the same function or bears the same meaning (Marchand 1969: 360, Plag 2003c: 111). For instance, the English verb to hospitalise is derived from the noun hospital by means of the suffix -ise which transforms nouns into verbs and has the meaning ‘to put into’. By virtue of analogy, it can be assumed within a zeroderivation analysis that the verb to can is derived from the noun can by means of the zero morph with the same meaning, i.e. ‘to put into’. Can word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan be regarded as instances of zeroderivation? Besides some general problems connected with the concept of zero-derivation (see Don, Trommelen and Zonnenveld (2000), Plag (2003c) for discussion), there are also specific problems arising with this concept in Early Sranan. First, since zero-derivation is a directional process, it is unclear how derivational bases can be established in Early Sranan multifunctional patterns. This problem will be discussed in greater detail below. Second, as shown in section 5.3, identifying affixes in Early Sranan is a problematic matter. Third, for most Early Sranan potential zero-affixes, no overt equivalents can be established.8 For instance, there are no overt affixes for such multifunctional patterns as N/Prep/A, N/Adv, V/Adv/Conj, as well as for some semantic types of V/N and A/V patterns. There are in fact only two cases where overt parallels can be hypothesised for potential zero affixes. One case is the creation of nouns with instrumental or result meanings from verbs by means of reduplication, such as zibi zibi (N) ‘broom’ from zibi (V) ‘to wipe’ or fom fom (N) ‘beating’ from fom (V) ‘to beat’. Such reduplication items can be regarded as similar in meaning to such multifunctional items as blessi, which can be a verb, ‘to bless’, and a noun, ‘blessing’. However, whereas reduplicated nouns exhibit only the ‘result’ and ‘instrument’ meanings, multifunctional items, when realised as nouns, exhibit a wider range of meanings, such as ‘result’, ‘instrument’, ‘substance’, ‘state’. Besides, nominalising reduplication seems to be unproductive in Early Sranan since the number of nominal reduplications remained almost constant in all three sources (cf. Smith 1990: 265). The other case is the creation of adjectives with resultative meanings from verbs via reduplication, such as brokko-broko (A) ‘broken’ from brokko (V) ‘to break’. Such items bear similarities in terms of their meaning to some V/A multifunctional items. For instance, the multifunctional lexeme boli can be a verb, ‘to boil’, and a resultative adjective, ‘boiled’. However, again, there are many V/A multifunctional sets that do not exhibit resultative meanings. One example is the multifunctional item siki, which can function as a verb, ‘to be ill’, and as an adjective, ‘ill’. To conclude, even if overt morphemic equivalents can be found for some multifunctional (sub)-patterns, such cases are very few. All this shows that there is in fact no independent evidence for the presence of zero-affixes in Early Sranan. Thus, it can be pointed out that it is problematic to treat Early Sranan word-class change phenomena as cases of zero-derivation. Since a zero-derivation account of word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan is problematic, the question arises whether a conversion account might be a reasonable alternative. Conversion is regarded as a morphological, directional process, as “the derivation of a new word without any overt marking” (Plag 2003c: 107). Although the term

– 8

Remarkably, Sanders (1988: 168) mentions that the same problem arises in Chinese which is similar to Early Sranan in terms of multifunctionality.

99 ‘conversion’ is often employed as a cover term for all types of word-class change phenomena without any overt marking, this term will be used only in the meaning ‘directional derivational process’ in the present study. Hence, it should be investigated whether word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan can be regarded as the result of directional derivational processes. For Modern Sranan, such a directional account has been advanced by Voorhoeve (1981). Hence, the question is in how far such a model is adequate for Early Sranan. To answer this question, Voorhoeve’s account will be introduced below and subsequently, the idea of directionality of Early Sranan word-class change phenomena will be discussed. Voorhoeve (1981) argues that the relations between the members of different wordclasses within multifunctional patterns in Modern Sranan are regular and that this regularity can be captured within what he calls “multifunctionality rules”.9 This argument is based on the observation that there are quite a number of lexical items in Modern Sranan that belong to two different multifunctional patterns presented in (34): (34) a. b.

[siki]A, [siki]N, [siki]Vintr, [siki]Vtrans [dede]A, [dede]N, [dede]Vintr

As pointed out by Voorhoeve (1981: 28), the two patterns in (34) differ in the types of verbs: the pattern in (34a) contains a transitive verb, whereas the one in (34b) does not. Voorhoeve advances the hypothesis that this difference is triggered by the derivational direction: in (34a) the transitive verb is the basis of derivation, whereas in (34b), the intransitive verb is the basis. He establishes the following derivational rules for Sranan: (35) a. b.

[V]tr → [V]intr, [A], [N] [V]intr → [A], [N]

siki: ‘to make sick/to be sick/sick/sickness’ dede: ‘to die/dead/death’

There is one major problem with the rules in (35). The way in which the direction of derivation is established in them is, as Voorhoeve (1981: 28) notes himself, “completely hypothetical”. There is no any theoretical or empirical justification of the fact that the absence of the transitive verb in (35b) is triggered by the direction of derivation. In fact, the absence of the transitive verb in the multifunctional pattern in (35b) can be explained by factors other than the direction of derivation. Blocking is, for instance, one of such factors. As Voorhoeve mentions himself, the absence of the transitive verb in the string involving the lexeme dede can be explained by the existence of the verb kiri ‘to kill’, which blocks the occurrence of dede as a transitive verb. Another factor can be the semantics of individual items. For instance, Migge (2000: 215, cf. 2003a: 86–87) argues in her research on the so-called property items, i.e. A/V multifunctional items which denote properties and states, in Eastern Maroon Creole that almost all such items can function as transitive verbs. Migge shows that there are rather few property items which are not attested as transitive verbs, such as bun ‘good’, lountu ‘round’, nyun ‘new’, as well as items denoting age and

– 9

It should be noted that Voorhoeve uses the term ‘multifunctionality’ to refer to the property of lexical items to belong to different lexical categories, but regards the process of word-class change as ‘derivation’, i.e. a directional process.

100 human propensity, such as ‘lazy’. Migge (2000: 215) explains that the transitive use is attested in those A/V pairs where the property the adjective denotes is viewed by the native speakers as “acquirable through intervention of another entity, especially humans”. Finally, the absence of transitive verbs within multifunctional patterns can also be explained by pragmatic factors, such as communicative need: if there is no need to name a certain action, then no new word for this action will be created. As a conclusion, it can be suggested that the absence or the presence of a certain word-class within a given multifunctional pattern might have multiple reasons, semantic and pragmatic, and probably does not depend on some general rules of derivation. Voorhoeve (1981: 32) also mentions that there are multifunctional items which are not created by the rules in (35), such as bosro (N) ‘brush’ → bosro (V) ‘to brush’. To capture such cases, Voorhoeve revises the rules in (35) by classifying the verbs attested in these patterns into different subcategories. The subcategorisation is based on the number of arguments a given verb takes and on the semantic case of the objects, such as ‘nominative’, ‘ergative’ and ‘locative’. For instance, the item wasi ‘to wash’ is classified as Verg + nom, the item siki ‘ill’ as Vnom, the item dede ‘dead’ as A, etc. Using such subcategorisations, Voorhoeve (1981: 33) establishes the following derivational rules: (36) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.

[N]inst → [V](erg+) nom [V]erg + nom → [N] [V]nom → [N] [V]nom → [A] [V]nom → [V]erg + nom [A] → [N] [A] → [V]nom [V]erg + nom → [V]nom

As Voorhoeve (1981: 33) argues, the rule in (36e) would account for the examples such as siki ‘to be ill’, ‘to make ill’, and the rule in (36h) for the items such as wasi ‘to wash’, ‘to be washed’, etc. Again, the major problem of the rules in (36) lies in the fact that the direction of derivation indicated in them is purely hypothetical. For instance, it remains unclear why there are two different rules for the verbs wasi ‘to wash’ and siki ‘to make ill’ which are subcategorised in the same manner as [V]erg + nom: wasi is the basis of derivation in (36h), whereas siki is the derivative, the product of the opposite rule in (36e). All in all, this makes the validity and the purpose of the rules in (36) implausible. In general, the discussion above shows that it is highly problematic to establish derivational rules for multifunctional items without establishing any clear criteria for determining the direction of derivation. Therefore, the next question that arises is what criteria can be used to determine the direction of derivation and whether using such criteria can help to establish the direction of derivation in multifunctional patterns in Early Sranan. There are in fact a number of such general criteria (Plag 2003c: 108–111), and they will be discussed below. The first criterion is based on etymological evidence. If one of the items in a given multifunctional set appeared historically earlier than all the other ones, this item can be regarded as the base. However, this criterion is difficult to apply to Early Sranan data mainly because of two reasons. First, since the sources differ in size and type, and since the

101 time span between some sources is not very significant (e.g. between Van Dyk (c1765) and Schumann (1783)), etymological investigations of multifunctional items are problematic methodologically. In fact, the presence or absence of particular items in one or more sources might be merely accidental. For instance, in Van Dyk (c1765: 26), the word wassi is attested as a verb, ‘to wash’, only, whereas in Schumann (1783: 297), it is attested as both a noun meaning ‘washing/wash’ and a verb meaning ‘to wash’. One could argue that the direction of conversion might be verb-to-noun, since Van Dyk is an earlier source. However, it can also be by chance that wassi is not attested as a noun in Van Dyk because Van Dyk is the smallest of the three sources. Another problematic case can be illustrated by means of the lexeme hebbi. According to Schumann (1783), this lexeme can be a noun meaning ‘heaviness/burden’, a verb, ‘to be heavy’, and an adjective, ‘heavy’. However, Focke (1855), a later source, provides only two word-class labels for this item: adjective and noun. Second, in a number of cases, a given word is attested in the same range of wordclasses in an earlier and in a later source. For instance, the lexeme pikin is attested as a noun, an adjective, a verb and an adverb in both Van Dyk and Schumann. For such items, it is impossible to establish the direction of derivation on the basis of etymology. In fact, the existence of items which are multifunctional already in Van Dyk (c1765), the earliest of the three sources used in the present study, might be used to suggest that possibly some Early Sranan items have been multifunctional from the very beginning. There is, however, a different way of using etymological evidence for establishing the directionality of conversion. Sebba (1981: 108) argues for Modern Sranan that in a number of cases, the direction can be figured out by comparing Sranan multifunctional items with those in its lexifier languages English and Dutch. He argues that in those cases where the items are multifunctional in both Sranan and one of the lexifier languages, it is impossible to establish derivational direction. For instance, the lexical item sribi has the same range of word-class membership as its English etymon sleep. By contrast, for lexemes which are multifunctional in Sranan, but not in the lexifier languages, it can be assumed that the wordclass of these lexemes which is attested in both the lexifier and the creole should be the base. The word-class or classes of a given lexeme which are attested in the creole only should then be the derivatives. For instance, in the case of the Sranan item prisiri, which is attested as the verb ‘to be happy’ and the noun ‘pleasure’, it is the noun that should be the base because prisiri comes from the Dutch plezier which can only be a noun in Dutch. Although Sebba’s procedure sounds plausible, there are two problems with it. First, the procedure allows us to establish rules for only a limited set of data since many Early Sranan items do not have corresponding multifunctional items in the lexifiers, especially English. This has the consequence that for some sets, rules can be established, while for many others this is impossible. Second, even for such items as prisiri, it is unclear whether they indeed developed in the way assumed by Sebba, or whether they were multifunctional from the very beginning, for instance, as the result of substratum influence. The parallels in terms of word-class membership and meaning between some Early Sranan items and some substratum items, shown in section 6.3, suggest that this is not improbable. To conclude, Sebba’s approach (1981) is problematic in several respects. In general, the discussion above shows that there are methodological and empirical problems with establishing the directionality of word-class change in Early Sranan on the basis of etymological criteria. Besides, the discussion also suggests that at least some Early

102 Sranan items seem to have been multifunctional already at a rather early stage of the language. The second way of establishing the direction of conversion is based on semantic considerations. According to Plag (2003c: 109), since derivatives are usually semantically more complex than their bases, it can be assumed that the items with simpler or simplest semantics should be bases. However, this criterion is generally problematic because it is not quite clear how semantic simplicity or complexity of a given item can be measured. For instance, Plag (2003c: 111) mentions the English lexeme love, which can be a noun and a verb. The semantic paraphrases of this word, ‘state of loving’ and ‘being in a state of love’, do not allow a straightforward decision about the semantic primacy of one of them. In Early Sranan, such cases are abundant. For instance, the item kunni can be a noun, ‘cleverness/wisdom/science’, and a verb, ‘to be clever/to be understandable’. In such a case it is unclear which of these two meanings should be regarded as more simplex since the noun ‘cleverness’ can be paraphrased as ‘the state of being clever’ and the verb as ‘to be in a state of cleverness’. Two other, more specific, problems with the semantic criterion in Early Sranan are that Early Sranan multifunctional sets often consist of three or even more members and exhibit polysemous meanings. For instance, the item krukkutu can function as a noun, ‘injustice’, as an adjective, ‘crooked/lopsided/wrong/evil/false’, and as a verb, ‘to be crooked/to be wrong/to be false/to do somebody an injustice’. Given this variety of word-classes and meanings, measuring semantic complexity within this set is rather problematic. In general, the discussion of the semantic criterion shows that there seems to be no straightforward directional relation between the members of one multifunctional set in terms of semantics. Another criterion used to establish the directionality of conversion is based on formal complexity. Usually, derived words tend to be inflected regularly, whereas the base forms can have irregular inflection (Plag 2003c: 109). This criterion can be completely ruled out for Early Sranan since nouns and verbs are not inflected in this language. The final criterion is based on frequency. It is generally assumed that derived words occur less frequently than their base words (Plag 2003c: 111). But applying this criterion to Early Sranan data raises methodological problems: because of the relatively small database, a number of multifunctional items are attested only once in the corpus. Hence, frequency can hardly be relied on in establishing the direction of derivation. To conclude, the discussion above shows that there are serious methodological, empirical and theoretical problems with establishing the direction of word-class change in Early Sranan and thus with applying a zero-derivation or a conversion approach to Early Sranan data. Besides, the discussion also suggests that word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan are probably not of directional nature and should better be accounted for within approaches which are not based on the idea of directionality. Some of such approaches will be discussed in the next section.

6.4.2 Multifunctionality as underspecification Besides rule-based directionalist approaches to word-class change, there are also approaches which view word-class change phenomena as the result of underspecification of lexemes for categorial features. The idea that lexemes might lack categoriality has been

103 expressed in a number of studies, especially in studies which define word-classes from a functional point of view. For instance, Hopper and Thompson (1984: 747) argue that lexemes in principle lack categoriality, but that it can be “forced on them by their discourse functions” (cf. Thompson 1988). Vogel (2000: 261) argues that in some languages, lexemes are not specified for word-class membership in the lexicon, and that a specification in terms of word-classes takes place at the level of syntax where lexemes are realised in different functions, such as reference, predication, etc. However, despite these general suggestions, there seem to be few accounts which go into the details of underspecification. Below, two pertinent underspecification accounts will be introduced with the purpose of finding out whether such accounts can be used to provide plausible explanations of Early Sranan multifunctionality. One underspecification account has been advanced by Lefebvre (2001), who assumes that lexical entries of lexemes are “minimally defined for semantic and categorial features” (Lefebvre 2001: 120). She argues that multifunctional lexical items can be regarded as having one lexical entry in the lexicon, and not, as sometimes assumed, different separate entries for different meanings and different syntactic categories such items display. Within this entry, semantic and syntactic features of a given multifunctional item can be conceptualised in such a way that they include the multiple meanings and the multiple syntactic categories of this item. According to Lefebvre (2001: 122), the different meanings of a given multifunctional item “must have a semantic core which can be represented by a single lexical conceptual structure”, i.e. the lexical conceptual structure of a given multifunctional item should be abstract enough to be able to encompass all related meanings. As Lefebvre (2001: 123) concludes, multifunctional items can thus be regarded as underspecified both semantically and categorically. Lefebvre (2001: 122) argues that the exact description of underspecified lexical conceptual structure is still a task for future research and concentrates on elaborating an account of categorial underspecification. Within this account, Lefebvre (2001: 123) assumes that major syntactic categories are defined by the features [αN, ßV], where the variables α and ß can take the values + or –. Combinations of these features give rise to the following major categories (Lefebvre 2001: 123): (37) [+N, –V] [+N, +V] [–N, +V] [–N, –V]

= noun = adjective = verb = preposition

If a major category lexical item is underspecified for the nominal feature, it will be notified as [αN, –V]. This underspecified feature can then be given the value +, thus making a given lexical item a noun, or it can be given the value –, thus making the item a preposition. Lefebvre (2001: 124) argues that on the assumption that either [αN] or [ßV], but not both, can be underspecified, the following combinations of categories are possible (the examples in the last column come from Haitian and are taken from Lefebvre (2001: 110–118)): (38) [αN, –V]: [αN, +V]: [+N, ßV]: [–N, ßV]:

[+N, –V] [–N, +V] [+N, –V] [–N, +V]

(N) (V) (N) (V)

or or or or

[–N, –V] [+N, +V] [+N, +V] [–N, –V]

(Prep) (A) (A) (Prep)

kay ‘house’/at the house of’ gate ‘to rot/rotten’ ansyen ‘old person/old’ bay/ba ‘to give/for’

104 Lefebvre (2001: 125) also shows that on a different assumption, namely, that both [αN] and [ßV] can be underspecified, a different range of possible multifunctional sets emerges: (39) [αN, ßV]:

[+N, –V] [+N, +V] [–N, –V] [–N, +V]

N A Prep V

Lefebvre raises two questions with respect to the underspecification accounts in (38) and (39). The first question is whether multifunctionality is a multidirectional phenomenon. She argues with respect to this question that underspecification is not a multidirectional phenomenon because nouns and verbs are basic in (38) since they can be additionally used as prepositions and adjectives, whereas adjectives and prepositions do not seem to be basic since, for instance, prepositions are not used as nouns or verbs or adjectives. The second question raised by Lefebvre is whether a difference can be made between underspecification and zero-derivation in the account of multifunctional items. Lefebvre argues with regard to this question that in fact, the possibilities shown in (39) would produce the same results as zero-affixation in some cases. For instance, both the approach in (39) and a zero-affixation approach can account for the existence of such sets as N/V or V/N. But the two accounts differ in the analysis of such multifunctional sets as A/Prep or Prep/A. Thus, the underspecification approach in (39) does not rule out A/Prep or Prep/A sets, which is, in Lefebvre’s opinion, problematic because these sets seem to be unattested in the languages of the world. In a zero-derivation approach, such cases can be ruled out on the assumption that there are no zero-affixes with the features [+N, +V] or [–N, –V]. These observations lead Lefebvre (2001: 126–127) to the conclusion that “cases of multifunctionality related through underspecification could differ in only one major feature” and that multifunctional sets “would be accounted for in either of two ways: by categorial underspecification involving a change in one major feature or by zero-affixation involving a complete categorial switch”. The advantage of the underspecification account in (39), especially in the case of Early Sranan, is that it allows us to dispense with the necessity of postulating derivational rules for multifunctional items. However, there are also at least two problems with this account. The first problem lies in Lefebvre’s assumption that multifunctionality is a directional phenomenon. This assumption is problematic on theoretical grounds: if a given item is considered underspecified for both features, as done in (39), how can any direction be postulated? Besides, this assumption is also problematic empirically. As shown in section 6.4.1 above, establishing derivational direction in morphologically poor languages is notoriously difficult. Lefebvre (2001: 124) makes her assumption about the directionality of multifunctionality on the basis of the observation that adjectives and prepositions cannot be basic in the same way nouns or verbs can. However, this observation is hard to support, given the fact that establishing the derivational direction is not unproblematic even in English. For instance, the English adjective round, besides being an adjective, is also attested as a preposition, a noun and a verb. In terms of etymology, the adjective and the preposition have the same date of attestation according to the Oxford English Dictionary, whereas the noun and the verb are attested later. In terms of frequency, the adjective is more frequent

105 than the preposition or the noun or the verb. It is unclear, therefore, whether the adjective or the preposition, or both, or none of the two can be regarded as “basic” in this case. The second problem lies in the fact that the account in (39), as Lefebvre (2001: 126) mentions herself, cannot rule out unattested combinations. Lefebvre assumes that, for instance, A/Prep and Prep/A multifunctional patterns are not attested in the languages of the world. However, this assumption is disputable. For instance, the English under is attested as a preposition, an adjective and an adverb, as in under the bed, the under layer or kept them under, but not as a noun or a verb. Besides, there are several cases, at least in English and Early Sranan, where adjectives and prepositions are parts of larger, i.e. three or fourmember multifunctional patterns: under, round, down in English, bakka ‘back’, middri ‘middle/amidst of’, bilò ‘below’ in Early Sranan. In these cases, it is unclear what the derivational basis is. All this shows that in principle, adjectives and prepositions can participate in categorial switch and that in general all categorial combinations predicted by the account in (39) are indeed attested in at least some languages. So the problem is not that the account in (39) cannot rule out such unattested combinations as A/Prep or Prep/A. Rather, the problem is that this account cannot explain why not every item is multifunctional in a given language and why not every multifunctional item is multifunctional to the same extent and in the same way. Thus, according to the account in (39), the Early Sranan item siki can potentially be attested as a noun, a verb, an adjective and a preposition. In fact, however, it is attested as a noun meaning ‘illness’, an adjective, ‘ill’, and a verb, ‘to be ill’, but not as a preposition, whereas the item middri is attested as a noun, ‘middle’, an adjective, ‘middle’, and as a preposition, ‘in the middle of/amidst’, and the item agumà ‘a kind of berry of black colour’ is attested only as a noun. Lefebvre suggests that unattested combinations could be ruled out by applying a zero-derivation account. But this is a disputable suggestion since there are serious problems with a zero-derivation account in general, as mentioned in section 6.4.1 above. Besides, even if a zero-derivation account can technically rule out unattested combinations, it cannot generally explain why multifunctional items are multifunctional in the way they are. To summarise, the foregoing discussion suggests that an underspecification account concentrating on purely categorial features leaves many questions about multifunctionality of lexical items unanswered. Since Lefebvre also mentions that multifunctional lexemes can be regarded as semantically underspecified and briefly outlines a semantic underspecification account, the question arises how such an account might work in detail and whether it can indeed offer explanations called for in an analysis of multifunctional items. An account that deals with a semantic/conceptual underspecification is provided by Farrell (2001). Farrell (2001) advances an underspecification analysis of N/V multifunctional pairs in English within the framework of cognitive grammar. Within this framework, the meanings of words are regarded as image-schematic concepts and can be described in terms of a cognitive model within which entities existing in a world consisting of space, time, matter and energy interact with each other in a variety of ways (Farrell 2001: 112). The central idea behind Farrell’s approach is that the conceptual structure of such multifunctional words as kiss, bag, hammer, etc. is compatible with both a ‘process’ meaning and a ‘thing’ meaning, therefore such words are “basically neither verbs nor nouns” (Farrell 2001: 113). For instance, the conceptual structure of the lexeme kiss contains a basic image schema which shows the interaction between thing A, the agent of the action whose lips move in a certain way, and thing B, the patient. This basic image

106 schema can be regarded as the core meaning of the word, and it is the same for the verb kiss and for the noun kiss. Within this image schema, the different component meanings of a given word, such as the ‘process’ meaning and the ‘thing’ meaning, can be conceptually highlighted, i.e. “profiled”. The appropriate profiling is triggered by a certain context, i.e. by a specific syntactic slot a given word is used in, and in this way only one meaning, either ‘thing’ or ‘process’, is activated. Within Farrell’s approach, the conceptual structure of such words as kiss can be regarded as underspecified for category distinctions. Farrell also argues that the phenomenon of shift between nouns and verbs is common and semantically predictable in most cases, and for cases where no shift takes place, there is a plausible explanation. This shift can, for instance, be blocked by an already existing verb, as in the case of the verb sweep which blocks the shift from the noun broom to the verb broom. Or it can be blocked by affixes, as, for example, is the case with the suffix -er: nouns containing the suffix -er do not shift to verbs because this suffix “fixes them as nouns” (Farrell 2001: 111). Finally, the shift can be constrained by “the usefulness of using a given word” in a certain meaning. For instance, as Farrell (2001: 118) shows, the English word ankle is attested as a noun only because presumably, there is no activity in which ankles can be centrally engaged as instruments. Farrell (2001: 117) also argues that his account can be extended to other cases of category shifts, for instance, between verbs and adjectives. Besides, he also provides different kinds of conceptual and empirical support for his model, which, however, cannot be discussed here for reasons of space. Farrell’s approach has two general advantages. First, as Farrell (2001: 114) mentions himself, within his account, there is no necessity to postulate word-formation rules relating the different meanings and categories of a given item to each other. The second advantage is that Farrell’s account can offer plausible explanations of why certain items are multifunctional in a certain way or not multifunctional at all. Within Farrell’s model, these facts can be explained in either of two ways. First, by the possibility or impossibility of a certain profiling within the image schema of a given item. Second, by activation or lack of activation of a certain potentially possible profiling in a given context. For instance, within Farrell’s model, the fact that the word kiss is not attested as a preposition can be explained in the following way. One reason could be that the basic image schema of kiss does not contain any elements associated with the meaning ‘relation’ typical of prepositions, therefore, there is no ‘relation’ profiling within the conceptual structure of this word. Another reason could be that there is such a ‘relation’ profiling, but it is never triggered in context because there is no pragmatic context which can trigger this profiling. This might have different grounds, for instance, usefulness of such a meaning. Notably, Farrell’s model can account for the rare occurrence of A/Prep multifunctionality patterns, which remained unaccounted for in the categorial underspecification approach outlined in Lefebvre (2001). Within Farrell’s account, the reason can be seen in the fact that the image schemas of many adjectives, such as, for instance, clear, big, nice, beautiful, etc. probably do not include the ‘relation’ meaning. However, besides the advantages, some aspects remain unclear with respect to Farrell’s approach. For instance, it is not quite clear how multifunctionality of functional categories should be modelled within this approach. Another remark due here is that it is also beyond the scope of the present study to discuss whether the cognitive framework used by Farrell (2001) is the most optimal way of modelling underspecification or whether other

107 frameworks, e.g. based on the assumptions made in Wierzbicka (1996) or Lieber (2004), might be a better alternative. All these issues require further research. In conclusion, Farrell’s account seems to offer a plausible detailed explanation of multifunctionality phenomena. Moreover, it shows that an underspecification account of wordclass change phenomena should not be limited to mere postulating of some features as underspecified. More importantly, such an account should provide explanations of why multifunctionality works in the way it works in a given language.

6.4.3 A theoretical account of multifunctionality in Early Sranan This section summarises the discussion of different theoretical approaches to word-class change phenomena presented in the preceding sections and addresses the issue of which approach offers a more optimal way of dealing with multifunctionality in Early Sranan. It has been shown above that accounts based on the idea of directional nature of wordclass change phenomena, such as a zero-derivation account and a conversion account, bear a number of problems for the analysis of Early Sranan multifunctionality. Apart from some methodological problems with establishing derivational direction, there are also empirical problems with the idea that word-class change phenomena are directional in Early Sranan. In general, as might have become clear in the discussions in the present chapter, word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan seem to be of non-directional nature because of several reasons. First, since, as shown in section 6.3, there are some close parallels between Early Sranan items and substratum items in terms of multifunctionality, it can be assumed that at least some of the multifunctional items might have been transferred to Early Sranan from the substratum languages and thus were not created by some language-internal derivational processes. Second, as argued in section 6.4.1, the semantics of the members of Early Sranan multifunctional patterns usually does not point to any directionality in the semantic relation between them. Finally, as shown in section 6.3, the number of different multifunctional patterns is not inconsiderable in Early Sranan, and these patterns exhibit a variety of wordclass combinations within them. This shows a relatively high permeability of word-class borders. To conclude, all these facts seem to suggest that multifunctionality should be regarded as an inherent property of Early Sranan lexemes rather than the result of some directional morphological processes. In contrast to zero-derivation or conversion approaches, approaches based on the idea of underspecification offer better accounts of multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes. In particular, Farrell’s (2001) approach can provide plausible explanations of word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan. In what follows, it will be shown how this approach can be applied to Early Sranan lexemes. Following Farrell (2001), it can be suggested that Early Sranan lexemes have a conceptual structure which is underspecified for categorial distinctions. This conceptual structure can include a variety of meanings which enable a given lexeme to surface in different word-class categories depending on the pragmatic and the syntactic context in which it is used. In other words, it can be argued that Early Sranan lexemes are underspecified for word-class categories at the conceptual level and acquire categorial specification at the level of syntax. By using Farrell’s approach, multifunctionality of each Early Sranan item can be explained in terms of its conceptual structure and its contextual

108 realisations. For instance, the multifunctionality of such an item as siki ‘ill/to be ill/illness’ can be explained by the fact that it has a conceptual structure which comprises a ‘thing’, a ‘property’ and a ‘state’ meaning. When siki is used in the context of reference modification, the ‘property’ meaning will be activated, i.e. ‘ill’. In the context of predication, the ‘state’ meaning, ‘to be ill’, will be realised. In the context of reference identification, the ‘thing’ meaning will be triggered. Note that potentially, the conceptual structure of siki might also include a ‘person’ meaning. However, this meaning is never realised because it is blocked by the word sikiman ‘sick person’. In a similar vein, the non-multifunctionality of such an item as agumà meaning ‘name of a berry of black colour’ can then be explained either by the fact that its conceptual structure allows for a ‘thing’ meaning only, or by the fact that there is no (pragmatic) context which could trigger a meaning other than ‘thing’. The same explanation can be applied to names of animals, plants and diseases in general since they are never multifunctional in Early Sranan. Furthermore, by using Farrell’s account it is possible to explain why complex words are not multifunctional in Early Sranan. It seems that since complex words are combinations of lexemes, their imageschematic concepts are more specific and thus less compatible with different kinds of interpretations. All in all, Farrell’s (2001) approach offers a reasonable account of multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes.

6.5

Conclusion

The present chapter was devoted to the discussion of word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan. It has been shown that there are quite a number of multifunctional patterns in Early Sranan and a variety of different word-class combinations within the patterns. It has been argued that multifunctionality of Early Sranan lexemes seems to be of non-directional nature and can hardly be accounted for within traditional zero-derivation or conversion approaches. It has been suggested that word-class change phenomena in Early Sranan can be best accounted for within the underspecification approach outlined in Farrell (2001). Within this approach, lexical items are regarded as underspecified for categorial features at the conceptual level and are assumed to acquire categoriality when used in context. The word-class categories of a given multifunctional lexeme can be established on the basis of functional, semantic and syntactic criteria.

7

Concatenative patterns

7.1

Introduction: terminological and methodological preliminaries

The present chapter deals with the analysis of concatenative word-formation patterns in Early Sranan. Before starting the analysis, some terminological issues will be clarified. As shown in section 2.3, there is sometimes no terminological consistency in the use of the terms for the mechanisms, factors and sources operating in the emergence of creole structures in general and creole word-formation in particular. Since the discussion of mechanisms, factors and sources playing a role in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation is one of the objectives of the present study, in the present chapter, an array of crucial terminological and methodological issues will be addressed first: in section 7.1.1, some pertinent terms concerning the mechanisms of the emergence of creole word-formation will be clarified, in section 7.1.2, the notion of markedness, one of the crucial factors operating in the emergence of creole grammars, will be discussed and a metric for estimating the markedness of word-formation processes, patterns and markers will be developed, and section 7.1.3 will be devoted to the methodological discussion of establishing the sources of creole word-formation, in particular, to developing a credibility hierarchy for substratum and superstratum influence. Besides, in section 7.1.4, ways of systematising data description done in the present chapter will be introduced. The remaining sections will deal with Early Sranan constructs created according to concatenative patterns. These constructs will be described in terms of their structural, semantic and syntactic properties. Besides, for each word-formation pattern, its potential source, the mechanisms by which it might have emerged and the factors that might have guided its formation will be investigated.

7.1.1 Defining mechanisms operating in creole word-formation It has been shown in section 2.3 that grammaticalisation, reanalysis, borrowing of words from different languages, substratum transfer, relexification, calquing, innovation or innovative word-coinage have been mentioned in creole literature so far as mechanisms operating in creole word-formation. In this section, some pertinent terms concerning the mechanisms of emergence of creole word-formation, which have been defined differently in different studies, will be clarified and defined for the purposes of the present study. The use of superstratum features in Early Sranan – as long as they have been credibly assessed using the criteria which will be discussed in section 7.1.3 – will generally be referred to as ‘superstratum influence’ in the present study. As mentioned in section 2.2, the presence of superstratum features in creole languages is often described as the result of ‘acquisition’ of the superstratum language by creole creators because it has been assumed that creole creators targeted and acquired the superstratum language. However, as pointed out in section 3.5, it is not quite clear whether creole creators generally targeted the superstratum. In fact, it has been suggested that creole creators were involved in creating their

110 own language in the first place (Koefoed and Tarenskeen 1996: 132, Smith 2006). Therefore, in the present study, the mechanism of integrating superstratum features into Early Sranan will be referred to as ‘adaptation’ (inspired by Siegel’s (2006: 24) term “adaptive SLA”) or ‘takeover’ rather than ‘acquisition’. Adaptation/takeover will be regarded as the integration of superstratum structures into the emerging creole word-formation system. The mechanism of integrating structures into an already existent creole system from languages other than the major superstratum language will be referred to here as ‘borrowing’. Thus, integration of Dutch structures into Early Sranan word-formation will be regarded as borrowing because, as mentioned in section 3.4.1, substantial Dutch influence seems to have arrived on the Surinamese linguistic scene at the beginning of the 19th century, when Early Sranan was already a creole language. The use of different types of substratum features in Early Sranan – as long as they have been credibly assessed using the criteria which will be discussed in section 7.1.3 – will be generally referred to as ‘substratum influence’ in this study. However, there are different terms used to refer to the mechanisms by which substratum languages can influence creole grammars in general and creole word-formation in particular. Three of these terms particularly relevant for the present study will be discussed below: transfer,1 relexification and calquing. The term ‘transfer’ originally comes from SLA research and although its definition is not unproblematic (Gass 1996: 318, Odlin 1989: 25–28, 2006: 436), it can be suggested that in a very general sense, this term refers to the influence of L1 on L2 (cf. Gass 1996: 318, Odlin 2006: 436). In creole studies, this term is employed in a similar meaning (Mufwene 1990, Siegel 1999, 2004b, 2006). For instance, Siegel (2004b: 345) views transfer as a psycholinguistic process of language learning during which speakers “use the linguistic features of their first language (L1) either to provide a basis for constructing the grammar of the second language (L2), or to compensate for insufficient linguistic resources when communicating in the L2”. Siegel (2006: 24–25) argues that transfer encountered in pidgins and creoles can be of two types: word-order transfer (when word-order patterns of substratum languages are introduced into creoles) and functional transfer (when the lexifier forms are used in grammatical functions characteristic of substratum languages). Relexification as defined within the relexification hypothesis is “copying the lexical entries of an already established lexicon and replacing their phonological representations with representations derived from another language” (Lefebvre 1998: 16, 34). According to this definition, semantic and syntactic properties of the resulting creole lexical entries come from substratum languages and the phonological forms from superstratum languages.

– 1

The term ‘retention’ is also used, similarly to the term ‘transfer’, to refer to the preservation of substratum or L1 features in creole grammars (Migge 2003a). This term will not be used in the present study because of the following reason. This term seems to imply that creole creators largely built their new creole language on the basis of their L1s: they retained the L1s as a baseplate and set other structures upon this baseplate. Creole grammars are, however, too complex to be regarded as substratum baseplates. Since the slaves were creating their own new language, it seems more preferable to refer to the mechanisms of incorporating substratum features into the emerging creole as ‘transfer’ because this term allows the interpretation ‘carrying over of substratum features into the emerging creole’.

111 The question which arises with respect to the definitions above is: what is the difference between transfer and relexification? Winford (2003: 345) points out that the terms ‘transfer’ and ‘relexification’ differ only in perspective: transfer regards the results of L1 influence from the perspective of the target language, whereas relexification does so from the perspective of L1. However, it seems to be an oversimplification to say that the two terms differ only in perspective. There are also qualitative differences between the two terms. First, relexification, as defined within Lefebvre’s (1998) relexification hypothesis, implies a one-to-one replication of the semantic and the syntactic properties of substratum lexical entries, whereas transfer covers both cases of full and of partial replication (Siegel 2004b: 346–347, 2006: 31). Second, relexification does not refer to cases of substratum influence in the area of phonology. In fact, relexification is a process essentially operating on lexical entries and thus “a means of creating a common lexicon” by the speakers of different substratum languages (Lefebvre 1998: 35). Relexification is therefore a lexiconbased process. By contrast, the term ‘transfer’ does not imply this emphasis on the lexicon. As Siegel (2004b: 346–347) remarks, transfer covers a wider range of L1 influence phenomena, such as phonological interference and changes in word-order. It can be concluded that in fact, relexification can be regarded as a subtype of transfer. Calquing is another process associated with substratum influence, particularly in the area of complex words (Allsopp 1980: 90, Wekker 1996: 37–38) and hence of special interest here. The term ‘calquing’ is used in a variety of meanings. On the one hand, it is used to refer to word-by-word imitations of complex words from one language in another language with or without the imitation of the order of elements (Hancock 1980: 80–81, Wekker 1996: 37–38). For instance, Winford (2003: 45) regards calques as a subtype of lexical borrowings and maintains that calques are “combinations of native morphemes in imitation of foreign patterns”, such as the German Wolkenkratzer (cloud-scraper) modelled on the English skyscraper. As Winford shows, the order of elements in such calques can be adjusted to fit the native word-order pattern, as e.g. in the Spanish rascacielos (to scrape-sky). Winford (2003: 322) also uses this term to refer to creole compounds which have African equivalents, such as the creole bad-mouth created in imitation of the West African (Hausa) mugum-baki (bad-mouth). Such examples are referred to as ‘lexical calques’ by Sebba (1997: 186). In this first meaning, calquing can be regarded as a specific type of transfer by which the conceptual pattern of a substratum compound is carried over into a creole. On the other hand, the term ‘calquing’ has also been used in a broader sense, to refer to all kinds of copying elements and patterns from one language into another, and not just to copying the semantic pattern of complex words. For instance, Keesing (1988) describes the process of copying semantic and functional properties of substratum morphemes in Solomon Pidgin as ‘calquing’. Relatively similar uses of this term can be found in Thomason (2001: 143) and Sebba (1997: 119). In this second meaning, the term ‘calquing’ is used to denote the same process as the term ‘relexification’. Which of the three terms discussed above will be used in the present study and how? Since, as mentioned above, the term ‘transfer’, in contrast to the terms ‘relexification’ and ‘calquing’, usually refers to a wide range of cases of substratum influence, this term will be used in the present study. It will be employed in a broad sense, as a mechanism by which all kinds of substratum features, both concrete (such as certain lexemes) and abstract (such as abstract structural/semantic word-formation patterns), enter creole grammars. The discussion above furthermore suggests that given the diverse manifestations of substratum

112 influence, it is reasonable to make a further differentiation between different types of transfer. Because word-formation patterns and markers usually have certain formal and semantic properties, it makes sense to distinguish between the following two kinds of transfer in the context of word-formation: structural transfer and semantic transfer. The first term is taken from Siegel (2006: 24, 32–37), but will be slightly modified here to fit the context of word-formation. The term ‘structural transfer’ will cover those cases in which substratum structural word-formation patterns, i.e. patterns in terms of word-class categories, have been transferred into the creole language. The term ‘semantic transfer’ will be used to refer to those cases where the semantic-conceptual pattern of a substratum complex word is reproduced in the creole, with or without the reproduction of the word-order pattern. The term ‘calquing’ will not be used for such cases because, as shown earlier in this section, this term is used in two different meanings and because there is some terminological confusion between the terms ‘relexification’ and ‘calquing’. Additionally to the two terms, the term ‘relexification’ will be used in the present study as well to refer to those cases of transfer for which there is a one-to-one correspondence in structural and semantic properties between a given substratum lexical entry and a corresponding creole entry. In contrast to Lefebvre (1998: 40), those cases in which a given creole complex word replicates the semantic-conceptual pattern of a certain substratum complex word, but differs from it only in the order of constituents, will be regarded as instances of semantic transfer, and not of relexification. Besides adaptation from superstratum, borrowing from other languages and transfer from substratum, creole word-formation structures may emerge via innovation, as mentioned in section 2.3. In the present study, innovation will be regarded as a mechanism of the emergence of new structures – both abstract (such as semantic and structural patterns) or concrete (such as individual complex words) – on the basis of language-internal resources without any clearly establishable influence from the input languages. Note that in addition to the more general term ‘innovation’, the more specific term ‘innovative wordcoinage’ will be used to refer to the cases of innovative creation of individual complex words for greater precision with regard to the type of innovation. Two other terms, also referring to the mechanisms by which structures can develop in creole languages, should be defined here: reanalysis and grammaticalisation. Reanalysis is defined as a mechanism by which the form of one lexical entry becomes the form of another lexical entry (Lefebvre 1998: 41). Grammaticalisation is generally regarded as a process by which a lexical item acquires a grammatical function (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991, Heine and Kuteva 2002, Hopper and Traugott 1993). As Heine and Kuteva (2005: 15) assert, grammaticalisation can be identified on the basis of four parameters: extension (the development of novel grammatical meanings), desemantisation (loss in meaning content), decategorialisation (loss in morphosyntactic properties typical of lexical forms) and erosion (loss in phonetic shape). The difference between reanalysis and grammaticalisation lies in the fact that reanalysis is neutral in terms of output (Lefebvre 1998: 42), i.e. reanalysis, in contrast to grammaticalisation, does not necessarily involve a change from a lexical to a grammatical category, as grammaticalisation does. In the present study, both terms will be used as specified in the definitions just provided. To summarise, in the present section, a number of important terms for the mechanisms involved in the emergence and the development of creole word-formation have been clarified. The next section will be devoted to the definition of markedness, which is often cited

113 in creole literature as one of the major factors influencing the emergence of creole grammars in general and creole word-formation in particular.

7.1.2 Defining linguistic factors operating in creole word-formation: markedness As demonstrated in section 2.2, both non-linguistic and linguistic factors have been used to explain the emergence and the development of different features in creole languages. With respect to the non-linguistic factors, such as limited access to superstratum languages or motivation, as well as with respect to some linguistic factors, such as congruence or homogeneity of the substratum, there has been little definitional controversy. However, with respect to some other linguistic factors, such as markedness, simplicity and semantic transparency, the controversy has been great, and their definitions are not sufficiently clearcut. In the present study, for reasons which will be mentioned later in this section, mainly one linguistic factor, markedness, and not simplicity or semantic transparency, will be used in the discussion of what influences the emergence of creole word-formation. Additionally, as will be shown in the next section, markedness will be used to assess the credibility of substratum and superstratum influence on Early Sranan word-formation. Therefore, this section is devoted to the discussion of the notion of markedness in general and to the operationalisation of this notion in the context of word-formation for the purposes of the present study in particular. Markedness is one of the widely discussed linguistic factors supposed to operate in different kinds of situations and processes, such as language contact, language change and language acquisition. In acquisition studies, markedness is usually regarded as a factor constraining L1 transfer. It has been assumed that unmarked structures are preferred at the initial stages of SLA and that transfer at further stages often depends on L1/L2 markedness constellations (Hyltenstam 1987: 75). In language contact literature in general and in creole linguistics in particular, markedness is also used to explain the preservation or the disappearance of certain linguistic features (e.g. in Thomason (2001: 76)). As Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 51) remark, marked features are less likely to be transferred in language contact. Besides, the notion of markedness is used to assess the credibility of substratum influence (e.g. in Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004)). However, Thomason (2001: 77) also points out that markedness is probably a less important factor in contacts between typologically similar languages since even highly marked features can be exchanged between typologically similar languages. In a similar vein, Singler (1988: 45) observes that markedness does not constrain substratum influence if the substratum languages are typologically similar. A remarkable fact is that in quite a number of creolist work, notions such as ‘simplicity’ (e.g. Siegel (1999, 2004a, 2006)) or ‘semantic transparency’ (Siegel 1999, Seuren and Wekker 1986) rather than the notion ‘markedness’ have been employed to explain the emergence or the disappearance of certain linguistic features. The reason why the notion of markedness has often not been applied consistently and successfully in creole studies probably lies, at least partially, in the fact that it has usually been defined in a rather diffuse and thus hardly measurable way. By contrast, such factors as ‘semantic transparency’ and ‘simplicity’ have been defined in a clearer way. The suggestion here is that if clearly defined, markedness is a useful descriptive tool in creole studies in a number of respects. To

114 illustrate the point, some definitions of markedness advanced so far will be briefly explained below. Markedness has been defined on the basis of typological, acquisitional and psycholinguistic considerations. A rather common way of defining markedness is in terms of crosslinguistic occurrence or early appearance in language acquisition. Thus, less marked structures are those which are more common cross-linguistically and appear early in language acquisition (Dressler 1985, Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 26–27). However, as Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 289) remark, considering markedness in terms of cross-linguistic occurrence and frequency is “unexplanatory” since the reasons for cross-linguistic occurrence of some feature are not discussed and therefore remain unclear (cf. Haspelmath 2006). This remark might also explain why markedness has been difficult to apply in the discussions of creole phenomena: methodologically, cross-linguistic occurrence is difficult to handle. Besides, markedness has often been defined in terms of cognition, which is again difficult to measure. For instance, Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 26) mention that markedness is a phenomenon that “rests on a basis, however ill-defined, of relative productive and perceptual ease”. Givon (1990: 947) views marked categories as cognitively more complex “in terms of attention, mental effort or processing time”. With respect to such views, the question arises, on the basis of what criteria markedness values can be established. There have been various attempts to design criteria or correlations of markedness for different areas of language. As Battistella (1996: 14) mentions, the criteria proposed so far include “formal marking, syncretisation, neutralisation, semantic indeterminateness, typological implication, frequency across languages, frequency within a language, breadth of distribution within a language, language change, productivity, combinability, regularity, stability, learnability and prototypicality”. As to the criteria of markedness in the area of word-formation, three approaches are of particular interest here. Thus, Lyons (1977: 304–311) distinguishes the following types of markedness of lexical structures: formal marking, distributional marking and semantic marking. Formal marking is defined on the basis of the presence or absence of formal material in lexemes. For instance, in the pair host and hostess, the lexeme host would be the formally unmarked member because it does not contain the suffix -ess. Distributional marking is based on the range of contexts in which a certain lexical item occurs: marked items are more restricted in their distribution. Finally, semantic marking of lexemes is defined through the specificity of their meaning: marked lexemes are more specific. For instance, as Lyons (1977: 307) asserts, the lexeme bitch is more specific than the lexeme dog and hence more semantically marked. In a somewhat similar vein, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) establish criteria for measuring markedness of reduplication processes in creole languages along three dimensions: semantic, formal and distributional/selectional. Thus, semantic markedness is defined in terms of semantic transparency: “Where one member of a pair is less semantically transparent than the other, the less transparent member is considered more marked” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 292). For instance, deverbal reduplication, as the Jamaican Creole bon-bon (to burn-to burn) ‘burnt food crust’, is semantically more marked because it does not correspond to the iconic principle “more of the same form represents more of the same content” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 290). Formal markedness is defined in terms of the relative amount of processing involved in relating the stem to the reduplicated form: “Where one member of a pair of reduplications requires more processing than the

115 other to relate the stem to the reduplicated surface form, the former is considered more marked” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 297). Partial reduplication, such as the Sranan ba-bari ‘tumult’ formed from the verb bari ‘to shout’ would then be more marked in terms of its form because it involves only a part of the base and thus requires more processing to relate the reduplicated item to its base (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 297, 302). Finally, the notion of selectional markedness is based on the potential of a given reduplication process to apply to different items: the greater the number of such items, the less restricted and thus the less marked the process. Selectional markedness is formulated by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 299) as follows: “Where the structural description of one member of a pair includes a more narrowly defined environment than that of the other, the former is considered more marked”. Deverbal reduplication resulting in the creation of nouns with instrumental meaning is more selectionally marked because it applies to a small number of bases (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 301). Another approach dealing with markedness of word-formation processes in general is Natural Morphology, as outlined in, for instance, Dressler (2005). Although this approach operates with the notions ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ rather than ‘unmarked’ and ‘marked’, Dressler (2005: 267) points out that ‘natural’ in Natural Morphology is synonymous with ‘unmarked’ or ‘less marked’. Some of the principles of Natural Morphology discussed in Dressler (2005) are relevant in the context of the present study, such as the principle of morphosemantic transparency and the principle of morphotactic transparency. According to the principle of morphosemantic transparency, more compositional, semantically motivated items and patterns can be regarded as less marked. Thus, a compositional, i.e. a transparent compound, is a compound whose meaning “is a subset of potential meanings of the compound as constructed grammatically via the combination of the meanings of the two parts” (Dressler 2005: 271). According to the principle of morphotactic transparency, wordformation processes involving purely phonological processes, such as resyllabification, as in roast – roaster, are less marked because they present no obstruction in terms of perception, whereas processes involving morphophonological rules, as in conclude – conclusion, are more marked (Dressler 2005: 272–273). It is beyond the scope of this study to discuss theoretical consequences and problems arising with the approaches which elaborate criteria and correlations for markedness, as well as with the concept of Natural Morphology. Some of the problems arising with the concept of markedness are discussed in, for instance, Battistella (1996: 13–18) and more recently, in Haspelmath (2006). Haspelmath, for instance, argues that markedness is a problematic notion since it has been used in a variety of often non-transparent ways and seems to be largely unexplanatory. He suggests that most of the phenomena which have been explained by means of the notion of markedness so far can be better explained by using other, less ambiguous and more explanatory notions such as frequency of use, conceptual difficulty, overt/zero coding, etc., and that the notion of markedness can thus be dispensed with. Although the arguments advanced by Haspelmath (2006) are rather plausible, the notion of markedness, and not a variety of different explanatory notions, will be employed in the present study out of the following reason. Working with different explanatory notions, as suggested by Haspelmath (2006), would make the procedure of establishing credibility claims about substratum and superstratum influence unnecessarily complex. Markedness, as a notion uniting several explanatory notions, can, by contrast, be regarded as a useful cover term which would allow us to combine a number of different factors, such as

116 simplicity and transparency, which have been treated so far as distinct from markedness (for instance, by Siegel (1999) or by Seuren and Wekker (1986)), in one coherent approach. This ‘unification’ of different notions, in its turn, would make it possible to use markedness as one central clear parameter for assessing substratum and superstratum influence. As long as this cover term is sufficiently defined and explained, no serious problems should arise. Given the considerations above, in the present study, the notion of markedness will be defined along the lines outlined in Lyons (1977), Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) and Dressler (2005). The notion of markedness will mainly be used for two purposes. On the one hand, since it is unclear which of the sources – substratum/superstratum languages, universals or language-internal development – and to what extent play a role in the emergence of creole word-formation patterns and markers, the notion of markedness will be employed in the discussion of what might influence the size and the quality of the inventory of Early Sranan word-formation patterns. On the other hand, since it is unclear in how far markedness constrains superstratum and substratum influence, the notion of markedness will be used in the discussions of superstratum and substratum influence on Early Sranan word-formation, especially as the criterion for estimating the probability of substratum and superstratum influence. Moreover, markedness is of interest in the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation because the major substratum languages of Early Sranan, such as Gbe and Kikongo, can hardly be regarded as typologically similar: Gbe shows preference for isolating structures, whereas Kikongo for agglutinating. For the purposes of the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation, two aspects should be clarified. First, what linguistic phenomena should be analysed in terms of markedness in the present study? Second, how can the criteria of markedness used in Lyons (1977), Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004), and Dressler (2005) be adjusted to satisfy the analysis of the linguistic phenomena which are the object of the present study? With respect to the first aspect, it can be pointed out that four phenomena should be analysed in terms of markedness in the area of word-formation. First, different types of word-formation processes (i.e. compounding, affixation, reduplication) should be analysed in terms of markedness. This is necessary for the discussion of the question of why Early Sranan shows preference for some types of word-formation processes whereas other processes are almost unattested. Second, individual word-formation patterns, for instance, different structural and semantic patterns within compounding or reduplication, or different structural and semantic patterns with a given marker, should be another object of analysis here. Third, markedness of individual word-formation markers should be a point of analysis in the present study. This is useful for the discussion of the question of why certain markers emerged in Early Sranan whereas other markers did not, as well as for assessing the probability of superstratum and substratum influence in the development of Early Sranan markers. Finally, individual complex items should be analysed in terms of markedness as well. This is necessary for finding out whether individual complex items might have been transferred from the substratum languages or adapted from the superstratum language. Given these considerations, the question arises how the notion of markedness can be operationalised to study the four phenomena. With respect to the second aspect, it should be pointed out that since word-formation patterns and markers, as well as complex words, usually have a certain form, carry a certain meaning and undergo certain selectional restrictions, their markedness can be analysed in terms of these three properties. Therefore, following Lyons (1977) and Kouwenberg and

117 LaCharité (2004), a distinction can be made between formal, semantic and selectional markedness. Since the markedness types in Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) are based on reduplication solely, it has to be clarified how they can be defined with respect to wordformation processes, patterns, markers and complex words in general. The formal aspects of word-formation processes and patterns, as well as of individual complex words, can be analysed along two dimensions: in terms of the number of constituents involved and in terms of the morphophonological shape of the constituents. Given this fact, formal markedness will be defined here using two principles: the principle of cognitive economy and the principle of morphotactic transparency. The principle of cognitive economy can be formulated as follows: ‘minimise the form of an expression’ (cf. Croft 2003: 102). Croft (2003: 103), for instance, argues that zero formal coding of grammatical categories is more economic than coding involving an addition of form. Indeed, it seems to be more economic in cognitive terms to express the concept of ‘hammer’ via conversion from the verb to hammer (provided that the verb is attested as a word in a given language) than to express it via two-member or three-member compounding as, for instance nail-thing or nail-inserting-thing because the former involves less phonological material and thus can be produced and processed faster. In other words, the more phonological material is involved, the more difficult a given form is to process and the longer it takes to produce it. The principle of morphotactic transparency is formulated in a number of works on Natural Morphology (Dalton-Puffer 1996, Dressler 1987, 1994). Dalton-Puffer (1996: 56) views morphotactic transparency as a scale for complex words which shows “how well their morphophonemic shape reflects their morphosemantic compositionality”. The idea behind the notion of morphotactic transparency is that the task learners usually face in the acquisition of vocabulary is to isolate the words and the elements crucial for communication and for the formation of new words (Clark 1993: 126). The process of isolation proceeds faster when the forms are easily identifiable, and this is the case when the forms are stressed, free and not marred by morphophonological processes. For instance, it is easier to isolate the elements of windmill than the elements of receptive. The principles mentioned above can be combined to define the formal markedness of word-formation processes, patterns and individual complex words. It can be suggested that processes, patterns or complex items involving more phonological material in terms of the number of words and/or containing morphemes which trigger stress change, vowel alternation, suppletion, etc. can be regarded as more formally marked. The two principles mentioned above, however, are not so suitable for classifying the formal markedness of individual word-formation markers. The formal markedness of markers can be defined using the principle of optimal shape of units (Dressler 2005: 276). According to this principle, units such as affixes are “optimal” (and thus less marked) if they consist of one syllable, and simplex words are optimal if they consist of one foot. This seems plausible since it is generally assumed that the more phonologically discernible a unit, the more perceptually salient it is. For instance, Vainikka and Young-Scholten (1995) maintain that free morphemes are generally more perceptually salient because they often constitute at least one phonological foot, whereas bound morphemes are usually smaller than a foot. In general, it can be assumed that better phonological discernibility allows better recognition and isolation of a given form and thus faster processing. All in all, it can be suggested that

118 word-formation markers which are phonologically more discernible, i.e. consisting of at least one syllable, are less formally marked. The idea of formal markedness is supported by some observations made in acquisition studies. For instance, Clark (1993: 120–121) argues on the basis of L1 acquisition studies of the lexicon that language learners rely on formal simplicity during the initial stages since they “find it easier to interpret and coin a new word the simpler it is in form – that is, the less its root changes in its construction”. The considerations advanced above can be summarised in the following scale of formal markedness in word-formation: (1)

less formally marked processes, patterns and complex words involving no or little change in form (in terms of morphotactics and/or the number of elements) markers which are more phonologically discernible

more formally marked processes, patterns and complex words involving greater change in form (in terms of morphotactics and/or the number of elements) markers which are less phonologically discernible

Semantic markedness will be defined here using the principle of morphosemantic transparency as formulated in Dalton-Puffer (1996) and in Dressler (2005) (cf. Seuren and Wekker 1986). Dalton-Puffer (1996: 55) views morphosemantic transparency as an instrument for measuring “how well the formal operation reflects the semantic compositionality of the derived word”. According to this principle, additive processes, such as affixation and iconic reduplication, can be regarded as more semantically transparent than conversion, base modification or subtraction (Dalton-Puffer 1996: 55, Dressler 1994: 97). Processes which allow a straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning can be assumed to promote faster recognition of words built by such processes and thus to facilitate processing. This principle will be used here to define word-formation processes in terms of markedness: processes which allow a more straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning will be regarded as less marked. Dressler (2005: 271–272) views morphosemantic transparency as full compositionality of meaning and argues that compounds whose meanings are fully and directly motivated (i.e. not by means of a metaphor) via the meanings of their members, such as door-bell, are more semantically transparent (cf. Ronneberger-Sibold 2001: 98). Fully unmotivated compounds, such as hum-bug, are least semantically transparent. In addition to these two cases, there are, according to Dressler (2005: 272), items which can be classified in between these two classes in terms of semantic transparency, e.g. compounds which are indirectly, i.e. metaphorically, motivated. For instance, the compound ratchet tooth, which has a transparent first member, but a metaphorically motivated second member since the leaves of the plant denoted by the compound look like teeth. Therefore, such a compound can be regarded as less transparent than the compound door-bell but more transparent than the compound hum-bug. Compositionality of meaning can be assumed to allow speakers to faster identify the meaning of the word and thus to facilitate processing. Dressler’s principle of morphosemantic transparency, as well as Dalton-Puffer’s (1996) principle of morphosemantic transparency, can be used here to define the semantic markedness of indi-

119 vidual complex words. A complex word can be regarded as less marked semantically if it has a fully motivated meaning, i.e. meaning fully discernible from the meanings of its parts, and allows a more straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning. Metaphorically motivated complex words whose meanings are only partially discernible from the meanings of the individual members, as well as fully opaque words, whose meanings are not discernible from the meanings of their members at all, will be regarded as more marked semantically in the present study. The principles of morphosemantic transparency just discussed, however, are not suitable for defining the markedness of word-formation markers since markers are monomorphemic items. Neither are they suitable for defining the semantic markedness of word-formation patterns, which are generally difficult to analyse in terms of compositionality of meaning because of their abstract nature. To classify markers in terms of semantic markedness, Lyons’ (1977) notion of semantic marking can be employed. As mentioned above, Lyons (1977: 307) views items with more general meaning as less marked and those with more specific meaning as more marked. Applying this idea to word-formation markers, markers with more general meanings, such as ‘person’, ‘instrument’, ‘place’, ‘small’ can be regarded as less semantically marked, whereas markers with more specific meanings attested in, for instance, many languages of North America (Mithun 1996) can be regarded as more semantically marked. What might be a support for this suggestion? Cross-linguistically, markers with general meanings, such as ‘person’, ‘instrument’, etc., are more common (Bauer 2002: 40), and the question arises why this is so. It can be assumed that markers with less specific meanings are more frequently used by the speakers because speakers generally tend to talk about persons, instruments and places more often than about types of wood. Therefore, markers with less specific meanings are more readily available for the use as word-formation devices. Lyons’ (1977) notion of semantic marking can also be applied to analyse the semantic markedness of word-formation patterns: patterns yielding general meanings can be regarded as less marked whereas patterns yielding specific meanings can be viewed as more marked. For instance, such a pattern as ‘person connected with object X’ can be regarded as less marked than such a pattern as ‘unnamed member of community X as a whole’ on the grounds mentioned in the discussion of semantic markedness of word-formation markers. Given the considerations above, the following scale of semantic markedness in wordformation will be used in the present study: (2) less semantically marked processes allowing a more straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning complex words yielding compositional, directly motivated meanings and allowing a more straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning patterns and markers with more general meanings

more semantically marked processes allowing a less straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning complex words yielding less compositional, less directly motivated meanings and allowing a less straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning patterns and markers with more specific meanings

120 Selectional markedness in the area of word-formation can be defined along the lines provided in Lyons (1977) and Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004). Word-formation processes and patterns applicable to a restricted number of items, and markers which can be combined with a restricted number of bases will be regarded as more marked. Why should this be so? The more restricted a pattern is in its application, the lower the number of items to which it applies and thus the lower the frequency of occurrence of the items (types, not tokens) created by such a pattern than by patterns yielding a great number of various items (types, not tokens). Hence, such patterns are less readily available for the creation of new words. Since the idea of syntactic restrictions operating in word-formation has been criticised recently (Plag 2004), mainly semantic restrictions will be used for classifying processes, patterns and markers in terms of selectional markedness. Besides, individual complex items can also be regarded as more selectionally marked if they require more narrowly specified contexts. For instance, the English noun slice can be regarded as more marked than the noun piece because it requires a more narrowly specified context than the noun piece does. It is thus more restricted in its distribution and less frequent. Note also that generally, patterns and items which are more complex semantically and structurally tend to be less productive since they bear additional semantic features and are therefore more restricted in meaning (cf. Baayen 1997: 194). On the basis of the considerations just mentioned, the following scale of selectional markedness can be established: (3) less selectionally marked processes, patterns and markers which are less restricted in their application complex items which require less narrowly specified contexts

more selectionally marked processes, patterns and markers which are more restricted in their application complex items which require more narrowly specified contexts

As shown above, the notion of markedness can be defined in such a way that there is no longer a need for using a variety of other factors, such as simplicity, perceptual salience, semantic transparency, etc. All in all, the notion of markedness can be defined in such a way as to combine most of these factors in one coherent approach. The scales and the definitions of markedness provided in this section will be used in the analysis of Early Sranan word-formation for mainly two purposes: for assessing the probability of substratum or superstratum influence and for explaining what constrains transfer from the substratum languages and adaptation of patterns from the superstratum language.

7.1.3 Defining the sources of creole word-formation Another important methodological issue which has to be addressed here is how to reliably identify the sources of creole structures. As mentioned in section 2.3 above, three sources of word-formation in creoles have been discussed in creole literature so far: the input languages (both substratum and superstratum), universals and language-internal development. This section is devoted to clarifying the criteria for assessing the probability of substratum and superstratum influence as the sources of creole word-formation, as well as to clarifying

121 when universals and language-internal development will be regarded as sources of creole structures in the present study. The first question to be dealt with in this section is how to assess the probability of substratum influence on Early Sranan word-formation. Providing convincing evidence for substratum influence is a common problem in many investigations in creole linguistics. As Sebba (1997: 183–185) notes, generally, a similarity in more marked structures can be regarded as stronger evidence of substratum transfer whereas a similarity in unmarked or less marked structures as weaker evidence of substratum transfer. In a similar vein, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 303) argue that “a substrate explanation is much less credible for unmarked properties, because the possibility of independent development cannot be excluded”. They also add that “this does not mean that an unmarked property may not be transferred; it simply means that it does not provide convincing evidence for transfer”. Parkvall (2000a: 24) uses a somewhat different methodology and regards a given creole structure as a case of substratum transfer if “the feature is present in the substrates, absent from the lexifier, cross-linguistically uncommon and not generally present in other, unrelated P/Cs (pidgins and creoles, M.B.)”. Parkvall’s methodological approach is problematic to apply in the present study on mainly two grounds. First, establishing what is crosslinguistically common or uncommon in the area of word-formation is difficult in a number of cases. Although there are some studies on cross-linguistic occurrence of some wordformation markers (e.g. Bauer 2002), detailed accounts of cross-linguistic occurrence of certain word-formation processes, as well as of the occurrence of certain semantic and formal types of word-formation patterns, be it affixational or compounding patterns, are rare. Second, a similar difficulty arises with finding out what semantic and formal wordformation patterns are attested in other, unrelated pidgins and creoles: despite the growing number of works on creole word-formation, there are rather few studies which provide detailed overviews of word-formation patterns and thus can be used for a comparison with Early Sranan patterns. In addition to these two specific problems, a more general question arising in connection with Parkvall’s approach is whether convincing cases of substratum influence are indeed mainly those in which a given feature is not attested in the superstratum. Thus, it has been shown (Siegel 1999: 31–35) that full or partial congruence between a given superstratum and a given substratum structure might facilitate transfer. It seems then that the presence in the substratum languages combined with the absence from the superstratum languages is not a clear-cut basis for determining cases of substratum influence. To conclude, although remarks about cross-linguistic occurrence and presence or absence of certain word-formation markers and patterns in other creoles can and will be made in quite a number of cases in the present study, especially in the discussion of potential cases of universal development, they can impossibly be used systematically to identify cases of substratum influence in the way done within Parkvall’s approach. All in all, whereas cross-linguistic occurrence or absence/presence in other creoles cannot be established for every Early Sranan word-formation marker and pattern, markedness, by contrast, can. Therefore, the notion of markedness seems to be a better applicable parameter for evaluating the probability of substratum influence in the context of the present study. The next question which arises here is how the probability of superstratum influence can be assessed. Notably, much of the research in creole linguistics has concentrated on substratum influence and on providing methodology for assessing substratum influence. Superstratum influence, by contrast, often seems to be taken for granted, and methodology for

122 assessing superstratum influence has been hardly discussed, with the exception of Parkvall (2000a: 17–24). However, there are several considerations which might suggest that assessing the credibility of superstratum influence is as important as assessing the credibility of substratum influence. On the assumption that creole creators were creating their own language and possibly had only limited access to the superstratum and little motivation to learn it, it can be suggested that they had not necessarily just picked up some structures from the superstratum. This means that superficial correspondences between creole and superstratum structures should be treated with caution since they might as well be the result of independent development. Therefore, in the present study, one-to-one correspondences between superstratum and creole structures will not be regarded as convincing cases of superstratum influence. The methodology for assessing credibility of superstratum influence can in principle be the same as the methodology for assessing substratum influence on two grounds. First, both substratum and superstratum languages can be regarded as pools of structures providing potential sources of creole structures. Second, arguments advanced for using markedness as a criterion for establishing the credibility of substratum influence can be regarded as similarly applicable when assessing the credibility of superstratum influence. Given the considerations above, in the present study, a metric based on the notion of markedness will be used for assessing substratum and superstratum influence. This metric will be viewed as a continuum ranging from phenomena for which substratum/superstratum influence is more likely to those for which substratum/superstratum influence is less likely. Since, as mentioned in the preceding section, four types of phenomena are of interest in the present study – word-formation processes, patterns, individual complex words and markers – all of them are integrated in this metric which is presented below: (4)

substratum/superstratum influence less likely processes, patterns, complex words and markers which are less marked

substratum/superstratum influence more likely processes, patterns, complex words and markers which are more marked in at least one aspect (i.e. formal, semantic or selectional)

Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) argue that patterns showing an accumulation of marked properties, i.e. patterns marked in all three respects, formally, semantically and selectionally, provide the most convincing cases of substratum influence. However, in the present study, patterns which are marked in only one respect will also be regarded as convincing cases of substratum or superstratum influence because such an approach might lead to a more detailed picture of substratum and superstratum influence in the emergence of creole word-formation. Another issue to be clarified here is what should be considered a case of universal development in Early Sranan word-formation. Here again, Parkvall’s (2000a) methodology is worth mentioning. Parkvall (2000a: 24) suggests that a pidgin/creole feature can be regarded as a restructuring universal if “it is absent from both the lexifier and the substrates and cross-linguistically uncommon, but generally present in other, unrelated P/Cs (pidgins and creoles, M.B.)”. Parkvall’s methodology seems to be reasonable, but has to be modified

123 for the purposes of the present study. First, in the present study, no difference between general language universals and particular universals of creole development will be made because both can be regarded as a set of cognitive principles guiding the emergence and the development of human languages. Second, because of the fact that only few detailed studies of word-formation in other creoles are available so far, information about word-formation in creoles both related and unrelated to Early Sranan will be used here to discuss cases of universal development. Thus, in general, in the present study, structures absent from the superstratum and the substratum languages but cross-linguistically common and/or attested in other creoles, related or unrelated, will be regarded as cases of universal development. It should be pointed out that remarks on the universal development as a source of a given word-formation structure will not always be made in the present study because of the problems mentioned previously in this section arising with establishing what is crosslinguistically common or uncommon in the area of word-formation, as well as with finding out what is present in other creoles. Because of these problems, comments about crosslinguistic occurrence and presence of a given structure in other creoles will mainly be made with respect to word-formation markers and general compounding patterns, such as N-N or A-N compounding. No such comments will usually be made on the occurrence of certain semantic patterns with markers or many semantic compounding patterns because of the lack of detailed information about their cross-linguistic occurrence and their presence in other creoles. The final issue to be dealt with here is the question when a word-formation process, pattern or marker can be regarded as the result of a language-internal development. Parkvall (2000a: 24) argues that a feature can be considered to be the result of an independent development when it is “absent from all the input components as well as from other, unrelated P/Cs (pidgins and creoles, M.B.)”. Parkvall’s criterion seems to be a solid basis for identifying convincing cases of language-internal development and will therefore be used in the present study without any further modification. To sum up, the criteria established in the present section will be used in what follows to identify the sources of Early Sranan word-formation processes, patterns and markers.

7.1.4 Methodological remarks on the ways of systematising data description A final issue which has to be clarified here is how the description of Early Sranan data can be systematised. As mentioned in sections 5.4.4 and 5.5.4 above, Early Sranan data will be analysed from the point of view of word-formation patterns, and the patterns will be described in terms of their structure and their semantics. In this section, the discussion will concentrate on the ways of systematising the structural and the semantic description of Early Sranan concatenative patterns. Since there are different possibilities of dealing with the structure of word-formation patterns, the issue which should be clarified here is which of these possibilities can be used in the present study. One common traditional way of describing word-formation patterns structurally is by making reference to word-class categories. However, as suggested in section 6.4.3, Early Sranan words can be considered to be underspecified for word-class categories at the conceptual level and to acquire their specification at the level of syntax.

124 Therefore, the question arises whether Early Sranan word-formation patterns can and should be analysed in terms of word-class categories. There are several practical reasons for describing Early Sranan word-formation patterns in terms of word-class categories. First, most studies of word-formation in the substratum and the superstratum languages of Early Sranan make reference to word-class categories and describe word-formation structurally in terms of word-classes. Hence, describing wordformation patterns in Early Sranan in terms of word-class categories would make it possible to carry out comparisons between Early Sranan word-formation and word-formation in its substratum and superstratum languages. Second, a description in terms of word-class categories offers a systematic way of dealing with the data. In general, it can be pointed out that word-class labels are used here out of convenience rather than out of theoretical conviction. As shown above in section 6.2.1, word-classes of Early Sranan items at the level of syntax can be established on the basis of different criteria, such as functional, semantic and syntactic. Therefore, the question is which criteria can be used to establish word-class categories of words within complex words. Since complex words are syntactic atoms, and therefore words which are parts of complex words are invisible to syntactic operations, syntactic criteria cannot be used to identify word-class membership at the level of wordformation. Functional criteria also seem to be difficult to apply to parts of complex words. We are thus left with semantic criteria. As mentioned in section 6.2.1, each word-class is often associated with certain semantics: nouns usually denote objects, adjectives denote properties, verbs denote actions and states, numerals denote numerical concepts and so on. These criteria can also be applied to parts of complex words. For instance, in the complex items ougrimeti ‘tiger’ and jájoman ‘a man living dissolutely/an immoral, slovenly guy’, the non-heads ougri and jájo are multifunctional. Ougri is attested as a noun, ‘evil’, an adjective, ‘evil/bad’, and a verb, ‘to be evil/to be bad’. Jájo can be a noun, ‘slovenliness’, and a verb, ‘to live dissolutely’. The probably most straightforward semantic interpretation of the item ougrimeti ‘tiger’ is ‘animal with the property ‘evil/bad’ rather than ‘animal who does evil’ or ‘animal in the state of being bad or evil’. It seems that ougri in ougrimeti denotes a property. Hence, it can be regarded as an adjective. A similar line of argumentation can be applied to jájoman. Jájoman could probably be best interpreted as ‘a person who lives dissolutely/slovenly’ rather than ‘a person connected with slovenliness’. Jájo thus seems to denote an action in jájoman. Although semantic interpretations of some items might seem disputable, it should be pointed out that in fact, nothing hinges on this general procedure of applying semantic criteria, which is a useful tool for classifying the data in the present study. Two other important methodological remarks are due here. One remark is that for the sake of simplicity and greater terminological consistency, the term ‘object’, if used in the semantic descriptions of patterns, denotes all kinds of entities, such as animate and inanimate entities, substances and all possible kinds of abstract entities, e.g. institutions, locations, etc. In some cases, however, a more narrow specification of the type of a given object will be made if it is reasonable on some ground. Another remark due here is that the term ‘pattern’ will be applied to those cases in which more than two items are attested that are built according to the same semantic model. Items which do not form any consistent pattern will be termed ‘items not belonging to a certain pattern’. Such items are often built on metaphors and have idiosyncratic meanings.

125

7.2

Formation of nouns

7.2.1 Patterns with the person marker -man A considerable number of complex items attested in the early sources contain the morpheme -man (< Engl. man) as their right-hand member. Several examples of such words are given in (5): (5) a.

b.

c.

complex word aséhman boonjamman bootie man djariman hondiman kry man troke man

friman grídi-man lésiman

translation of the complex word ‘witch/magician’ ‘person who has gout’ ‘oarsman’ ‘gardener’ ‘hunter’ ‘wailer’ ‘woman who accompanies dancing with solo singing’ ‘free person’ ‘miser’ ‘lazybones’

base

source

asêh boon-jam bootie djari hondi kry troke

translation of the base ‘witchcraft’ ‘gout’ ‘boat’ ‘garden’ ‘to hunt’ ‘to cry’ ‘to lead a song’

fri grídi lési

‘free’ ‘greedy’ ‘lazy’

Sch Fo Fo

Sch Sch VD Sch Sch VD VD

The morpheme -man presents a complex case in terms of reference. Unfortunately, in a number of cases the reference of man-complex words is difficult to establish since example sentences which would allow clear conclusions about the reference of these words are not always provided. However, in many cases hypotheses can be advanced on the basis of general knowledge or translations provided by the authors. In general, four groups of manwords can be established in terms of reference. The first group includes man-words whose translations suggest that they might primarily refer to male persons, such as jájoman ‘an immoral/slovenly guy’, njuman ‘young single male person’ and obiaman ‘a master of witches’ (Schumann 1783: 70, 123, 126). The second group consists of man-words which have female referents. For instance, beremán ‘a pregnant woman’ can have only female reference. Troke man which means ‘a woman who accompanies dancing with solo singing’ refers to a woman in Van Dyk (c1765: 111). Wassi-mán is translated by Focke (1855: 147) as “waschmeid, waschvrouw” (‘washerwoman’) and thus seems to be used to refer to female referents. The third group comprises items which, judging from translations, can refer to both male and female persons. For instance, for the word blindeman Schumann (1783: 18) provides the following interpretation: “wan somma nanga hai tappa” which means ‘a person with eyes closed’. Since somma means ‘person’ in Early Sranan, blindeman can thus be interpreted as referring to both male and female referents. In the case of asêhman, Schumann (1783: 8) provides the following translation: “a supposed witch, man or woman...”. The last group includes cases for which reference cannot be established with great degree of precision. For instance, jássiman is translated by Schumann (1783: 72)

126 as ‘einer, der die Jass hat’ (lit. ‘one who has yaws’). Although the German einer, by means of which Schumann translates this word, is marked for the masculine gender, it is difficult to imagine that the item jássiman was used to refer to male persons only, because the disease might have affected female referents as well. Another interesting fact about the reference of man-words is that there is one clear instance where a word containing -man is used to refer to a child, i.e. a non-adult human being. In Van Dyk’s example (c1765: 39) “Go we joe wan pikien hakki siman.” (‘Go away you little asker.’) hakki siman (ask-PM) refers to a child. To conclude, the morpheme -man as used in (5) refers to human beings in general, and its meaning can be described as ‘person’. The morpheme man is also attested independently in Early Sranan, as shown below: (6)

a.

mi habi man 1SG have husband Arends (1995b: 185): ‘I have a husband.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 65): ‘Ik heb een Man.’

b.

Humenni man ju ben habi kaba? QM-many man 2SG PST have already ‘How many men have you had already?’ Schumann (1783: 107): ‘Wie viele Männer hast du schon gehabt?’

In the examples in (6) the morpheme man refers to adult persons of male sex; so, its meaning can be described as ‘man/husband’. It can thus be pointed out that there is a difference in terms of reference and meaning between the independently attested morpheme man and the morpheme -man attested as the right-hand element of complex words: whereas the independently attested man refers to adult male persons, the -man in the complex words in (5) refers to human beings in general. Besides, there is another difference between the two morphemes: they are spelt differently in Schumann (cf. Van den Berg 2003: 244). When referring to adult male persons, the item is written predominantly with double , whereas -man as the right-hand element in complex words is written with one in all but one case where a complex word has two spelling variants: and . This complex word, remarkably, has the meaning ‘male magician’, which generally supports the assumptions just made. To summarise the discussion above, it can be pointed out that the morpheme -man attested as the right-hand member in complex words has a specific derivational function in Early Sranan: to create names of persons, and it is used with semantic consistency in this function. It can be suggested therefore that -man is used as a person marker in Early Sranan. Below, the structural and the semantic properties of man-constructs will be described in greater detail. There are three structural types of Early Sranan items with the marker -man. The first type is illustrated by the examples in (5a). The first elements in these examples denote concrete objects (e.g. bootie ‘boat’ as in bootie man) and abstract objects (e.g. asêh ‘witchcraft’ as in aséhman) and can be regarded as nouns. The first elements are primarily simplex bases, although a few complex ones are attested as well, as in boonjamman ‘person who has gout’ in which the noun boonjam (bone-to eat) ‘gout’ is complex. The second structural type is exemplified in (5b). The first elements in the items in (5b) denote an

127 action and can be regarded as verbs. These verbs can be both transitive (hondi ‘to hunt’) and intransitive (kry ‘to cry’). In the words of the third structural type, presented in (5c), the first slot is occupied by the elements which denote physical or psychic properties of referents, such as fri ‘free’, grídi ‘greedy’, lési ‘lazy’, etc., and can therefore be viewed as adjectives. The major semantic types of man-constructs are presented in (7). In all examples hereafter, X stands for the base. (7)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

‘person whose occupation is connected with object X’ aséhman ‘magic-PM’ ‘witch/magician’ jari man ‘garden-PM’ ‘gardener’ jen jen man ‘clock-PM’ ‘watchmaker’ wowójo-man ‘market-PM’ ‘market woman’ ‘person who possesses object X’ goede man ‘riches/treasures-PM’ ‘rich person’ gendriman ‘riches/treasures-PM’ ‘rich person’ ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ bére-mán ‘belly-PM’ ‘pregnant woman’ sorroman ‘sore-man’ ‘person who has sores all over the body’ ‘person who suffers from disease X’ boasiman ‘leprosy-PM’ ‘leper’ jássiman ‘yaws-PM’ ‘person who suffers from yaws’ ‘person who performs action X’ diéni-man ‘to serve-PM’ ‘servant’ helpiman ‘to help-PM’ ‘helper/midwife’ mékiman ‘to give birth-PM’ ‘woman in childbed’ schrifi man ‘to write-PM’ ‘bookkeeper’ zingi man ‘to sing-PM’ ‘singer’ ‘person characterised by property X’ blindeman ‘blind-PM’ ‘blind person’ dofuman ‘deaf-PM’ ‘deaf person’ ziki man ‘sick-PM’ ‘sick person/patient’ iéngrisiman2 ‘English-PM’ ‘Englishman’ items not belonging to a certain pattern heddiman ‘head-PM’ ‘leader/foreman’ fesiman ‘face-PM’ ‘leader/foreman’ toriman ‘story-PM’ ‘chatterer’

Sch VD VD Fo VD Sch Fo Sch

Sch Sch

Fo Sch Fo VD VD Sch Fo VD Fo Sch Sch Sch

– 2

Note that the semantics of such constructs as iéngrisiman and dóisiman (Dutch-PM) ‘Dutchman’ is interpreted here as ‘person characterised by property X’, and not as ‘inhabitant of X’, because their first elements denote characteristics in terms of nationality (iéngrisiman means ‘characterised by (being) English’), and not countries or places, as is the case with the pattern ‘inhabitant of X’ (e.g. the English Londoner means ‘inhabitant of London’).

128 The pattern in (7e) is the most productive one in Early Sranan. 12 words (types) of the total 23 man-words (types) attested in Van Dyk belong to this semantic type, 33 out of 67 in Schumann, and 33 out of 64 in Focke. All seven semantic types of man-words presented in (7) are attested in each of the three sources. Although a number of the same man-words occur in all three sources, such as granman ‘governor’, ferviman ‘painter’, djariman ‘gardener’, etc., each source also contains man-words which are not attested in the other two sources. The discussion above allows us to establish the following patterns with the person marker -man, which are formalised in terms of the constructional idioms in (8): (8)

a. b. c. d. e. f.

[[X]N[man]]N [[X]N[man]]N [[X]N[man]]N [[X]N[man]]N [[X]V[man]]N [[X]A[man]]N

‘person whose occupation is connected with object X’ ‘person who possesses object X’ ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ ‘person who suffers from disease X’ ‘person who performs action X’ ‘person characterised by property X’

The issue to be addressed now is what sources, mechanisms and factors might have played a role in the emergence of -man as a person marker in Early Sranan and in the development of the patterns in (8). Starting with the sources, it should be clarified what role, if at all, universals, the superstratum, the substratum languages or language-internal development might have played in the emergence of -man as a person marker and of the patterns with this marker. Therefore, below, observations on the cross-linguistic occurrence of person markers will be made and the Early Sranan marker -man and the patterns it surfaces in will be compared to the markers and patterns attested in its superstratum and substratum languages. Person markers belong to one of the most frequently attested derivational markers crosslinguistically (Bauer 2002: 40). Besides, some studies show that person markers develop early in first language acquisition. For instance, Clark (1993: 147) observes that patterns with the person markers -er and -man are among the first patterns which emerge in L1 acquisition of English (cf. Meibauer (1999) for German). As far as SLA is concerned, a study by Broeder et al. (1993: 47) shows that items with person markers surface among the few consistent word-formation patterns L2 learners produce at the initial stages irrespectively of their L1s. Besides, person markers are attested in almost every creole language, e.g. in Haitian (Lefebvre 2003: 63), St. Lucian (Brousseau 2005), Tok Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1979: 384), Krio (Jones 1995), Jamaican Creole (Cassidy and Le Page 2002) and Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 74–75). Note that in almost all English-based creoles, person markers come from the English morpheme man. So, the fact that Early Sranan has a person marker can at first sight be attributed to universal influence. However, person markers are also attested in both the substratum and the superstratum languages of Early Sranan. Besides, it is unclear in how far the individual man-patterns attested in Early Sranan are also attested in other creole and non-creole languages. Thus, the sources of other creole languages, such as Haitian, Papiamentu and Tok Pisin, provide no sufficient information on this issue. Therefore, below, the Early Sranan person marker and the patterns it surfaces in will be compared to the markers and patterns in the superstratum and in the substrates.

129 As far as English is concerned, one of the most frequently occurring and of the most productive person markers is the suffix -er. This suffix goes back to Old English and has been used to create nouns denoting persons from the bases of various word-classes, with verbal bases being most common (Koziol 1972: 188–191). However, since this suffix was not taken over into Early Sranan, it will not be discussed here in greater detail. Since the Early Sranan marker -man is related etymologically to the English item man, the latter requires a closer regard here. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most frequently used meaning of the English man is ‘adult male person’. However, in Old English, the prevailing meaning of the item man was ‘a human being irrespective of sex or age’, and the item was sometimes used in this meaning during later periods. The English man is attested in quite a number of compounds, such as landsman, craftsman, doomsman, coalman, milkman. According to Marchand (1969: 60–61), the English compounds with -man go back to the Old English period and have been in use ever since. The following patterns with the English -man can be established on the basis of the information provided in Koziol (1972), Marchand (1969) and the OED. (9)

a.

b. c. d. e. f.

[[X]N[man]]N ‘man whose occupation is connected milkman, coalman, with object X’ timber-man, churchman, boatman, woodsman [[X]A[man]]N ‘man characterised by property X’ freeman, sickman, blindman [[X]N[man]]N ‘man who uses instrument X in his axe-man, swordsman work’ [[X]N[man]]N ‘member of group X’ mobsman, clansman, guildsman [[X]N[man]]N ‘inhabitant of geographical unit X’ plainsman, dailsman, townsman [[X]N[man]]N items not belonging to a certain headman, gentleman, pattern sidesman

There are evident parallels between English and Early Sranan in terms of man-patterns. Thus, the English patterns in (9a) and (9b) have parallels in Early Sranan. Although the English noun man has the feature [+male] in the compounds in (9), whereas the Early Sranan -man is not specified for this feature, the two patterns are otherwise identical in the two languages. However, these two patterns are formally, semantically and selectionally unmarked: they consist of two bare roots, render general meanings and are hardly restricted in their application since they attach to many semantic classes of nouns and adjectives (i.e. nouns denoting any kind of object and adjectives denoting any kind of property). Therefore, superstratum influence is less credible in their case. In addition to the parallels in terms of patterns, there are also parallels in terms of individual lexemes: a number of Early Sranan man-words, such as friman, gendriman, kondreman, heddiman, workoman and sikiman, display striking phonological similarities to their English equivalents: freeman, gentleman, countryman, headman, workman and sickman. Some of these words have the same meaning as in English, e.g. friman or workoman. In some other cases, there are semantic differences between Early Sranan man-words and their English equivalents. For instance, the English gentleman has the following meanings

130 according to the OED: ‘a man of gentle birth’, ‘a man of chivalrous instincts and fine feelings’, ‘a man of superior position in society’. The Early Sranan gendriman (riches/treasures-PM), by contrast, means ‘rich person’, according to Schumann (1783: 49). Despite the formal and the semantic similarities, many of the items just mentioned, for instance, friman, workoman and sikiman, can be regarded as formally and semantically unmarked because they consist of two bare roots and have fully compositional meanings. Therefore, superstratum influence is less credible in their case. However, such items as heddiman (head-PM) ‘leader’ and kondreman (country-PM) have meanings which are less semantically motivated. Thus, the meaning of heddiman involves a metaphor and the meaning of kondreman in Sranan is not just ‘inhabitant of a country’, but ‘inhabitant of the same country’. These two items can therefore be regarded as less fully motivated than, for instance, blindeman ‘blind person’. It can be assumed that the items heddiman and kondreman might have been taken over into Early Sranan from the superstratum. Besides the similarities, there are also some differences between the English and the Early Sranan man-patterns. The first difference has already been mentioned above: the English man has the feature [+male], whereas the Early Sranan -man does not seem to be specified for the feature [+male] in most complex words it is attested in. This points to the fact that the correspondence between the two items is primarily formal. The second difference is that several Early Sranan patterns with -man have no man-parallels in English: ‘person who performs action X’, ‘person who possesses object X’, ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ and ‘person who suffers from disease X’. In English, some of these patterns, e.g., ‘person who performs action X’, are attested with the suffix -er. However, none of the er-items has entered Early Sranan possibly because -man is less formally marked than -er since man is more phonologically discernible. The third difference is that the English patterns in (9c–e) are not attested in Early Sranan. Several factors can be used to explain this fact. One of them is markedness. The patterns in (9c–e) can be regarded as more marked in selectional terms than the patterns in (9a–b) because the former apply only to some particular types of nouns, such as instruments, groups and geographical units. By contrast, the patterns in (9a–b) apply to objects and properties of any type. Besides, the patterns in (9d–e) can also be regarded as more formally marked, since they consist of three morphemes: two bases and the suffix -s. To summarise, the superstratum seems to have provided the form of the person marker, as well as some man-words and it also shares two man-patterns with Early Sranan, which are, however, unmarked and thus less credible candidates for superstratum influence. As far as the substratum languages of Early Sranan are concerned, they make use of a variety of person markers. Below, patterns attested with person markers in different substratum languages of Early Sranan will be introduced. Note that in some cases, the wordclass of the bases is difficult to identify because no sufficient information is available and/ or the items are multifunctional. In such cases, more than one word-class is listed. The Kwa languages Ewe, Fon and Twi exhibit great similarities to each other in terms of the patterns with person markers. Thus, in Ewe, there are four different person markers, -a, -la, -no2 (originally the noun ‘mother’) and -to2 (originally the noun ‘father’) (Schlegel 1856: 25–29, Westermann 1907: 120–122). As Westermann (1907: 121) argues, the markers -a and -la are very similar in terms of their function. The marker -a is used in older varieties, whereas -la becomes more and more common in modern varieties of Ewe. Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 187–191, 230–232) show that Fon has an agentive suffix, -tO!, and an attributive

131 suffix, -nO~, which also occur as nouns meaning ‘father’ and ‘mother’ respectively, and the provenance suffixes -tO! and -nu~. Twi has two different person markers, -ni and -fọ, which were originally independent nouns meaning ‘people/person’ (Christaller 1875: 24–25). The patterns with the Ewe, Fon and Twi person markers, which can be established on the basis of the examples provided in Schlegel (1856: 25–28) and Westermann (1907: 120–122) for Ewe, in Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 187–191, 230–232) for Fon and in Akrofi and Botchey (1980: 60) and Christaller (1875: 24–25) for Twi are listed in (10). Note that there is some overlap between the markers within one and the same language since in some cases, several markers exhibit the same patterns in one and the same language. (10) a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

[N-PM]N ‘person whose occupation is connected with object X’ agble-a3 ‘feld-PM’ ‘farmer’ ade-la ‘hunt-PM’ ‘hunter’ a~ze!-tO! ‘magic-PM’ ‘magician/sorcerer’ gbe!-tO! ‘bush-PM’ ‘hunter’ otu-fo! ‘gun-PM’ ‘musketeer’ [N-PM]N ‘person who possesses object X’ agble-to2! ‘plantation-PM’ ‘plantation owner’ kes*ino2-to2 ‘riches/treasures-PM’ ‘rich person’ a~kwE!-nO$ ‘money-PM’ ‘rich person’ osika-n¸! ‘gold-PM’ ‘rich person’ [N-PM]N ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ kpo!-no ‘hunch-PM’ ‘hunchback’ a~dO~go~-nO~ ‘belly-PM’ ‘pregnant woman/ potbellied person’ oku-fo! ‘sore-PM’ ‘person full of sores’ [N-PM]N ‘person who suffers from disease X’ sakpatele!-la ‘smallpox-PM’ ‘person who suffers from smallpox’ gu~du~-nO ~ ‘leprosy-PM’ ‘leper’ Okwata-ni ‘leprosy-PM’ ‘leper’ [V-PM]N ‘person who performs action X’ subo2-la ‘to serve-PM’ ‘servant’ osu)a-n¸! ‘to learn-PM’ ‘scholar’ [A/V-PM]N ‘person characterised by property X’ ku!ku-a ‘(be) dead-PM’ ‘dead person/corpse’ do2~le-la ‘(be) ill-be-PM’ ‘sick person’ ko-no ‘(be) alone-PM’ ‘infertile person’ akufia-to2 ‘(be) lazy-PM’ ‘lazybones’ gwE~-nO$ ‘(be) miserly/ ‘miserly person’ miserliness-PM’ oh¸)a!-n¸! ‘poverty-PM’ ‘poor person’

Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Ewe Ewe Fon Twi Ewe Fon Twi Ewe Fon Twi Ewe Twi Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Fon Twi

– 3

Hereafter the hyphen in the data from the substratum languages indicates the morpheme border between bases and affixes in derivatives and the border between bases in compounds.

132 g.

h.

i.

j.

[N-V-PM]N ‘person who performs action X involving object X’ ale2-kplo2-la ‘sheep-to lead-PM’ ‘shepherd’ mo2-zo2-a ‘way-to go-PM’ ‘wanderer’ a~hwa~n-y¸~-tO! ‘war-to go-PM’ ‘warrior’ ha~n-j¸!-tO! ‘song-to yield-PM’ ‘singer’ o2banto-n¸! ‘stonehouse-to build-PM’ ‘mason’ [N-V-PM]N ‘person characterised by action X involving object X’ nu-nya-la ‘thing-to know-PM’ ‘wise person’ aha-mu)-no2 ‘strong drink-to get ‘drinker’ drunk-PM’ a~ha~n-nu~mu!-nO ‘alcohol-to overdrink-PM’ ‘drunkard’ a~du~n-gbo!-nO ‘mud-to stand-PM’ ‘dirty pig’ [N-A/V-PM]N ‘person has object X characterised by property X’ to-ku-no ‘ear-(be) dead-PM’ ‘deaf person’ ade!-tutu-to2 ‘tongue-lame-PM’ ‘dumb person’ to!-(ku!)ku!-nO ‘ear-dead-PM’ ‘deaf person’ [N-PM]N ‘native/inhabitant/member of location/nation X’ Ew̓e-a ‘Ewe-PM’ ‘Ewe person’ Ew̓e-to2! ‘Ewe-PM’ ‘Ewe person’ Ka~na!da~-tO! ‘Canada-PM’ ‘inhabitant/native of Canada’ Be~n¸!-nu~ ‘Benin-PM’ ‘native of Benin’ Ohu)a-n¸! ‘Hu)a-PM’ ‘person from the country Hu)a’

Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Ewe Ewe Fon Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi

As can be inferred from the overview in (10), the patterns with person markers in the three Kwa languages show a great degree of similarity. The only difference is that in Twi, the patterns ‘person has object X characterised by property X’ and ‘person characterised by action X’ have not been found in the sources. The information about person markers in Kikongo as provided in Bentley (1887) and Laman (1912) is less straightforward. Both sources describe a whole array of ways of creating items denoting persons. However, it is often unclear what the status of these ways is, for instance, whether they present regular and productive word-formation patterns or not. Thus, Bentley (1887) describes a number of patterns by which different items referring to persons can be built. All in all, at least three distinct patterns can be established on the basis of the description provided in Bentley (1887): ‘a person who performs action X for himself’, ‘a person who performs action X for others’ and ‘a person for whom action X is done’. Depending on the pattern, different prefixes can be attached to verbal bases. However, it is unclear whether these patterns are used to create new words and are thus derivational or whether they are used to express grammatical relations between different entities in a phrase or a sentence and are thus inflectional. Hence, they will not be taken into account in the discussion of substratum influence in this study. Laman (1912) also describes a number of different ways of creating items denoting persons in Kikongo. One way Laman discusses is to attach items such as nkwa, mwisi (pl. bisi), kisi or mfwa, all having the meaning ‘person’, to other nouns in order to indicate “that someone has a certain trade, lives in a certain place, has a certain manner, etc.”

133 (Laman 1912: 54). Another way of creating items denoting persons described by Laman (1912: 55–76) is by attaching different prefixes, such as mu-/m-/n- (pl. mo-), di(pl. ma-), ki-/fi-/lu-/m-/n- (pl. bi-), m-/n- (pl. zi-) to nominal or verbal bases. Patterns which can be established on the basis of the examples provided in Laman (1912: 54–55) are presented in (11). Note that these prefixes, as well as the bases, often undergo various morphophonological processes which lead to a great variety of forms of the same prefix. Since not only prefixes, but also their bases undergo morphophonological alternations in many cases, the border between the prefixes and their bases will not be marked in the examples below. (11) a.

b. c.

d.

e.

f. g.

h.

[PM-N]N ‘person whose occupation is connected with object X’ nkwa nsusu ‘PM-chicken’ ‘one who watches the chickens’ [PM-N]N ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ maloti ‘PM-skin eruption’ ‘a person with skin eruption’ [PM-N]N ‘person who suffers from disease X’ mfwa bwazi ‘PM-rash/leprosy’ ‘leper’ [PM-V of purpose]N ‘person who performs action X’ mbabi ‘PM-to swindle’ ‘swindler’ ntani ‘PM-to rob’ ‘robber’ maboka ‘PM-to call’ ‘one who calls’ nzonzi ‘PM-to dispute’ ‘lawyer’ mumbanza ‘PM-to think’ ‘thinker’ [PM-V/A]N ‘person characterised by property X’ nkwa nganzi ‘PM-anger’ ‘angry person’ ntondudi ‘PM-(be) ungrateful’ ‘ungrateful person’ mavedila ‘PM-clean’ ‘clean person’ bivila ‘PM-(be) evil’ ‘the evil one’ [PM-passive V]N ‘person who undergoes action X’ mundongila ‘PM-be taught’ ‘beginner/pupil’ ntondwa ‘PM-be loved’ ‘darling’ belwa ‘PM-be hated’ ‘one who is hated’ [PM-V-N]N ‘person who performs action X involving object X’4 mumpangi amambu ‘PM-to cause a trial’ ‘one who brings on a lawsuit’ [PM-N]N ‘inhabitant/member of location/nation X’ mwisi Matadi ‘PM-Matadi’ ‘inhabitant of Matadi’ bisi Falansa ‘PM-France’ ‘Frenchman’ mumboma ‘PM-Mboma’ ‘inhabitant of Mboma’ [PM-N]N ‘(unnamed) inhabitant/member of community X as a whole’ kisi Lukunga ‘PM-Lukunga’ ‘someone living in Lukunga’

In (12), the patterns with the person markers attested in Early Sranan and in its substratum languages are summarised for a general overview. The structural properties are not provided in (12) because they are similar across the three languages.

– 4

The status of this pattern is not quite clear since Laman (1912: 58–59) provides only very few examples of words built according to this pattern.

134 (12) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l.

‘person whose occupation is connected with object X’ ‘person who possesses object X’ ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ ‘person who suffers from disease X’ ‘person who performs action X’ ‘person characterised by property X’ ‘person has object X characterised by property X’ ‘person who performs action X involving object X’ ‘person characterised by action X involving object X’ ‘native/inhabitant/member of location/ nation X’ ‘person who undergoes action X’ ‘(unnamed) inhabitant/member of community X as a whole’

ES +

Ewe +

Fon +

Twi +

Ki +

+ + + + + –

+ + + + + +

+ + + – + +

+ + + + + –

– + + + + –

–

+

+

+

+

–

+

+

–

–

–

+

+

+

+

– –

– –

– –

– –

+ +

As can be inferred from the overview in (12), the patterns in (12a–f) are attested in both Early Sranan and in almost every substratum language. Given this similarity, can substratum influence be hypothesised? The patterns in (12a–f) can be regarded as formally unmarked since they involve two bare roots and no morphophonological alternations. However, selectionally, the patterns in (12b–d) can be regarded as more marked than those in (12a), (12e) and (12f) because they apply to a limited number of items: thus, the pattern in (12b) applies only to those items which can be possessed, the pattern in (12c) to items which can be regarded as physical attributes, and the pattern in (12d) applies to items denoting diseases only. By contrast, the patterns in (12a), (12e) and (12f) apply to any kind of object, or action, or property respectively. It can thus be assumed that for the patterns in (12a), (12e) and (12f), substratum influence is less credible, whereas for those in (12b–d), it is more credible. Additionally to the similarities in terms of patterns, there are also some similarities between individual Early Sranan and substratum words. Some examples are illustrated in (13) below (the Ewe data come from Westermann (1906), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002)). (13) a. b. c. d.

Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: Ewe: Early Sranan: Ewe: Early Sranan: Fon:

aséhman a~ze!-tO! lesiman akufia-to2 goede man kes*ino2-to2 bére-mán a~dO~go~-nO~

‘magic-PM’ ‘magic-PM’ ‘lazy-PM’ ‘lazy-PM’ ‘riches/treasures-PM’ ‘riches/treasures-PM’ ‘belly-PM’ ‘belly-PM’

‘magician’ ‘magician’ ‘lazybones’ ‘lazybones’ ‘rich person’ ‘rich person’ ‘pregnant woman’ ‘pregnant woman’

135 e. f.

Early Sranan: Ewe: Early Sranan:

fesi-man ṅkumeno2-la sorroman

‘face/front-PM’ ‘face/front-PM’ ‘wound-PM’

Twi:

oku-fo!

‘wound-PM’

‘leader/foreman’ ‘leader/foreman’ ‘person full of wounds and sores’ ‘person full of wounds and sores’

As can be inferred from (13), the Early Sranan items and the substratum items have the same semantic structure. However, the parallels between the pairs in (13a–c) might not be referred back to substratum influence since they can be regarded as both formally and semantically less marked since they consist of two bare roots and their meanings are fully compositional. However, in the case of the parallels in the pairs in (13d–f), substratum influence is more likely because the meaning of these items is less compositional and hence, they are more semantically marked. Besides the similarities discussed above, there are also some evident differences between Early Sranan and its substratum languages. One difference is that each substratum language uses several person markers, whereas Early Sranan has only one.5 It could be hypothesised in this connection that there might have been several person markers in Early Sranan at the beginning of the creolisation process, and they have been reduced to one through the process of dialect levelling. However, there are two objections to this hypothesis. First, since the data for the present study come from a relatively early stage of Sranan’s existence, the probability of finding variation at such a stage must be relatively high. However, no variation with respect to the person marker can be attested on the basis of the data used in the present study. Second, -man is also the only person marker attested in Schumann’s (1778) dictionary of Early Saramaccan, and many of the Early Sranan man-words are attested in Early Saramaccan as well. Since Early Saramaccan bears a close resemblance to Early Sranan in terms of linguistic features and has been assumed to have emerged around ca. 1680, it can be hypothesised that by this time, only one person marker, -man, had been used in Early Sranan and taken over into Saramaccan by the run-away slaves. Another difference is that a number of substratum patterns, those in (12g–l), are not attested in Early Sranan.6 An interesting fact is that substratum items built according to the patterns in (12g), (12h) and (12i) have correspondences in Early Sranan, but these corres-

– 5

6

It should be mentioned in this respect that there is one more item in Early Sranan which can be used to refer to persons: wan ‘one’. It is used with adjectives in the construction Det-A-wan, as e.g. wan retiwan ‘an upright person’ (Schumann 1783: 195). However, the function of wan should rather be regarded as a proform indicating reference to a certain item or person, but not as a person marker used to create new words. Two remarks are due here with respect to some of the patterns in (12g–l). First, the pattern ‘native/ inhabitant/member of location/nation X’ is attested in Modern Sranan, e.g. Guyanaman (GuyanaPM) ‘Guyanese’ (Wilner 2007: 61). It can thus be assumed that this pattern might have emerged later. Second, Van den Berg (2003: 242) argues that synthetic compounds are attested in Modern Sranan. She cites two examples produced by a native speaker of Sranan: figi-strati-man (to sweepstreet-PM) ‘street sweeper’ and meki-kuku-man (to make-cake-PM) ‘baker of bread, cake and pastries’. However, it is unclear whether these examples are indeed common in Modern Sranan because, for instance, no such examples are attested in Wilner (2007).

136 pondences are created by the Early Sranan patterns in (12e) and (12f). For instance, the Ewe item to-ku-no (ear-(be) dead-PM) ‘deaf person’ corresponds to the Early Sranan item doofuman (deaf-PM) which has the same meaning. In a similar way, the Fon v¸!-j¸!-tO! (childto yield-PM) meaning ‘midwife’ corresponds to the Early Sranan helpiman (to help-PM). In these two cases, the substratum and the Early Sranan words have the same meaning, but differ in their structure. How can this fact be accounted for? One explanation which can be advanced here is markedness since the substratum patterns which do not appear in Early Sranan can be regarded as more marked in formal and/or selectional terms. Thus, the patterns in (12g–l) can be regarded as more selectionally marked than the patterns in (12a), (12e) and (12f) since they are more restricted in their application. For instance, the pattern in (12h) operates only on such items which denote actions involving an object. Notably, the patterns in (12g–i) differ from the other patterns in (12) in that they often yield items whose meanings are not fully compositional. For instance, the Fon item a~du~n-gbo!-nO (mud-to stand-PM) ‘dirty pig’ is based on a metaphor and thus not fully motivated. The same is true for a number of other examples built according to the patterns in (12g–i) and illustrated in (10) and (11). Besides, the patterns in (12g–i) can also be regarded as more formally marked than all the other patterns because they consist of three elements. In this connection, an interesting parallel can be drawn between Early Sranan and Haitian with respect to the patterns in (12g–i). Early Sranan and Haitian share some substratum languages, e.g. Fon. Remarkably, in both creoles, the patterns in (12g–i) are not attested. Brousseau (1989) argues that the absence of N-V-PM patterns in Haitian can be attributed to the fact that verbs in Fon require a direct object obligatorily, and many Fon verbal concepts are combinations of a verb and an object, whereas this is not the case in Haitian. Early Sranan is similar to Haitian in this respect since Early Sranan verbs do not require objects obligatorily and are predominantly simplex. However, Brousseau’s argumentation does not explain why the Fon structures were not transferred into Haitian (and into Early Sranan). Note that both English and Dutch make use of synthetic compounds, such as, law-maker, paper-hanger, fire-eater, water-drinker (Koziol 1972: 58) and schoenmaker, aardappeleter (Booij 2002: 197). Hence, it can be assumed that corresponding models might have been available in the superstratum input, even though their frequency is unclear. Since the patterns in (12g–l), in contrast to the patterns in (12a–f), which appear in the substrates, are more marked in formal and/or selectional terms, it can be assumed that their absence in Early Sranan might be explained by their greater markedness. A rather similar explanation is advanced by Clark (1993) to explain the absence of synthetic compounds at the initial stages of L1 acquisition of English. Clark (1993: 150) shows that children learning English as their first language start with bare-root compounds, such as pull-man or wash-man, and it is only later that synthetic compounds, such as wagon-puller, emerge in children’s lexicons. Clark accounts for this phenomenon in terms of simplicity: combining two bare roots such as pull and man is a simpler option than combining a root, or two roots, and an affix, which is not as transparent and as salient as a bare root. Since Clark’s notion of simplicity corresponds to the notion of formal markedness in this study, it can be suggested that Clark’s finding is similar to the finding made here about the prevalence of less marked man-patterns in Early Sranan. Besides markedness, homogeneity of the substratum can also be used to explain why certain substratum patterns did not enter Early Sranan. For instance, two patterns, (12k) and (12l), are attested in Kikongo only, but not in Ewe, Fon and Twi. By contrast, patterns

137 which are attested in Early Sranan are always attested in at least two substratum languages. It can hence be assumed that the homogeneity of the substratum might have been a factor influencing the emergence or non-emergence of some substratum patterns with the person markers in Early Sranan. To conclude the discussion of the substratum influence, it should be mentioned that substratum influence seems to be likely at least for some Early Sranan man-patterns and individual man-words. In general, it can be pointed out that substratum influence might have been constrained by markedness and homogeneity of the substratum. To summarise the discussion about the sources, it can be pointed out that person markers are the most common markers cross-linguistically, they occur in most (if not all) creole languages and are attested in both superstratum and substratum languages of Early Sranan. Therefore, it can be suggested that different sources, such as universals, substratum and superstratum, might account for the fact that such a marker as a person marker emerged in Early Sranan. As to the sources of individual patterns, it has been suggested in the course of the discussion above that for three Early Sranan man-patterns, substratum influence seems to be credible. The next question to be addressed here is what mechanisms played a role in the emergence of the person marker -man. Since there are several parallels between the Early Sranan person marker -man and the person markers in the substratum languages, the question arises whether -man emerged via the process of relexification of some substratum person marker. As becomes clear from the discussion above, none of the substratum markers exhibits the same range of patterns as the Early Sranan -man, and no one-to-one correspondence can be established between -man and any of the substratum markers. Therefore, relexification can be discarded as a possible mechanism of the emergence of -man. Another possibility could be to hypothesise that the person marker -man developed from the Early Sranan noun man(n) ‘man/husband’, to which it bears a formal similarity, through grammaticalisation. In such a case, it can be assumed that the semantics of -man has undergone the process of conceptual expansion from the meaning ‘man’ to the meaning ‘person’ through which the former meaning has been bleached from the more concrete meaning to the more abstract meaning. Such a grammaticalisation process is not uncommon in other languages of the world where items with the meaning ‘man’ are used as person markers (Heine and Kuteva 2002: 207–208). However, there is one major problem with this grammaticalisation scenario for the person marker -man. Constructs with -man as a person marker have been attested as early as 1807 in Early Sranan, and, as Van den Berg (2003: 247) suggests, -man might have functioned as the person marker already in the 17th century. This would mean that grammaticalisation must have been very rapid. In this connection, Van den Berg (2003: 248) suggests that the grammaticalisation of man might be regarded as ‘instantaneous grammaticalisation’, the term used by Bruyn (1996: 42) to refer to the grammaticalisation-like processes which take place within a very short time span, often under the influence of the corresponding substratum patterns. However, the notion ‘grammaticalisation’ – whether instantaneous or not – denotes a directional process: an item having a lexical function/meaning turns to an item with a different, grammatical, function/meaning. But this directionality is difficult to establish in the case of the Early Sranan -man. Given the early emergence of the person marker, it is largely unclear whether the person marker -man indeed developed from the noun man(n) meaning ‘man’ or whether both items existed side by side from the very beginning, i.e. whether the English man ended

138 up in two different functions in Early Sranan: as a noun ‘man/husband’ and as a person marker. All in all, the term ‘grammaticalisation’ seems to be misleading in this context. Given this fact, it can be suggested that the term ‘reanalysis’, which, as mentioned in section 7.1.1, is neutral in terms of directionality, might be a more suitable alternative. Indeed, it can be hypothesised that the English morpheme man was reanalysed as the Early Sranan person marker -man. It is unclear whether the free morpheme man was reanalysed or whether this reanalysis worked on the basis of the occurrence of this morpheme in some English man-compounds which might have been available in the input. However, given the fact that really convincing cases of the adaptation of superstratum man-words into Early Sranan are few, it can be suggested that possibly the English free morpheme man was reanalysed as a person marker. It should be mentioned in this connection that Migge (2003a: 84) advances a scenario of the emergence of the item -man as a person marker which involves, among other things, the mechanism of reanalysis. She suggests that creole creators reanalysed the English morpheme man in compounds such as boatman, workman, etc. as a suffix according to the corresponding derivational models available in their L1s. She argues that creole creators projected the structural patterns of their L1 words onto the English compound words and reinterpreted them as consisting of a base and an affix rather than of two free morphemes. They then associated the free morpheme man with the suffixes in their native languages and reanalysed it as a nominal suffix. As Migge supposes, the English man-compounds served as the frames for the new creole structures. The reanalysis idea in Migge’s scenario seems plausible. However, her overall scenario is problematic on two grounds. First, the types of the English man-compounds differ both semantically and structurally from the types of the Early Sranan man-items. In this connection, it is unclear what Migge views as ‘frame’: only the general X-man structure of man-compounds in English or the more concrete semantic structures. Second, Migge provides no convincing evidence for superstratum or substratum influence. As mentioned above, although some Early Sranan items bear one-to-one semantic correspondences to superstratum and substratum items, many of these correspondences are unmarked, as shown above, and thus might have emerged in Early Sranan independently, i.e. without any superstratum or substratum influence. On the basis of the evidence provided in this section, it can be suggested that the following mechanisms have been involved in the emergence of -man as the person marker and of the man-patterns in Early Sranan: reanalysis of the English morpheme -man as a person marker, adaptation of some English man-compounds, semantic transfer of some substratum patterns and individual words and innovative word-coinage. All in all, as shown in this section, the emergence of the person marker -man in Early Sranan was a rather complex process in which different kinds of sources, mechanisms and factors have been involved.

7.2.2 Patterns with the gender markers uman- and man(n)Several Early Sranan complex words contain the morpheme uman/homan/hóeman/óeman (< Engl. woman) as their left-hand member. Hereafter, mainly the orthographic variant uman-, taken from Schumann (1783), will be used for reasons of space.

139 (14) hoéman-dâgoe hóeman-slábbiki uman-doksi hóeman-soema uman-futuboi umanpikin

‘bitch (female dog)’ ‘female counterpart of a plant (Cassia humilis)’ ‘duck’ ‘woman’ ‘maid-servant’ ‘daughter’

dâgoe slábbiki

‘dog’ ‘name of a plant’

Fo Fo

doksi soema futuboi pikin

‘duck’ ‘person’ ‘servant’ ‘child’

Sch Fo Sch Sch

In the examples in (14), the morpheme uman refers to female sex in general. So, the meaning of the morpheme uman in (14) can be described as ‘female’. Besides being attested as the left-hand member, the morpheme uman is also attested as the right-hand member in a number of complex words in Early Sranan, as shown in (15): (15) bakrà-hoeman Dju uman kabúgru-uman

malatta uman Ningre uman hossi homan koekroehoman

‘white lady’ ‘Jewish woman’ ‘woman of mixed Indian and mulatto descent’

bakrà Dju kabúgru

‘mulatto woman’ ‘black woman’ ‘woman servant’ ‘kitchen maid’

malatta Ningre hossi koekroe

‘white person’ ‘Jew’ ‘person of mixed Indian and mulatto descent’ ‘mulatto’ ‘black person’ ‘house’ ‘kitchen’

Fo Sch Sch

Sch Sch VD VD

In contrast to (14), in (15), the morpheme uman refers to adult persons of female sex and its meaning can be described as ‘woman’. The difference between uman in (14) and in (15) in terms of reference and meaning is also corroborated by the difference in position: when meaning ‘female’, uman occurs in the first position in complex words, when meaning ‘woman’, in the second. In addition to its occurrence within complex words, uman also occurs independently in Early Sranan. In this case, it exhibits the two types of reference and the two types of meaning just mentioned and additionally, a third type. Thus, it can refer to adult persons of female sex and mean ‘woman’, as in (16a). It can also refer generally to female sex and mean ‘female’, as in (16b) and (16c). Besides, it can refer to adult persons of female sex who stand in a relation of marriage to adult persons of male sex and mean ‘wife’, as in (16d). (16) a.

b.

wi beri da homan disi ben lassi 1PL bury DEF woman REL PST leave Arends (1995b: 234): ‘Let us bury the woman who’s deceased.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 109): ‘Of wy die Neegerin Begraaven moogen die het in de Agter-Middag afgeleid heeft.’ Mammi nanga redi heddi (de) meki, da uman. mammi with red head CNT make it-be female ‘The ‘mammi’ trees with red buds bear fruit, they are females.’ Schumann (1783: 63): ‘Die Mammibäume mit roten Knospen tragen Frucht, sie sind weiblichen Geschlechts.’

140 c.

Tu doifi, mann nanga uman. two dove male with female ‘Two doves, male and female.’ Schumann (1783: 33): ‘Ein paar Tauben.’

d.

Grandeweh a platti nanga hem uman kaba. long ago 3SG separate with his wife already ‘He separated from his wife already long ago.’ Schumann (1783: 140): ‘Schon vor langer Zeit hat er sich von seinem Weib geschieden.’

Although the morpheme uman is attested independently in the meaning ‘female’, it can be argued that it has a specific derivational function in the words in (14), to mark natural female gender of the objects denoted by the nouns it is attached to. It occurs in this function with semantic consistency and has a fixed position within complex words it surfaces in. Hence, the morpheme uman- will be regarded as a female gender marker in Early Sranan when it occurs as the first element of complex words and indicates natural female gender. In addition to complex words with the female gender marker uman-, there are a number of complex words in Early Sranan which contain the ‘male’ equivalent of uman, man(n)(< Engl. man): (17) a.

b.

man-anéisi mannsanni mán-skapoe mann-futuboi mannpikin mán-soema man-Ningre man-kabúgru

‘a kind of anise’ ‘male genitals’ ‘ram’ ‘male servant’ ‘boy/son’ ‘male person’ ‘black man ’ ‘man of mixed black and mulatto/ Indian descent’

anéisi sanni skápoe futuboi pikin soema Ningre kabúgru

‘anise’ ‘thing’ ‘sheep’ ‘servant’ ‘child’ ‘person’ ‘black person’ ‘person of mixed black and mulatto/ Indian descent’

Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch Fo Sch Sch

Similarly to the examples in (14) and in (15) above, the examples in (17) show that there is a difference in terms of reference and in terms of descriptive meaning between man(n)- in (17a) and in (17b). Thus, in (17a), man(n)- refers to male sex in general and thus means ‘male’, and in (17b), it refers to adult persons of male sex and thus means ‘man’. For instance, the word mannpikin does not refer to an adult person of male sex, but to a nonadult person of male sex. Note that in contrast to the item uman, which, depending on its meaning, has different positions in complex words, the item man(n) has the same position in the complex words in (17), independently of its meaning: it is the left-hand member in all items in (17). The discrepancy in the position of uman and man(n) can be explained by the fact that the latter has a homophonous item, the person marker -man, which occurs in the rightmost position in complex words. Therefore, it can be assumed that in (17b), man(n) is used in the leftmost position to avoid ambiguity.

141 When attested independently, the Early Sranan man(n) has three types of reference and three types of meaning, similarly to the lexeme uman. It can refer to adult persons of male sex and mean ‘man’. Besides, it can refer to adult persons of male sex who stand in a relation of marriage to adult persons of female sex and mean ‘husband’. Finally, it can refer to male sex in general and bear the meaning ‘male’. The former two types of reference and of meaning have been illustrated in the previous section in connection with the person marker -man. The latter type is illustrated below: (18) a.

b.

Dissi ha weti heddi, dem no meki, da mann. this have white head 3PL NEG make it-be male ‘These (trees) have white buds, they bear no fruit for they are males.’ Schumann (1783: 63): ‘...aber die mit weissen Knospen tragen keine Frucht, sie sind männlichen Geschlechts.’ dà man-wan nan$ga dà hóeman-wan DEF male-one with DEF female-one ‘the male and the female (of animals)’ Focke (1855: 46): ‘het mannetje en het wijfje (van dieren)’

As was the case with the gender marker uman-, similar arguments can be used to suggest that the morpheme man(n) can be regarded as a natural male gender marker in (17a). In what follows, the structural and the semantic properties of constructs containing the gender markers uman- and man(n)- will be described in greater detail. In terms of their structure, all uman-constructs in (14) and all man(n)-constructs in (17a) are combinations of uman-/man(n)- and predominantly simplex nouns which are the semantic and the syntactic heads. In terms of their semantics, constructs with the Early Sranan gender markers can be classified into the following types: (19) a.

a’.

‘female/male animal X’ hoéman-dâgoe uman-doksi hóeman-hagoe umankau óeman-skapoe uman vool man-dâgoe man-doksi mán-hágoe man-hassi mannkakka mannkau mán-skapoe

‘GM-dog’ ‘GM-duck’ ‘GM-pig’ ‘GM-cattle’ ‘GM-sheep’ ‘GM-chicken’ ‘GM-dog’ ‘GM-duck’ ‘GM-pig’ ‘GM-horse’ ‘GM-cock’ ‘GM-cattle’ ‘GM-sheep’

‘bitch (female dog)’ ‘duck’ ‘sow’ ‘cow’ ‘ewe’ ‘hen’ ‘male dog’ ‘drake’ ‘boar’ ‘stallion’ ‘cock’ ‘ox/bull’ ‘ram’

Fo Sch Fo Sch Fo Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo Sch Sch Fo

142 b.

‘female/male plant X’7 hóeman-slábbiki ‘GM-name of a plant’

b’.

mán-slábbiki

c.

c’.

d. d’. e. e’.

‘GM-name of a plant’

‘female/male human being X’ umanpikin ‘GM-child’ hóeman-pikíen ‘GM-child’ hóeman-soema ‘GM-person’ mannboi ‘GM-boy/young male person’ mannpikin ‘GM-child’ man-pikíen ‘GM-child’ mán-soema ‘GM-human being/ person’ ‘female/male occupation X’ uman-futuboi ‘GM-servant’ mann-futuboi ‘GM-servant’ ‘female/male body part X’ umanplesi ‘GM-place’ umansanni ‘GM-thing’ mannplesi ‘GM-place’ mannsanni ‘GM-thing’ mannskin ‘GM-body’

‘name of a plant (Cassia humilis)’ ‘name of a plant (Cassia bracteata)’

Fo

‘daughter’ ‘daughter/girl’ ‘female person/woman’ ‘boy/youth/young male person’ ‘boy/son’ ‘son/child of male sex’ ‘male person’

Sch Fo Fo Sch

‘maid’ ‘male servant’

Sch Sch

‘female genitals’ ‘female genitals’ ‘male genitals’ ‘male genitals’ ‘male genitals’

Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch

Fo

Sch Fo Fo

As the overview in (19) shows, most words to which the gender markers attach have the feature [+animate], and all of them are able to bear the feature [+female]/[+male]. Another remark due here is that there are some interesting differences between the three sources in terms of the form and the meanings of two items built according to the pattern in (19c) and (19c’), namely the items with the meanings ‘daughter/girl’, ‘son/boy’. Thus, in Schumann (1783: 190), the item umanpikin is attested in one meaning only, ‘daughter’, whereas in Focke (1855: 46, 101) the equivalent item, hóeman-pikíen, is attested in two meanings, ‘daughter’ and ‘girl’. In Van Dyk (c1765: 10, 37), the item meaning ‘daughter’ is pikien homan, which exhibits the reverse order of elements: the element pikien is in the first position.8 The constructs mannpikin and man-pikíen attested in Schumann (1783: 107) and

– 7

8

Although the direct translations of words built according to this pattern are not provided by Focke (1855), it can be assumed on the basis of the description of one of such words provided by Focke (1855: 4) that female plants are plants which produce blossom and bear fruit, whereas male plants are those which do not have blossom and do not bear fruit. It should be pointed out in connection with the item pikien homan that there is a discrepancy between Van Dyk’s and Arends’ translation of this item: whereas Van Dyk (c1765: 10, 37) consistently translates it as ‘dogter’ (‘daughter’), Arends translates it sometimes as ‘daughter’ (e.g. in Arends (1995b: 105)), and sometimes as ‘little girl’ (Arends 1995b: 149, 150). In the present work, Van Dyk’s original translation of this item has been taken as the basis of analysis.

143 Focke (1855: 76, 101) respectively have the same meaning ‘son/boy’. By contrast, the item for ‘son’ attested in Van Dyk (c1765: 10) is pikien buy which first, shows the reverse order of elements and second, does not contain the element man(n). These discrepancies show that there is variation in the use of the items with gender markers in the three sources. However, the source of this variation is difficult to establish: it can be diachronic development, regional or dialectal differences, or later substratum transfer. To summarise, the patterns with the Early Sranan gender markers can be presented in the form of the following constructional idioms: (20) [[uman/man(n)][X]N]N [[uman/man(n)][X]N]N [[uman/man(n)][X]N]N [[uman/man(n)][X]N]N [[uman/man(n)][X]N]N

‘female/male animal X’ ‘female/male plant X’ ‘female/male human being X’ ‘female/male occupation X’ ‘female/male body part X’

Now the question arises whether the emergence of the Early Sranan gender markers and the patterns the markers surface in can be attributed to any particular source. The use of gender-indicating markers which originally come from nouns meaning ‘woman’ and ‘man’ is not uncommon in the languages of the world. For instance, Heine and Kuteva (2002: 209, 314–315) show that nouns with the meaning ‘man/husband’ and ‘woman/wife’ have been grammaticalised in a number of languages to adjectival markers and suffixes denoting female and male participants. Boretzky (1983: 85–87) argues that words with the meaning ‘female/woman’ and ‘male/man’ are often used in the languages of South-East Asia and West Africa to indicate natural gender. Moreover, Boretzky also shows that this use is found in many other creole languages, e.g. Krio, Saramaccan and Principense. Besides, Mühlhäusler (1979: 234) shows similar patterns in Tok Pisin, where the elements man ‘male’ and meri ‘female’ can be attached to nouns denoting human beings and animals to mark natural gender, as in pik man (pig-male) ‘boar’ and pik meri (pig-female) ‘sow’. However, Early Sranan substratum languages are West African languages, and creoles mentioned by Boretzky (1983) share substratum languages with Early Sranan, such as the languages of the Kwa and the Bantu families. In the case of Tok Pisin, which does not share substratum languages with Early Sranan, the substratum languages use exactly the same mechanism of natural gender marking (Boretzky 1983: 243). All in all, universals cannot be excluded as a source of the patterns in (20), but are possibly not the only source. Therefore, the use of gender markers in the superstratum and the substratum languages of Early Sranan will be investigated below. The superstratum English has several ways of marking natural gender. One of them is to attach the pronouns she or he to nouns denoting animals and persons, as in she-bear, shewolf, he-goat, he-cat, he-swan, he-friend, he-barber (examples from the OED). Another way to mark gender is by means of using the adjectives female and male. Besides, the English nouns woman and man can be employed to mark natural gender. Since the Early Sranan markers bear a formal similarity to the English nouns woman and man, the latter will be discussed in greater detail here. The English woman and man can be used appositively meaning ‘female’ and ‘male’ respectively in the following patterns, all of which have been in existence since the Middle English period. All examples in (21) have been attested already in the Middle English period.

144 (21) a. b.

[[man][X]N]N [[woman/man][X]N]N

‘male animal X’ ‘female/male human being X’

c.

[[woman/man][X]N]N

‘female/male occupation X’

man seal man-child, man-friend; woman-child, womanfriend man nurse, manmidwife, manservant; woman-singer, womanservant, woman cook

Several remarks are due here with respect to the patterns in (21). First, the English woman is not attested as a gender marker with names of animals. However, according to the OED, one of the now obsolete usages of the noun woman was to refer to the female mates of animals. Therefore, it is unclear whether such items as woman-dog were indeed used in English. Second, the use of the marker man with names of animals seems to be rather marginal. Thus, this use is defined as occasional in the OED, and no examples built according to the pattern in (21a) are provided in Koziol (1972: 54). There are several similarities between the Early Sranan and the English gender markers. The Early Sranan and the English markers are similar in terms of their form and their position within complex words. Besides, all three English patterns shown in (21) are attested in Early Sranan as well. However, all three patterns can be regarded as unmarked in formal, semantic and selectional terms, therefore claims about superstratum influence are less credible. There are also some differences between English and Early Sranan with respect to the gender markers. First, the Early Sranan patterns ‘female/male plant X’ and ‘female/male body part X’ are not attested in English. Second, despite the similarity in terms of patterns, the majority of the Early Sranan words with gender markers do not have one-to-one phonological and semantic correspondences in English. For instance, the Early Sranan mannfutuboi and the English manservant have the same descriptive meaning, but the Early Sranan item is not modelled etymologically on the English item. Although the word footboy is attested in English, it is not attested in combination with the gender marker man. A similar case is the English item man-child and the Sranan mannpikin: they share the meaning ‘male child’, but the Sranan item again is etymologically not modelled on English because pikin is not a word of English origin. The only Early Sranan word which has a direct phonological equivalent in English is mannboi. The third difference is that whereas the English woman and man are presumably only marginally used to mark gender on nouns denoting animals, Early Sranan markers are not. Indeed, all Early Sranan examples built according to the pattern ‘female/male animal X’ correspond to simplex words in English, such as bitch, sow, ewe, drake, boar, stallion, cock, ram, etc. This can be explained by the fact that the English names of animals such as sow, ewe, drake, boar can be regarded as more semantically and selectionally marked in comparison to such items as duck, pig, horse: their semantic meanings are more specific, and they require a more narrow context. Gender markers are attested in each of the substratum languages of Early Sranan. All the three substratum languages of the Kwa group, Ewe, Fon and Twi, exhibit very similar patterns. For instance, in Ewe, the item no2 ‘female/mother’ and tsu ‘male’ are used as the gender markers with nouns denoting animals, plants and rivers, as shown in (22a–a’) and (22b–b’), and the nouns nyo)⁄nu~ ‘woman’ and ṅu!tsu~ ‘man’ are used as gender markers with

145 nouns denoting persons and occupations, as in the examples in (22c–c’) and (22d–d’) (Westermann 1907: 48, cf. Heine and Kuteva 2002: 209). Similar patterns exist in Fon and Twi. In Fon, the items a~s¸~ ‘female’ and a~su!/su! ‘male’ are used primarily with names of animals and plants, and the items nyO~nu ‘woman’ and su!nnu ‘man’ with nouns denoting human beings to denote natural gender (Höftmann 2003: 101, 103, 334, 351). In Twi, the items o2be!re~ ‘female’ and on¸!ni ‘male’ are attached to the names of animals and plants, and the nouns o2be!a/o2ba@ ‘woman’ and o2bar¸!ma! ‘man’ to nouns denoting persons to mark natural gender (Christaller 1875: 32, 1933: 16, 343). Besides, in Twi, the diminutive suffix -wa (which surfaces as a@ when attached to bases ending in a/o/e) can be used to mark female gender, as in aboro2wa (European-GM) ‘a female European’. The data in (22) illustrate the major patterns in Ewe, Fon and Twi (the Ewe data are from Westermann (1906: 79, 1907: 48–49), the Fon data from Höftmann (2003: 261, 331, 103, 373, 374, 334), the Twi data from Akrofi and Botchey (1980: 75) and Christaller (1875: 32). (22) a.

a’.

b. b’.

c.

c’.

d. d’.

‘female/male animal X’ avu)⁄-no2 ‘dog-GM’ koklo!-no2~ ‘chicken-GM’ ny¸~-no2 ‘cattle-GM’ so2!-no#2 ‘horse-GM’ ko~klo!-s¸¤ ‘chicken-GM’ ny¸~bu!-s¸¤ ‘cattle-GM’ o2ko!k-o2be!re~ ‘chicken-GM’ o2po2ṅk-o2be!re~ ‘horse-GM’ avu)-tsu! ‘dog-GM’ koklo$-tsu! ‘chicken-GM’ nyi-tsu! ‘cattle-GM’ so2!-tsu ‘horse-GM’ ko~klo!-su! ‘chicken-GM’ ny¸~bu!-su! ‘cattle-GM’ o2ko!k-onini ‘chicken-GM’ o2po2ṅk-on¸!ni ‘horse-GM’ ‘female/male plant X’ ago2-no2~ ‘fan palm-GM’ ago2-tsu! ‘fan palm-GM’ kpE~nt¸!n-su! ‘papaya-GM’ ‘female/male human being X’ v¸!-nyo2)nu# ‘child-woman’ v¸!-nyO~nu! ‘child-woman’ o2ba!-bea ‘child-woman’ v¸!-ṅutsu# ‘child-man’ v¸!-su!nnu! ‘child-man’ o2ba!-barima! ‘child-man’ ‘female/male occupation X’ do2la!-nyo2)nu# ‘servant-woman’ Obea depamfo ‘woman-tailor’ do2la!-ṅutsu# ‘servant/messenger-man’

‘bitch’ ‘hen’ ‘cow’ ‘mare’ ‘hen’ ‘cow’ ‘hen’ ‘mare’ ‘male dog’ ‘cock’ ‘bull’ ‘stallion’ ‘cock’ ‘bull’ ‘cock’ ‘stallion’

Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Twi Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Twi

‘female fan palm’ ‘male fan palm’ ‘male papaya’

Ewe Ewe Fon

‘daughter’ ‘daughter’ ‘daughter’ ‘son’ ‘son’ ‘son’

Ewe Fon Twi Ewe Fon Twi

‘maid’ ‘seamstress’ ‘manservant’

Ewe Twi Ewe

146 e. e’.

‘female/male body part X’ nyo2)nu-me ‘woman-the interior’ nyO~nu!-to!mE~ ‘woman-the interior ear’ ṅutsu-me ‘man-the interior’ su~nnu!-to!mE~ ‘man-the interior ear’

‘female genitals’ ‘female genitals’ ‘male genitals’ ‘male genitals’

Ewe Fon Ewe Fon

Kikongo also makes use of natural gender markers. Laman (1912: 51) mentions that sex in Kikongo is marked by adding the item bakala ‘man’ or nkento ‘woman’ to lexemes denoting human beings. With lexemes denoting animals, sex is indicated by adding the item mbakala ‘male’ and nkento ‘female’, as in nkombo yambakala ‘billy goat’ and nkombo yankento ‘nanny goat’. The gender markers provided by Bentley (1887: 48, 382, 395, 562–563) are in general similar to those mentioned in Laman (1912), but there are also some differences. Thus, the gender markers used with lexemes denoting human beings and the female gender marker used with the names of animals are very similar to those provided in Laman (1912): ayakala ‘man’ and nkento ‘woman’ for human beings and ankento ‘female’ for animals. However, the male gender marker used with the names of animals is different: ekoko ‘male’. Besides, Bentley (1887) also provides other gender markers for the names of such animals as sheep, goats and pigs: vaka ‘male of sheep and goats’ and exina ‘female breeding animal’ (Bentley 1887: 441, 274). An interesting fact about the names of male animals attested in Bentley (1887) is that some of them involve the item ekoko, but some others do not. For instance, the item ‘cock’ involves a gender marker, as shown in (23a’) below. By contrast, the notion ‘ox/bull’ is rendered without any gender marker: ngombe, although the notion ‘cow’ involves a gender marker, as shown in (23a). As far as the names of plants are concerned, no information is provided in the two Kikongo sources about the use of gender markers with them. As for the names of human beings and occupations, only examples containing the female gender markers could be found in the sources. The overview below lists the patterns with the gender markers which could be established on the basis of the examples provided by Bentley (1887: 48, 395, 73, 135, 201, 172, 441, 95, 24, 52, 170, 133). (23) a.

a.’

b. c.

‘female/male animal X’ ngombe ankento ‘cow/ox/bull/cattle-GM’ nsusu ankento ‘chicken/fowl/poltry-GM’ ebokolo diankento ‘sheep-GM’ mvalu ankento ‘horse-GM’ exina dia ngulu ‘GM-pig/how/sow’ nsusu ekoko ‘chicken/fowl/poltry-GM’ ebokolo diekoko ‘sheep-GM’ vaka kia ebokolo ‘GM-sheep’ vaka kia nkombo ‘GM-goat’ vaka kia ngulu ‘GM-pig’ ‘female human being X’ mwana ankento ‘child-woman’ ‘female occupation X’ mfumu ankento ‘king-woman’ selo kiankento ‘servant-woman’

‘cow’ ‘hen’ ‘ewe’ ‘mare’ ‘sow’ ‘cock’ ‘ram’ ‘ram’ ‘he-goat’ ‘boar’ ‘daughter’ ‘queen’ ‘maidservant’

147 The overview below summarises the patterns attested with the gender markers in Early Sranan and in its substratum languages. The combination of a plus and a minus in (24c–d) means that only the pattern ‘female X’ is attested in a given substratum language. The question mark in (24e) indicates that it is unclear, on the basis of the substratum sources at hand, whether a given pattern is available in a given substratum language. (24) a. b. c. d. e.

‘female/male animal X’ ‘female/male plant X’ ‘female/male human being X’ ‘female/male occupation X’ ‘female/male body part X’

ES + + + + +

Ewe + + + + +

Fon + + + + +

Twi + + + +/– ?

Ki + – +/– +/– ?

As can be inferred from (24), there are several similarities between the Early Sranan patterns and the patterns attested in the substratum languages. Thus, almost all semantic patterns with gender markers exist in the substratum languages as well. However, these patterns can be regarded as formally, semantically and selectionally unmarked: they combine two simplex roots, have rather general meanings and do not undergo any specific restrictions. Therefore, no convincing case of substratum transfer can be made with respect to them. Besides the similarities in terms of patterns, there are also similarities at the level of individual items: many substratum words in (22) and (23) have one-to-one complex correspondences in Early Sranan, in contrast to English, where hardly any one-to-one correspondences have been attested. Some of these direct correspondences, for instance, all items built according to the pattern ‘female/male-animal X’ can be regarded as selectionally more marked since they are used in more narrowly specified contexts than their simplex equivalents. Thus, the noun meaning ‘stallion’ requires a more specific context than the noun meaning ‘horse’. Therefore, substratum influence is more credible for such items. Note that the homogeneity of the substratum might have facilitated transfer: in all four substratum languages words with the meaning ‘female/male animal X’ have the same semantic structure. There are, however, also differences between the Early Sranan gender markers and the gender markers of the substratum languages. First, in most substratum languages, two different sets of items are employed as gender markers, depending on the semantics of the noun with which they combine: one set is used for nouns denoting animals, plants and rivers, and a different one with nouns denoting human beings. In Early Sranan, only one set, uman- and man(n)-, is used in both cases. One reason might be that the creole creators did not identify the English gender markers used with names of plants and animals, such as she/ he or female/male. The items female/male have, for instance, lower frequency of occurrence in comparison to woman/man in spoken English. Besides, they do not belong to the core communicative vocabulary, the vocabulary which usually enters creoles from the superstratum. A second reason can lie in the fact that the English woman/man can also be used in the gender-indicating function. Creole creators might, for instance, have identified the items woman/man as the items which can have the meaning ‘female/male’ besides the meaning ‘adult female/male human being’ and used them in two different functions: as the nouns meaning ‘woman’/‘man’ and as the gender-indicating markers. The second differ-

148 ence lies in the position of the gender marker in the creole language and in its substrates: in Early Sranan, the gender markers are preposed elements, whereas they are postposed elements in all substratum languages. With respect to word-order, Lefebvre (1998: 39) argues that creole creators usually identify the major category lexical items of the superstratum language and therefore acquire the directionality properties of the superstratum major category lexical items. Hence, the order of major category lexical items in the creole parallels the order of such items in the superstratum language. Similarly, the position of the head in creole compounds must be the same as in the superstratum language because it is determined by the position of the syntactic head in phrases, which, in its turn, comes from the superstratum (Lefebvre 1998: 341–342). Lefebvre’s predictions about word-order can be used to explain the discrepancy between the position of the gender markers in Sranan and in its substratum languages. The Sranan element order in uman- and man(n)-constructs, where uman-/man(n)- are not heads, follows that of English, in which the morphological non-heads are usually set in the leftmost position in word structure. To conclude the discussion of the sources, gender markers are not uncommon crosslinguistically, and they are attested in the superstratum and in the substratum languages of Early Sranan. Hence, the fact that Early Sranan has the gender markers cannot be straightforwardly attributed to one particular source. However, the substratum languages seem to be the source of some individual lexical items containing the gender markers. As to the mechanisms of the emergence of the Early Sranan gender markers, it can be suggested on the basis of the discussion above that they did not emerge via grammaticalisation or relexification. Grammaticalisation is improbable because both uman- and man(n)- are used as free morphemes in the same meaning. Relexification is improbable since there is no one-to-one correspondence between the substratum and the Early Sranan gender markers: whereas all substratum languages use two different sets of markers with names of animals/plants vs. names of persons/occupations, Early Sranan makes use of one set of gender markers for all semantic groups. It can thus be suggested that the creators of Early Sranan reanalysed the English morphemes woman and man as gender marking items and used them for the transfer of some substratum items containing gender markers into the creole language and for innovative word-coinage. Transfer then seems to have led to the emergence of such a pattern as ‘female/male animal X’. Other patterns and words might have emerged either as analogical formations to this already established pattern or independently from it. Remarkably, adaptation of complex items from the superstratum has not played any significant role in the emergence of the gender markers: there is only one Early Sranan item, mannboi, which has a one-to-one phonological and semantic correspondence in English.

7.2.3 Patterns with the diminutive marker pikíenA number of complex nouns in Early Sranan contain the morpheme pikíen/pikin9 (< Port. pequeno ‘small’):

– 9

For the sake of convenience, only the orthographic variant pikíen, taken from Focke (1855), will be used hereafter since most complex words cited in this section contain this orthographic variant.

149 (25) a.

b.

pikíen-hagoe pikíen skápoe pikin uman pikin aksi pikin spûn

‘piglet’ ‘lamb’ ‘girl’ ‘hatchet’ ‘teaspoon’

hagoe skápoe uman aksi spûn

‘pig’ ‘sheep’ ‘woman’ ‘axe’ ‘spoon’

Fo Fo Sch Sch Sch

In the examples in (25a), pikíen- refers to a specific property of the objects denoted by the nouns it occurs with, namely the property of being not old in terms of age. Its meaning in (25a) can thus be described as ‘young’. In the examples in (25b), it refers to another property, the property of being not large in terms of size, and its meaning can be described as ‘small’. The properties ‘young’ and ‘small’ are generally considered to be semantically related (Wierzbicka 1972: 44–45) and are typical of diminutive markers in many languages of the world (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991: 86, Heine and Kuteva 2002: 65). It can hence be suggested that pikíen has a diminutive meaning in the examples in (25). However, besides being attested in the complex words in (25), pikíen is attested independently, as shown in (26). (26) a.

da mi pikin it-be my child ‘That is my child.’ Schumann (1783: 135): ‘Das ist mein Kind.’

b.

wan pikin somma INDEF young person ‘a young person’ Schumann (1783: 135): ‘ein junger Mensch’

c.

wan pikin hangisa INDEF small towel ‘a small towel’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘ein kleines Tuch’

d.

da hosso pikin tumussi DEF house be-small very much ‘The house is too small.’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘Das Haus ist allzuklein.’

e.

fumm hem pikin beat 3SG a little ‘Beat him a little.’ Schumann (1783: 136): ‘Schlag ihn ein bisgen!’

In (26a), pikíen refers to a young human being and has the meaning ‘child’. In (26b), it refers to the property of being not old, so its meaning can be described as ‘young’. In (26c), it refers to the property of being not large in terms of size, so it has the meaning ‘small’. In (26d), it refers to the state of being not large in size and thus can be ascribed the meaning

150 ‘be small’. Finally, in (26e), it refers to a small degree of an action and its meaning here is ‘a little’. A comparison between the use of pikíen in (25) and its use in (26) shows that the meanings of pikíen in (26b) and in (26c) are similar to its meanings in (25). However, it can be suggested that there are slight differences between the use of pikíen in (25) and its use in (26b) and (26c). Thus, in the complex words in (25a), the item pikíen- refers to younger versions of the objects denoted by the nouns it combines with. Thus, for instance, the item pikin uman does not simply refer to a woman who is young in terms of age, but rather to a young version of the object ‘woman’. In the complex words in (25b), pikíen refers to small types of objects denoted by the nouns it combines with, and not just to objects small in size. For instance, in the complex word pikin aksi, the meaning of pikin is not just ‘small’, as is the case in the phrase wan pikin hangisa in (26c), but ‘small type’ since pikin aksi does not just mean ‘small axe’, but rather ‘a small type of axe’ (cf. the discussion of the Ewe diminutive marker vI! by Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 79–87)). So in general, it can be suggested that in the examples in (25), pikíen- has a specific function in which it occurs with semantic consistency: to create nouns denoting young versions of animate objects and small types of inanimate objects. In what follows, the structural and the semantic properties of pikíen-constructs will be regarded in greater detail. In terms of their structure, pikíen-constructs are combinations of pikíen- and predominantly simplex nouns which are the semantic and the syntactic heads of pikíenconstructs. Semantically, the marker pikíen- exhibits a whole variety of patterns.10 (27) a.

b. c.

d. e.

f.

‘young descendant of animal X’ pikíen-hagoe ‘DM-pig’ pikíen hási ‘DM-horse’ pikien-káu ‘DM-cow/cattle’ pikíen skápoe ‘DM-sheep’ ‘young version of human being X’ pikin uman ‘DM-woman’ ‘assistant or apprentice of occupation X’ pikíen bâsi ‘DM-master/foreman’ pikíen dátra ‘DM-doctor’ pikien granman ‘DM-sovereign’ ‘somebody who pretends to be X and is not X’ pikin tatta ‘DM-father’ ‘small type of X’ pikin aksi ‘DM-axe’ pikin-hosso ‘DM-house’ pikin spûn ‘DM-spoon’ ‘smaller, less conspicuous body part X’ pikíen tóngo ‘DM-tongue’

‘piglet’ ‘colt’ ‘calf’ ‘lamb’

Fo Fo Fo Fo

‘girl’

Sch

‘foreman’ ‘surgeon assistant’ ‘duke’

Fo Fo VD

‘stepfather’

Sch

‘hatchet’ ‘privy’ ‘teaspoon’

Sch Sch Sch

‘uvula’

Fo

– 10

In order to draw a comparison between the Early Sranan diminutive marker and the substratum diminutive markers, the patterns in (27) are closely modelled on those established for the Ewe diminutive marker vI! by Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 79–87).

151 Whereas the patterns in (27a), (27b) and (27e) are rather typical of the diminutive markers in general and, as already mentioned earlier in this section, are attested in many languages of the world, the patterns (27c), (27d) and (27f) are less common and do not seem to be straightforwardly related to the concept of diminutivity at first sight. However, as Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 79–97) argue, all these meanings can arise from the meanning ‘child’ through the mechanisms of metaphorical transfer and context-induced reinterpretation and are all related in terms of the semantic features [YOUNG] and [SMALL]. They show that the Ewe diminutive suffix -vI! developed from the noun ‘child’ via these mechanisms and is used in a variety of meanings which can be related to the original meaning ‘child’. For instance, the emergence of the meaning ‘assistant or apprentice’ can be explained by the fact that a child can be regarded as an inexperienced being still learning things around it. And one of the features of an assistant or an apprentice is usually their young age. It is worth mentioning here that there are differences between the three sources in terms of the pikíen-constructs built according to the pattern in (27a). All words listed in (27a) are taken from Focke (1855) and are not attested in the same form, the same meaning and to the same extent in the other two sources. Thus, Van Dyk (c1765) does not contain any examples built according to the pattern in (27a). Schumann (1783) contains only three words which at first sight seem to be built according to this pattern, pikin kau, pikin hasi and kaupikin. However, the meanings of the first two items are different from the meanings of the equivalent items attested in Focke: pikin kau is translated by Schumann (1783: 82, 135) as ‘a young cow/a small cow’ and pikin hasi as ‘donkey’ (Schumann 1783: 59). The item kau-pikin has the same meaning as the item pikien-káu attested in Focke, i.e. ‘calf’, but differs from it in terms of the order of elements. It is unclear, however, what might be the source of these differences: a diachronic development, regional or dialectal differences, or later substratum transfer. The overview of the patterns with the Early Sranan diminutive marker is provided in the form of the following constructional idioms in (28): (28) a. b. c. d. e. f.

[[pikíen][X]N]N [[pikíen][X]N]N [[pikíen][X]N]N [[pikíen][X]N]N [[pikíen][X]N]N [[pikíen][X]N]N

‘young descendant of animal X’ ‘young version of human being X’ ‘assistant or apprentice of occupation X’ ‘somebody who pretends to be X and is not X’ ‘small type of X’ ‘smaller, less conspicuous body part X’

Turning now to the possible sources of the diminutive marker pikíen-, it can be pointed out that diminutive markers are common cross-linguistically: Bauer (2002: 40) shows that they belong to the five typologically most frequently attested derivational markers among the languages of the world. Heine and Kuteva (2002: 65–67) show that diminutive markers often emerge from nouns denoting the concept ‘child’. As to creole languages, a diminutive marker is not cited as a derivational category in Mühlhäusler’s (1979) study of Tok Pisin or Dijkhoff’s (1993) study of Papiamentu, but it is attested in Haitian (Lefebvre 2003: 63). However, Haitian shares substratum languages, such as Fon, with Early Sranan. The superstratum English can be discarded as a source of the Early Sranan diminutive marker since etymologically, its form is derived from the Portuguese morpheme pequeno

152 meaning ‘small’. Pikíen is a rather common word English sailors and colonists used to denote ‘child’ and which is wide-spread in other English-based creole languages, such as Krio, Cameroon Pidgin English, Jamaican (Aceto 1997: 230–231). Therefore, it can be hypothesised that this item possibly entered Early Sranan from an earlier variety, such as Caribbean Plantation Pidgin English. However, although the form of the Early Sranan diminutive marker comes from Portuguese, Portuguese does not seem to have delivered a model for the Early Sranan constructs with the diminutive marker since the Early Sranan pikíen corresponds to three different words in Portuguese: menino/criança meaning ‘child’, pequeno ‘small’ and jovem/novo ‘young’. As far as the substratum languages are concerned, all of them make use of diminutive markers. The three Kwa languages Ewe, Fon and Twi exhibit similarities to each other both in terms of the origin of the diminutive markers and in terms of the semantic patterns the markers surface in. Thus, in Ewe, the bound morpheme -v¸!, which originally comes from the noun meaning ‘child’, is used as the marker of diminutivity whose two core meanings are ‘young’ and ‘small’ (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991: 79–87, 90–91, cf. Westermann 1907: 122). The Fon diminutive marker -v¸! is very similar to the Ewe marker. It combines with nouns denoting animals and human beings in the meaning ‘young’ and with other nouns in the meaning ‘small’ (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 187–188). The Twi diminutive marker -wa/-ba, which originally comes from the noun o2ba ‘child’, differs from the Ewe and the Fon markers in that it renders the meaning ‘female’ additionally to the meanings ‘young’ and ‘small’ (Christaller 1875: 23–24, 32). However, this meaning will be ignored in the description of the substratum patterns below because it can be argued that it is not a core diminutive meaning. (29) provides an overview of the patterns attested with the diminutive markers in the three Kwa languages. These patterns have been established by Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 79–97) for the diminutive marker in Ewe. They have been complemented here by the examples from Fon and Twi. The Ewe examples are from Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer (1991: 79–97), the Fon examples are from Höftmann (2003: 23) and Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 188), the Twi examples are from Akrofi and Botchey (1980: 23, 76) and Christaller (1875: 24). (29) a.

b. c.

‘young descendant of animal X’ koklo$-v¸! ‘chicken-DM’ nyi-v¸! ‘cattle-DM’ ko~klo!-v¸! ‘chicken-DM’ da~n-v¸! ‘snake-DM’ nantwi-ba ‘cattle-DM’ oguanten-ba ‘sheep-DM’ ‘young descendant of plant X’ det¸!-v¸! ‘oilpalm tree-DM’ ‘young version of human being X’ nyO!nu-v¸! ‘woman-DM’ yevu!-v¸! ‘European-DM’ nyO~nu!-v¸! ‘woman-DM’ su~nu!-v¸! ‘man-DM’ abe!a-wa ‘woman-DM’ abarima!-wa~ ‘man-DM’

‘chick’ ‘calf’ ‘chick’ ‘young snake’ ‘calf’ ‘lamb’

Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Twi

‘young oilpalm tree’ Ewe ‘girl’ ‘young European’ ‘girl’ ‘boy’ ‘girl’ ‘boy’

Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Twi Twi

153 d.

e.

f.

g.

h. i.

j. k. l.

m.

n. o.

‘assistant or apprentice of occupation X’ dOyOla!-v¸! ‘healer-DM’ ‘assistant or apprentice to a healer’ ‘somebody who pretends to be X and is not X’ kesinOtO!-v¸! ‘rich person-DM’ ‘somebody who pretends to be rich and is not really rich’ ‘small type of X’ du-v¸! ‘village-DM’ ‘small village’ kpe!-v¸! ‘stone-DM’ ‘small stone’ a~tin-v¸! ‘tree-DM’ ‘small tree’ be!po2-wa ‘mountain-DM’ ‘small mountain’ ‘smaller, less conspicuous body part X’ alO-v¸! ‘lower arm-DM’ ‘finger’ O~fO~-v¸! ‘foot-DM’ ‘toe’ ‘inexperienced X’ nu!NlOla!-v¸! ‘writer-DM’ ‘inexperienced writer’ ‘X not yet passed an exam’ Bu!kula!-v¸! ‘driver-DM’ ‘somebody who knows how to drive but has not yet acquired a driving licence’ ‘small species X’ akpa-v¸! ‘fish-DM’ ‘small fish species’ ‘unimportant/weak/harmless X’ gbe-v¸! ‘voice-DM’ ‘weak or faint voice’ ‘insignificant X’ dO-v¸! ‘disease-DM’ ‘minor suffering, such as a cold’ ‘delineated part of mass X’ su!kli-v¸! ‘sugar-DM’ ‘a piece of sugar’ dua¤ ! ‘wood-DM’ ‘a small piece of wood’ ‘member of group X’ EBe-v¸! ‘Ewe-DM’ ‘an Ewe’ ‘somebody who behaves like X’ amedzro!-v¸! ‘alien-DM’ ‘somebody who behaves like an alien’

Ewe

Ewe

Ewe Ewe Fon Twi Ewe Fon Ewe Ewe

Ewe Ewe Ewe

Ewe Twi Ewe Ewe

As can be inferred from (29), the three substratum languages exhibit great parallels to each other in terms of the patterns and in terms of the semantic structure of individual words. Another core substratum language of Early Sranan, Kikongo, also makes use of a whole range of different means of marking diminutivity. According to Laman (1912: 68, 239–242), there are several diminutive markers in Kikongo. The most common ones are ki-, fi-, lu-, m- and n- which usually attach to reduplicated bases. Laman (1912: 241) translates all of them by means of ‘little’, but notes that the marker fi- has “somewhat reinforced diminutive meaning” . Bentley (1887: 535–536) cites two markers, ki-, which renders the meaning ‘little’, and fi- ‘tiny’. Although both Bentley and Laman translate the derivatives containing the diminutive markers by means of ‘little’, below, they will be translated by

154 means of ‘small’ to achieve better comparability with the Early Sranan and the Kwa data provided above. Patterns with the diminutive prefixes which can be established on the basis of the data in Bentley (1887: 535–536) and Laman (1912: 68, 239–242) are shown in (30). (30) a.

b.

‘small X’ ki-tuti-tuti ki-ngulu-ngulu lu-mvula-mvula ‘tiny X’ fi-mbele or fi-mbele-mbele

‘DM-cloud-cloud’ ‘DM-pig-pig’ ‘DM-rain-rain’

‘small cloud’ ‘small pig’ ‘small rain/drizzle’

‘DM-knife’

‘tiny knife’

In contrast to the Kwa languages, the diminutive prefixes in Kikongo are not used in the patterns ‘young descendant of animal X’ and ‘young version of human being X’. The names of young descendants of animals and of young versions of human beings are rendered in Kikongo by means of the pattern ‘child of animal X’ and ‘child of human being X’, as shown in (31) (examples from Bentley (1887: 362, 93)): (31) a.

b.

mwana a ememe mwana a mvalu mwana a ebuluku mwana a ntinu mwana/nleke ankento

‘child-of-sheep’ ‘child-of-horse’ ‘child-of-ass’ ‘child-of-king’ ‘child-of-woman’

‘lamb’ ‘foal’ ‘foal of ass’ ‘prince’ ‘girl’

An overview of patterns attested with the diminutive marker in Early Sranan and in its substratum languages is provided in (32). The question mark in (32b) indicates that it is unclear, on the basis of the substratum sources at hand, whether a given pattern is available in a given substratum language. (32) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. m. n. o. p.

‘young descendant of animal X’ ‘young descendant of plant X’ ‘young version of human being X’ ‘assistant or apprentice of occupation X’ ‘somebody who pretends to be X and is not X’ ‘small type of X’ ‘smaller, less conspicuous body part X’ ‘inexperienced X’ ‘X has not passed an exam’ ‘small species X’ ‘unimportant/weak/harmless X’ ‘insignificant X’ ‘delineated part of mass X’ ‘member of group X’ ‘somebody who behaves like X’ ‘tiny X’

ES + – + + + + + – – – – – – – – –

Ewe Fon Twi + + + + ? ? + + + + – – + – – + + + + + – + – – + – – + – – + – – + – – + – – + – – + – – – – –

Ki – ? – – – + – – – – – – – – – +

155 There are several similarities between the diminutive markers in Early Sranan and in the Kwa languages. First, in both Early Sranan and the Kwa languages, the diminutive markers can be used to refer to small and to young versions of the referents. Second, similarly to all Kwa diminutive markers, the Early Sranan marker pikíen- is related to an item meaning ‘child’. Third, all Early Sranan patterns listed in (32) are attested in Ewe and, with the exception of the patterns in (32d) and (32e), in Fon. Some of the patterns in (32), such as the patterns in (32d), (32e) and (32g) can be regarded as more marked semantically than, for instance, the patterns in (32c) and (32f) because of their rather specific meanings. It can be concluded therefore that substratum influence is more credible for these patterns. Besides the parallels in terms of patterns, there are also close parallels between Early Sranan and its substratum languages in terms of individual items containing diminutive markers. For instance, all Early Sranan items built according to the pattern ‘young descendant of animal X’, and some items built according to the pattern ‘young version of human being X’ – those meaning ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ – have one-to-one semantic correspondences in several substratum languages. The items built according to the pattern ‘young version of human being X’ can be regarded as formally, semantically and selectionally less marked: they consist of two elements only, have fully compositional meanings and do not require a narrow context. Therefore, substratum influence is less credible in their case. However, as far as the items built according to the pattern ‘young descendant of animal X’ are concerned, they can be regarded as more marked selectionally: they require a more restricted context than their simplex equivalents. It can thus be suggested that they might have emerged as the result of transfer from the substratum languages. There are also several differences between Early Sranan and its substratum languages. First, the Ewe patterns in (32b) and (32h–o) and the Kikongo pattern in (32p) are not attested in Early Sranan. Second, whereas Early Sranan makes use of one diminutive marker, some substratum languages, such as Kikongo, for instance, have several diminutive markers. Third, the diminutive marker in Early Sranan precedes the base and thus follows the common position of non-heads in Sranan morphology which, in turn, is the same as in English. In the Kwa languages, by contrast, the diminutive markers follow their bases. To sum up the discussion of the sources, it can be pointed out that diminutive markers are common cross-linguistically and are attested in the major substratum languages of Early Sranan. Hence, the fact that Early Sranan has a diminutive marker can hardly be attributed to a particular source. However, it has been suggested that at least some patterns and individual words might have had their source in the substratum languages. Note also that the superstratum English seems to have played no role in the emergence of the diminutive marker in Early Sranan. As far as the mechanisms of the emergence of the Early Sranan diminutive marker are concerned, it can be suggested that the Early Sranan diminutive marker did not develop through grammaticalisation because it is used as a free morpheme. Nor did it develop through relexification of some substratum marker because as the overview in (32) shows, there is no one-to-one correspondence in terms of semantic patterns between the Early Sranan diminutive marker and the diminutive markers in the substratum languages. Another objection to the relexification as a mechanism of the emergence of the Early Sranan diminutive marker might come from the fact that there seems to be a difference between the lexical entries for the diminutive marker in Early Sranan and in the substratum languages. In Early Sranan, one and the same form, pikíen, functions as the diminutive marker, as a

156 noun, ‘child’, an attributive adjective, ‘small’, a verb, ‘to be small’, and an adverb, ‘a little’. This multifunctionality of the morpheme pikíen- has no parallels in the major substratum languages. In Ewe, for instance, the suffix -v¸! is used as the diminutive marker only, and the meaning ‘small’ is rendered by a different item, the adjective suE! (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991: 83). In Fon, -v¸! is used as the diminutive marker only, and the meaning ‘young/small’ is rendered by the adjectives vu! and kpE~-v¸!, which can be used both attributively and predicatively (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 350–351). In Kikongo, different forms are used to render the meanings in question. For instance, Bentley (1887: 197, 130) lists six different items for the adjective meaning ‘small’ and two different items for the meaning ‘a little’. In general this suggests that the Early Sranan item pikíen- is not a copy of some substratum lexical entry. It can be assumed that the Portuguese-based element pikíen was reanalysed by Early Sranan creators as an item denoting diminutivity. They used this item to transfer some patterns, as well as some words containing the diminutive markers, from their L1s. Other patterns might have either emerged by analogy or independently.

7.2.4 Patterns with the augmentative marker mammáA few complex constructs attested in the Early Sranan sources contain the morpheme mammá/mamà11 in the first position: (33) mamà arén mammá-boom mammá-sanni mammá-ston

‘heavy rain/rain shower’ ‘huge tree’ ‘enormous thing/monster’ ‘enormous stone/huge rock’

arén boom sanni ston

‘rain’ ‘tree’ ‘thing’ ‘stone’

Fo Sch Sch Sch

As can be inferred from (33), the morpheme mammá is used as the first element in complex constructs to refer to a particular characteristic of the objects denoted by the nouns to which mammá is attached, namely the characteristic of being enormous or huge in size. It can be argued therefore that mammá- has an augmentative meaning in the examples in (33). This morpheme is also attested independently, as shown in the examples in (34): (34) a.

b.

mi mamma ben meki mi my mother PST make 1SG ‘My mother gave birth to me.’ Schumann (1783: 106): ‘Meine Mutter hat mich geboren.’ mi bai da pikin kau nanga hem mamma 1SG buy DEF young cow with its mother ‘I bought the young cow/calf with its mother.’ Schumann (1783: 106): no translation provided

– 11

Henceforth, for reasons of convenience, the spelling variant mammá, taken from Schumann (1783), will be used.

157 c.

mamà foe gron mother of ground/plantation ‘the protecting goddess/spirit of a place or a plantation’ Focke (1855: 75): ‘beschermgodin, der plaats, der plantaadje, van het erf of der plek gronds’

In the examples in (34), the morpheme mamma refers to a female parent of a child or an animal, as in (34a) and (34b), or to a female being who is believed to have control over some territory, as in (34c). So, the meaning of mamma in (34a) and (34b) is then ‘mother of human beings and animals’ and in (34c) ‘female protecting spirit’. Therefore, the independently attested morpheme mamma differs from the morpheme mammá attested in (33) in its reference and its descriptive meaning. Besides, there are some other differences between the two morphemes. First, the morpheme mammá in (33) occurs only in combination with a lexeme denoting an entity to which the characteristic ‘enormous/huge’ can be ascribed. In this case, it has a fixed position to the base: it occurs only prepositionally. Second, although in Focke (1855) both morphemes are spelt in the same way, as mamà, in Schumann (1783), there is a difference in spelling between the two: when meaning ‘enormous/huge’, the morpheme is spelt with an acute accent: mammá, whereas when meaning ‘mother/female protecting spirit’, without: mamma. Note, however, that both Schumann (1783: 106) and Focke (1855: 75) provide the two meanings under one dictionary entry which might point to an (etymological) relation between them since normally, these two sources list polysemous items under the same entry, whereas homonyms are presented under two separate entries. Although very few examples of the type in (33) are attested in the sources of Early Sranan, it can be suggested on the basis of the considerations above and of the fact that mammá- occurs with semantic consistency in (33), that the morpheme mammá seems to function as a specific marker in Early Sranan, namely as an augmentative marker. The following remark by Wullschlägel (1856: 113) might support this suggestion: “um etwas sehr großes auszudrücken, wird das Wort mamà (Mutter) vorgesetzt” (to express something very big, the word mamà (mother) is preposed) and provides the examples mamà-stoon ‘huge stone’ and mamà-boom ‘huge tree’. Note also that in Modern Sranan, the item mama still seems to fulfil the augmentative function. Thus, in Wilner’s (2007: 97) dictionary of Sranan, the meaning of mama is defined as ‘a great deal, an exceptional amount’. The examples provided by Wilner such as mamma busi, mama mankeri can be translated as ‘big jungle’ and ‘big harm’ respectively and point to an augmentative function of mama. This again shows that although there are very few examples attested with mammá- in Early Sranan, they are not random usages of this morpheme in augmentative function, but show a specific derivational pattern. Since all the constructs with mammá- exhibit only one pattern, the following constructional idiom can be stated for Early Sranan: (35) [[mammá][X]N]N

‘huge X’

Augmentative markers do not seem to be as wide-spread as diminutive markers among the languages of the world. For instance, they are not listed among the most frequent nominal derivational categories in Bauer’s (2002: 40) typological study of derivative categories. Be-

158 sides, augmentative markers similar to the one in Early Sranan seem to be unattested in other creoles, both sharing and not sharing substratum languages with Early Sranan, such as Papiamentu, Haitian or Tok Pisin. Therefore, it might be assumed that the emergence of the augmentative marker mammá- in Early Sranan is possibly not the result of universal development. This raises the question of whether it is the result of superstratum or substratum influence or of a language-internal development. There is no augmentative meaning among the meanings provided for the English mother or mamma in the OED.12 Besides, it is unclear whether the morphemes mother or mamma were used augmentatively in some British dialects. Portuguese makes use of augmentative affixes (Gärtner 1998: 165–166), but none of them bears a relation to the noun ‘mother’. Remarkably, Early Saramaccan has the same augmentative marker, mammâ, as in mammâtchuba (AM-rain) ‘extremely heavy rain’, or in mammâpau (AM-tree) ‘huge tree’ (Schumann 1778: 86). The interesting fact about the Early Saramaccan examples with mammâ is that in them, the augmentative marker is combined with words of Portuguese origin not attested in Early Sranan. This means that the Early Saramaccan mammâ-words were not just taken over from Early Sranan, but were possibly newly created in Early Saramaccan. It can therefore be hypothesised that either the Early Sranan mammá was taken over into Early Saramaccan, where it was then productively used to create new words with augmentative meanings, or both languages developed this marker in parallel to each other. In the latter case, it is unlikely that the two closely related languages underwent exactly the same development by coincidence. If the marker was not taken over from Sranan, then it might have developed under the influence of shared substratum languages. The substratum sources of the Kwa languages used in the present study contain no indication of the use of augmentative affixes or of the use of the lexemes meaning ‘mother’ or ‘mamma’ in the augmentative function. Kikongo and Kimbundu seem to make use of augmentative markers. Thus, according to Laman (1912: 50), there is a certain group of nouns in Kikongo which are used to indicate that an object (person, house, animal) is “very large, huge, or inspiring fear”, such as kiemba, kiengele, kiongolo, bobolo, bodongo, bwengo meaning ‘large/gigantic’. However, none of these lexemes seems to be related to the notion ‘mother’. Laman (1912: 50) also mentions that other Bantu languages make use of augmentative prefixes.13 Comrie and Thompson (1985: 396) show that Si-Luyana, a Bantu language, for instance, has the augmentative prefix si-, as in si-tondo ‘big/ugly/useless tree’ (< mutondo ‘tree’). But again, this prefix has nothing to do with the lexeme meaning ‘mother’ or ‘mamma’. Chatelain (1988–1889: 3) mentions that there is an augmentative prefix in Kimbundu, ki-, as in kihatu ‘big woman’ (< muhatu ‘woman’), but provides no information about the origin of this prefix. So, it can be concluded that no reliable statements about substratum influence can be made in the case of the augmentative marker mammá-. Note that the fact that creole languages such as Haitian (see Lefebvre 2003) or Jamaican (see Cassidy and Le Page 2002), which share substratum languages with Early

– 12

13

Note that according to the OED, the word mamma has not been attested in English earlier than the end of the 17th century. However, it is unclear in how far the early written sources accurately document the actual use of this word, which can be supposed to be much more common in spoken language. Laman (1912: 50) refers to such prefixes as “amplificative prefixes”.

159 Sranan and which exhibit several striking similarities to Early Sranan in terms of other markers, such as gender markers, do not make use of a comparable augmentative marker, might deliver support for the assumption that the substratum languages are unlikely to have played a role in the emergence of the Early Sranan mammá-. Given the fact that augmentative markers are less common cross-linguistically and that the superstratum or the substratum sources provide no evidence of parallels to the Early Sranan augmentative marker, an explanation of its origin might be sought in languageinternal development. As mentioned above, the Early Sranan mamma is also attested in the meaning ‘female protecting spirit’. Besides, in some complex words, such as watramamma, the meaning of mamma is ‘monster’ (Schumann 1783: 200). Since the notion ‘monster’ is usually associated with such characteristics as ‘huge’, ‘awe-inspiring’, it can be suggested that the augmentative use of the item mamma might have developed languageinternally via metaphorical extension from ‘monster’.

7.2.5 Patterns with the abstract nominaliser -fasi A small number of complex constructs attested in Schumann (1783) contain the morpheme -fasi/fássi/fassi/fási14 (< Engl. fashion (Smith 1987: 244)): (36) brojafasi kondrefasi laufasi pori fasi santafasi

‘disorder’ ‘worldliness’ ‘folly/stupidity’ ‘depravity’ ‘holiness’

broja kondre lau pori santa

‘disordered/disorder’ ‘worldly/country’ ‘(be) stupid’ ‘to spoil/to do harm’ ‘(be) sacred or holy’

Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch

In (37), the use of one of the items in (36) is illustrated in context: (37) da pori fasi va wi DEF depravity of 3PL ‘the depravity of ours’ Schumann (1783: 140): ‘unsere Verdorbenheit’ The items in (36) refer to mental, psychic and emotional conditions somebody or something are in, and the meaning of fasi in them can thus be described as ‘state’. Fasi is also attested independently in Early Sranan, as shown in (38): (38) a.

sofa mi no libi na fotto, mi no sabi fasi va une so-manner 1SG NEG live on fort 1SG NEG know manner of 2PL ‘Since I do not live in Paramaribo, I do not know your habits.’ Schumann (1783: 159): ‘Weil ich nicht hier an Paramaribo wohne, so weiss ich eure Einrichtungen u. Gewohnheiten nicht.’

– 14

The spelling variant of this morpheme used hereafter is fasi and is based on Schumann (1783: 40). The variants from Van Dyk (c1765) are fasi and fassi, from Focke (1855) fasi/fássi/fassi/fási.

160 b.

mi si na alla fasi va ju, ju go na kerki 1SG see on all manner of 2SG 2SG go to church ‘I see in all your manner that you are going to church.’ Schumann (1783: 119): ‘Ich sehe an deinem ganzen Betragen, dass du in die Kirche gehst.’

c.

a lukku mi na djalusu-fasi 3SG look 1SG on jealous-manner ‘He looks at me in a jealous manner/jealously.’ Schumann (1783: 30): no translation provided

d.

dem tu uman holi meti retifasi DEF.PL two woman hold/stand second wife right-manner ‘The two wives of the same husband live well with each other.’ Schumann (1783: 111): ‘Die 2 Weiber des einen Mannes vertragen sich gut mit einander.’

e.

ju no kann meki datti tarrafasi? 2SG NEG can make that different-manner ‘Can’t you do it differently?’ Schumann (1783: 175): ‘Kannst du dieses nicht anders machen?’

In the examples in (38), the morpheme fasi refers to the way characteristic of somebody or in which something is done or takes place. In particular, in (38a–b), it refers to the way of behaviour, and in (38c–e), to the way in which some action is carried out. To conclude, the meaning of fasi in (38) can be described as ‘manner’. It can be suggested therefore that there is a difference between the meaning of fasi in the examples in (36) and its meaning in the examples in (38). Whereas in (36), its meaning is ‘state’, in (38), it is ‘manner’. An observation that emerges on the basis of the data above is that the fasi-examples in (36) and those in (38c–e) have the same structure: both are combinations of adjectives and fasi. However, there are two differences between them. First, all examples in (36) are translated by Schumann (1783) by means of German abstract nouns. For instance, brojafasi is translated as ‘Unordnung’ (‘disorder’) (Schumann 1783: 22) and laufasi as ‘Thorheit/ Narrheit’ (‘folly/stupidity’) (Schumann 1783: 99). By contrast, those fasi-examples in (38) for which Schumann provides translations are translated either by means of German adverbs, as in (38e), where retifasi is translated by means of the German adverb gut ‘well’, or by means of an adjective and the noun Weise ‘way/manner’, as in so fasi which is translated by Schumann (1783: 159) as auf solche Art ‘in such a way/manner’. The second difference is that the adjective-fasi examples where fasi means ‘manner’ often occur in Schumann (1783) with the preposition na, as demonstrated in (38c). Thus, only two out of the nine adjective-fasi examples in which the meaning of fasi can be identified as ‘manner’ occur without the preposition na: retifasi and tarrafasi, as shown in (38d) and (38e). It should be noted, however, that all fasi-examples in (36) come from Schumann (1783), and the observations made above are based solely on the data from this source. Fasi-items of the type illustrated in (36) are not attested in the earlier sources, such as Herlein (1718), Court Records (1667–1767, Van den Berg 2000), Van Dyk (c1765) and Nepveu (1770). In

161 Focke (1855: 18), examples with fasi similar to those in (36) are attested, as shown below. For the purposes of discussion, word-by-word English translations of Focke’s Dutch translations are provided in brackets. (39) a.

wan kóni fási INDEF clever manner Focke (1855: 62): ‘op eene behendige wijze’ (‘in a skillful manner’)

b.

wan dângra fási INDEF disordered manner Focke (1855: 20): ‘op eene verwarde wijze’ (‘in a disordered manner’)

c.

so wan broejà-fasi such INDEF disorder-manner Focke (1855: 20): ‘op zulk eene verwarde wijze’ (‘in such a disordered manner’)

As can be inferred from (39), the context fasi-examples are used in in Focke (1855) is insufficient for determining whether they carry the meaning ‘state of being X’ or ‘manner’. It is also worth mentioning that in contrast to Schumann (1783), where many of the fasiexamples which are combinations of an adjective and fasi are used with the preposition na ‘on/in’, none of the adjective-fasi examples in Focke is used with this preposition. Instead, they are often used with the indefinite determiner wan, as all three examples in (39) above show. Another observation is that Focke translates almost all fasi-examples by means of the Dutch construction ‘op X wijze’ (‘in X manner’), although Early Sranan preposition na equivalent to the Dutch op, is not used in the Sranan examples translated by Focke. All in all, it is difficult to use the data from Focke to make clear conclusions about the meaning and the function of the morpheme fasi, and hence, all observations and conclusions made about the function of fasi are based on the data from Schumann. It is worth mentioning here that fasi-examples are attested in Wullschlägel (1856), another source of Early Sranan written by a missionary: (40) bedaari-fasi boen-fasi droengoe-fasi Gado-fasi getroùw-fasi kibri-fasi mandi fasi reti-fasi

‘calmness’ ‘virtue’ ‘drunkenness/insobriety’ ‘divinity’ ‘faithfulness/devotedness’ ‘secretness’ ‘ill-humour/displeasure’ ‘uprightness/honesty’

bedaari boen droengoe Gado getroùw kibri mandi reti

‘calm’ ‘(be) good’ ‘drunken’ ‘God’ ‘faithful/devoted’ ‘to hide/secret’ ‘(be) ill-humoured’ ‘(be) right’

Similarly to Schumann’s examples in (36), the examples in (40) refer to mental, psychic and emotional conditions, and the meaning of fasi in them is ‘state’. To summarise the discussion above, there are differences in the use of the morpheme fasi in (36) and its use in (38). It can be suggested that in (36) (and also in Wullschlägel’s examples in (40)), the element -fasi is used to create abstract nouns denoting states and thus

162 carries a specific function. Therefore, -fasi can be regarded as an abstract nominaliser in the complex words in (36). Since most bases -fasi is attached to in (36) are multifunctional items mostly attested as both adjectives and stative verbs, but also sometimes as nouns, the following constructional idiom can be established for Early Sranan: (41) [[X]V/A/N[fasi]]N

‘state of (being) X’

As to the question of potential sources of the abstract marker -fasi in Early Sranan, it can be pointed out that abstract nominalisers belong to the most frequently attested derivational categories cross-linguistically (Bauer 2002: 40). Besides, abstract nominalisers are attested in other creoles, such as Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 74), Haitian (Lefebvre 2003: 43), St. Lucian (Brousseau 2005) and Chabacano (Steinkrüger 2003: 257–58). However, they are not etymologically related to the nouns meaning ‘fashion/manner’. In Tok Pisin, remarkably, a very similar abstract nominaliser is attested. Mühlhäusler (1995b: 625) notes that in Tok Pisin, the suffix -pasin, etymologically related to the English noun fashion, is used to create abstract nouns: gutpasin (< gut ‘good’) ‘virtue’, isipasin (< isi ‘slow’) ‘slowness’, proutpasin (< prout ‘proud’) ‘pride’, paitfasin (< pait ‘fight’) ‘warfare’. But it is unclear whether a similar marker exists in the substratum languages of Tok Pisin. The superstratum and the substratum languages of Early Sranan make use of abstract nominalisers, but none of them comes etymologically from the noun ‘fashion/manner’, and thus there are no patterns directly corresponding to the Early Sranan pattern in (41). To sum up, abstract nominalisers are attested cross-linguistically, in other creoles and in the input languages of Early Sranan, but the pattern with the abstract nominaliser seems to have one-to-one correspondence in Tok Pisin only. Given this fact, as well as the fact that nothing is known about the use of the similar pattern in the substratum languages of Tok Pisin, it can be suggested that the emergence of the pattern with the abstract nominaliser -fasi in Early Sranan can either be attributed to the influence of universals or to a language-internal development. The idea of a language-internal development does not seem to be implausible: it can be assumed that the pattern was introduced by the missionaries, who might have been in the need of naming religious notions when preaching or interacting with the black population. Two arguments can be advanced to support this assumption. First, fasi-constructs occur only in Schumann (1783) and Wullschlägel (1856), i.e. sources written by the missionaries, in contrast to all the other sources mentioned above, whose authors were not missionaries. Second, most fasi-examples from Schumann, presented in (36), and many of those from Wullschlägel denote religious and moral notions, such as ‘holiness’, ‘depravity’, ‘worldliness’, ‘pride’, etc. The English noun fashion thus might have been reanalysed in Early Sranan as an abstract nominaliser on the basis of its rather abstract meaning.

7.2.6 N-N pattern Complex words consisting of two or three nouns belong to the most common type of constructs attested in all three sources of Early Sranan used in the present study, and this section is devoted to the analysis of their structural and semantic characteristics. Several examples of such nouns are provided in (42) below. Since complex words consisting of more than two nouns, such as those in (42b–f) below, can be analysed as binary N-N structures in

163 which one noun, either left or right, is complex, such constructs will be referred to here as ‘N-N constructs’ for the sake of simplicity. Only in those cases, where it is necessary for the line of argumentation, the term ‘N-N-N constructs’ will be used. (42) a.

b.

anansi-hosso bakkera bassia boonki-tíki bótro-wátra físi-marki fóetoe-tapoe zoute bali kandele tikki muffe neti sorro watra watra-muffe dróengoeman-rósoe

‘spider-house’ ‘white person-overseer’ ‘bean-stick’ ‘butter-water’ ‘fish-market’ ‘foot/leg-top’ ‘salt-barrel’ ‘candle-stick’ ‘mouth-night’ ‘sore-water’ ‘water-mouth’ ‘drinker-rose’

c.

ziki man hosse Bakkra-krassikrassi

d.

jamjam-sakka aratta kaka-pépre

e.

Ningrekondre-fattu watere mili passi Maria pepre-páttoe

‘sick person-house’ VD ‘white person-rash Sch (< RED-to scratch)’ ‘food (< RED-to eat)-bag’ ‘stomach’ Sch ‘rat droppings-pepper’ ‘small pepper similar Fo to rat droppings (Capsicum conicum)’ ‘Africa/Guinea-fat/oil’ ‘genuine palm oil’ Sch ‘water mill-street’ ‘Water-Mill-Street’ VD ‘Maria-pepper-pot’ ‘annoying or hard Fo to please person’ ‘savanna-smell-herb’ ‘name of a plant Fo (Cordia graveolens)’ ‘Europe-food ‘European fruits Sch (< RED-to eat)’ and plants’ ‘good day (< RED-good ‘a crab (Ocypodidae)’ Fo day)-oarsman’

sabána sméri-wiwíri f.

Bakkrakondre-jamjam odi-ódi boto-mán

‘spider web’ ‘white overseer’ ‘bean pole’ ‘buttermilk’ ‘fish market’ ‘lap’ ‘salt shaker’ ‘candlestick’ ‘dusk’ ‘pus’ ‘saliva’ ‘a garden shrub (Hibiscus mutabilis)’ ‘hospital’ ‘German measles’

Sch VD Fo Fo Fo Fo VD VD Sch Sch Sch Fo

In terms of their structural complexity, N-N constructs in Early Sranan can be subdivided into three major types: constructs consisting of two simplex nouns, as in (42a), constructs consisting of a complex and a simplex noun, as in (42b–e), and constructs consisting of two complex nouns, as in (42f). Constructs of the first type are the most common type of N-N constructs in all three sources. The numerical predominance of this type seems to be a feature characteristic not only of Early Sranan, but also of other languages, including some of the input languages of Early Sranan. For instance, in English, compounds consisting of more than two bases are considered to be rare in spoken language (Koziol 1972: 52). A similar observation has been made for Fon (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 227).

164 Constructs of the second and the third types are much more common in Focke (1855) and Schumann (1783) than in Van Dyk (c1765), where only 4 examples out of all N-N constructs are combinations of a complex and a simplex noun. This discrepancy can be explained by the fact that in contrast to Schumann and Focke, which are dictionaries, Van Dyk contains predominantly samples of spoken speech, where structurally complex items are typically less common than in written registers, as has been previously mentioned in the present section. In terms of their internal composition, Early Sranan N-N constructs exhibit a variety of structures. Thus, the examples in (42a) have the structure [N-N]N which is by far the most frequently attested one among Early Sranan N-N constructs. The examples in (42b) contain items created by means of the person marker -man: their structure can be presented as [[N/A/V-PM]N-N]N. The constructs in (42c) contain an item created by means of verb reduplication, so their structure can be presented as [N-[RED-V]N]N and [[RED-V]N-N]N respectively. The examples in (42d) and (42e) consist of three nouns: those in (42d) have a complex noun as their left-hand member, so their structure is [[N-N]N-N]N, and those in (42e) have a complex noun as their right-hand member: their structure can thus be presented as [N-[N-N]N]N. The examples in (42f) contain complex nouns, reduplicated nouns and nouns with the person marker -man. Their structures are [[N-N]N-[RED-V]N]N and [[RED-N]N-[N-PM]N]N. Syntactically, N-N concatenations function as N°s, none of them is attested separated by another lexical item in the sources used in the present study. The overwhelming majority of N-N constructs in Early Sranan are right-headed and have a modifier-head structure. There are, however, a few examples of semantically left-headed units, such as watere moffe (water-mouth) ‘saliva’, flamm faija (flame-fire) ‘fireflame’ or watra-hai (water-eye) ‘tears’. Some N-N constructs have ‘shifting heads’: they are attested both with the head on the right and on the left, such as horrowatra ~ watrahorro15 ‘well/spring/spring water’ or janjamsakka ~ sakka janjam ‘stomach’. It is not quite clear how Early Sranan came to have a few left-headed N-N items among the vast majority of right-headed N-N units or why there are compounds with shifting heads. An explanation based on superstratum or substratum influence does not provide any clear clues in this case because first, in English, Dutch, Ewe, Fon and Twi, N-N compounds are predominantly right-headed (see Koziol (1972: 52–58) for English, Van Loey (1970: 183–191) for Dutch, Schlegel (1856: 37) for Ewe, Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 226–227) for Fon, Christaller (1875: 25–26) for Twi).16 Moreover, compounds with shifting heads are also not attested in these languages. And second, most of the Early Sranan left-headed items listed above do not have one-to-one equivalents in any of

– 15

16

Note that Schumann (1783: 67) remarks with respect to these two items that although both can be used, the black people prefer horrowatra. However, some examples provided in the sources of Ewe and Twi seem to be left-headed at first glance, as e.g. the Ewe no2vi-ṅutsu (sibling-man) ‘brother’ (Westermann 1907: 121) and the Twi o2po2ṅko2-sae! (horse-castrated animal) ‘a castrated horse’ (Christaller 1875: 26). But they are first, not numerous, and second, they differ semantically from the Early Sranan left-headed examples discussed here in that it is not really clear whether they can be regarded as semantically leftheaded since they resemble what is generally regarded in morphological literature as copulative compounds.

165 the input languages taken into consideration in the present study. Two of them do so, but their equivalents are right-headed in both cases. Thus, the item watra-hai has a direct equivalent in Twi, ni-su! (eye-water) ‘tears’ (Christaller 1933: 345), which is, however, rightheaded. The lexeme watrahorro, which is a part of the shifting-head-pair horrowatra ~ watrahorro, has a direct equivalent in Ewe: tsi-do# (water-hole) ‘well/spring’ (Westermann 1905: 500), which is again right-headed. Despite the same semantic pattern, the Early Sranan and the substratum compounds differ in headedness. An alternative explanation of the origin of the Early Sranan left-headed items might be that they were originally phrases including a preposition such as fo/va/vo/foe ‘of/for/to’. These phrases then lost the preposition in the course of time, for instance due to their relative frequency of occurrence. Indeed, constructs built according to the pattern X-fo/va/vo/foe-X, e.g. blakka va hai (black-of-eye) ‘eyeball’, fienga foe fóetoe ‘finger-of-foot/leg’ ‘toes’, as will be shown in section 7.2.12 below, are not uncommon in Early Sranan. An argument which can be provided to support this explanation is that, as will be demonstrated in section 7.2.12, some X-fo/va/vo/foe-X items have equivalents without the preposition already in Early Sranan, and most of them have lost the preposition in Modern Sranan. For instance, the item watra-hai is first attested in Focke (1855: 148). In Schumann (1783: 198), the corresponding item meaning ‘tears’ is watra va hai, which contains the preposition va. Therefore, the loss of the preposition va in this item might be a case of later development, which had led to the left-headedness of this item. In terms of their semantics, the majority of Early Sranan N-N compounds are endocentric units where the first element has a modifying function with respect to the second, head element. The whole unit is a hyponym of the head noun: e.g. físi-marki (fish-market) ‘fish market’ is a hyponym of marki ‘market’, Ningrekondre-fattu (Africa/Guinea-fat/oil) ‘genuine palm oil’ is a hyponym of fattu ‘oil’, etc. Exocentric constructs are rather few. In Van Dyk, for instance, no exocentric N-N concatenations are attested. In Schumann, exocentric items are rare. Focke has the greatest number of exocentric items in comparison to the other two sources, but they are rather rare in this source as well: out of 442 N-N constructs attested in this source, only 27 are exocentric units. The majority of exocentric constructs are names of plants, as in (43a), some are names of animals, as in (43b), and a small number are names of persons, dishes, stars, diseases, etc., as in (43c). (43) a.

b.

babóen-néfi

‘baboon-knife’

blakka mamà

‘black-mother’

káiman-tére

‘caiman-tail’

‘name of a plant with long sharp Fo leaves (Scleria flagellum nigrorum)’ ‘name of a bush whose leaves Fo are used for herb baths’ ‘name of a cactus species Fo (Cereus phyllanthus)’ ‘name of a fish’ Fo

‘spirit/ghost-a kind of dance practiced by the blacks/banjo’ potimanjakketi ‘poor person-jacket’ ‘salted fish of special kind brought Sch from North America/a type of pickled mackerel’ todo-bére ‘frog-belly’ ‘a species of small fish’ Fo jorokà-banjà

166 c.

Maria peprepáttoe friman-sóusoe

‘Maria-pepper-pot’

mune weifi rienga-woróm$

‘moon-wife’ ‘ring-worm’

‘free person-shoes’

‘annoying or hard to please person’ ‘salt herring with Spanish pepper’ ‘evening star/the Venus’ ‘herpes’

Fo Fo Sch Fo

Exocentric N-N constructs seem to be generally less common than endocentric units in languages where both types of compounds are attested. Thus, for instance, exocentric compounds of the N-N type, such as harefoot, humpback and stickleback were very rare in English before the 16th century and still remain rare today (Marchand 1969: 388). In Fon, according to Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 229), exocentric N-N compounds are very rare as well . Copulative N-N constructs are very rare in Early Sranan. One unit from Van Dyk, bakera bassia (white person-overseer) ‘white overseer’, might be regarded as copulative: it can be paraphrased as ‘a person who is both an overseer and a white person’. It should be pointed out, however, that the paraphrase ‘an overseer who is a white person’ is also possible, consequently, it is unclear whether this unit should be regarded as a copulative or an endocentric construct. Copulative compounds are also rare in the input languages of Early Sranan. Thus, Koziol (1972: 52–53) cites a number of English examples, such as merchantadventurer, giant-dwarf and notes that they have existed since the Old English period. Westermann (1907: 121) provides a few examples for Ewe which resemble what is generally regarded as copulative compounds, and Christaller (1875: 32) gives such examples for Twi. Early Sranan N-N constructs exhibit a whole range of semantic patterns. (44) contains an overview of most commonly attested ones. N1 and N2 stand for the first and for the second noun respectively: (44) N2 is a container for substance denoted by N1 zoute bali ‘salt-barrel’ ‘salt-shaker’ watrabali ‘water-barrel’ ‘waterbarrel’ wien grâsi ‘wine-glass’ ‘wine-glass’ N2 is a product of which N1 is the source awara-fattu ‘awara tree-oil’ ‘aware tree oil’ hagoe-fáttoe ‘pig-fat’ ‘lard’ hago-metti ‘pig-meat’ ‘pork’ N2 is a place of residence for N1 bakkera konderi ‘white person-country’ ‘Europe’ ningrekóndre ‘black person-country’ ‘Africa/the Guinea coast’ N2 is a person for whom N1 is a place of occupation fíli-ningre ‘field-black person’ ‘farmer/field slave’ koekroehoman ‘kitchen-woman’ ‘kitchen-maid’ N2 is a location for N1 koffi loos ‘coffee-barn’ ‘coffee barn’ koffi pranasie ‘coffee-plantation’ ‘coffee plantation’ soekroe-grón ‘sugar-ground’ ‘sugar plantation’

VD Sch Fo Sch Fo VD VD Fo Fo VD VD VD Fo

167 N2 is an object made of material N1 makka-bruku ‘canvas-trousers’ ‘canvas trousers’ makkà-riénga ‘seed or stone of a ‘ring made of the stone palmfruit-ring’ of a palmfruit’ tameryn tikki ‘tamarind-stick’ ‘tamarind twig’ N1 is the source for N2 pitti-watra ‘well-water’ ‘wellwater’ N2 is an institution for N1 pôti-hóso ‘the poor-house’ ‘asylum for the poor’ ziki man hosse ‘patient-house’ ‘hospital’ N2 is an instrument used for an activity connected with object N1 faija tanga ‘fire-tongs’ ‘fire tongs’ hamákka-tetéi ‘hammock-string’ ‘rope with which a hammock is fixed’ kandele tikki ‘candle-stick’ ‘candle-stick’ N2 belongs to N1 haguwirriwirri ‘pig-hair’ ‘the bristle of a swine’ N2 is produced by N1 físi-eksi ‘fish-egg’ ‘roe’ todo-eksi ‘frog-egg’ ‘frogspawn’ N1 is an inhabitant of N2 kau-hosso ‘cow-house’ ‘cowshed’ negere hosse ‘black person-house’ ‘slave houses’ wassiwassi-hosso ‘wasp-house’ ‘wasp nest’ N1 is a cause for using N2 ary jakki ‘rain-jacket’ ‘raincoat’ N2 is characterised by N1 sakka pikin ‘bag/sack-child’ ‘child born with a caul’ santi-grón ‘sand-ground’ ‘plantation or ground with sandy soil’ N2 is a time span connected with N1 areen-tem ‘rain-time’ ‘rainy season’ metti tem ‘meat-time’ ‘hunting season’

Sch Fo VD Fo Fo VD Sch Fo VD Sch Fo Sch Sch VD Sch VD Sch Fo

Sch VD

Early Sranan’s inventory of semantic relations between components in N-N compounds is comparable both in its size and its types with similar overviews done for ‘older’ languages, such as English (Koziol 1972: 52–58), German (Fleischer and Barz 1995: 98–99) or Chinese (Packard 2000: 85–89). In terms of their overall semantic meaning, Early Sranan N-N constructs cover a great number of semantic fields: they denote all kinds of physical objects, abstract notions, persons, animals, plants, dishes and so on. (45) presents an overview of commonly attested semantic fields Early Sranan N-N constructs belong to. (45) names of physical objects eksi-buba ‘egg-shell’ koffi-mátta ‘coffee-mortar’

‘egg shell’ ‘coffee mortar’

Sch Fo

168 names of persons bakrà-pikíen

‘white person-child’

soutwatra-ningre

‘sea-black person’

names of family relations homan mama ‘woman/wife-mother’ homan tata ‘woman/wife-father’ names of body parts fóetoe-tapoe ‘leg-top’ hai-buba ‘eye-skin’ names of temporal concepts breki-tem ‘breakfast-time’ middere netti ‘middle-night’ muffe neti ‘mouth-night’ geographic names here straate ‘gentlemen-street’ kau-kinì ‘cow-knee’ Sranám$-líba names of tribes abò níngre papa-Ningre names of animals faja-woróm$ makka-fissi names of plants jorokà-pési snekki-wirriwirri

names of diseases bakkra-krassikrassi watra-pókki names of dishes góma-kuku ókro-brafóe

‘Suriname-river’ ‘Abò nation-black person’ ‘Papa nation-black person’ ‘fire-worm’ ‘thorn-fish’

‘white child/child of a master’ ‘black person who comes from Guinea’

Fo Sch

‘mother-in-law’ ‘father-in-law’

VD VD

‘lap’ ‘eyelid’

Fo Sch

‘noon’ ‘midnight’ ‘dusk’

Fo VD Sch

‘Gentlemen’s street’ ‘name of a slum in Paramaribo’ ‘the Suriname River’

VD Fo Fo

‘the Abò-blacks’

Fo

‘the Papa-blacks’

Sch

‘glow-worm (Lampyris)’ ‘salted fish brought from North America’

Fo Sch

‘ghost/spirit-pulse/peas’ ‘a pulse species (Cassia Occidentalis)’ ‘snake-herb’ ‘herb which, if boiled, is used for curing running temperature’

Fo

‘white person-rash’ ‘water-pox’

‘German measles’ ‘small-pox’

Sch Fo

‘cassava flour-cake’

‘cake made of cassava flour’ ‘soup made of Hibiscus esculentus’

Sch

‘Hibiscus esculentussoup’

Sch

Fo

The overview in (45) shows that the lexicon of even such a relatively young language like Early Sranan comprises words belonging to a rather wide variety of semantic fields. In this

169 respect, Sranan does not differ from ‘older’ languages, such as English, Russian, German, Chinese or Fon (for the latter, see Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 232–233)). It is noteworthy that the three sources differ in the range of semantic fields N-N constructs belong to. In Van Dyk (c1765), the constituents of N-N constructs are predominantly concrete nouns and N-N constructs usually denote concrete physical objects. Names of plants, animals and diseases, so abundant in Schumann (1783) and especially Focke (1855), are not attested among N-N concatenations in Van Dyk. This can be explained by the fact that Van Dyk contains large portions of spoken speech, where specific terms for fauna and flora are typically rare. Besides the semantic observations made above, several other observations on the semantics of Early Sranan constructs are due here. First, many N-N constructs in Early Sranan are compositional units: their meaning is directly motivated, and it is possible to infer their meaning from the meanings of the constituent parts, as e.g. aránja-bom$ (orange-tree) ‘orange tree’, brede-bákki (bread-box) ‘bread-bin’, banna-buba (banana-skin) ‘banana skin’. There are also a number of N-N compounds in Early Sranan which can be regarded as less compositional because their meaning is not directly inferable from the meanings of the parts and thus not directly motivated. Such compounds are exemplified in (46). (46) a.

b.

Bakkrakondre-stoon bobbì-móffo dondro-faija friman-sóusoe

‘Europe-stone’ ‘breast-mouth’ ‘thunder-fire’ ‘free person-shoes’

fowloe-mamà

‘hen-mother’

honikakka jamjam-sakka adì-watra

‘honey-droppings’ ‘food-sack’ ‘ashes of dried banana peel-water’

hassiwiwíri

‘horse-hair’

kamra-wén'je

‘chamber-maiden’

‘bricks’ ‘nipple’ ‘lightning’ ‘salt herring with Spanish pepper’ ‘maid who takes care of the poultry’ ‘wax’ ‘stomach’ ‘the lye water used by a washing maiden/a disease of the feet (Psoriasis)’ ‘horse hair/name of a plant (Oplisenus holeiformis)’ ‘chambermaid/name of wood/a species of small lizards’

Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo Sch Sch Fo

Fo

Fo

It can be argued that the items in (46a) are motivated metaphorically. The examples in (46b) have two meanings, one is directly motivated and fully compositional, the other is less directly motivated and seems to have emerged via metaphorical extension. Such examples as in (46b) are attested in Focke (1855) only. Since Focke is the latest of the three sources, it can thus be assumed that the emergence of additional, metaphorically based, meanings of some originally fully compositional constructs might have been a later, diachronic, development and shows that besides the creation of new words by means of concatenation of simplex items, metaphorical extension has been used as another strategy of expanding the lexicon.

170 Another observation about the semantics of Early Sranan N-N constructs due here is that one and the same lexeme can be used serially as a head in a number of N-N constructs denoting a certain class of objects, such as instruments, habitation places, containers, etc. For instance, the lexeme tiki ‘stick’ is often used in N-N constructs denoting instruments, especially those having a long and thin form, as shown in (47a). The lexeme bali ‘barrel’ is employed in words referring to containers of different kinds, as in (47b). Watra ‘water’ is used in compounds referring to fluids of different kinds, such as ‘water’, ‘milk’, ‘juice’, as in (47c), and the lexeme hosso ‘house’ is used in constructs denoting all kinds of buildings or habitation places of human beings and animals, as in (47d): (47) a.

b.

c.

d.

tiki ‘stick’ boonki-tíki jari-tíki matta-tiki viole-tiki bali ‘barrel’ botrobali herén-barì winibali watrabali zoute bali watra ‘water’ appelsina-watra bótro-wátra kokronoto-watra té-watra hosso ‘house’ aratta-hosso dansi-hóso

‘bean-stick’ ‘yard-stick’ ‘mortar-stick’ ‘violin-stick’

‘beanpole’ ‘yard-stick’ ‘pounder/masher’ ‘violin bow’

Fo Fo Sch Sch

‘butter-barrel’ ‘herring-barrel’ ‘wine-barrel’ ‘water-barrel’ ‘salt-barrel’

‘butter churn’ ‘herring barrel’ ‘wine cask’ ‘water barrel’ ‘salt-shaker’

Sch Fo Sch Sch VD

‘orange-water’ ‘butter-water’ ‘coconut-water’ ‘tea-water’

‘orange juice’ ‘buttermilk’ ‘coconut milk’ ‘water for tea’

Sch Fo Sch Fo

‘rat-house’ ‘dancing-house’

‘rat-nest’ ‘house where dancing parties take place’ ‘place where dram is stored/dram shop’ ‘woodshed’ ‘meat house/slaughter house’ ‘ant-hill’ ‘henhouse/chicken coop’

Sch Fo

drám$-hoso

‘dram-house’

hudu-hosso metti hosse míra-hoso vool-hosso

‘wood-house’ ‘meat-house’ ‘ant-house’ ‘hen-house’

Fo Sch VD Fo Sch

The examples in (47) show that whereas the creators of Early Sranan took over into the creole such English words as stick, barrel, water and house, which denote more general concepts, they did not do so with such words as pole, pounder, churn, cask, juice, liquid, nest or shed, which denote more specific concepts. This might have had multiple reasons. First, such words as churn, cask, shed, nest, etc. can be regarded as more marked selectionally as they require a more specific context than such items as stick, barrel, water and house. Second, substratum influence might have played a role here as well, since a similar phenomenon of using a specific lexeme serially to denote one certain class of objects is also attested in some substratum languages of Early Sranan. For instance, in Fon, the lexeme tI!n

171 ‘tree/wood/stick’ is used in a number of compounds referring to long, thin objects, as shown in (48) (examples from Lefebvre (1998: 338)): (48) we~ma!-tI!n wE!n-ga!n-tI!n wo~-tI!n

‘paper-stick’ ‘sending-metal-stick’ ‘dough-stick’

‘pencil’ ‘antenna’ ‘spatula’

In a similar way, the Ewe word tsi is used to denote liquids of different kinds, such as water, juice, milk, etc. (Westermann 1905: 497–498), as shown in (49) (examples from Westermann (1906: 108, 124, 147)). (49) yevune2-tsi no-tsi ati-me-tsi

‘coconut-water’ ‘breast-water’ ‘tree-inner-water’

‘coconut milk’ ‘mother’s milk’ ‘tree juice’

Especially the examples in (49) show that there is a close correspondence between the Early Sranan item watra and the substratum item tsi in terms of the range of meanings. So, it might be the case that the use of the Early Sranan watra to denote a variety of different liquids is due to relexification of the lexical entry of the corresponding substratum item. However, not all cases in (47) can be attributed to substratum influence since there are also some differences to the substratum items. For instance, as can be inferred from (47), the Early Sranan hosso is used to denote different kinds of habitation places of human beings and animals, such as houses and nests. By contrast, in different substratum languages of Early Sranan, such as Ewe, Fon, Twi and Kikongo, two different items are used for ‘house’ and ‘nest’. For instance, in Ewe, h¢o2 means ‘house/building/room’, but a different item, ato#2, is used to denote ‘nest’ (Westermann 1906: 239, 475). In Kikongo, nzo is used for ‘house’, and several different items, e.g. njalwa and njambwa, for ‘nest’ (Bentley 1887: 111, 144). The same differences can be traced in Fon (Höftmann 2003: 402, 61) and Twi (Christaller 1933: 126, 56). So, it might be assumed that another reason for the use of a particular lexeme serially to denote the same type of objects might be semantic extension. For instance, it can be suggested that in the case of hosso, semantic extension has taken place in the creole, a process rather common in both creole and non-creole languages (Hancock 1980, Holm 2000: 108). All in all, the discussion of the data in (47) shows that multiple explanations are possible (and necessary) in order to understand the phenomenon under regard. The question which arises now is whether the development of the structural and semantic types of Early Sranan N-N constructs can be attributed to a particular source. N-N compounds present the most common type of compounds attested cross-linguistically (Bongartz 2002: 16). It is also claimed that this is the type that arises early in FLA (see e.g. Clark (1993: 146)) and is preferred at all stages of SLA, independently of source and target languages (Broeder et al. 1993: 50, González Álvarez 2004: 166). N-N compounding is attested in almost all creoles, for instance Haitian (Lefebvre 1998), Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 100) and Tok Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1979: 376–397). Furthermore, almost all input languages of Early Sranan make use of N-N compounding. Below, an overview of the commonly attested structural and semantic types of N-N constructs in Early Sranan and in some of its input languages, such as English, Ewe, Fon and Twi is provided for a comparison (the

172 English examples are from Koziol (1972: 53–54) and Marchand (1969: 124, 389), the Fon examples from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 227–230), the Ewe data are from Westermann (1906: 157, 1907: 123), the Twi data are from Christaller (1875: 26–27, 1933: 338). Kikongo will be excluded from the overview in (50) because, as explained in section 4.6.1, information about compounding in Kikongo provided in the sources of this language is insufficient and unclear. (50) a.

b.

c.

d.

endocentric N-N Early Sranan: arén-bákki ‘rain-bucket’ English: wheatcorn Ewe: abo2-ta ‘upper arm-head/top’ Fon: a~jO~-xwe! ‘trade-house’ Twi: mmofra!-ase ‘child-time’ endocentric N-N-N Early Sranan: Ningrekondre-fattu ‘Africa/Guinea-oil’ English: water mill wheel Ewe: la)-gla)-kpo2 ‘animal-jaw-fence’ Fon: hwe~-ta~-nu! Twi: anI!-akyI~ ho)⁄no) exocentric N-N Early Sranan: blakka mamà

English: humpback Fon: hu~n-ga!n copulative N-N Early Sranan: bakkera bassia English: Ewe: Twi:

merchant-tailor no2vi-ṅutsu o2ko!ko2-taṅ

‘water tank’ ‘shoulder’ ‘store’ ‘childhood’ ‘genuine palm oil’

‘fence made out of jaws of animals’ ‘year-head-thing’ ‘annual ceremony’ ‘eye-back part-bark’ ‘eye-lid’ ‘black-mother’

‘name of a bush whose leaves are used for herb baths’

‘tomtom-chief’

‘war-dance’

‘white personoverseer’

‘white overseer’

‘sibling-man’ ‘hen-parent’

‘brother’ ‘hen who has children (i.e. who is a parent)’

As the overview in (50) shows, all most common structural and semantic types of N-N constructs attested in Early Sranan are also attested in the input languages. So all in all, the presence of N-N patterns in Early Sranan cannot be attributed to one particular source. Note that in addition to the parallels in terms of the structural and the semantic patterns discussed above, there are also interesting parallels between Early Sranan and its input languages in terms of individual N-N constructs. Thus, a number of Early Sranan N-N items have one-to-one semantic (and phonological) correspondences in English and Dutch. Some pertinent examples are provided in (51): (51) a.

Early Sranan: English:

areen-bo rainbow

‘rain-bow’

‘rainbow’

173 b. c. d. e. f. g. h.

Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: Dutch: Early Sranan: Dutch: Early Sranan: Dutch:

arén-watra rainwater fissinetti fishnet firi-worko field work kandele tikki candle stick aránja-bom$ oranjeboom koffì-lósoe koffij-loots melki kán melkkan

‘rain-water’

‘rainwater’

‘fish-net’

‘fishnet’

‘field-work’

‘field-work’

‘candle-stick’

‘candle-stick’

‘orange-tree’ ‘orange-tree’ ‘coffee-shoot’ ‘coffee-shoot’ ‘milk-can’ ‘milk-can’

‘orange-tree’ ‘orange-tree’ ‘coffee-shoot’ ‘coffee-shoot’ ‘milk-jug’ ‘milk-jug’

All examples in (51), with the exception of areen-bo and kandele tikki, can be regarded as fully compositional and thus semantically unmarked. They might therefore have developed independently of superstratum influence. The items areen-bo and kandele tikki are metaphorically motivated. For instance, kandele tikki does not denote a stick, but an object for holding candles which resembles a stick. These two items are therefore more credible candidates for superstratum influence. The item koffì-lósoe can be regarded as more selectionally marked since it requires a more specific context. Hence, it might have been borrowed from Dutch. In sum, it can be suggested that at least some N-N constructs seem to have entered Sranan via adaptation from English or borrowing from Dutch. Some parallels to substratum N-N constructs are shown in (52) below. The data for Ewe are taken from Westermann (1905: 500, 1906: 158, 124, 50, 17, 156), the data for Fon from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 232) and Rassinoux (1987: 36, 202, 296) and the data for Twi from Christaller (1933: 150, 353, 445). (52) a. b.

c. d. e.

f.

Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: Ewe: Early Sranan: Twi: Early Sranan: Twi: Early Sranan: Twi: Early Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Twi: Early Sranan:

homan mama asi nO hago-metti ha-la) pikin tem mmofra!-ase skaap-meti o-guan-nam )⁄ bobbì-móffo nu)⁄fu!-ano~ bobbiwatra no2-ts#i anO#-sI~n nu)fu-su! watrahorro

‘woman/wife-mother’ ‘wife-mother’ ‘pig-meat’ ‘pig-meat’ ‘child-time’ ‘child-time’ ‘sheep-meat’ ‘sheep-meat’ ‘breast-mouth’ ‘breast-mouth’ ‘breast-water’ ‘breast-water’ ‘breast-water’ ‘breast-water’ ‘water-hole’

Ewe:

tsi-do#

‘water-hole’

‘mother-in-law’ ‘mother-in-law’ ‘pork’ ‘pork’ ‘childhood’ ‘childhood’ ‘mutton’ ‘mutton’ ‘nipple’ ‘nipple’ ‘mother’s milk’ ‘mother’s milk’ ‘mother’s milk’ ‘mother’s milk’ ‘well/spring/spring water’ ‘well/spring’

174 g.

h.

i.

Early Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Early Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Early Sranan: Ewe: Twi:

sorro watra abi-me-tsi akpa-sìn hai-buba ṅku-yi nu~ku~n-flo! fóetoe-tapoe ata-ta se*rE-so!

‘sore-water’ ‘sore-inner-water’ ‘sore-water’ ‘eye-skin’ ‘eye-skin’ ‘eye-skin’ ‘leg-top’ ‘leg-top’ ‘thigh-top’

‘pus’ ‘pus’ ‘pus’ ‘eyelid’ ‘eyelid’ ‘eyelid’ ‘lap’ ‘lap’ ‘lap’

Some of the Early Sranan examples in (52) which have one-to-one correspondences in the substratum languages, such as the examples in (52d–i), can be regarded as less compositional items in semantic terms and thus more semantically marked. Besides, they denote concepts such as ‘nipple’, ‘eyelid’, ‘lap’, etc. which can be regarded as more selectionally marked than, for instance, such concepts as ‘breast’, ‘eye’ or ‘leg’. Therefore, substratum influence is more credible in their case. This means that some N-N constructs entered Early Sranan via semantic transfer from the substratum languages. Two additional observations about the data in (52) are due here. First, Early Sranan N-N items have parallels not in one substratum language, but in three languages, which might indicate that all three languages were involved in the linguistic scene in Suriname. Second, some items have the same or very similar semantic structure not just in one substratum language, but in two or even three languages. This points to the homogeneity of the substratum and allows the assumption that this homogeneity might have facilitated transfer. To summarise the description of the structural and the semantic features of Early Sranan N-N compounds, it can be pointed out that similarly to older languages and its input languages, Early Sranan exhibits a number of structural and semantic types of N-N constructs. It has been argued in this section that the development of the structural and the semantic patterns of Early Sranan N-N constructs cannot be attributed to one particular source. It has also been shown that the major mechanisms involved in the emergence of N-N constructs in Early Sranan were adaptation from English, semantic transfer from the substratum languages and innovative word-coinage.

7.2.7 A-N pattern Another numerically significant group of Early Sranan complex words are concatenations of an adjective and a noun: (53) a.

b.

gran mastra krukkutu tatta doengroe hóso swíti-sópi moytyty

c.

nju-nju wendje

‘great-master’ ‘crooked/wrong-father’ ‘dark-house’ ‘sweet-dram’ ‘beautiful-string (< RED-to tie)’ ‘very young (< REDyoung)-virgin’

‘owner’ ‘stepfather’ ‘prison’ ‘liqueur’ ‘ribbon’

VD Sch Fo Fo VD

‘virgin who has not had a man yet’

Sch

175 In terms of their structural complexity, the vast majority of Early Sranan A-N units consist of a simplex adjective and a simplex noun, as in (53a). Very few A-N concatenations are composed of complex forms, either of a simple adjective and a complex noun, as in (53b), or of a complex adjective and a simplex noun, as in (53c). So, in terms of internal composition, A-N constructs can be of three types: [A-N]N, [A-[RED-V]N]N and [[RED-A]A-N]N. The first type is by far the most common one. All Early Sranan examples in (53) are syntactically atomic units which fulfil a naming function. Their second elements function as syntactic heads: they determine the syntactic category of the whole unit. All Early Sranan A-N concatenations exhibit the modifier-head order. The first members in the units in (53) above have the modifying function and determine the scope of reference of the head nouns. This order is exactly the same as the order of syntactic A-N structures, as in wan bon metti ‘a good animal’ (Van Dyk c1765: 54). Semantically, Early Sranan A-N constructs can be both endocentric and exocentric. Endocentric units denote physical objects, persons, animals, plants, etc. Many of them are fully compositional formations: their meaning is directly discernible from the meanings of the parts, as in (54a). There are, however, some less compositional constructs: they are hyponyms of the heads, but the meaning of the whole construct is not directly discernible from the meanings of the separate components and is motivated metaphorically, as in (54b). (54) a.

b.

blákka pépre fulu mune witti wini biggi tongo doengroe hóso frí-brifi krini moni

‘black pepper’ ‘full-moon’ ‘white wine’ ‘big-voice’ ‘dark-house’ ‘free-letter’ ‘clear-money’

‘black pepper’ ‘full moon’ ‘white wine’ ‘bass’ ‘prison’ ‘letter of manumission’ ‘silver (money)’

Fo Sch VD Sch Fo Fo Sch

Exocentric A-N formations are more numerous than exocentric N-N constructs. Some examples of exocentric units are provided for illustration and further discussion in (55): (55) a.

b. c.

bigi-hái bígi mémbre bunne hatti bunne heddi tranga-hái tranga heddi tranga-jési tranga-mófo ogri-hái ougri hatti ougri heddi ogri mófo krukkutu-tereh ouwroe-wefi blakka mamà

‘big-eye’ ‘big-imagination’ ‘good-heart’ ‘good-head/reason’ ‘strong-eye’ ‘strong-head/reason’ ‘strong-ear’ ‘strong-mouth’ ‘evil/bad-eye’ ‘evil/bad-heart’ ‘evil/bad-head/reason’ ‘evil/bad-mouth’ ‘crooked-tail’ ‘old-wife’ ‘black-mother’

‘greed’ ‘pride’ ‘love/mercy’ ‘luck’ ‘boldness’ ‘stubbornness’ ‘disobedience’ ‘impudence’ ‘envy/hostile glance’ ‘malice/ill-nature/hatred’ ‘misfortune’ ‘evil prophecy’ ‘scorpion’ ‘name of a fish’ ‘a bush whose leaves are used for herb baths’

Fo Fo Sch Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo Fo Sch Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo

176 d.

redi-móesoe

‘red-cap’

riddi heden

‘red-head’

‘black soldiers of the colony of Suriname’ ‘name of a lady’

Fo VD

Two remarks on the units in (55a) are due here. First, they might look like A-N phrases at first sight. However, they are syntactically inseparable, they name specific states and qualities and function as single referential units. They will therefore be regarded as N° naming units. Second, they are often translated by Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855) by means of adjectives. Moreover, Focke (1855), who provides word-class labels for the words in his dictionary, classifies them as adjectives. For instance, the sentence ju miti bunne heddi (2SG-meet-good-head) is translated by Schumann (1783: 63) as “Du bist glücklich.” (‘You are happy.’), where the Early Sranan bunne heddi is translated by means of the German adjective glücklich ‘happy’. However, in this and many other examples provided in the sources, the units in (55a) can rather be regarded as nouns because they exhibit syntactic, semantic and functional properties typical of nouns. There are indeed very few examples in which the units in (55a) function as modifiers of nouns, as in Da wan tranga-hái boi foe troe (It-be-INDEF-strong-eye-boy-for-true) “Dat is dann een regt vrijpostige jongen.” (‘This is a really bold boy.’) (Focke 1855: 42). All in all, it can be concluded that the units in (55a) can be regarded as multifunctional units. Since the cases in which they function as nouns are more common in the sources, they are translated into English by means of nouns in (55a) above. As can be inferred from (55), most exocentric A-N compounds denote abstract qualities, as in (55a), and only very few of them are names of animals, plants and persons, as in (55b), (55c) and (55d) respectively. Thus, for instance, in Schumann (1783), there are only three exocentric A-N units referring to animals, and there are no exocentric units referring to plants or persons in this source. As to the exocentric A-N compounds referring to persons, only two of them are attested in all three sources. Early Sranan A-N constructs exhibit a variety of semantic patterns, as illustrated in (56): (56) N characterised by size A biké pletti ‘big-plate’ langa wípi ‘long-whip’

‘bowl’ ‘special whip used during punishments’

N characterised by age A óuroe-mamà ‘old-mother’ ‘old woman’ N characterised by colour A blakka kjábisi ‘black-cabbage’ ‘name of a plant (Andira retusa)’ N characterised by sensory impression A bita kassaba ‘bitter-cassava’ ‘name of a cassava species’ swíti kassába ‘sweet-cassava’ ‘sweet cassava’ N characterised by psychic state A santa jeje ‘holy-spirit’ ‘the Holy Ghost’ N characterised by physical state A dedde krofaija ‘dead-coal’ ‘coal that does not glow any more’ N characterised by evaluative feature A grang-Bakkra ‘great-white person’ ‘noble man/gentleman’

VD Fo

Fo Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch

177 Adjectives most commonly attested in Early Sranan A-N constructs are adjectives which denote the basic concepts of size and shape (e.g. ‘big’), age (e.g. ‘old’, ‘young’), colour (e.g. ‘black’, ‘white’, ‘red’), sensory impression (e.g. ‘bitter’, ‘sweet’) and evaluative features (e.g. ‘bad’, ‘wrong’, ‘great’). Such adjectives as bígi ‘big’, blakka ‘black’, gran ‘big/ great/important’, krukkutu ‘wrong/false/crooked’, njoen ‘new/young’, ougri ‘bad/evil’, redi ‘red’, switi ‘sweet’ and tranga ‘strong’ are most frequently used in Early Sranan A-N constructs. For instance, in Focke, there are four constructs containing the adjective bígi ‘big’, ten containing gran ‘great’, six containing króektoe ‘crooked/wrong’, six with redi ‘red’ and eleven with switi ‘sweet’. For illustration, the A-N constructs containing switi are listed in (57). All examples in (57) are from Focke (1855). (57) swíti bóonki swíti kassába switi-mófo switi-óli switi patatta switi rósoe swíti-sópi swíti tíki swíti tóri switi-wátra switi-wien

‘sweet-bean’ ‘sweet-cassava’ ‘sweet-mouth’ ‘sweet-oil’ ‘sweet-potato’ ‘sweet-rose’ ‘sweet-dram’ ‘sweet-stick’ ‘sweet-story’ ‘sweet-water’ ‘sweet-wine’

‘sweet pulse’ ‘sweet cassava’ ‘hearty, salt dishes, such as meat, bacon, etc.’ ‘train oil’ ‘Batatas edulis’ ‘European rose’ ‘liqueur’ ‘liquorice (Liquiritia)’ ‘pleasant talk’ ‘water with sugar or syrup’ ‘sweet wine’

Other languages in which A-N concatenation is attested show a similar preference for using certain semantic classes of adjectives in A-N constructs. In English, such adjectives as broad, short, long, small, sweet, black, strong are very common in A-N constructs (see the examples of A-N constructs provided in Koziol (1972: 62) and Marchand (1969: 63–64)). In the examples Van Loey (1970: 185) provides in his historical grammar of Dutch, many A-N constructs contain adjectives such as jonc ‘young’, nieuw ‘new’, groot ‘big/great’, oude ‘old’. In German, adjectives frequently attested in A-N compounds are, for instance, neu ‘new’, alt ‘old’, jung ‘young’, klein ‘small’, süß ‘sweet’, rot ‘red’, schwarz ‘black’, fein ‘fine’, frei ‘free’ (Fleischer and Barz 1995: 107). The frequent use of such adjectives in A-N constructs can be explained by the fact that the semantics of these adjectives is more general, and thus they impose less restrictions on the types of nouns with which they can occur, whereas adjectives with more specific meanings, such as ‘disobedient’ or ‘antique’, require more narrow contexts and thus do not readily occur with every noun. Besides, adjectives with more general meanings are more salient members of the lexical fields they belong to and can therefore be assumed to be more frequently used by speakers to create new words. In terms of their overall semantic meaning, Early Sranan A-N concatenations cover nearly the same range of semantic fields as N-N concatenations. However, A-N and N-N constructs differ in the number of items belonging to different fields. For instance, names of animals and plants are rarer among Early Sranan A-N constructs than among N-N constructs, whereas names of abstract states and qualities are more common among the A-N units. The overview in (58) shows the range of the semantic fields covered by Early Sranan A-N concatenations.

178 (58) names of concrete objects biké pletti ‘big-plate’ brakka makà ‘black-linen’ krini-moni ‘clear/pure-money’ names of abstract states and qualities bígi mémbre ‘big-imagination’ takkru-du ‘awful/nasty-deed’ names of persons bikki granman ‘big-governor’ gran-Missi ‘great/important-lady’

‘bowl’ ‘name of blue coarse linen’ ‘silver (coins)’

VD Fo Sch

‘pride’ ‘adultery/whoring’

Fo Sch

‘king’ ‘white woman who is the chief of other whites or the oldest person in a family, a house, a group of people’ ‘stepmother’

VD Sch

‘thigh/shank’ ‘the trachea’ ‘the right hand’

Sch Fo VD Fo

‘French-country’

‘name of a rock in the Suriname River’ ‘France’

‘evil/bad-animal’ ‘old-wife’ ‘red-tiger (felis onca)’

‘tiger’ ‘name of a fish’ ‘red tiger (Felis discolor)’

Sch Fo Fo

‘sweet-rose’ ‘sweet-a herb similar to cabbage’

‘European rose’ ‘the edible sort of the herb kallelù’

Fo Sch

‘a kind of skin eruption (Erythema)’ ‘pulmonary consumption’

Fo

króektoe-mamà ‘wrong-mother’ names of body parts biggi-futtu ‘big-foot/leg’ króektoe nékki ‘wrong-neck’ retti han ‘right-hand/arm’ geographic names bígi stòn ‘big-stone’ fransi konderi names of animals ougrimeti ouwroe-wefi redi-tígri names of plants switi rósoe switti kallelù

names of diseases ogri bróedoe ‘evil/bad-blood’ tákroe froekoutoe ‘awful-a cold’

Fo

VD

Fo

The semantic fields covered by Early Sranan A-N constructs in (58) are again comparable with the semantic fields covered by A-N compounds in ‘older’ languages such as English, Dutch or German (see e.g. Koziol (1972: 62–63) for English, Van Loey (1970: 185) for Dutch, Fleischer und Barz (1995: 106–108) for German). Turning now to the question of the origin of A-N constructs, it can be pointed out that concatenation of adjectives and nouns to new words is not uncommon cross-linguistically, and it is attested in many other creoles, such as Haitian (Lefebvre 1998: 343), Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 157–163), Berbice Dutch (Kouwenberg 1995: 239) and Tok Pisin (Mühl-

179 häusler 1979: 378–381). Besides, it is used in several source languages of Early Sranan, such as English,17 Dutch, Fon, Ewe and Twi. An overview of the structural and semantic types of such concatenations attested in Early Sranan and in some of its source languages is provided in (59). Kikongo data will be excluded here because no sufficient information about compounding could be found in the sources of this language (see section 4.6.1). The examples for English are from Koziol (1972: 62) and Marchand (1969: 388–389), for Ewe from Schlegel (1856: 34, 42–43), for Fon from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 228–230), for Twi from Christaller (1875: 26, 1933: 353, 471, 247, 248): (59) a.

b.

c.

d.

endocentric A-N Early Sranan: gran-massra

‘great-master’

English: broadcloth, sweetmeat, sour-dough Ewe: bubu-me2 ‘lost-person’ endocentric N-A Ewe: ama-ga) ‘person-great/big’ Fon: Fon: Twi: exocentric A-N Early Sranan: English: exocentric N-A Ewe: Ewe: Ewe: Ewe: Fon:

nya ga) do~2me-fa!fa! ṅu)ti-bo2bo2 tome-fa!fa! da~-vO~vO~

‘word/thing-great/big’ ‘the inner belly-cool’ ‘outer side-stooped’ ‘the inner ear-cool’ ‘head-red’

Fon: Fon: Twi: Twi: Twi:

xo~mE~-hu~nhu~n a~hO~n-su!su! o-nu)fu-te!N ko)ma-pa! ko)ma-bo!ne!

‘the inner belly-open’ ‘brain-closed’ ‘breast-long’ ‘heart-good’ ‘heart-bad’

a~mI~ -kpI~kpE~n ga~n-vO~ o2poṅ-ke2se!

‘oil-heavy’ ‘metal-be red’ ‘door-great’

krukkutu-tereh ‘crooked-tail’ whitebeard, redbreast, faintheart

‘plantation manager’ ‘lost person’ ‘the respected, the oldest person in a town’ ‘motor-oil’ ‘copper’ ‘gate’ ‘scorpion’

‘old woman’ ‘calmness’ ‘humility’ ‘peace’ ‘red-headed (person)’ ‘joy’ ‘baldness’ ‘baobab’ ‘happiness’ ‘irascible temper’

– 17

It should be pointed out that it has been a matter of dispute whether English A-N constructs should be regarded as compounds or as phrases. It has been argued (see e.g. Adams (2001: 81)) that since English A-N constructs, such as happy hour, hothouse, etc., exhibit a number of properties typical of phrases, such as leftward stress, they should be regarded as lexicalised phrases. The question whether English A-N constructs should be regarded as compounds or lexicalised phrases is, however, not crucial here because in the present study, as argued in section 5.5.4, all constructs fulfilling a referential function are investigated, and English A-N constructs such as happy hour, hothouse, blackboard, etc. serve this function.

180 In structural terms, Early Sranan A-N constructs have parallels in both English and the substratum languages Ewe, Fon and Twi: all five languages make use of concatenation of simplex adjectives and simplex nouns.18 However, there is a quantitative difference between Early Sranan and the substratum languages with respect to the structure of A-N/N-A constructs. Whereas in Early Sranan, constructs consisting of simplex adjectives and simplex nouns make up the overwhelming majority of A-N constructs, in the substratum languages, many A-N/N-A constructs contain adjectives created by reduplication, i.e. complex adjectives. This is due to the formal difference between adjectives in Early Sranan and in the substratum languages Ewe, Fon and Twi. In Early Sranan, the majority of adjectives are simplex items, and they are members of multifunctional V/A or V/A/N sets. By contrast, in Ewe, Fon and Twi, there is a comparatively small number of simplex adjectives. In these languages, many adjectives are created by means of reduplication from verbal bases (see Schlegel (1856: 83–84) for Ewe, Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 245–254) for Fon, and Christaller (1875: 46–47) for Twi). In terms of the order of elements, Early Sranan A-N constructs are similar to English where the head is the right-hand member, but different from Ewe, Fon and Twi, where compounds consisting of an adjective and a noun are left-headed. In Ewe, some compounds consisting of an adjective and a noun are right-headed, as e.g. bubu-me2 ‘lost person’ in (59a) above, but they do not seem to be numerous (Schlegel 1856: 42–43). In each of the languages in (59), the order of elements in constructs consisting of an adjective and a noun is the same as the order of corresponding syntactic structures: in Early Sranan and English, syntactic A-N structures are right-headed, and in Ewe, Fon and Twi, they are left-headed. A similar observation has been made about the order of elements in A-N and N-A constructs in Haitian (Lefebvre 1998: 341). In terms of their semantics, A-N constructs attested in Early Sranan show parallels to both the superstratum and the substratum languages: in all five languages, concatenations of adjectives and nouns can be endocentric and exocentric. Besides, in all five languages, endocentric A-N/N-A constructs cover a very similar range of semantic fields: they denote names of physical objects, persons, animals, plants, etc. However, with respect to exocentric A-N compounds, Early Sranan exhibits differences to English and shows greater similarities to the substratum languages. Thus, in Early Sranan and in its substratum languages, exocentric A-N constructs mainly refer to abstract qualities. By contrast, in English, exocentric A-N constructs mainly refer to persons, animals and plants, and constructs denoting abstract qualities such as faintheart are very rare. Furthermore, in both Early Sranan and its substratum languages, exocentric A-N constructs which express abstract qualities contain nouns denoting body parts, such as ‘eye’, ‘heart’, ‘head’, ‘ear(s)’ and ‘mouth’. As Schlegel (1856: 33–35) points out, the use of the names of body parts to express abstract notions, especially spiritual states and feelings, is common in Ewe and other West African languages. Alleyne (1980: 114) shows that the phenomenon of using names of body parts to

– 18

Note that some of the simplex adjectives attested in the substratum A-N/N-A items are also attested as stative verbs, which might lead to classificatory discrepancies. Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 228), for instance, regard the first item of the Fon ga~n-vO~ ‘copper’ as an adjective in a truncated form, but mention at the same time that in this case A=V. They argue that adjectives have a truncated form when they are derived from verbs with attributive meanings.

181 denote abstract qualities is wide-spread in Caribbean creoles and argues that they are the result of substratum influence (cf. Mühlhäusler (1979: 399) for Tok Pisin). Since Early Sranan exocentric items containing names of body parts in (55a) can be regarded as indirectly, metaphorically motivated and thus as less compositional items, it can be assumed that they might have entered Sranan under substratum influence. This issue will be discussed in greater detail later in this section. In terms of individual A-N items, there are several phonological and/or semantic correspondences between Early Sranan and its superstratum and substratum languages. Thus, a number of Early Sranan A-N units exhibit both formal and semantic similarities to English and Dutch A-N units. Some examples are provided in (60) for illustration: (60) a.

b. c. d. e.

Early Sranan: English: Dutch: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: Dutch:

njujari New Year nieuwjaar nju mune new moon retti han right hand blakka pepre black pepper redi-bórsoe roodborstje

‘new-year’

‘New Year’

‘new-moon’

‘new moon’

‘right-hand/arm’

‘the right hand’

‘black-pepper’

‘black pepper’

‘red-breast’ ‘red-breast’

‘redbreast’ ‘redbreast’

In the examples in (60), only one example, redi-bórsoe, can be regarded as metaphorically motivated and is thus less semantically transparent. This item is therefore a more credible candidate for external influence than the remaining items in (60), which are fully transparent and hence semantically less marked. It can be suggested that this item has entered Sranan via borrowing from Dutch. Parallels to some substratum A-N/N-A constructs are shown in (61). The data for Ewe are taken from Westermann (1906: 8, 175, 84), the data for Fon from Lefebvre (1998: 336) and Höftmann (2003: 319, 355) and the data for Twi from Christaller (1933: 354, 471). (61) a.

b. c. d.

Early Sranan:

gran-massra

‘great-master’

Ewe:

ama-ga)

‘person-great/big’

Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: Twi: Early Sranan: Ewe:

krebi-héde ta~-su!nsu!n tranga-hái anu-Ode!N tranga heddi tame-se!se)

‘bald-head’ ‘head-bald’ ‘strong-eye’ ‘eye-strong’ ‘strong-head’ ‘inner head-strong’

‘the master (who is the chief of other whites or the oldest white person in a house)’ ‘the respected, the oldest person in a town’ ‘bald (person)’ ‘bald (person)’ ‘boldness’ ‘boldness’ ‘stubbornness’ ‘stubbornness’

182 e. f. g. h.

Early Sranan: Twi: Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: Ewe:

tranga-jési aso)-Ode!N ogri-hái nu~ku!n-kE~n bunne heddi ta~mE~-bI~bO~ bigi-hái ṅku-biabia)

‘strong-ear’ ‘ear-be strong’ ‘evil/bad-eye’ ‘eye-hostility’ ‘good-head’ ‘inner head-weak’ ‘big-eye’ ‘eye-red’

‘disobedience’ ‘disobedience’ ‘envy/hostile glance’ ‘envy/hostility’ ‘luck’ ‘luck’ ‘greed’ ‘greed’

The examples in (61c–e), which have one-to-one correspondences in the substratum languages, can be regarded as metaphorically motivated, i.e. not fully compositional, and hence as more semantically marked. Therefore, substratum influence is more credible in their case. This means that some A-N constructs entered Early Sranan via semantic transfer from the substratum languages. As in the case of N-N constructs, it can be pointed out that the semantic equivalents of Early Sranan A-N constructs come from different substratum languages, not from one and the same language, which might indicate that different substratum languages played a role in the linguistic scene in Suriname and provided a source of Sranan structures. Another observation due here is that in some cases, there are semantic parallels, in particular in the use of names of body parts for denoting qualities, but these parallels are not one-to-one, as in (61f–h). This means that these items are either innovations or they have been transferred from some other substratum language which has not been regarded as a crucial substratum language of Early Sranan. To summarise the description of Early Sranan A-N compounds, it has been argued that the emergence of Early Sranan A-N patterns cannot be attributed to one particular source since the major structural and semantic types of Early Sranan A-N concatenation are also common cross-linguistically, present in many other creole languages and are attested in all input languages of Early Sranan. It has also been pointed out that innovative word-coinage, semantic transfer from the substratum languages and borrowing from Dutch played a role in the emergence of A-N constructs in Early Sranan.

7.2.8 V-N pattern There are a number of complex nouns in the Early Sranan data whose first components are attested primarily as verbs: (62) a.

brokke hosse

naitetei passà-brifi tingi oli krabbojassi ron negere brokko-klossi

‘to break-house’

‘break-house where coffee was broken in order to get out the coffee beans’ ‘to sew-thread’ ‘sewing thread’ ‘to pass-letter/ticket’ ‘ticket/pass of a slave’ ‘to stink-oil’ ‘rapeseed oil’ ‘to scratch-rash’ ‘a kind of rash that causes a lot of itching’ ‘to run-black person’ ‘run-away slave/Maroon’ ‘to break-linen/clothes’ ‘rags’

VD

Sch Fo Sch Sch VD Sch

183 b.

diki gron kákkabrudu kaka gout likki-han

‘to dig-ground’ ‘to excrement-blood’ ‘to excrement-gold’ ‘to lick-hand/arm’

njam$ dótti

‘to eat-earth’

‘digger’ ‘dysentery’ ‘squanderer’ ‘name of a four-footed animal (Myrmecophaga didactyla)’ ‘a disease found among blacks, especially chlorosis, or green sickness or worm-illness’

VD Sch VD Fo

Fo

Almost all V-N constructs in Early Sranan are combinations of two simplex elements. Some verbs which appear as the first elements in V-N constructs, e.g. ron ‘to run’, passa ‘to pass’, nai ‘to sew’, are attested as verbs only. However, quite many of the verbs in V-N constructs are multifunctional units and are attested as parts of multifunctional sets, mostly V/N sets, e.g. slibi ‘to sleep/sleep’, tingi ‘to stink/bad smell’, etc. This raises the problem of deciding whether the first elements should be regarded as verbs (cf. the same problem in English, see Bauer (1983: 205)). They will be referred to as verbs here because first, a number of them are not attested in functions other than verb in the sources, and second, because in terms of their semantics, all of them denote actions. In terms of the semantic relation between the first and the second member, two types of V-N constructs can be distinguished. Constructs of the first type, illustrated in (62a), can be regarded as modifier-head constructs: the first elements restrict the reference scope of the second elements: brokke hosse is a kind of house where coffee is broken, tingi oli is a kind of oil that stinks and brokko-klossi are clothes which are broken. The constructs of the second type have verb-argument structure, as in (62b). For instance, in the item diki gron, the right-hand element gron is the internal argument of the verb diki. The order of elements in the constructs in (62b) follows the order of elements in Early Sranan syntactic verb phrases, which is illustrated in (63), where the verb hieti precedes its internal argument den alle. (63) pikien morre mi hieti den alle na hede lange da biki pletti little more 1SG hit DEF.PL all on head with DEF big plate Arends (1995b: 180): ‘One more thing and I’ll hit them all in the head with that big bowl.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 61): ‘Een beetje meer gooi ik jouluy na je Kop met die groote Schootel.’ Of the two types of V-N constructs, the modifier-head structures are by far more common, whereas the verb-argument structures are very rare. Independently of the type of semantic relation, all Early Sranan V-N constructs are naming units and function as N°s at the level of syntax. It is noteworthy that constructs which have a verb-internal argument structure are rather common in the Romance languages and have been a matter of much dispute in the morphological literature. The problem arising with such constructs is that although they have an internal structure similar to syntactic verb phrases, they function as N° units at the level of syntax. To explain this phenomenon, Di Sciullo and Williams (1987: 79–83) observe that such forms are syntactic structures which

184 acquire a morphological structure through a reanalysis rule which turns VPs into nouns. Rohrer (1977) advances a different explanation. He suggests that French V-N constructs which have the verb-internal argument structure, such as e.g. essuie-glace (to wipe-windshield) ‘windshield wiper’, can be regarded as formed by means of a zero-suffix because they have consistent agentive and instrumental meanings. So, it is due to the zero-affix that such constructs can function as nouns. Both explanations, however, bear some problems. Thus, Di Sciullo and Williams provide no independent evidence for the existence of such a reanalysis rule, and Rohrer’s explanation makes use of the generally problematic notion of a zero-affix (see section 6.4.1 above for discussion). Within the theoretical approach used in the present study (see sections 5.5.4 and 6.4.3), it can be argued that V-N constructs with a verb-internal argument structure can occupy N° slots because they fulfil a referential function and therefore behave similarly to other naming units which are X° structures as well. They present one of the many structural possibilities Early Sranan has at its disposal to name objects. V-N constructs can be endocentric and exocentric in Early Sranan. Some endocentric constructs are provided in (64) for illustration: (64) a.

b.

figi-dóekoe huru uman schrifi zanti siengi-bóekoe zére plessi fervi-oli slibi-bredi tingi oli

‘to wipe-cloth’ ‘to whore-woman’ ‘to write-thing’ ‘to sing-book’ ‘to sell-place’ ‘to paint-oil’ ‘to sleep-bread’ ‘to stink-oil’

‘dish-cloth’ ‘prostitute/whore’ ‘stationery’ ‘music-book/hymn-book’ ‘market’ ‘flax oil’ ‘bread that is no longer fresh’ ‘rapeseed oil’

Fo Sch VD Fo VD Sch Sch Sch

In (64), the whole V-N constructs are hyponyms of the head: siengi-bóekoe (to sing-book) ‘music book’ is a kind of book, zére plessi (to sell-place) ‘market’ is a kind of place and so on. The majority of V-N constructs are directly motivated, fully compositional items, as in (64a). However, there are also some endocentric items which are indirectly motivated and whose meanings are not fully compositional, as in (64b). The major semantic patterns of endocentric V-N constructs are presented in (65). Note that the term ‘object’ is used in a general meaning here and includes both animate and inanimate objects. (65) a.

b.

c.

N is the object used for/in action V naitetei ‘to sew-thread’ dringihosso ‘to drink-house’ wroko-prési ‘to work-place’ slibi jakki ‘to sleep-jacket’ N is the object associated with action V tingi oli ‘to stink-oil’ ron negere ‘to run-black person’ N is the object which underwent action V brokko-klossi ‘to break-linen/clothes’ kapâdoe-hágoe ‘to castrate-pig’

‘sewing thread’ ‘pub/inn/guesthouse’ ‘working place’ ‘night-gown’

Sch Sch Fo VD

‘rapeseed oil’ ‘run-away slave/Maroon’

Sch VD

‘rags’ ‘castrated pig/fattening pig’

Sch Fo

185 Of the three semantic V-N patterns in (65), the pattern in (65a) is the most productive one. Exocentric forms are not numerous among Early Sranan V-N constructs. They are rather rare among the V-N constructs with the modifier-head structure. Some examples are provided in (66a). By contrast, among the V-N constructs which have verb-argument structure, exocentric units dominate, as in (66b). (66) a.

b.

‘name of a creeper-plant (Mikania atriplicifolia)’ broko-hái ‘to break-eye’ ‘glance of contempt/ grumpy glance’ djompo-hátti ‘to jump-heart’ ‘fidgety or uneasy nature’ wákka-wákka sóro ‘to walk to and fro-sore’ ‘name of a disease (Impetigo confluens)’ kaka gout ‘to excrement-gold’ ‘squanderer’ diki gron ‘to dig-ground’ ‘digger’ poeloe-pa$n$gi ‘to pull-underskirt ‘name of a military post of black women/ near Paramaribo, wide cloth’ Poelepaantje’ njam$ dótti ‘to eat-earth’ ‘a disease found among blacks, especially chlorosis, or green sickness or worm-illness’ broko-bakka

‘to break-back’

Fo Fo Fo Fo VD VD Fo

Fo

V-N constructs cover a wide range of semantic fields. Endocentric V-N constructs usually denote persons and inanimate objects of different kinds. Exocentric V-N constructs denote persons, animals, plants, diseases, specific locations and physical states. (67) names of persons huru uman ‘to whore-woman’ jajò-hóeman ‘to wander-woman’ diki gron ‘to dig-ground’ names of physical objects sríbi-krosi ‘to sleep-cloth’ figi-dóekoe ‘to wipe-cloth’ names of instruments schrifi zanti ‘to write-thing’ names of locations beriplesi ‘to bury-place’ zére plessi ‘to sell-place’ names of institutions dringihosso ‘to drink-house’ kibri-kámpoe ‘to cover-camp’ names of physical states drai-heddi ‘to twist-head’ names of abstract qualities djompo-hátti ‘to jump-heart’

‘prostitute/whore’ ‘slut’ ‘digger’

Sch Fo VD

‘bed-sheet’ ‘dish-cloth’

Fo Fo

‘stationery’

VD

‘cemetery’ ‘market’

Sch VD

‘pub/inn/guesthouse’ ‘camp of run-away slaves’

Sch Fo

‘giddiness’

Sch

‘fidgety or uneasy nature’

Fo

186 names of plants sidòn-pattáta tiengi gódo names of animals jajò-kraboe krabbodago names of diseases krabbojassi

‘to sit-potato’

Fo

‘to stink-pumpkin’

‘name of a potato species (Batatas edulis)’ ‘name of a plant’

‘to wander-crab’ ‘to scratch-dog’

‘a crab species’ ‘savannah dog (a kind of fox)’

Fo Sch

Fo

‘to scratch-rash’

‘a kind of rash which causes Sch a lot of itching’ ‘to walk to and fro-sore’ ‘a disease (Impetigo confluens)’ Fo

wákka-wákka sóro geographical names poeloe-pa$n$gi ‘to pull-underskirt of black women/wide cloth’

‘name of a military post near Paramaribo, Poelepaantje’

Fo

Can the emergence of V-N constructs in Early Sranan be attributed to some particular source? V-N concatenation is not uncommon cross-linguistically and is attested in a number of creole languages, for instance, Berbice Dutch (Kouwenberg 1995: 239), Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 138) and Tok Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1979: 383, 388, 392). However, in Papiamentu, V-N constructs are all exocentric, and the Early Sranan V-N pattern ‘N is the object used for action V’ corresponds to N-di-V pattern in Papiamentu, e.g. hilu di kose (threadof-to sew) ‘sewing thread’ (Dijkhoff 1993: 138, 190–195). V-N patterns attested in Tok Pisin exhibit great similarities to Early Sranan since almost all main semantic V-N patterns attested in Early Sranan are also attested in Tok Pisin: washaus (to wash-house) ‘house for washing’, seksekbris (to shake-bridge) ‘suspension bridge’, save-tok (to save-talk) ‘interpreter’ (Mühlhäusler 1979: 383–384, 388, 392–393). English, Dutch and the Kwa languages make use of V-N compounding as well. In (68), an overview of V-N patterns in Early Sranan and some of its input languages is provided. The English data are from Koziol (1972: 63, 65–66) and Marchand (1969: 72–73, 380–381), the Ewe data from Schlegel (1856: 40), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 229) and Twi from Christaller (1875: 26–27). For Kikongo, no clear information could be found (see section 4.6.1). (68) a.

b.

endocentric V-N, where N is the object used for/in action V Early Sranan: naitetei ‘to sew-thread’ ‘sewing thread’ English: pitchfork, washcloth, whetstone dressing-board, frying pan Ewe: da~-ti ‘to shoot/to throw-stick’ ‘arrow’ mlo2-w̔e ‘to go to sleep-place’ ‘sleeping place’ Twi: da!-bere ‘to lie-place’ ‘a place to lie on’ susu-dua ‘to measure-stick’ ‘measure stick’ endocentric V-N, where N is the object associated with action V Early Sranan: tingi oli ‘to stink-oil’ ‘rapeseed oil’ English: hangman, leap-year, sheargrass serving woman, standing stone Twi: atu!-boa ‘to fly-animal’ ‘bird’

187 c.

d.

endocentric V-N, where N is the object which underwent action V Early Sranan: kapâdoe-hágoe ‘to castrate-pig’ ‘castrated pig/fattening pig’ English: skim-milk minced meat, pickled herring Fon: nu!-wI!wla!n ‘thing-written’ ‘writing/written form’ Fon: xo!-∂I!∂O! ‘saying-said’ ‘discourse’ Twi: akye2-de ‘to present-thing’ ‘present’ Twi: ate!-se2!m ‘to hear-word/thing’ ‘hearsay’ exocentric V-N, where N is the internal argument of V Early Sranan: kaka gout ‘to excrement-gold’ ‘squanderer’ English: covershame, spurnwater, turnpike, wagtail cutpurse, letgame

As can be inferred from (68), all structural and semantic V-N patterns attested in Early Sranan are also attested in English. Besides, the types of English V-N items cover almost the same range of semantic fields. For instance, constructs of the type presented in (68d) can be names of persons, animals, plants and diseases in both Early Sranan and English. However, there are also differences between Early Sranan and English with respect to V-N concatenation. Thus, English also has constructs where the first members are either ing-participles or ed-participles which were not taken over into Early Sranan. This shows that all derivational morphemes of the input languages were lost in the process of creolisation. Furthermore, although there are considerable similarities between Early Sranan and English in terms of abstract V-N patterns, there are very few one-to-one semantic correspondences between English and Early Sranan in terms of individual V-N items. For instance, almost all English correspondences of the Early Sranan modifier-head V-N constructs provided in this section are either simplex items or complex items which have no direct equivalents in Early Sranan. Indeed, only a very small number of Early Sranan V-N modifier-head constructs have parallels in English, as shown below: (69) a. b. c.

Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English: Early Sranan: English:

bóli-wátra boiled water wroko-prési working place zére plessi selling place

‘to boil-water’

‘boiled water’

‘to work-place’

‘working place’

‘to sell-place’

‘market’

Although the Early Sranan constructs are similar to the English ones semantically, there are formal differences between them: the English constructs in (69) contain ing-participles or ed-participles, whereas Early Sranan constructs contain bare verbal bases. Besides, all Early Sranan constructs in (69) can be regarded as fully compositional items. Hence, superstratum influence is less credible in their case, and the examples in (69) might have developed independently from superstratum influence. As to the Early Sranan exocentric V-N constructs with verb-argument structure, none of them has one-to-one correspondences in English, although such constructs were not uncom-

188 mon in English in the Middle English period. This means that English probably did not serve as a model for their creation. Interestingly, one of such items has a close semantic parallel in the substratum language Ewe (Westermann 1906: 147): (70) Early Sranan: Ewe:

kákkabrudu w̓u-nyenye)

‘to excrement-blood’ ‘blood-excrementing’

‘dysentery’ ‘dysentery’

Although there are two formal differences between the two items – in terms of word-order and in terms of the form of the noun, which is reduplicated in Ewe, but not in Early Sranan, the semantic parallel is one-to-one. Since the item is metaphorically motivated and thus not fully compositional, it can be suggested that it has entered Early Sranan via semantic transfer from Ewe. This shows that the substratum languages might have played a role in the emergence of at least some V-N items in Early Sranan. Some of the Early Sranan V-N modifier-head items have close equivalents in Dutch (the Dutch examples are from Focke (1855: 142)): (71) a. b.

Early Sranan: Dutch: Early Sranan: Dutch:

trekkipáttoe trekpot triki-ízri strijkijzer

‘to make tea-pot’ ‘to make tea-pot’ ‘to iron-iron’ ‘to iron-iron’

‘teapot’ ‘teapot’ ‘an iron’ ‘an iron’

They can be regarded as borrowings from Dutch because they require a more narrow context and can hence be regarded as more selectionally marked. As far as the parallels to the substratum languages Ewe, Fon and Twi are concerned, it can be pointed out that almost all Early Sranan semantic V-N patterns are attested in at least one of these substratum languages. The interesting fact about the substratum data in (68) is that the Early Sranan V-N constructs exhibit the greatest parallels in terms of abstract semantic and structural V-N patterns to Twi, a substratum language which is considered to have played a less crucial role during the formation period of Early Sranan (see section 3.4.2), whereas the parallels to Ewe and Fon in terms of patterns are less close. Thus, there is a formal difference between the Early Sranan and the Fon constructs built according to the pattern in (68c): in Fon, the modifying items are reduplicated. Furthermore, in Early Sranan, the pattern in (68a) is the most productive one. In Ewe and Fon, by contrast, this pattern seems to be less commonly used or even unattested, and nouns with the meaning ‘object used for/in action V’ are usually created by N-V-N concatenation, as shown in (72) below. The Ewe data are from Westermann (1907: 124), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 227). (72) nu-ṅlo2-kpe nu-tu-nu a~vO~-nya~-mO~ nu~-tO!-nu! xo!-jla!-we!ma~

‘thing-to write-stone’ ‘thing-to forge-thing’ ‘cloth-to wash-thing’ ‘thing-to sew-thing’ ‘story-to spread-paper’

‘tablet’ ‘blacksmith’s tool(s)’ ‘washing-machine’ ‘needle’ ‘newspaper’

Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Fon

The fact that Early Sranan favours the V-N pattern over the N-V-N pattern can be explained by a greater formal and selectional markedness of the latter: the N-V-N pattern consists of

189 three elements and is thus more formally marked than the V-N pattern. Besides, it operates on transitive verbs only and is therefore more selectionally marked. To conclude, Early Sranan exhibits several V-N patterns, with the pattern ‘object used for/in action V’ being rather productive. In terms of their structural and semantic types, Early Sranan V-N constructs exhibit several close similarities to other languages, including other creoles and the input languages English, Dutch and the Kwa languages. Similarly to the emergence of N-N and A-N patterns, the emergence of Early Sranan V-N patterns cannot be attributed to one particular source. By comparison to N-N and A-N constructs, convincing cases of adaptation of Early Sranan V-N items from the superstratum and of semantic transfer from the substratum languages are few.

7.2.9 N-V/N pattern A few constructs attested in Early Sranan seem to be concatenations of nouns and verbs: (73) a.

b. c.

bákka-hàtti déibroko hattibronn hâtti fadón heddi-hati tappobari hái-drai grunn sheki vool-kweki boon-jam

‘back-to hurt’ ‘day-to break’ ‘heart-to burn’ ‘heart-to fall’ ‘head-to hurt’ ‘top/heaven-to cry’ ‘eye-to twist/to rotate’ ‘earth/ground-to shake’ ‘hen-to breed’ ‘bone(s)-to eat/to hurt’

‘pain in the back’ ‘dawn’ ‘anger/wrath’ ‘stomach cramp’ ‘headache’ ‘thunder’ ‘giddiness’ ‘earthquake’ ‘chicken breeding’ ‘gout’

Fo Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch

In four constructs in (73), the second elements are multifunctional V/N units: fadón ‘to fall/fall’, hati ‘to hurt/ache’, sheki ‘to shake/shaking’ and kweki ‘to breed/stock-breeding’. The second elements in the remaining constructs in (73) are attested as verbs only. The question arises whether the second members of the constructs under analysis should be regarded as nouns or as verbs. Three arguments can be advanced in favour of the assumption that they are nouns. First, half of the second elements in (73) are attested as nouns. Second, in all constructs in (73), the second elements can be regarded as heads in terms of their semantics (the whole constructs in (73) are hyponyms of the second elements) and their syntactic behaviour: all units in (73) occupy N° slots at the level of syntax. Third, the second members of the constructs in (73) denote activities, and not actions: burning, falling, shaking, etc. Since the constructs in (73) differ from N-N constructs discussed in section 7.2.6 above in a number of properties, they will be referred to as N-V/N constructs here to show that the second elements resemble deverbal nouns in languages such as English. In terms of the semantic relation between the constituents, all constructs in (73) can be regarded as argument-head structures. In the examples in (73a), the first member can be regarded as the external argument: e.g. the item hattibronn can be paraphrased as ‘heart burns’. In the example in (73b), the first member can be viewed as the internal argument of

190 the head: e.g. vool-kweki can be paraphrased as ‘to breed hens’. This item corresponds to English synthetic compounds of the type fox-hunting. The example in (73c) is ambiguous in terms of the semantic relation: boon-jam can be paraphrased as ‘to eat bones’ (i.e. a disease which eats bones) so that the first noun can be viewed as the internal argument of the head, or it can be paraphrased as ‘bones hurt’ (i.e. a disease which causes bone-aching), where the first noun is the external argument of the head. To summarise, there are two N-V/N patterns in Early Sranan: ‘N-V/N, where N is the external argument of V/N’ and ‘N-V/N, where N is the internal argument of V/N’. The former pattern seems to be more productive than the latter one: there is only one construct built according to the latter pattern, but 12 constructs built according to the former pattern. Early Sranan N-V/N constructs can be endocentric, as e.g. grunn sheki (earth/ground-to shake) ‘earthquake’, and exocentric, as e.g. tappobari (heaven-to cry) ‘thunder’. Almost all N-V/N constructs where N is the external argument of V/N seem to be metaphoric formations and denote psychic states, as e.g. hattibronn ‘anger’, or physical states, as e.g. háidrai ‘giddiness’, or natural phenomena, as e.g. tappobari ‘thunder’. Patterns semantically similar to Early Sranan N-V/N constructs are not as wide-spread in creoles as N-N, A-N or V-N constructs are. For instance, they are not attested in Haitian (Lefebvre 1998: 346) and are not listed among the compounding patterns in Tok Pisin provided by Mühlhäusler (1979). In Papiamentu, constructs somewhat similar to Early Sranan N-V/N constructs are attested, but they are created by means of a different pattern, namely, N-mentu-di-N, where -mentu is a nominalising suffix and di is a preposition meaning ‘of’, as in walmentu di stoma (revolving-of-stomach) ‘nausea’ or batimentu di man (clapping-of-hands) ‘clapping’ (Dijkhoff 1993: 178–181) and thus resemble corresponding Spanish structures. English, Dutch and the Kwa languages make use of N-N compounding where the second nouns are derived from verbs. In (74), examples from Early Sranan, English and the Kwa languages are provided for comparison. The data for English are from Koziol (1972: 59), for Ewe from Westermann (1906: 221, 1907: 123), for Fon from Höftmann (2003: 320) and Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 230–231) and for Twi from Christaller (1875: 27). Kikongo is excluded because of insufficient information. (74) a.

b.

N-V/N, where N is the external argument of V/N Early Sranan: grunn sheki ‘earth-to shake’ ‘earthquake’ English: sunshine, cock-crowing, cock-fighting, heart-burning Ewe: dzi-bibi ‘heart-burning’ ‘anger’ Fon: n~uku!nmE~-lE!lE! ‘inner eye-rotation’ ‘giddiness’ Fon: ta~-∂u~ ‘head-to hurt’ ‘madness’ Twi: anI!-wu ‘eye-to die/dying’ ‘shame’ Twi: ow#i-gyinae ‘sun-to stop/stop’ ‘noon’ N-V/N, where N is the internal argument of V/N Early Sranan: vool-kweki ‘hen-to breed’ ‘chicken breeding’ English: blood-shedding, child-bearing, thank-offering Ewe: ati-dzedze ‘tree-sawing’ ‘tree-sawing’ Fon: vI~-jI!jI ! ‘child-yielding’ ‘delivery’

Both semantic patterns of N-V/N constructs attested in Early Sranan are attested in the superstratum English and in the substratum languages Ewe and Fon. As to Twi, the pattern

191 in (74b) is not attested in the sources of this language used for the present study. However, there are some formal differences between Early Sranan and its input languages with respect to the patterns in (74). Thus, in formal terms, Early Sranan N-V/N examples contain two simplex items. By contrast, in English, constructs built according to both patterns are often deverbal nouns containing a suffix, such as -ing, and in Ewe and Fon, such constructs contain nouns which are created from verbs by reduplication. So, it can be suggested that the Early Sranan constructs show less formal markedness than the corresponding constructs in the input languages. Besides, there are some differences between Early Sranan and its source languages in terms of productivity: the pattern in (74b) is unproductive in Early Sranan, whereas in English, synthetic compounding is productive, and the same is true for Ewe and Fon. This raises the question of how this discrepancy can be explained. Brousseau (1989) explains the same discrepancy between Haitian and its major substratum language Fon by the fact that in contrast to Haitian, Fon requires obligatory realisation of an object with a verb in generic contexts and has many complex verbs which are combinations of verbs and their objects. However, this explanation is problematic on two grounds. First, given the fact that Haitian has some transitive verbs, it is unclear why it should not make use of synthetic compounding. Second, Brousseau’s argumentation would lead us to the assumption that English, which is similar to Haitian rather than to Fon in terms of the properties of its verbs, should lack synthetic compounding, which is not the case. There are also some interesting parallels between Early Sranan and its source languages in terms of individual N-V/N items, as shown in (75). The English data come from Koziol (1972: 59) and the OED, the Ewe data from Westermann (1906: 55, 221, 40) and the Fon example from Höftmann (2003: 320). (75) a.

b. c.

d.

Early Sranan: English: Ewe: Early Sranan: Fon: Early Sranan: English:

grunn sheki earth-shaking anyigba-w̓uw̓u hai-drai n~uku!nmE~-lE!lE! hattibronn heart-burning

‘earth/ground-shaking’ ‘earth/ground-shaking’ ‘eye-rotation’ ‘inner eye-rotation’ ‘heart-burning’

Ewe: Early Sranan: Ewe:

dzi-bibi tappobari dzi-ḍe-gbe

‘heart-burning’ ‘top/heaven-to shout’ ‘top/heaven shouts’

‘earthquake’ ‘earthquake’ ‘earthquake’ ‘giddiness’ ‘giddiness’ ‘anger’ ‘heated state of mind/jealousy’ ‘anger’ ‘thunder’ ‘thunder’

As can be inferred from (75), two Early Sranan items, in (75a) and (75c), have parallels in both English and Ewe. However, a closer look at the English items reveals that the parallels are not one-to-one. Thus, in (75a), the Early Sranan and the English item differ in the first component. In (75c), they differ in their overall semantic meaning. It can be suggested therefore that adaptation from the superstratum is improbable in the case of the items in (75a) and (75c). The parallels to Ewe are, by contrast, one-to-one in terms of word-order, the semantic structure and the semantic meaning of both the individual constituents of the constructs and the whole constructs. Since the items in (75b–d) can be regarded as metaphorically motivated and thus as less compositional, it can be suggested that they have entered Early Sranan via semantic transfer from Ewe.

192 To conclude, Early Sranan makes use of two types of N-V/N concatenation. One type, ‘N-V/N, where N is the internal argument of V/N’, is very marginal and hence no clear statements about its origin can be made. The other type, ‘N-V/N, where N is the external argument of V/N’, is more productive. This type seems to be less common among other creoles than N-N, A-N and V-N concatenations seem to be, but is attested in both the superstratum English and in the substratum languages, such as Ewe and Fon. Since there are all in all few N-V/N constructs in Early Sranan and since several of them have been shown to be credible cases of semantic transfer from the substratum languages, whereas one-to-one correspondences in the superstratum English are not attested, it can be suggested that possibly, transfer of some substratum items has led to the emergence of N-V/N pattern in Early Sranan and thus might have caused a subsequent analogical formation of new lexical items according to this pattern in Early Sranan.

7.2.10 A-N-N, Num-N-N and V-N-N patterns A small number of Early Sranan constructs have one of the following structures: A-N-N, Num-N-N or V-N-N, as in (76): (76) a.

b. c.

biggiheddi müra bóenhatti-mamà ouwroe-tém$ sóema reditére-snéki tuheddi snekki tóe-mofo-gon wassi-hán-kómiki tapoe-skíén-pân$gi

‘big-head-ants’ ‘good-heart-mother’ ‘old-time-people’ ‘red-tail-snake’ ‘two-head-snake’ ‘two-mouth-gun’ ‘to wash-hand-basin’ ‘to cover-body-an underdress of black women/wide cloth’

‘name of an ant species’ ‘name of a bush (Cordia)’ ‘ancestors’ ‘name of a snake’ ‘name of a snake’ ‘two-barrelled gun’ ‘basin for washing hands’ ‘shawl’

Sch Fo Fo Fo Sch Fo Fo Fo

The first elements of the constructs in (76) can be regarded as phrases: those in (76a) and (76b) as NPs, where the adjectives and the numerals serve as modifiers of the nouns, and those in (76c) as VPs, where the nouns are the internal arguments of the verbs. These phrases serve as modifiers of the nominal heads of the constructs in (76). The heads are the right-hand members of the units under regard. The constructs in (76a) are either endocentric (e.g. biggiheddi müra) or exocentric (e.g. bóenhatti-mamà). Those in (76b) and (76c) are all endocentric. (77) lists the semantic patterns of the constructs in (76). N2 refers to the head noun and N1 to the non-head noun. (77) a.

b. c.

N2 is an object whose distinctive feature is object N1 characterised by property A reditére-snéki ‘red-tail-snake’ ‘name of a snake’ N2 is an object which has object N1 in quantity Num tóe-mofo-gon ‘two-mouth-gun’ ‘two-barrelled gun’ N2 is an object for action V involving object N1 wassi-hán-kómiki ‘to wash-hand-basin’ ‘basin for washing hands’

Fo Fo Fo

193 The list in (76) is an almost exhaustive list of A-N-N, Num-N-N and V-N-N constructs attested in Early Sranan, which shows that these patterns can hardly be regarded as productive. Interestingly, all three patterns are not attested in Van Dyk (c1765), and the V-N-N constructs are attested in Focke (1855) only, which might indicate their later development. A-N-N, Num-N-N and V-N-N concatenations are less common cross-linguistically than N-N, A-N or V-N concatenations. Moreover, they also seem to be less common among other creoles. For instance, in Haitian, such concatenations are not attested. In Papiamentu, a few examples are attested (Dijkhoff 1993: 167), but they differ from the Early Sranan constructs in terms of their semantics and their bracketing. However, at least N-V-N compounds are attested in Hiri Motu: thus Mühlhäusler (1997: 158) provides several examples, such as kuku ania gauna (smoke-to eat-thing) ‘pipe’, lahi gabua gauna (fire-to burn-thing) ‘match’ or traka abiaisi gauna (truck-to raise-thing) ‘jack’. Since all three types of concatenations can be regarded as more formally marked, and the V-N-N pattern can additionally be regarded as selectionally marked since it can take only transitive verbs as its input, it makes sense to take a look at possible parallels in the source languages. Several source languages of Early Sranan have similar patterns. Thus, the Early Sranan A-N-N pattern has correspondences in English, Fon and Twi, as shown in (78a). The English examples are from the OED, the Fon examples from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 228), the Twi examples from Christaller (1875: 29). As to the Num-N-N pattern, it seems to have correspondences in English only, but not in the substratum languages. (78) a.

b.

N2 is an object whose distinctive feature is object N1 characterised by property A Early Sranan: reditére-snéki ‘red-tail-snake’ ‘name of a snake’ English: good-natured men, long-legged spider, old-time chamber Fon: a~su!-ku!-si ‘husband-dead-wife’ ‘widow’ Fon: a~∂O~-vI!vI!-zO~n ‘urine-sweet-disease’ ‘diabetes’ Twi: aye2-fo!ro-hyI~a! ‘wife-new-meeting’ ‘wedding’ N2 is an object which has object N1 in quantity Num Early Sranan: tóe-mofo-gon ‘two-mouth-gun’ ‘two-barrelled gun’ English: two-barrelled gun, three-cornered hat

As can be inferred from (78), Early Sranan A-N-N and Num-N-N constructs exhibit similarities in terms of word-order and semantics to A-N-N and Num-N-N constructs in English, but often differ from the superstratum language in terms of form: the A-N and Num-N combinations in English constructs often contain suffixes, such as -ed. Notably, some Early Sranan words built according to the A-N-N and Num-N-N patterns have close phonological equivalents in English, such as red-tailed snake and two-headed snake. As to the substratum languages, Early Sranan A-N-N constructs differ from them in terms of the order of elements and partially, in terms of form. In the substratum languages, the adjective follows the noun to be modified: N-A-N, and the adjectives are often created via reduplication from verbs. Besides, in terms of semantics, Early Sranan A-N-N constructs differ from the corresponding items in Twi, where the item aye2-fo!ro-hyI~a! is built according to the pattern ‘N2 is an object for object N1 characterised by feature A’. To sum up, despite the differences, the semantic parallels between the Early Sranan patterns in question and the corresponding substratum and superstratum patterns are close. Since A-N-N and Num-N-N

194 patterns can be regarded as more marked formally, superstratum influence in the case of A-N-N and Num-N-N patterns, as well as substratum influence in the case of the A-N-N pattern, cannot be altogether excluded. The equivalents of the Early Sranan V-N-N pattern in some input languages are provided in (79). The Dutch data are included in (79) because Early Sranan V-N-N compounds exhibit interesting similarities to Dutch N-V-N compounds. The English examples are from Marchand (1969: 79), Dutch from Focke (1855: 62) and Booij (2002: 150), Ewe from Westermann (1907: 124), Fon from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 227). (79) N2 is an object for action V involving object N1 Early Sranan: wassi-hán-kómiki ‘to wash-hand-basin’ English: Dutch:

nutcracker, earpicker handenwashkom ‘hands-to wash-basin’

Dutch: Ewe:

koffiezetapparaat ‘coffee-to make-device’ akple)-da-tsi ‘dumpling-to cook-spoon’ nu-tu-nu ‘thing-to forge-thing’ nu~-tO!-nu! ‘thing-to sew-thing’ xo!-jla!-we!ma~ ‘story-to spread-paper’

Ewe: Fon: Fon:

‘basin for washing hands’ ‘basin for washing hands’ ‘coffee-maker’ ‘spoon for cooking dumplings’ ‘blacksmith’s tool(s)’ ‘needle’ ‘newspaper’

As can be inferred from (79), Early Sranan shows a formal difference to English in terms of V-N-N concatenation: the English examples are built by means of the suffix -er, whereas the Early Sranan examples are combinations of free bases. Besides, there is a difference in terms of word-order: the English pattern is N-V-er, whereas in the Sranan pattern, the verb comes first. It can be assumed therefore that the English V-N-er pattern did not serve as a model for the Sranan V-N-N compounds. But there are close structural and semantic similarities to Dutch and to the substratum languages: all Dutch and substratum items are combinations of three free bases and are built according to the same semantic pattern as the Early Sranan constructs are. However, the Early Sranan constructs differ from their equivalents in Dutch, Ewe and Fon in terms of the order of elements: the verb precedes the object noun in Early Sranan, whereas in Dutch, Ewe and Fon, it is the other way round. Although the difference between Early Sranan and the substratum languages is not surprising in this respect because Early Sranan constructions, both at word-level and at sentence-level, usually follow the English word-order, the difference between Early Sranan and Dutch is surprising: on the assumption that Early Sranan constructs emerged under the influence of the corresponding Dutch pattern, it is unclear why Dutch word-order was not preserved. This means that either Dutch played no role in the emergence of the Early Sranan constructs in (79) or that borrowings from other languages are modified to suit the word-order of syntactic phrases of the major superstratum language and thus undergo the same word-order changes as substratum items do. Since V-N-N constructs can be regarded as more marked in formal terms, as they consist of three items, as well as in selectional terms, as they can take only transitive verbs as input, it can be suggested that the substratum languages and possibly Dutch played a role in their emergence.

195 To conclude, Early Sranan makes use of A-N-N, Num-N-N and V-N-N patterns which, however, do not seem to be as productive as N-N, A-N or V-N patterns are. It has been argued that since these patterns are more formally marked and – in the case of the V-N-N pattern – more selectionally marked and have close semantic parallels in the source languages, input language influence seems to be more credible in their case.

7.2.11 Num-de-worké pattern Besides the Num-N-N constructs discussed in the previous section, a small number of other Early Sranan items exhibit the same structure. However, they differ from the Num-N-N pattern in terms of their semantics and in terms of the relation between the constituents and will therefore be regarded separately here. Such constructs are exemplified in (80). All constructs in (80), with the exception of the second one, are taken from Van Dyk (c1765), but the final column shows whether they are also attested in the other two sources, Schumann (1783) and Focke (1855). (80) wan de worké fossi deh worko toe de worké drie de worké fo de worké vyfi de worké zikkisi de worké

‘Monday’ ‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Saturday’

wan fossi toe drie fo vyfi zikkisi

‘one’ ‘first’ ‘two/second’ ‘three/third’ ‘four/fourth’ ‘five/fifth’ ‘six/sixth’

VD Sch VD/Sch/Fo VD/Sch/Fo VD/Sch/Fo VD/Sch VD/Sch

The constructs in (80) are built according to the uniform pattern in which two positions are fixed: [Num-de-worké]N, where the second element de (< Engl. day) is an independently attested noun meaning ‘day’ and the element worké is a noun meaning ‘work’ (< Engl. work). They are names of the days of the week from Monday to Saturday. The name for ‘Sunday’ is not built according to the pattern [Num-de-worké]N, but is a combination of the nouns ‘sun’ and ‘day’ in all three sources (e.g. zondé in Van Dyk (c1765: 101)). It thus exhibits a close similarity to the English item Sunday. Since it is metaphorically motivated and thus not fully compositional, it can be regarded as more semantically marked and can therefore be regarded as a case of adaptation from English. As can be inferred from (80), the Early Sranan names of the days of the week are built according to the same pattern in all three sources, with the exception of the name for ‘Monday’, which contains the cardinal numeral wan in Van Dyk (c1765), but the ordinal numeral fossi in Schumann (1783). It is noteworthy that Van Dyk and Schumann list six names each, whereas Focke provides only three names in his dictionary. The semantic interpretation of the units in (80) raises some questions. First, with the exception of the numeral wan, which can be cardinal only, and with the exception of the numeral fossi, which is attested as an ordinal numeral only, the first elements in the remaining units in (80) are attested as both cardinal and ordinal numerals. Hence, the question arises whether the first elements in the Sranan names of the days of the week are cardinal or ordinal numerals. Two arguments can be provided to suggest that they are ordinal numerals. First, the days of the week can be viewed as a series of objects which have a

196 certain successive order. Second, Schumann (1783: 189) translates the example na tu deh worko as ‘am zweyten Werktag in der Woche’ (‘on the second workday of the week’), where the translation contains the German ordinal numeral zweiter ‘second’. It remains unclear, however, why in Van Dyk, where the ordinal numeral fossi ‘first’ is attested, the cardinal numeral wan is used in the noun denoting ‘Monday’. Second, the question is what the relation between the constituents in the units in (80) is. It can be argued that these units differ with respect to the relation between the constituents from Num-N-N constructs discussed in the previous section, such as tuheddi snekki (two-head-snake) ‘name of a snake’, which are right-headed units with a modifier-head structure. The constructs in (80) can be paraphrased as ‘first day of work’, ‘second day of work’, etc., and thus can be regarded as semantically left-headed units with the first element specifying the noun de and the second noun serving as a complement of the first noun. They bear similarities in terms of their internal structure and their relation between the constituents to the syntactic phrases of the following type, commonly attested in Early Sranan: (81) toe battra wini two bottle wine Arends (1995b: 214): ‘two bottles of wine’ Van Dyk (c1765: 91): ‘twee Flessen Wyn’ Similarly to the constructs in (80), the phrase in (81) contains a numeral specifying the head battra and the noun wini complementing the head. Note, however, that in contrast to the phrase in (81), the units in (80) serve a naming function. All in all, it can be summarised that the units in (80) are semantically left-headed items with the first element being an ordinal numeral. Their semantic structure is ‘second day of work’, ‘third day of work’, etc. The pattern according to which they are built can be presented in the form of the following constructional idiom: (82) [[[X]Num[de]][worké]]N

‘day of the week’

As to the origin of the pattern in (82), it can be pointed out that in many languages, the names of the days of the week are complex units which contain the word for ‘day’ and/or numerals. For instance, in Portuguese, which played a role in the Surinamese linguistic scene (see chapter 3 above), the names of the days of the week are built by means of the pattern [Ordinal Num-feira], where feira stands for ‘market’: e.g. segunda-feira (secondmarket) ‘Monday’, terça-feira (third-market) ‘Tuesday’, etc. Patterns containing the word for ‘day’ and/or numerals are also attested in all source languages of Early Sranan. They are provided in (83) below. The Ewe data are from Westermann (1907: 81), Fon from Rassinoux (1987: 208, 219, 225, 195, 393), Twi from Christaller (1933: 599), Kikongo from Bentley (1887: 296). Several remarks about the notational conventions in (83) are due here. The question mark in the glosses of the Dutch and the Ewe names stands for the constituents which are not transparent from the synchronic point of view. In the Fon glosses, the question mark in front of ordinal numerals indicates that these numerals are not attested independently in Fon, but originally come from Arabic ordinal numerals: Rassinoux (1987: 195, 208, 219) remarks in the translations of these names that they are derived from Arabic items. In the Kikongo data, the Kikongo word for ‘day’, lumbu, appears in

197 brackets because it is not explicitly used in the names of the days of the week, but can be regarded as implied according to a remark made by Bentley (1887: 294). (83) English: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Dutch: Maandag ‘moon-day’ Dinsdag ‘?-day’ Woensdag ‘?-day’ Donderdag ‘thunder-day’ Vrijdag ‘free-day’ Ewe: agble-toe-gbe ‘field-?-day’ agble-vee2-gbe ‘field-second-day’ to)2-gbe ‘third-day’ vie-gbe ‘?-day’ vie-toe-gbe ‘?-?-day’ Fon: tEnI!-gbe ~ ‘?second-day’ gu~-za!n-gbe~ ‘Gu (name of a spirit)-day-day’ tala!ta-gbe~ ‘?third-day’ aza#n-ga-gbe~ ‘day-long-day’ n)Onu!-za!n-gbe~ ‘woman-day-day’ lamI!si-gbe~ ‘?fifth-day’ axO!su!-za!n-(gbe) ‘king-day-(day)’ mExo!-za!n ‘old person-day’ Twi: Dwo!-da ‘name of the genius of Monday-day’ Be*⁄na)-da ‘name of the genius of Tuesday-day’ Wuku!-da ‘name of the genius of Wednesday-day’ Ya!w´-da ‘name of the genius of Thursday-day’ FI!-da ‘name of the genius of Friday-day’ Kikongo: ki-ezole (lumbu) ‘concord prefix-second-(day)’ ki-etatu (lumbu) ‘concord prefix-third-(day)’ ki-eya~ (lumbu) ‘concord prefix-forth-(day)’ ki-etanu (lumbu) ‘concord prefix-fifth-(day)’ ki-esambanu (lumbu) ‘concord prefix-sixth-(day)’

‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’ ‘Monday’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘Wednesday’ ‘Thursday’ ‘Friday’

As can be inferred from (83), similarly to the Early Sranan names, the names of the days of the week in the lexifier languages English and Dutch contain the word ‘day’. However, the lexifier names differ from the Early Sranan names in terms of their semantic structure. Besides, they contain opaque elements and are not created according to a uniform semantic pattern, as is the case with the Early Sranan names. It can be suggested therefore that Early Sranan names of the days of the week have not been modelled on corresponding English or Dutch names.

198 The names of the days of the week used in the substratum languages of Early Sranan show several similarities to Early Sranan names. Thus, in all substratum languages the names of the days of the week contain the item ‘day’. Besides, in Kikongo, the names of the days of the week contain ordinal numerals and are built according to a uniform regular semantic pattern. Furthermore, the Ewe names, according to Westermann (1907: 81), are counted in accordance with the beginning of fieldwork: Monday is regarded as the first day of field-work, Tuesday as the second and so on. This shows a similarity to Early Sranan, where the days of the week are viewed as ‘work-days’. But despite these similarities, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the substratum names of the days of the week and the names used in Early Sranan. To conclude, the Early Sranan names of the days of the week are built according to a uniform semantic pattern which is based on the principle of counting and makes use of ordinal numerals, the noun ‘day’ and the noun ‘work’. Similar patterns, i.e. patterns using numerals and the noun ‘day’, are common cross-linguistically and are attested in the source languages of Early Sranan, but the Early Sranan pattern has no one-to-one parallels in its source languages. In contrast to the names of the days of the week attested in some of the source languages, the Early Sranan names do not contain any opaque elements and are created according to a uniform semantic pattern. All in all, it can be suggested that the emergence of the Early Sranan Num-de-worké pattern cannot be attributed to one particular source.

7.2.12 X-fo-X pattern A number of Early Sranan constructs fulfilling a naming function are built according to the structural pattern X-fo/va/vo/foe-X, where fo/va/vo/foe19 ‘for/of/to/in order to’ is an item attested as a preposition and a complementiser in Early Sranan because it takes NP and VP complements (henceforth referred to as fo, from Van Dyk (c1765), for reasons of simplicity).20 The first element or the second element in such constructs is usually a noun, but can also be a combination of a noun and another element, for instance an adjective and a noun or a verb and a noun. Therefore, the first and the second slot in this pattern will be referred to as ‘X’ here. (84) a.

b. c.

doeke fo krien han issri va fassi krofaija santi fo hange klossi tikki vo wakki blakka dotti va kukru cran zomma fo koerte bakki fo watieren kassi fo klossi

‘cloth-for-to clean-hand/arm’ ‘iron-for-to take hold of-coal’ ‘thing-for-to hang-clothes’ ‘stick-for-to walk’ ‘black-dirt-of-kitchen’ ‘important-person-of-court’ ‘basin-for-water’ ‘case-for-clothes’

‘towel’ ‘fire tongs’ ‘hatstand’ ‘walking-stick’ ‘soot’ ‘councillor’ ‘rain barrel’ ‘wardrobe’

VD Sch VD VD Sch VD VD VD

– 19

20

This item has a number of other spelling variants in Van Dyk (c1765), but here, the most frequent one, fo, is mentioned. For more detailed information about the functions of fo/va/vo/foe, see Plag (1993).

199 d.

blakka va hai blakka vo tappo feya fo Gado fíenga foe fóetoe hai foe fóetoe kakà foe hai mamà foe gron

‘overseer-of-prosecuting attorney’ ‘black-of-eye’ ‘black-of-top/heaven’ ‘fire-of-God’ ‘finger-of-foot/leg’ ‘eye-of-foot/leg’ ‘excrements-of-eye’ ‘mother-of-ground’

mamma va belle skien foe hóso tumtum va heddi wirriwirri va grunn

‘mother-of-belly’ ‘skin-of-house’ ‘mash-of-head’ ‘hair-of-earth’

bassiafo fiskale

‘bailiff’

VD

‘eyeball’ ‘clouds’ ‘lightning’ ‘toes’ ‘ankle(s)’ ‘pus out of sore eyes’ ‘protecting spirit of a place or a plantation’ ‘stomach’ ‘outer walls of a house’ ‘brain’ ‘grass’

Sch Sch VD Fo Fo Fo Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch

There are three structural types of the Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs. The first type is exemplified in (84a). Units of this type have the structure N-fo-V or N-fo-V-N, where the first noun can be regarded as the head complemented by the fo-V(-N) sequence. The verb or the V-N sequence, in their turn, serve as complements of the item fo, which in this case can be regarded as a complementiser since it takes a verbal complement. This structure is very rare among the X-fo-X constructs which have a naming function. The second type is exemplified in (84b): units of this type have the structure A-N-fo-N, where the first noun is the head of the whole construct modified by an adjective and the second noun serves as the complement of the preposition fo. Such constructs are very rare among the naming units in Early Sranan as well. The third, most frequently attested type of X-fo-X naming units is exemplified in (84c–d): constructs of this type have the structure N-fo-N, where the first noun is the head complemented by the fo-N sequence, in which the noun is the complement of the preposition fo. Very similar types of X-fo-X structures are attested among non-naming units in Early Sranan as well, as shown in (85): (85) a.

wan dressi effi wissi vo dringi INDEF medicine or poison for drink ‘a medicine or poison for drinking’ Schumann (1783: 203): no translation provided

b.

brudu va somma blood of people ‘blood of people’ Schumann (1783: 43): no translation provided

c.

worke noefe fo wan ouwere zomma work enough for INDEF old person ‘work enough for an old person’ Arends (1995b: 211): ‘work enough for an experienced slave’ Van Dyk (c1765: 88): ‘dat Werk was te veel voor een ouwe Slaaf’

200 The phrases in (85) have the same structure as the constructs in (84): X-fo-X, where the first nouns are heads complemented by the fo-X sequence. However, despite the structural similarities, the X-fo-X constructs in (84) differ from the phrases in (85) in terms of their function, their separability and their meaning. X-fo-X constructs in (84) have a naming function and are inseparable units. Besides, they often have meanings which are not fully transparent, as e.g. tumtum va heddi (mash-of-head) ‘brains’ or feya fo Gado (fire-of-God) ‘lightning’. The phrases in (85) do not have a naming function and are separable: as the examples in (85a) and (85c) show, lexical items can be inserted into them, such as effi wissi in (85a) or noefe and wan ouwere in (85c). Besides, they have fully compositional meanings. There are three semantic types of X-fo-X constructs in Early Sranan. In the examples in (84a), the preposition fo has the meaning ‘for’, and the head nouns can be regarded as instruments for actions denoted by the V-N sequences. In the examples in (84c), the preposition fo has the meaning ‘for’ as well, but the head nouns denote containers for entities denoted by the second nouns. In all the other examples in (84), the preposition fo has the meaning ‘of’, and the second nouns can be regarded as possessors of entities denoted by the head nouns. Thus, the following constructional idioms, where X1 refers to the head noun, can be singled out: (86) [[X]N[[fo][X]N]]N [[X]N[[fo][X]N]]N [[X]N[[fo][X]N]]N

‘X1 is an instrument for X2’ ‘X1 is a container for X2’ ‘X2 is the possessor of X1/X2 has X1’

The X-fo-X-constructs cover a wide range of semantic fields, such as names of persons, as e.g. bassiafo fiskale ‘bailiff’, concrete objects, e.g. kassi fo klossi ‘wardrobe’ and body parts, e.g. hai foe fóetoe ‘ankle(s)’. Units denoting body parts are rather frequent. Constructs such as in (84) are often regarded as phrase-like units, and it has been argued that phrase-like units are attributes of earlier pidgin and/or creole stages. For instance, Mühlhäusler (1997: 158, 179–181) suggests that whereas the use of syntactic paraphrases, circumlocutions and “phrase-like formulas for naming new concepts”, such as the Tok Pisin man bilong save (man-of-knowledge) ‘wise person’, is one of the main mechanisms of lexical expansion at the stabilisation stage of pidgin development, this use gradually gives way to word-level units such as saveman at the creolisation stage. In Early Sranan, X-fo-X constructs having naming function are attested in both earlier (Van Dyk c1765) and later (Schumann 1783, Focke 1855) sources with more or less the same frequency. Besides, such constructs are not more common than compounds in Van Dyk, the earliest of the three sources. On the contrary, compounding is a more common means of creating new lexemes in all three sources. This means that the X-fo-X pattern coexisted with compounding patterns such as N-N, A-N, V-N, etc. as early as Van Dyk (c1765). In this connection, two additional remarks are due here. First, some of the X-fo-X constructs seem to have been used side-by-side with their simplex equivalents. For instance, mamma va belle ‘stomach’, attested in Schumann (1783), has a simplex equivalent, belle, in the same source. The same is true for wirriwirri va grunn, attested in Schumann, which has even two simplex equivalents, wirriwirri and grasi. The item issri va fassi krofaija ‘fire tongs’, attested in Schumann has a compound equivalent, faija tanga, in the same source, but, interestingly, Schumann (1783: 171) remarks that the compound is a Djutongo (i.e. the Jewish variety) item,

201 whereas the va-item is Ningretongo. Second, almost all Early Sranan X-fo-X items correspond to simplexes or compounds in Modern Sranan, as shown in (87) (the Modern Sranan data are from Wilner (2007)): (87) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.

Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.: Modern Sr.: Early Sr.:

kassi fo klossi kros" kasi fíenga foe fóetoe futufinga skien foe hóso ososkin tumtum va heddi edetonton hai foe fóetoe aifutu feya fo Gado faya mamma va belle bere blakka vo tappo

Modern Sr.:

wolku

‘case-for-clothes’ ‘clothes-case’ ‘finger-of-foot/leg’ ‘foot/leg-finger’ ‘skin-of-house’ ‘house-skin’ ‘mash-of-head’ ‘head-mash’ ‘eye-of-foot/leg’ ‘eye-foot/leg’ ‘fire-of-God’ ‘fire’ ‘mother-of-belly’ ‘belly’ ‘black-oftop/heaven’ ‘cloud’

‘wardrobe’ ‘toes’ ‘walls’ ‘brain’ ‘ankle(s)’ ‘lightning’ ‘stomach’ ‘clouds’

As can be inferred from (87), Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs can be subdivided into three groups with respect to the changes they underwent in Modern Sranan. In the first group, to which the examples in (87a–e) belong, the preposition fo was lost and the order of constituents was either changed from left-headed to right-headed or remained the same, as in (87e). In the second group, exemplified in (87f–g), the preposition fo disappeared together with another item. In the final group, presented in (87h), the Early Sranan fo-item was completely exchanged for a new item, in this case a borrowing from Dutch. The coexistence of X-fo-X constructs and their simplex or compound equivalents already in Early Sranan, as well as the substitution of Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs by simplexes and compounds in Modern Sranan calls for explanation. Since X-fo-X constructs coexisted with compounding and were less common than compounds at the very early stages of Early Sranan, it seems that they were not a more favourable early strategy of expanding the lexicon which later gave way to compounding. It will rather be argued here that like any language, Early Sranan has a number of constructional possibilities for semantically coherent multiword items. Some of these possibilities are more frequently used in word-formation, and this is the case with N-N compounding, others, such as the X-fo-X pattern, are less frequently used. The reason for the less frequent use of X-fo-X pattern and thus for eventual substitution of Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs by simplexes and compounds might lie in the fact that simplexes and N-N compounds are less marked in form and are thus more suitable for one of the major functions of word-formation, condensation of information (see section 5.5.4 above). As to the origin of X-fo-X patterns in Early Sranan, it can be pointed out that although any remarks on their cross-linguistic occurrence are difficult to make, the sources of other creole languages show that similar patterns exist in other creoles. For instance, Papiamentu has the N-di-N pattern, which is very productive. All semantic types of X-fo-X constructs

202 attested in Early Sranan are also attested in Papiamentu, as the following examples show: kos di habri bleki (thing-for-to open-bottle) ‘bottle opener’, kanika di kòfi (can-for-coffee) ‘coffee-can’, garganta di man (neck-of-hand) ‘wrist’ (Dijkhoff 1993: 170–190). However, the Papiamentu patterns have parallels in one of its major source languages, Spanish. Tok Pisin has a similar pattern, N-bilong-N (< Engl. belong), which produces items with meanings similar to the meanings of the Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs: naip bilong katim bus (knife-belong-to cut-bush) ‘bush-knife’, pinga bilong lek (finger-belong-foot/leg) ‘toe’, bun bilong pis (bone-belong-fish) ‘fish-bone’ (Mühlhäusler 1979: 390–391). As far as the source languages of Early Sranan are concerned, English makes use of N-of-N constructs which are naming N° units. Thus, there are some English N-of-N constructs which are built according to the semantic pattern ‘X2 is the possessor of X1/X2 has X1’. However, many N-of-N constructs in English have meanings different from the Early Sranan X-fo-X constructs. Some examples, all taken from the OED, are provided in (88). (88) mother of thyme sleight-of-hand master of ceremonies man-of-law

‘a wild thyme’ ‘manual skill’ ‘a person who introduces speakers at ceremonies’ ‘a man skilled in law’

As for the patterns ‘X1 is an instrument for X2’ and ‘X1 is a container for X2’, they do not have English equivalents which are naming N° units. To sum up, English seems to have played, if at all, a very marginal role in the development of Early Sranan X-fo-X patterns. In the substratum languages, there seem to be no equivalent patterns. Furthermore, it has been a matter of dispute whether prepositions exist as a separate word-class in West African languages. Thus, Westermann (1907: 52–55, 96–99) argues for Ewe and Christaller (1875: 74) for Twi that European prepositions are expressed by nouns and verbs in these two languages. Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 299–346) mention on the basis of syntactic tests for Fon that there is a class of prepositions (and postpositions) in this language. Bentley (1887: 609) and Laman (1912: 227) suggest for Kikongo that prepositions are expressed by verbs and pronouns in this language. To summarise, the Early Sranan X-fo-X pattern might be a case of universal development since it is attested in other creole languages and does not have convincing one-to-one parallel patterns in the superstratum or in the substratum languages.

7.2.13 Constructs structurally similar to non-naming units There are a number of constructs in Early Sranan which exhibit structures similar to nonnaming units, such as NP-VP or N-relative clause, but are translated in the sources by means of simplex words or compounds. Therefore, in the present section, their status and function in Early Sranan word-formation will be discussed. (89) a. b. c.

jâgi man-na-dóro ‘drive away-man-to-door’ gádo déde mi sa déde ‘God-be dead-I-will-be dead’ biki passa merki ‘big-pass-mark’

‘simple banana mush’ ‘name of a plant (Commelyna agraria)’ ‘giant’

Fo Fo VD

203 d.

e.

f.

kalebassi no brokko jeti anno habbe hay jessi tappe tonge no de da homan habi bile da homan poele melki na kauw da man lassi hem wyfie da man libi na mi zey wan zomma zeri boeken da homan disi gi pikien bobbi homan disi nay klossi wan pikien disi mama lange tatà lassi wan somma disi loeke schribi zanti wan zomma disi nay klossi

‘calabash-not-break-yet’

‘virgin’

VD

‘he/she-no-have-eye’ ‘ear(s)-closed’ ‘tongue-not-be there’ ‘the-woman-have-belly’ ‘the-woman-pull-milkon-cow’ ‘the-man-leave-his-wife’

‘blind person’ ‘deaf person’ ‘mute person’ ‘pregnant woman’ ‘milkmaid’

VD VD VD VD VD

‘widower’

VD

‘the-man-live-on-my-side’ ‘a-person-sell-book’

‘neighbour’ ‘bookseller’

VD VD

‘the-woman-who-givechild-breast’ ‘woman-who-sew-clothes’ ‘a-child-who-mother-withfather-die’

‘wet nurse’

VD

‘seamstress’ ‘orphan’

VD VD

‘clerk’

VD

‘tailor’

VD

‘a-person-who-lookwritten-thing’ ‘a person-who-sew-clothes’

The examples in (89) exhibit a variety of structures. The example in (89a) has the structure of a VP, and the one in (89b) has the structure NP-VP-NP-VP, i.e. it can be regarded as a combination of two sentences. The example in (89c) has the structure typical of APs. The examples in (89d) have a typical sentence structure since they consist of an NP and a VP. The items in (89e) have the NP-VP structure as well, but differ from those in (89d) in the internal structure of the NPs which consist of the definite or the indefinite determiner and a noun in the constructs in (89e).21 The examples in (89f) consist of an NP and a relative clause introduced by the relativiser disi ‘who/that’. To sum up, all examples in (89) exhibit structures typical of non-naming syntactic phrases attested in Early Sranan. So, the question arises what their status in Early Sranan word-formation is. It can be argued in this connection that there are two types of constructs exhibiting structures not typical of naming units: naming constructs and descriptive constructs. The constructs in (89a–b) can be regarded as naming units: they denote specific concepts and have opaque meanings. Constructs of this type are attested in some of the source languages of Early Sranan. Some examples from English and Ewe, which exhibit semantic similarities to Early Sranan units in terms of

– 21

Arends (1995b: 70) suggests that such constructions can alternatively be regarded as NPs containing a relative clause without the relative pronoun. The support for this alternative analysis comes, according to Arends, from the fact that relative clauses can appear without relative pronouns in Early Sranan (cf. Bruyn 1995a: 160–172).

204 semantic fields they cover, are provided in (90) for illustration (the Ewe examples are from Westermann (1907: 124–125)): (90) English: Ewe: Ewe: Ewe:

merry-go-round, forget-me-not koklokpo2doaw̔e2 ‘the hen sees (it and) cries’ me)vime)no2e ‘stings the child, stings the mother’ d¢uametsato ‘bites the person (he) goes around tells (it)’

‘scorpion’ ‘caterpillar’ ‘name of a poisonous snake’

Similar constructs are attested in other pidgins and creoles. Mühlhäusler (1997: 137) provides some examples of what he calls “rudimentary circumlocutions” in some languages, e.g. pickaninny stop along him fellow (lit. ‘little one is inside’) ‘egg’ or coconut belong him grass not stop (lit. ‘there is no grass on his coconut’) ‘he is bald’ from Bislama. As Mühlhäusler points out, the use of units with phrasal and sentential structure in a naming function is a strategy used at the jargon stage of the pidgin-creole continuum to compensate for scarce word-formation devices. However, this cannot be confirmed for Early Sranan since the Early Sranan naming units with phrasal and sentential structure in (89a) and (89b) are attested in Focke (1855) only, i.e. at a late stage. Moreover, they are very rare in Early Sranan by comparison to compounds and thus cannot be regarded as a compensatory strategy. Because of the presence of similar structures in other creoles, in the superstratum and at least in some substratum languages, the existence of such constructs in Early Sranan cannot be attributed to one particular source. The remaining constructs in (89) are fully compositional units and they do not name certain objects, but rather describe them.22 Most of such constructs are attested in the earliest of the investigated sources, Van Dyk. In the later sources, Van Dyk’s circumlocutions have both periphrastic and non-periphrastic equivalents. A more detailed overview of the equivalents attested in the later sources is provided in (91). If several sources contain the same item or the same circumlocution, only one orthographic variant, taken from Schumann (1783), is provided. Since many of Van Dyk’s circumlocutions have no equivalents in Schumann and Focke, an additional later source of Early Sranan, Wullschlägel (1856), has been consulted. Hence, ‘Wu’ in (91) stands for Wullschlägel (1856). For periphrastic constructions, literal translations are provided. The question mark denotes cases in which a given morpheme is bound in Early Sranan. (91)

Van Dyk a.

‘blind’ anno habbe hay

later sources: periphrastic

later sources: non-periphrastic

wan somma nanga hai tappa ‘a person with eyes closed’ (Sch)

blindeman ‘blind-PM’ (Sch, Fo, Wu)

– 22

The item kalebassi no brokko jeti ‘virgin’ might be a case in between the two types of constructs described here. It is not fully opaque, as the items in (89a) and (89b), but not as transparent as the items in (89c), (89d) and (89e).

205 b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

i.

j.

k.

‘pregnant’ da homan habi bile ‘the woman has belly’

‘deaf’ jessi tappe ‘ears are closed’

‘orphan’ wan pikien disi mama lange tatà lassi ‘a child whose mother and father left’ ‘virgin’ kalebassi no brokko jeti ‘calabash is not broken yet’ ‘mute’ tonge no de ‘tongue is not there’ ‘giant’ biki passa merki ‘big beyond the mark’ ‘neighbour’ da man libi na mi zey ‘the man lives on my side’ ‘widower’ da man lassi hem wyfie ‘the man lost his wife’ ‘wet nurse’ da homan disi gi pikien bobbi ‘the woman who gives child the breast’ ‘seamstress’ homan disi nay klossi ‘woman who sews clothes’

uman nanga belle ‘woman with belly’ (Sch) habi belle ‘has belly’ (Sch, Fo, Wu) nánga bére ‘with belly’ (Fo, Wu)

bére-mán ‘belly-PM’ (Fo, Wu)

hem jessi tappa ‘his ears are closed’ (Sch, Wu) a no habi jessi ‘he does not have ears’ (Sch)

doofuman ‘deaf-PM’ (Sch, Wu)

wan pikìen, disi no habi tatà en mamà ‘a child who does not have father and mother’ (Wu)

dóofo ‘deaf’ (Fo) wees-pikìen ‘?-child’ (Wu)

njuwendje ‘young-girl’ (Sch, Fo, Wu)

wan stom soema ‘a-mute-person’(Wu) wan langa langa soema ‘a-long-long-person’ (Wu) buurman ‘?-PM’ (Wu)

wèduwe-man ‘widow-PM’ (Wu) minna (Wu)

naiman ‘to sew-PM’ (Sch, Fo, Wu)

206 l.

m.

‘tailor’ wan zomma disi nay klossi ‘a person who sews clothes’ ‘clerk’ wan somma disi loeke schribi zanti ‘a person who looks written things’

naiman ‘to sew-PM’ (Sch, Fo, Wu)

skrifiman ‘to write-PM’ (Sch, Fo, Wu)

As can be inferred from (91), four of the thirteen Van Dyk’s circumlocutions have both periphrastic and non-periphrastic equivalents in the later sources. The remaining nine circumlocutions have only non-periphrastic equivalents in the later sources. Note, however, that for the six out of thirteen circumlocutions attested in Van Dyk, no equivalents could be found in Schumann and Focke. A more detailed overview of the number of periphrastic and non-periphrastic equivalents attested in the later sources is shown in (92): (92)

Sch: Fo: Wu:

total number of equivalents found

number of number of non-periphrastic periphrastic equivalents equivalents

7 out of 13 7 out of 13 13 out of 13

4 6 10

1 – –

number of periphrastic and non-periphrastic equivalents 2 1 3

As the overview shows, the later sources tend to contain less periphrastic constructions than Van Dyk. In this connection, Arends (1995b: 42) suggests that Van Dyk (c1765) seems to represent an earlier stage of Sranan’s development, when word-formation devices such as compounding and derivation were not fully-fledged and the use of periphrastic constructions was a compensation for the insufficient word-formation devices. This suggestion, however, faces one major problem. Apart from containing circumlocutions, Van Dyk also contains many complex words created by compounding and by the person marker -man. This means that ‘classical’ word-formation strategies such as derivation and compounding existed already in the time of Van Dyk (c1765). Moreover, a comparatively large number of items with the person marker -man attested in Van Dyk, namely 22 types, show that the process of creating names of persons by means of the marker -man must have been a productive process before the publication of Van Dyk (c1765). So all in all, Van Dyk (c1765) can hardly be regarded as a source documenting a stage of Early Sranan at which wordformation was still underdeveloped. In addition to this problem, it can be pointed out that a diachronic comparison between Van Dyk and the later sources should be treated with caution because of several reasons. First, as mentioned earlier in this section, two major sources of Early Sranan, Schumann and Focke, do not contain equivalents for almost half of the circumlocutions attested in Van Dyk, which makes a really reliable comparison problematic. Second, the question is whether such a comparison is legitimate at all, since it is unclear why exactly Van Dyk provides the circumlocutions, given the fact that his Sranan

207 already offers word-formation patterns for creating complex words, such as N-N, A-N and V-N compounds, as well as for creating complex words denoting persons by means of the marker -man. Thus, it can be suggested that Van Dyk might provide the circumlocutions to describe the fact that somebody is blind, mute, pregnant, etc. rather than to provide names for the concepts such as ‘blind person’, ‘mute person’, ‘pregnant woman’, etc. It can be assumed in this connection that the differences in the number of circumlocutions between Van Dyk and the later sources can be attributed to the differences in the type of the sources. Possibly, Van Dyk contains more of the descriptive constructions because his source mostly represents spoken language, and its primary purpose is to show how to converse in Early Sranan (Van Dyk c1765: the title page). By contrast, the three later sources, Focke, Schumann and Wullschlägel, are primarily lists of lexemes. Furthermore, it can be assumed that the difference in the number of circumlocutions between the three sources is due to the dialectal differences. Since it has been pointed out that Van Dyk (c1765) seems to represent a more conservative variety of Early Sranan (Arends 1995b: 22), the greater number of circumlocutions in this source can be regarded as a specific feature of Van Dyk’s variety of Early Sranan. To summarise, there are two types of Early Sranan constructs with structures such as NP-VP, N-clause, etc.: those which are naming units and those which are descriptive units. Naming units exhibiting such structures are very rare. Descriptive units are attested mainly in Van Dyk and their comparatively large number in Van Dyk can be attributed to register and dialectal differences between this source and the other two sources of Early Sranan used in the present study. Because of their descriptive nature, the origin of such units has not been investigated here.

7.2.14 Constructs containing bound elements A number of Early Sranan complex constructs contain bound elements. Such complex constructs can be divided into two types. The first type is exemplified in (93). Words of this type have direct correspondences in the form of phrases or complex words in the lexifier languages. The question mark indicates cases where the etymology is not quite clear. (93) allamal binnifóto bitem brandiwíen gróen-harti

dasnotti dusentbeen isredeh jarabakka

‘all’ < Dutch allemaal ‘a part of < Dutch binnenfort Fort Zealand’ ‘in time’ < Engl. by time ‘spirits’ < Dutch brandewijn ‘name of wood < ?Engl. greenheart (Bignonia leueofylon)’ ‘No matter!/ < ?Engl. that’s nothing Sorry!’ ‘centipede’ < Dutch duizendbeen ‘yesterday’ < Engl. yesterday ‘name of a fish < Engl. yellowback (Silurus Parkeri)’

alla fóto

‘all’ ‘fort’

Sch Fo

tem wíen groen

‘time’ ‘wine’ ‘green’

Sch Fo Fo

notti

‘nothing’

Sch

dusent ‘thousand’ deh ‘day’ bakka ‘back’

Sch Sch Sch

208 kokronoto konnetti mammantem nem ziki sabbatem tideh tokofisi

‘coconut’ ‘good night’ ‘morning’ ‘namesake’ ‘evening’ ‘today’ ‘stockfish’

< ?Engl. coconut < Engl. good night < Engl. morning time < Engl. namesake < Engl. suppertime < Engl. today < Dutch stockfish

noto netti tem nem tem deh fisi

‘nut’ ‘night’ ‘time’ ‘name’ ‘time’ ‘day’ ‘fish’

Sch VD Sch VD Sch Sch Fo

All words in (93) are morphologically complex because one of their elements is independently attested in one of the sources. The bold elements in (93) are bound. Some of them, such as mal-, binni-, bi-, isre-, jara-, etc. can be regarded as unique morphemes: they are not attested in any other words and usually have ‘parallel’ words on whose basis the uniqueness can be established. For instance, the uniqueness of the morpheme -mal in allamal can be established by comparison with such complex items as alla deh ‘daily’ and allatem ‘always’. Other bound elements in (93), e.g. harti, are not attested independently, but occur in one more Early Sranan word, e.g. harti occurs in bróinharti ‘tree that yields wood used in carpentry’. In one case, nem ziki, the element ziki is homonymous with the free morpheme meaning ‘to shake’ (Van Dyk c1765: 108). However, the relation is first, only phonological, and second, accidental: the two different lexifier morphemes, sake and shake, ended up with the same phonological makeup in the creole. It can be suggested that the bound elements in (93) are the result of a partial decomposition of the equivalent complex words and phrases from the input languages. There are crucially two factors which can trigger the appearance of bound elements in complex words in Early Sranan. First, the opacity and boundness of one of the constituent morphemes in the lexifier word itself can lead to the fact that only one, free and transparent, element is identified in the complex word to be adapted/borrowed, whereas the second remains bound and opaque. This might have been the case with the English item yesterday, where the element day was identified as the morpheme meaning ‘day’, whereas yester- ended up as a bound and opaque morpheme. Second, later adaptation or borrowing from the lexifiers of complex words containing morphemes which already exist in a given creole might make such morphemes end up as bound in the creole. This is what happened to the items konnetti ‘good night’, binnifóto ‘a name of a fort’ and dusent-been ‘centipede’, in which the bound morphemes kon-, binni- and -been have corresponding free morphemes in Early Sranan, bun ‘good’, ini ‘inner’ and fóetoe ‘foot/leg’ respectively, which should have existed in the creole before the complex items konnetti, binnifóto and dusent-been were borrowed. The bound elements in (93) make the complex words they occur in either semi-transparent, as in the case of tokofisi ‘stockfish’, where the whole word is still a hyponym of the second element, despite the opacity of the first element, or totally opaque, as e.g. in dusentbeen, where the original Dutch word is based on metonymy and this metonymy is no longer perceivable in Early Sranan because of the boundness and non-interpretability of the morpheme been. Such examples confirm the assertion expressed in Braun and Plag (2003) that one of the sources of semantic opacity in creoles is the adaptation of complex words from the lexifiers and their subsequent partial decomposition. The second type of the Early Sranan words containing bound morphemes is presented in (94). These items differ from the examples in (93) in that in most cases, they cannot be straightforwardly associated with complex words or phrases from the input languages.

209 (94) baboéntri bradilifi freimussu

Gadolamm hámmeti jabà-foetoe jago-müra krofaija

‘name of a tree which is used as timber’ ‘a tree with broad < Engl. leaf leaves’ ‘bat’ < ?Engl. flying mouse < ?Dutch vledermuis ‘Lamb of God’ < Dutch lam ‘ham’ ‘name of a plant’ ‘ants of special kind’ ‘coal’

baboén

‘baboon’ Fo

bradi

‘broad’

Fo

frei

‘to fly’

Sch

Gado méti fóetoe müra faija

‘God’ ‘meat’ ‘foot/leg’ ‘ants’ ‘fire’

Sch Fo Fo Sch Sch

The morphemes in bold are not attested independently in any of the three sources of Early Sranan used in the present study. Some of the bound elements in (94) occur in other words, e.g. -tri, which occurs in baboéntri ‘name of a tree’, boltri ‘name of heavy and hard wood’ and kattantri ‘cottontree’. Other bound elements in (94) are unique morphemes, like jabàin jabà-foetoe or kro- in krofaija. For some of the bound elements in (94), the origin can be assumed, as for lifi in bradilifi, which seems to come from English. For others, such as jabà in jabà-foetoe, the source is unclear. The origin of the whole complex words in (94) is also unclear in most cases. Some of the examples seem to be mixtures of items from two different input languages: for instance, in jabà-foetoe, the morpheme foetoe ‘foot/leg’ comes from English, whereas the origin of the element jabà does not seem to be English. Moreover, it can be assumed for at least some of the bound items in (94) that they have been free and transparent some time in the creole’s history, but lost their transparency and became bound in the course of language development. This, for instance, could be the case with the morpheme -tri, which occurs in a number of words in the meaning ‘tree’ or ‘wood’. The corresponding free morpheme with the same meaning, commonly used in Early Sranan, is boom, which is of Dutch origin. It can be assumed that -tri was a free morpheme at a very early stage of Sranan’s existence before Early Sranan came into contact with Dutch and borrowed boom. To conclude, there are a number of complex nouns in Early Sranan which contain bound elements. Many of them seem to have entered Early Sranan via adaptation from English or borrowing from Dutch and underwent subsequent partial decomposition. The partial decomposition resulted in partial or even full non-compositionality of meaning of such units.

7.3

Formation of numerals

7.3.1 Tien-na-Num pattern: numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ Early Sranan numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ have a similar structure in all three sources, as in (95):

210 (95) Van Dyk: tien a wan tien a toe tien a drie tien a fo tien a fyfi tien a zikkizi tien a zebi tien a ayti tien a negi

Schumann: tîn na wan tînnatu tîn na dri tîn na fo tîn na feifi tîn na siksi tîn na seben tîn na aiti tîn na neni

Focke: not attested twáalfoe tien-na-drí tien-na-fó tien na féifi tien na síeksi tien na seebieen tien na áiti not attested

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

The only item in (95) which is not complex in its structure is twáalfoe ‘twelve’, attested in Focke, which originates from the Dutch numeral twaalf and might have substituted the earlier complex form such as tînnatu. Besides, Focke also does not contain any form for ‘eleven’. In Modern Sranan, both ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’ are expressed by the items of Dutch origin: erfu and twarfu respectively (Wilner 2007: 183, 212). This allows the conclusion that under the influence of Dutch, some of the Early Sranan lexical items used at the initial stages went out of use later and were exchanged for Dutch items. All the other examples in (95) consist of the numeral tîn (in Schumann’s examples) or tien (in Van Dyk’s and Focke’s examples), the element a (in Van Dyk’s examples) or na (in Schumann’s and Focke’s examples) and the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’. Tîn/tien comes from the Dutch tien and is an independently attested numeral, ‘ten’. Cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ are all attested independently. The status of the element a/na deserves closer examination. The morpheme a is attested independently in Van Dyk (c1765), but in the meaning of the third person singular pronoun ‘he/she/it’. It can hardly be supposed that this is the meaning of the morpheme a/na in the examples in (95) on semantic grounds: semantically, a combination of ‘ten’, the pronoun ‘he/she/it’ and a cardinal numeral from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ would not make any sense. Moreover, it can be assumed on the basis of what Greenberg (2000) says about the numerical systems in the languages of the world that hardly any language would make use of a pronoun marking an arithmetic operation. To sum up, a/na does not seem to be a pronoun in the examples in (95). In all three sources of Early Sranan used in the present study, the morpheme na is attested as a preposition rendering general locative meaning, e.g. ‘at/on/to’, as illustrated in (96): (96) a.

b.

mi findi datti na hem 1SG find this at 3SG ‘I found this at him/at his place.’ Schumann (1783: 119): ‘Ich habe dieses bey ihm gefunden.’ Potti hatti na hede. put hat on head ‘Put a hat on the head.’ Arends (1995b: 124): ‘Put on your hat.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 20): ‘Zet uw Hoed op.’

211 The examples in (96) show that in phrases containing the preposition na the word preceding the preposition denotes an object whose location is to be determined and the word following the preposition denotes the location of this object. The examples in question therefore suggest that if a/na had a locative meaning such as ‘at/on’ in the numerals in (95), they would be interpreted as ‘ten-(placed) at-one’ or ‘ten-(which is) on-one’. However, the system according to which the numerals in (95) are built rather involves the mathematical operation of adding the numbers from one to nine to the number ten rather than the operation of adding the number ten to the numbers one to nine. Thus, if a/na had a locative meaning in the numerals in (95), the interpretation of these numerals would be ‘one-placed at/on-ten’ according to the mathematical operation involved. This interpretation, however, would differ from the interpretation phrases with na generally acquire, as the examples in (96) illustrate. All in all, it can be assumed that the morpheme a/na in the numerals in (95) does not seem to have a locative meaning. In addition to the two meanings mentioned above, na is attested as the short form of the preposition nanga (< Engl. along) meaning ‘with/and’ in Focke (1855: 86). The preposition nanga is also attested in Schumann and Van Dyk, but in the full form. In Van Dyk, though, it has the form langa. In all three sources na is used to conjoin syntactic units of the same type and equal syntactic status. This means that if the meaning of a/na in the numerals in (95) is indeed ‘and/with’, then they would acquire the interpretation ‘ten-and-one’, ‘tenand-two’ and so on, where the morpheme a/na conjoins two numerals and serves as an overt marker of the arithmetic operation of addition. This interpretation seems to be rather plausible, and addition marked overtly by a morpheme meaning ‘and/with’ is one of the most common arithmetic operations used in the numeral systems in the languages of the world (Greenberg 2000: 777). It can be assumed therefore that in all three sources, a/na is the contracted form of the preposition nanga/langa. The difference between Van Dyk’s presentation of the contracted form, as a, and its presentation as na in Schumann and Focke is actually a purely orthographic difference since phonetically, the combinations tien na and tien a are the same. Thus, the constructs in (95) can be presented in the form of the following idiom: (97) [[tien][na][X]Cardinal Num]Num

‘numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’

The question now is what sources might have played a role in the emergence of the numerals in (95). As Greenberg (2000: 774–776) argues, many languages use the arithmetic principle of addition and apply the numeral ‘ten’ as the base to form numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’. Greenberg (2000: 777) notes that one of the two most common linking morphemes overtly marking the operation of addition is the associative ‘and’ or ‘with’. Thus, universals cannot be excluded as a source of Early Sranan numerals in question. However, these numerals can be regarded as more formally marked because they consist of three items. Therefore, it makes sense to compare their structural and semantic characteristics to the characteristics of their superstratum and substratum counterparts. The Sranan numerals in (95) differ structurally from their English equivalents, which consist of the cardinal numerals and the bound morpheme -teen, originally an inflected form of ten, meaning ‘ten’ (OED). The English numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ do not contain any linking morpheme. Moreover, the English simplex numerals eleven and twelve have no correspondences in Early Sranan: in Van Dyk and Schumann, these numerals are

212 complex items built according to the same pattern as all the other numerals in (95), and in Focke the numeral for ‘twelve’ is twáalfoe and originates from the Dutch numeral twaalf. It seems then that English did not serve as a model for the Sranan numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’. In Dutch, the numerals for ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’ are simplexes, as in English. For the remaining numerals from ‘thirteen’ to ‘nineteen’, Dutch uses the addition principle, where the base for addition is always the numeral tien ‘ten’. Note that in some cases, the numerals added to ‘ten’ undergo phonological changes. (98) elf twaalf dertien veertien vijftien zestien zeventien achtien negentien

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

drie vier vijf zes zeven acht negen

‘three’ ‘four’ ‘five’ ‘six’ ‘seven’ ‘eight’ ‘nine’

As can be inferred from (98), there are two similarities between Early Sranan and Dutch in the formation of the numerals in question. First, both languages use the addition principle with the numeral ‘ten’ serving as the base. Second, the Early Sranan tien shows a phonological similarity to the Dutch tien. However, in contrast to Dutch, Early Sranan marks addition overtly by the linking morpheme a/na, whereas Dutch does not mark addition overtly. Besides, the numerals for ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’ attested in Van Dyk and Schumann completely differ from the equivalent Dutch numerals. Hence, it can be argued that although the Sranan twáalfoe might be a later borrowing from Dutch since it occurs in Focke, but not in the earlier two sources, all in all the Dutch numerals in (98) can hardly have served as a model for the Early Sranan numerals. In the substratum languages, different patterns are used. Thus, Fon uses a system in which the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘fourteen’ are created by adding the numerals ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’ to the numeral ‘ten’. However, the numerals from ‘sixteen’ to ‘nineteen’ are built according to a different pattern: by combining the numeral a~fO~tO~n ‘fifteen’ (lit. ‘three feet’ which is perceived as three times a foot of five toes), the word nu~ku!n ‘eye’, which is the coordinative marker in this construction, and the numerals ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’ (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 365–366), as in (99): (99) wo~∂o~kpo! we~we! wa~tO~n wE~nE~ a~fO~tO~n a~fO~tO~n nu~ku!n ∂o~kpo! a~fO~tO~n nu~ku!n we! a~fO~tO~n nu~ku!n a~tO~n a~fO~tO~n nu~ku!n E~nE~

‘ten-one’ ‘ten-two’ ‘ten-three’ ‘ten-four’ ‘feet-three’ ‘fifteen-CM-one’ ‘fifteen-CM-two’ ‘fifteen-CM-three’ ‘fifteen-CM-four’

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

213 There are some similarities between the Early Sranan numerals and their Fon correspondences. Both languages use the decimal numbers and addition as the arithmetic principle in the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘fourteen’ and both employ coordinative markers. However, there are also three differences between the two languages. First, in Fon, the conjoining element means ‘eye’, and the meaning of the Sranan a/na is ‘and/with’. Besides, the two markers also differ in function. The Sranan a/na is used to conjoin NPs, as in (100): (100)

mi de kali ju nanga hem 1SG CNT call 2SG with 3SG ‘I am calling you and him.’ Schumann (1783: 120): ‘Ich rufe dich und ihn.’

The Fon correspondence of the Sranan a/na is the prepositional phrase headed by kpo!∂o! ‘with’, and not nu~ku!n (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 56): (101)

AŸsI!ba! kpo!∂o! KO~ku! kpo! yI~ a~xI~ mE~. Asiba with Koku with go market in ‘Asiba with Koku went to the market.’

Second, the Fon numeral ‘fifteen’ is semantically and structurally completely different from ‘fifteen’ in Sranan, which is built according to the same structural and semantic pattern as all the other numerals of this type. Finally, the Fon numerals from ‘sixteen’ to ‘nineteen’, in contrast to the Early Sranan items, are built by means of adding the numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’ to the additive base ‘fifteen’, and not ‘ten’. In contrast to Fon, the formation of the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ in Ewe, Twi and Kikongo, exhibits greater similarities to Early Sranan. In Ewe and Twi, these numerals are built by combining the morpheme ‘ten’ with the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ (Schlegel (1856: 98), Westermann (1907: 78) for Ewe, Christaller (1875: 50) for Twi). Note, however, that in Twi, some of the numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’, used in the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’, are compound forms in themselves, containing the morpheme bi-, which denotes “any individual of a kind” (Christaller 1875: 50). Kikongo has exactly the same pattern as Early Sranan. The data below illustrate the point (the Ewe data are from Schlegel (1856: 98), Twi from Christaller (1875: 50), Kikongo from Bentley (1887: 572)). Since the Twi numerals are built according to the same pattern as the Ewe numerals, only three examples from Twi will be shown below for reasons of space: (102)

a.

Ewe: wui deka wui eve wui eto2 wui ene2 wui ato) wui ade wui adre wui nyi wui nyide2/wui as*ie2ke2

‘ten-one’ ‘ten-two’ ‘ten-three’ ‘ten-four’ ‘ten-five’ ‘ten-six’ ‘ten-seven’ ‘ten-eight’ ‘ten-nine’

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

214 b.

c.

Twi: edu!-bI~ako)⁄ edu!-mI~eṅ edu!-mI~ensa)⁄ Kikongo: kumi ye moxi kumi ye zole kumi ye tatu kumi ye ya kumi ye tanu kumi ye sambanu kumi ye nsambwadi kumi ye nana kumi ye vwa

‘ten-one’ ‘ten-two’ ‘ten-three’

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’

‘ten-and-one’ ‘ten-and-two’ ‘ten-and-three’ ‘ten-and-four’ ‘ten-and-five’ ‘ten-and-six’ ‘ten-and-seven’ ‘ten-and-eight’ ‘ten-and-nine’

‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

As can be concluded on the basis of (102), Early Sranan exhibits similarities to the three substratum languages Ewe, Twi and Kikongo: in all four languages, the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ are built using the arithmetic principle of addition, and the numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ are added to the base which is the numeral ‘ten’. However, the Ewe and the Twi numerals differ from the Early Sranan numerals in the fact that in them, juxtaposition, and no overt linking element, is used to mark addition. By contrast, Kikongo uses an overt linking element to mark addition, and thus Kikongo numerals exhibit a one-to-one similarity to the Early Sranan numerals: in terms of their structure and their semantics. Besides, there is a striking similarity between the linking morphemes used in the two languages in terms of their meaning and their syntactic behaviour. The Kikongo morpheme ye23 in (102c), similarly to the Early Sranan morpheme nanga, has the meanings ‘and’ and ‘with’, and it can be used to conjoin syntactic units of the same type and of equal syntactic status (Bentley 1887: 468, Laman 1912: 229, 231). Since the pattern according to which the Early Sranan numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ are built is more marked formally, as mentioned earlier in this section, it can be argued that substratum influence is not improbable in this case. Moreover, given the semantic and the structural similarities between the patterns attested in the three substratum languages, it can be suggested that the homogeneity of the substratum patterns might have facilitated the emergence of the Early Sranan pattern in question. To conclude, it has been shown that the formation of the Early Sranan numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ follows a wide-spread cross-linguistic pattern based on addition and on using the numeral ‘ten’ as the base, but also has close structural and semantic parallels in three substratum languages, with a one-to-one similarity attested to the Kikongo pattern. It has been suggested that substratum influence cannot be excluded in this case because of the fact that the Early Sranan pattern is more formally marked. The lexifier languages English and Dutch have not played any role in the emergence of the Early Sranan pattern in question.

– 23

The default form of this preposition is ya. It acquires different other forms, such as ye or yo when combining with the articles of the nouns it is used with (Bentley 1887: 468).

215 7.3.2 Num-ten-tien pattern: numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ Numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are produced according to the same pattern in all three sources of Early Sranan used in the present study. To establish this pattern, the examples of such numerals are provided in (103): (103)

Van Dyk: toe ten tien drie ten tien fo ten tien fyfi/vyfi ten tien zikkisi ten tien zebi ten tien ayti ten tien negi ten tien

Schumann: tutentîn dritentîn fotentîn feifitentîn siksitentîn sebententîn aititentîn nenitentîn

Focke: twínti drí-tem$-tien fó-tem$-tien féifi-tem$-tien sieksi-tem$-tien seebien tem$ tien aìti-tem$-tien néigien-tem$-tien

‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘forty’ ‘fifty’ ‘sixty’ ‘seventy’ ‘eighty’ ‘ninety’

As can be inferred from (103), the only simplex numeral is twínti, attested in Focke. This numeral possibly comes from the Dutch numeral twintig ‘twenty’. All the other examples in (103) are complex and consist of the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’, the numeral tîn/tien (< Dutch tien) ‘ten’, which is independently attested in all three sources, and the morpheme ten (in Van Dyk’s and Schumann’s examples) or tem$ (in Focke’s examples). The elements ten and tem$ are phonological variants of the same morpheme since in Early Sranan, there was a wide-spread confusion between the final /n/ and /m/, so that the English dream was rendered as dreen and drem, and them as den and dem (Smith 1987: 200). The morpheme ten/tem$ (< Engl. time) is independently attested in all three sources: (104)

a.

a Za tan lange tem da plessi 3SG FUT stay long time DET place Arends (1995b: 130): ‘Will she stay there for a long time?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 24): ‘Zal zy lang op die Plaats blyven.’

b.

gi dem tem va jam give 3PL time for eat ‘Give them time to eat.’ Schumann (1783: 29): ‘Gib ihnen doch Zeit zum Essen.’

c.

Mi no ha’ tem$ 1SG NEG have time ‘I don’t have time.’ Focke (1855: 134): ‘Ik heb geen tijd.’

As can be inferred from (104), the morpheme tem refers to a temporal concept and its meaning can be regarded as ‘a temporal notion measured in minutes, hours, etc.’. By contrast, the morpheme ten/tem$ (referred henceforth to as ten for the sake of simplicity) in the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ refers to the arithmetic operation of multiplication and its meaning can be described as ‘multiplied by’. The independently attested noun tem does

216 not occur in the meaning ‘multiplied by’ in any of the three sources. Combinations of the kind tu tem or dri tem meaning ‘two times’ or ‘three times’ are not attested either in Early Sranan or in Modern Sranan. Such meanings are rendered by the morpheme tron/trom (< Engl. turn) in Early Sranan, as in e.g. tutron ‘two times’, dritron ‘three times’, fotron ‘four times’, etc. (Schumann 1783: 187, cf. Focke 1855: 143, Van Dyk c1765: 29). In addition to the examples in (103), the element -ten also occurs in the numerals of the type toe ten tien a vyfi ‘twenty five’. It can be assumed on the basis of the discussion here that the element ten has a specific function in Early Sranan, to serve as a multiplication marker in the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’. The constructional idiom according to which such numerals are built is then as follows: (105)

[[[X]Cardinal Num[ten]][tien]]Num

‘numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’

The question which arises now is what might be the source of the pattern in (105). A pattern based on the number ‘ten’ and the multiplication principle is rather wide-spread in the numeric systems of the world’s languages (Greenberg 2000: 773). However, although the Early Sranan pattern is less marked semantically because in it, the arithmetic operation of multiplication is marked overtly and the meaning of the numerals is compositional, it can be regarded as more marked formally since it is based on three items. Therefore, it makes sense to take a look at possible correspondences in the source languages. In both English and Dutch, numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are created by means of the bound morphemes -ty and -tig respectively: English twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, etc.; Dutch twintig, dertig, veertig, vijftig, etc. Though the principle used in these two languages is similar to the one used in Early Sranan, i.e. multiplication involving the number ‘ten’, the pattern according to which the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are built in Early Sranan does not come from either English or Dutch. Although both -ty and -tig derive etymologically from the free morpheme meaning ‘ten’, this morpheme was bound already in Middle English and its meaning was no longer perceivable as ‘ten’. The Sranan numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ do not contain either the English morpheme -ty or the Dutch morpheme -tig. Moreover, whereas in Early Sranan, a special morpheme, -ten, is used to mark the mathematical operation of multiplication overtly, in English or Dutch, there is no such overt marking. The pattern attested in Ewe and Fon also differs from what is attested in Early Sranan. In Ewe, the verb bla ‘to tie’ is attached to the cardinal numerals from ‘two’ to ‘nine’ to produce the tens from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ (Schlegel 1856: 98–99, Westermann 1907: 79), as shown in (106a). In Fon, the numerals ‘twenty’ and ‘thirty’ are simplexes: ko~ and gban~ respectively. Numerals from ‘forty’ to ‘one hundred and sixty’ are formed using the arithmetic operation of multiplication based on the numeral ‘forty’ and involving the multiplication marker ka~n, which is a morpheme meaning ‘cord which consists of forty cowries strung onto a palm tree stick’ (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 366), as in (106b): (106)

a.

Ewe: bla-ve bla-to2 bla-ne bla-ato)

‘tie-two’ ‘tie-three’ ‘tie-four’ ‘tie-five’

‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘forty’ ‘fifty’

217 b.

Fon: ko~ gban~ kan~ ∂e! ka~n we!

simplex simplex ‘cord-one’ ‘cord-two’

‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘forty’ ‘eighty’

As can be inferred from (106), the Ewe and the Fon numerals differ from the Early Sranan numerals under regard both structurally and semantically. In Twi, the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are formed by attaching the plural form of the numeral adu ‘ten’, edu, to the numerals from ‘two’ to ‘nine’ (Christaller 1875: 51). In Kikongo, the same pattern is used: the plural of the numeral kumi ‘ten’, makuma, is combined with the numerals from ‘two’ to ‘six’. The numerals from ‘seventy’ to ‘ninety’ are formed by means of the morpheme lu-, whose meaning is not specified in the Kikongo sources, and the numerals from ‘seven’ to ‘nine’ (Bentley 1887: 572, Laman 1912: 113). Examples from Twi and Kikongo are provided in (107). For reasons of space, only the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘fifty’ are used for the illustration of the Twi pattern. The question mark in the Kikongo examples indicates that the meaning of the morpheme lucould not be identified on the basis of the information provided in the Kikongo sources used in the present study. (107)

a.

b.

Twi: adu~-onu adu~-asa) adu-ana!ṅ adu-onum ! Kikongo: ma-kumo-ole ma-kuma-tatu ma-kuma-ya ma-kuma-tanu ma-kuma-sambanu lu-sambwadi lu-nana lu-vwa

‘plural of ten-two’ ‘plural of ten-three’ ‘plural of ten-four’ ‘plural of ten-five’

‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘forty’ ‘fifty’

‘plural prefix-ten-two’ ‘plural prefix-ten-three’ ‘plural prefix-ten-four’ ‘plural prefix-ten-five’ ‘plural prefix-ten-six’ ‘?-seven’ ‘?-eight’ ‘?-ten’

‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘forty’ ‘fifty’ ‘sixty’ ‘seventy’ ‘eighty’ ‘ninety’

The Twi and the Kikongo patterns are similar to the Early Sranan pattern in the fact that all three use the operation of multiplication based on the numeral ‘ten’. However, the Early Sranan numerals differ from their correspondences in Twi and Kikongo in their structure and in the use of the multiplication marker -ten. In general, it can be concluded that the pattern according to which Early Sranan numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are built is not uncommon cross-linguistically and exhibits interesting, but no one-to-one, parallels to the corresponding patterns in the source languages. Therefore, it cannot be attributed to one particular source. Interestingly, the Early Sranan pattern is less semantically marked and more regular than the patterns attested in the majority of the input languages: in Early Sranan, the operation of multiplication is marked

218 overtly by a specific multiplication marker, and every numeral from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ is consistently built according to the same pattern.

7.3.3 Num-na-Num pattern: numerals from ‘twenty one’ to ‘ninety nine’ Another group of complex numerals attested in Early Sranan is presented in (108): (108)

a.

b.

toe ten tien a wan toe ten tien a toe toe ten tien a drie toe ten tien a vyfi drie ten tien a zikesi tutentîn na wan dritentîn na wan fotentîn na fo feifitentîn na feifi siksitentîn na aiti sebententîn na siksi aititentîn na wan nenitentîn na neni

‘twenty-and-one’ ‘twenty-and-two’ ‘twenty-and-three’ ‘twenty-and-five’ ‘thirty-and-six’ ‘twenty-and-one’ ‘thirty-and-one’ ‘forty-and-four’ ‘fifty-and-five’ ‘sixty-and-eight’ ‘seventy-and-six’ ‘eighty-and-one’ ‘ninety-and-nine’

‘twenty one’ ‘twenty two’ ‘twenty three’ ‘twenty five’ ‘thirty six’ ‘twenty one’ ‘thirty one’ ‘forty four’ ‘fifty five’ ‘sixty eight’ ‘seventy six’ ‘eighty one’ ‘ninety nine’

VD VD VD VD VD Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch

The Early Sranan numerals in (108) combine elements and structural principles attested in the numerals discussed in the preceding two sections. They consist of the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’, the addition marker a/na ‘with/and’, which also surfaces in the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’, and the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’. Their structure can be formalised as follows: (109)

[[X]Num from 20 to 90[na][X]Num from 1 to 9]Num

‘numerals from ‘twenty one’ to ‘twenty nine’ and so on’

Similarly to the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’, the numerals in (108) employ the mathematical operation of addition to combine the two numbers, the decimal and the nondecimal ones. This operation is overtly expressed by the marker na, the contracted form of the preposition nanga ‘with/and’. As mentioned in section 7.3.1, the marker marks the mathematical operation overtly, thus making the numerals more transparent. The strategy to use such a marker is common among the world’s languages (Greenberg 2000: 777). The pattern in (109) is not influenced by English, since in English, no overt marker is used between the decimal numerals and the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’, as in twenty one, twenty two, etc. Besides, the numerals denoting the decimal numbers are built in English, as mentioned in the preceding section, according to a pattern different from the corresponding Early Sranan pattern. Interestingly, the corresponding Dutch numerals are rather similar to the Early Sranan numerals in (108) in terms of their structure and their semantics since they consist of the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’, the addition marker ‘and’ and the decimal numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’, as in e.g. een-en-twintig (oneand-twenty), twee-en-twintig (two-and-twenty), drie-en-twintig (three-and-twenty) and so

219 on. There are, however, two crucial differences between the two languages. First, there is a difference in terms of the order of elements: in Early Sranan, the cardinal numerals follow the decimal numbers and the addition marker, whereas in Dutch, they precede the addition marker and the numerals. Second, in Early Sranan, the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ are complex words built according to the pattern [[[X]Cardinal Num[ten]][tien]]Num, whereas in Dutch, these numerals are built by means of the bound morpheme -tig and contain some bound, non-transparent roots, e.g. twintig ‘twenty’, dertig ‘thirty’, veertig ‘forty’, etc. Hence, the differences are too significant for the Early Sranan numerals in (108) to have been modelled on the Dutch numerals. Fon has a complex system for creating numerals corresponding to the Early Sranan numerals under analysis. Here, this system will be explained using the cardinal numbers from ‘twenty one’ to ‘twenty nine’ for illustration. The Fon numerals from ‘twenty one’ to ‘twenty four’ are formed by combining the cardinal numeral ko~ ‘twenty’ with the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’ by means of the coordinative marker nu~ku!n (lit. ‘eye’), as shown in (110a). The numeral ‘twenty five’ is built in a different way: it consists of the numeral ‘twenty’ and the numeral ‘five’, without the coordinative marker nu~ku!n, as in (110b). The numerals from ‘twenty six’ to ‘twenty nine’ follow a different pattern: they are combinations of the numeral ko~ a~tO!n ‘twenty five’, the coordinative marker nu~ku!n and the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’, as in (110c). The data are taken from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 366). (110)

a.

b. c.

ko~ nu~ku!n ∂o~kpo! ko~ nu~ku!n we! ko~ nu~ku!n a~tO~n ko~ nu~ku!n E~nE~ ko~ a~tO!n ko~ a~tO!n nu!ku!n ∂o~kpo! ko~ a~tO!n nu!ku!n we! ko~ a~tO!n nu!ku!n a~tO~n ko~ a~tO!n nu!ku!n E~nE~

‘twenty-CM-one’ ‘twenty-CM-two’ ‘twenty-CM-three’ ‘twenty-CM-four’ ‘twenty-five’ ‘twenty-five-CM-one’ ‘twenty-five-CM-two’ ‘twenty-five-CM-three’ ‘twenty-five-CM-four’

‘twenty one’ ‘twenty two’ ‘twenty three’ ‘twenty four’ ‘twenty five’ ‘twenty six’ ‘twenty seven’ ‘twenty eight’ ‘twenty nine’

There are both similarities and differences between the Early Sranan numerals in (108) and the Fon system in (110). Although both languages use the addition principle, indicated by a special marker, they differ in the ways of exploiting this principle and in the nature of the marker. Early Sranan uses the same principle of adding the same decimal number to the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’. Fon, by contrast, has three different patterns. The one in (110c) employs a principle different from the principle used in Early Sranan: adding cardinal numbers from ‘one’ to ‘four’ to the combination of the decimal numerals with the numeral ‘five’. Besides, whereas the Early Sranan marker originally has the meaning ‘with/and’, the Fon marker is originally the item meaning ‘eye’. Therefore, it can be argued that the Fon numerals did not serve as a model for the Early Sranan numerals in (108). In Ewe, the numerals from ‘twenty one’ to ‘ninety nine’ are built by combining decimal numbers with the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ by means of the marker vo, whose exact meaning is unclear. Schlegel (1856: 99) suggests that vo means ‘to be different’, whereas Westermann (1907: 79) notes that it is identical with vo2 meaning ‘to be finished’. He remarks, however, that it is unclear whether the item vo used in the Ewe numerals under

220 analysis and the independently occurring vo2 meaning ‘to be finished’ are indeed the same item. Several examples taken from Schlegel (1856: 98) are shown in (111): (111)

blave vo deka blave vo eve blave vo eto2

‘twenty-CM-one’ ‘twenty-CM-two’ ‘twenty-CM-three’

‘twenty one’ ‘twenty two’ ‘twenty three’

The Ewe and the Early Sranan patterns are similar in two respects. First, in contrast to Fon, one and the same principle is used for all numerals of the type in question. Second, both Ewe and Early Sranan use the addition principle indicated by a special marker. The major difference lies in the nature of the marker: whereas the Sranan na comes from the morpheme nanga meaning ‘with/and’, the Ewe vo has a different origin, as mentioned previously in this section. Twi has a pattern similar to the English one and thus different from the Early Sranan pattern: the numerals in question are created by means of combining the numerals from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ with the numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ by means of juxtaposition, as in (112) (Christaller 1875: 52): (112)

aduonu!-bI~ako)⁄ aduakro!ṅ-abI~e2sa)⁄ aduana!ṅ-abI~eṅˊ

‘twenty-one’ ‘ninety-three’ ‘forty-two’

‘twenty one’ ‘ninety three’ ‘forty two’

Kikongo has a pattern very similar to the Early Sranan pattern in (109): it combines decimal numbers with the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to ‘nine’ uniformly by means of the marker ye ‘and/with’, as in (113) (Bentley 1887: 572, Laman 1912: 114): (113)

makumole ye ya makumole ye tanu makumatanu ye tanu lunani ye vwa

‘twenty-and-four’ ‘twenty-and-five’ ‘fifty-and-five’ ‘eighty-and-nine’

‘twenty four’ ‘twenty five’ ‘fifty five’ ‘eighty nine’

Besides the semantic and the structural similarities between the Early Sranan and the Kikongo numerals in question, there is also a one-to-one correspondence in the meaning and in the function between the Early Sranan coordination marker a/na and the Kikongo marker ye: in both languages, the markers mean ‘and/with’ and are used to combine syntactic units of equal status and type. The only difference between Early Sranan and Kikongo lies in the internal structure of the numerals denoting decimal numbers, which are built according to the Num-ten-tien pattern in Early Sranan, but according to the plural prefix-‘ten’-Num pattern in Kikongo. Therefore, no strong claims about substratum influence can be made in this case. To conclude, the formation of the Early Sranan numerals in (108) follows a pattern which is not uncommon cross-linguistically and shows close similarities to the formation of the corresponding numerals in some input languages, especially in Kikongo. However, no one-to-one parallels between the Early Sranan pattern and the patterns established in the source languages could be established. All in all, this shows that the emergence of the Early Sranan pattern in (109) cannot be attributed to one particular source.

221

7.4

Formation of verbs

7.4.1 V-deictic element pattern In Early Sranan, very few verbs are morphologically complex. Indeed, most verbs are members of multifunctional sets, so that multifunctionality is the major source of new verbs. However, a few groups of verbs with a further analysable structure can be distinguished. The group to be regarded in the present section contains examples which have a verb as their left-hand member and an element semantically and etymologically corresponding to particles in English as their right-hand member. They are exemplified in (114):24 (114)

a.

kommote

‘to come-out’

b.

komoto soékoe óto tan oppe

‘to come-out’ ‘to seek-out’ ‘to stand-up’

bukudumm fadom liddom zitdom giwèh go we hitiwèh kongo we póeloe we ron we

‘to bend-down’ ‘to fall-down’ ‘to lie-down’ ‘to sit-down’ ‘to give-away’ ‘to go-away’ ‘to throw-away’ ‘let’s go-away’ ‘to pull-away’ ‘to run-away’

c.

d.

‘to come from/to come out/ to come back from/to come up/ to separate’ ‘to go out/to stand up’ ‘to look for/to seek out’ ‘to stand/to stand up/ to get up (awake)’ ‘to bend to the earth’ ‘to fall (down)’ ‘to lie (down)’ ‘to sit (down)’ ‘to give away’ ‘to go away/to leave/to run away’ ‘to throw away’ ‘Let us go (away)’ ‘to take away’ ‘to run away’

VD

Sch Fo VD Sch VD Sch VD Sch VD Sch Fo Fo VD

According to their origin, the examples in (114) can be divided into three groups. The first group comprises items such as kommote, tan oppe, go we, ron we, soékoe óto, which have equivalents among English and/or Dutch phrasal verbs, such as to come out/uitkomen, to stand up/opstaan, to go away, to run away, uitzoeken, and share at least one of their meanings with their English and/or Dutch equivalents. Such items can be regarded as the result of adaptation from English or borrowing from Dutch which, however, have gained additional meanings in the creole language. Their adaptation and/or borrowing can possibly be explained by their high frequency of occurrence in the input. Away, for instance, has the frequency of occurrence of at least 200 times per million words in both conversation and academic prose (Biber 1999: 561). The second group consists of hitiwèh and póeloe we. The separate components of these items, such as hiti, póeloe and wèh/we seem to be of English origin. However, the meaning

– 24

In the fourth column in (114), the etymological composition of the items is provided. The morphological composition will be discussed in the present section.

222 of the items hitiwèh and póeloe we in Early Sranan is different from the meaning of the corresponding English phrasal verbs to hit away and to pull away. These two items can be regarded as adaptations from English which have entered Early Sranan with a meaning different from their meanings in the lexifier. Alternatively, it can be suggested that they were created in Early Sranan independently from English, by combining the constituent morphemes in the creole language itself. The last group comprises such items as kongo we and bukudumm, which do not have direct correspondences in English or Dutch. The item kongo we consists of the elements of English origin only, whereas bukudumm combines elements of Dutch origin, such as buku (< Dutch bukken), and of English origin, such as dumm (< Engl. down). The items from this last group cannot be regarded as direct adaptations and/or borrowings from the lexifiers. Three questions arise with respect to the constructs in (114). First, what is the status of their right-hand elements in Early Sranan? Second, how can such forms be accounted for in terms of their structure and their headedness? Finally, what is the status of these formations in Early Sranan: are they V° naming units or separable syntactic phrases? The answers to these questions will be discussed below. In connection to the first question, it should be investigated whether the second elements in (114) are bound or free. This is a vexed issue. The elements ote/oto and we/wèh are not attested independently in Van Dyk (c1765) or Schumann (1783). In Focke (1855: 149, 94) there are separate entries for both we and oto, which are defined as adverbs with the meanings ‘away’ and ‘out’ respectively. However, in Focke’s dictionary these two morphemes occur only in combination with other morphemes: with verbs, which are all listed in (114), and with adverbs, as in réti óto (right-out) ‘straight on’. Focke (1855: 94) remarks with respect to oto that it occurs predominantly in combination with something else. Moreover, despite a number of words in which the two morphemes in question occur, sentences of the kind *A we. or *A oto., which would be equivalent to the English He is away., He is out., and thus would allow the assumption that the morphemes we and ote/oto are free in Early Sranan, are not attested in any of the early sources used for the present study. To indicate the direction of a motion expressed by ‘out’ and ‘away’, serial verb constructions, as exemplified in (115), are employed, where such items as kommote or go we, and not ote/oto and we/wèh, are used in Van Dyk, Schumann and Focke: (115)

a.

poele loete kommotte. pull root come-out Arends (1995b: 177): ‘...pull the roots out.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 58): ‘...haalen de Wortels wel uit de Grond.’

b.

Jari joe ziza go we na fotte. carry your sister go-away to fort Arends (1995b: 130): ‘Take your sister to the ‘fort’ (i.e. Paramaribo).’ Van Dyk (c1765: 24): ‘Brengt u Zuster aan Paramaribo.’

c.

tjarri goweh carry go-away ‘carry away’ Schumann (1783: 180): ‘wegtragen, wegbringen, wegführen’

223 d.

A fadón komópo na mi hánoe 3SG fall come-out on my hand/arm ‘It fell out of my hand.’ Focke (1855: 38): ‘Het is mij uit de hand gevallen, het is mij ontvallen.’

Notably, in Modern Sranan, the motion away from the point of reference can also be rendered by the verb gwe, used in serial verb constructions, e.g. seni gwe ‘send away’, tyari gwe ‘carry away’ (Wilner 2007: 66, cf. Migge 2003a: 92). The case of the morpheme oppe occurring in the unit tan oppe is different. In all three sources, oppe is attested independently as a verb in the meaning ‘to open’, as in (116a), and also as a verb meaning ‘to lift up’, as in (116b): (116)

a.

ope wan battra ridi wini. open INDEF bottle red wine Arends (1995b: 224): ‘Open a bottle of red wine.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 100): ‘Geef ... een Fles Roode Wyn.’

b.

…oenno zikkesi zomma ope da homen. 2PL six people lift up DEF woman Arends (1995b: 237): ‘The six of you lift up the woman.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 111): ‘...neemt met jou zeszen de Kist op.’

The two examples in (116), however, differ from oppe in tan oppe in their meaning. Besides, oppe can occur in combination with the verb ope ‘to lift’: opo tanápoe ‘to stand up’ (Focke 1855: 131). Besides the two meanings exemplified in (116), oppe is also cited in different sources with the meaning ‘up’. Schumann (1783: 67), who spells ope as hoppo, provides the meaning ‘up’ for this lexeme, in addition to the meanings ‘to stand up’, ‘to lift’, ‘to open/open/to be open’. Wullschlägel (1856: 19–20, 24, 25) also provides opo, opoe as the morpheme meaning ‘up’, which is used in such constructs as broko opo ‘to break out’ or djompo opo ‘to jump up’. Focke (1855: 94) provides an entry for what he calls “adverb” opo ‘up’ and remarks that it is used in connection with a river or a water stream. Examples provided by Focke for the adverbial use of opo, however, reveal that the syntactic slots in which this item occurs are in fact typical of nouns and adjectives: (117)

Mi de go na ópo, na ópo-séi 1SG CNT go on up on up-side ‘I go up, up the river.’ Focke (1855: 94): ‘Ik vaar naar boven, ik ga de rivier op.’

In (117) ópo is similar to what Migge (2003a: 101) calls “locational specifier” in a locational phrase, and it is a noun. There are two differences between ópo in (117) and oppe in tan oppe. First, although both seem to indicate a motion, ópo in (117) indicates a movement up the river, which is not the case with ope in tan oppe. Second, the spelling of oppe in tanoppe and the spelling of the independently attested element meaning ‘up’ differ in some cases. In Schumann (1783: 172, 85), the spelling of etymologically the same element is dif-

224 ferent in different words: it is appe in tannappe, oppo in kommoppo ‘to come out’ and hoppo when it has the meaning ‘up the river’ or ‘to lift’. In Focke (1855: 131), this element has two spelling variants: ápoe and ópo in tanápoe/tanópo and opo ‘up’. The spelling discrepancies might also indicate that the link between oppe in tan oppe and when meaning ‘up’, as in (117), was blurred. In general, the foregoing allows a conclusion that oppe is a bound element in tan oppe. The element dumm (< Engl. down) differs from those regarded above in that it is attested independently in one sentence in Van Dyk and also in Nepveu (1770): (118)

a.

Zon dom kaba. sun down already ‘The sun is down already.’ Arends (1995b: 122): ‘The sun has gone down.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 127): ‘De Zon gaat onder.’

b.

Moen go don. moon go down ‘The moon goes down.’ Nepveu (1770: 282): ‘De Maan gaat onder.’

However, in Schumann and Focke, dumm/dom is not attested independently. There are also no entries for dumm/dom in these two sources, and the meaning ‘down’ is rendered by the word bilò. It can be suggested therefore that the morpheme dumm is bound in Early Sranan. It can be thus concluded that the final elements in (114) are bound morphemes. They have a specific meaning which modifies the meanings of the preceding verbs and function as deictic markers indicating the direction of the actions denoted by the verbs. Turning now to the second of the three questions raised at the beginning of the present section, it can be suggested that the items in (114) are complex words consisting of a verb, mostly denoting a motion of some kind, and a bound morpheme which carries a deictic meaning. Syntactically, they are V° units, functioning either as verbs or as serial verbs,25 as shown in (119): (119)

a.

putti dem battra tannappe put DEF.PL bottle up/upright ‘Put the things up(right).’ Schumann (1783: 106): ‘stell die Bouteillen aufrecht.’

b.

Pótti dem sanì tanápoe put DEF.PL thing up/upright ‘Put the things up(right).’ Focke (1855: 106): ‘Zet die dingen overeind.’

– 25

The actual status of serial verbs is in general controversial because they may exhibit some properties untypical of verbs. See Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 299–346, 399–443) and Migge (2003a: 90–99) for some general discussion.

225 The left-hand elements in (114) can be regarded as heads, whereas the right-hand elements are direction adjuncts. The two stand in the relation of complementation to each other, which explains the left-hand position of the verb. Semantically, most verbs in (114) are activity verbs denoting motion. When functioning as serial verbs, they indicate the direction of motion. In most cases they have additional meanings, different from their English counterparts (e.g. kommote, tan oppe). As to the origin of such verbs in Early Sranan, it has already been pointed out that some of them entered the creole via adaptation from English and/or borrowing from Dutch, and a high frequency of occurrence of such phrasal verbs, as to go away, to run away, to stand up, in English or Dutch might have promoted their adaptation and borrowing as entities. However, they must have been reanalysed as complex entities by creole creators since they have been further used for the creation of other items, such as bukudumm ‘bend down’, which have no direct correspondences in English or Dutch. Such verbs are marginal in Early Sranan word-formation, since the list in (114) is exhaustive. To conclude, Early Sranan makes use of some complex verbs which are combinations of verbs and deictic elements. The deictic elements correspond semantically and etymologically to particles in English and Dutch. The majority of such verbs emerged via adaptation of English phrasal verbs or via borrowing of Dutch phrasal verbs. They seem to have been reanalysed as complex entities in Early Sranan and subsequently gave rise to some analogical creation of innovations.

7.4.2 V-V pattern There is another group of verbs in Early Sranan which seem to be morphologically complex. Such verbs are listed in (120): (120)

ja go

‘to carry-to go’

jarri kom

‘to carry-to come’

kongo/kon go ron go tróesoe go troesoe kom$ wakka kom$

‘to come-to go’ ‘to run-to go’ ‘to push-to go’ ‘to push-to come’ ‘to walk-to come’

‘to bring (away from the point of reference)’ ‘to bring (in the direction to the point of reference)’ ‘come! let’s go/to go’ ‘to run away’ ‘to push away’ ‘to push open’ ‘to come here’

VD VD VD VD Fo Fo Fo

The units in (120) consist of two elements each of which is independently attested in Early Sranan as a verb of motion. However, the second elements go and kom do not maintain their full verbal meaning ‘to go’ and ‘to come’, but rather function as deictic markers, indicating the direction of motion: whereas go points to the motion away from the point of reference, kom indicates the direction to the point of reference. The major question which arises with respect to the units in (120) is the question about their status. At first sight they appear to be complex naming units: they have a specific meaning and consist of two elements. Indeed, like complex words, some of the units in (120) are not attested in the separated form, as the following examples show:

226 (121)

a.

Wi ja go na watere zy 1PL carry go to water side ‘We brought to the water-side.’ Arends (1995b: 236): ‘We brought them ...by waterside.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 110): ‘Wy hebben hem aan de Waaterkant gebrogt.’

b.

Kongo myki wi go na hosse come-go make 1PL go to house Arends (1995b: 230): ‘Come, let’s go into the house.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 105): ‘Laat ons na Huis gaan.’

c.

Mastra Hendrik ron go hessi na hosse Master Hendrik run go quickly to house Arends (1995b: 217): ‘Master Hendrik, go home quickly.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 94): ‘Meester Hendrik loop gaauw na Huis.’

d.

mi za ron go na fotte 1SG FUT run go to fort Arends (1995b: 205): ‘I’ll go to the fort.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 83): ‘Ik will gaauw na het Fort.’

However, the unit ja go in its full form jarri go is attested in a separated form. Jarri kom is attested both with an intervening element between the two components and without: (122)

a.

Da zo wi jarri didde zomma go that so 1PL carry dead person go Arends (1995b: 237): ‘That is how we carry our dead away.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 111): ‘Zo brengen wy onze Dooden weg.’

b.

Na dinatim jarri kom. on/at dinner-time carry come Arends (1995b: 151): ‘Bring it in the afternoon.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 38): ‘Brengt het van Middag meê.’

c.

jarri hem kom carry 3SG come Arends (1995b: 194): ‘Bring him here.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 74): ‘Breng hem hier.’

There is a straightforward explanation for the discrepancy between the examples in (121) and those in (122). Those in (121) have primarily intransitive verbs, such as kon ‘to come’ and ron ‘to run’, as their first elements, whereas those in (122) contain the transitive jarri ‘to carry’ as their first element. Since intransitive verbs do not take any objects, it is clear that they will show a tendency not to be separated, because usually, it is an object that separates the first and the second components in (122).

227 Since at least some units in (120) are attested in a syntactically separated form, they cannot be regarded as complex words. In fact, they should be considered as examples of serial verb constructions, where two or more verbs are combined to form a complex predicate (cf. Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 399). Since all the other forms, even those which are not attested in the separated form, like kongo and ron go, have the same syntactic and semantic structure, they should also be regarded as instances of serial verb constructions. This type of construction is not regarded as an instance of compounding by Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 221, 234, note 1), who suggest that concatenations of two verbs in Fon should be best analysed as complex predicates. Examples of serial verb constructions from Fon presented in Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 409–410, 425) and given here in (123) bear a striking similarity to the Early Sranan examples in (121) and (122): (123)

a.

KO~ku! sO!/ze! a~sO!n yI~ a~xI~ mE~. Koku take crab go market in ‘Koku brought crab to the market.’ (direction away from the speaker)

b.

KO~ku! sO!/ze! a~sO!n wa! a~xI~ mE~. Koku take crab come market in ‘Koku brought crab to the market.’ (direction towards the speaker)

c.

KO~ku! ka!n-we~zu~n yI~. Koku run leave ‘Koku ran away.’ (from the speaker)

Migge (2003a: 90–99) provides similar examples of serial verb constructions from Eastern Maroon Creole of Suriname and also shows striking parallels to the constructions in some Gbe varieties. Note that the Fon examples in (123) show that the two verbs can occur with and without intervening elements, in the same way as in Early Sranan. To summarise, combinations such as those in (120) should be regarded not as words, i.e. V° naming units, but as syntactic constructions. However, it seems that some of them, such as kongo, acquired lexicalised meanings and function as inseparable units. Because of the non-naming nature of the units in (120), their sources will not be discussed here.

7.5

Formation of adverbs

The Early Sranan data contain a number of complex items which correspond semantically and functionally to adverbs in languages like English. Such items usually express locative and temporal concepts or describe the manner of action and function as clausal modifiers. However, in contrast to English, where adverbs are often created by a specific suffix, Early Sranan items rendering locative and temporal concepts are often combinations of determiners and nouns. The present section is devoted to the analysis of concatenations attested in Early Sranan by which meanings usually associated with adverbs in languages like

228 English are expressed. For the sake of simplicity, such items will be referred to as ‘adverbs’ here. (124)

a. b. c.

d. e.

f.

g.

pi(e)kien mor(r)e tarraisredeh tarre te marre alladeh alle plessi alle tem da ply/da plessi noefetrom wan plessi wantem zomtem datem dissitem nuffetem tarratem tarradeh srefitem ibripeh initem inipeh wanpeh nebretem nebrewantem iffi-nó-so nómo nóso fára-we réti ópoe réti óto iniwanpeh no wan peh

‘little-more’ ‘(an)other-yesterday’ ‘(an)other-tomorrow’ ‘all-day’ ‘all-place’ ‘all-time’ ‘that-place’ ‘enough-turn’ ‘INDEF/one-place’ ‘INDEF/one-time’ ‘some-time’ ‘that-time’ ‘this-time’ ‘enough-time’ ‘(an)other-time’ ‘(an)other-day’ ‘self/same-time’ ‘every-place’ ‘any-time’ ‘any-place’ ‘INDEF/one-place’ ‘never-time’ ‘never-once’ ‘if-no(t)-so’ ‘no(t)-more’ ‘no(t)-so’ ‘far-away’ ‘right-up’ ‘right-out’ ‘anyone-place’ ‘no one-place’

‘soon/almost/a bit more’ VD ‘the day before yesterday’ Sch ‘the day after tomorrow’ VD ‘every day/daily’ Sch ‘everywhere’ VD ‘all the time/always’ VD ‘there’ VD ‘often’ VD ‘somewhere’ VD ‘one time/once’ Sch ‘sometime(s)’ VD ‘at that time/in those days’ Sch ‘nowadays’ Sch ‘long enough/often enough’ Sch ‘earlier/once’ Sch ‘recently’ Sch ‘at that time/then’ Sch ‘everywhere’ Sch ‘any time/always’ Sch ‘anywhere’ Sch ‘somewhere’ Sch ‘never’ Sch ‘never/at no time’ Sch ‘otherwise/different(ly)’ Fo ‘only/merely/but/no more’ Fo ‘differently’ Fo ‘far away’ Fo ‘straight on’ Fo ‘straight on’ Fo ‘anywhere’ Sch ‘nowhere’ Sch

In terms of their structure, Early Sranan items rendering locative and temporal concepts make up a rather heterogeneous group. They can consist of two adverbs, as in (124a), of a determiner and an adverb, as in (124b), of a determiner and a noun, as in (124c), of the negator nebre ‘never’ and a noun, as in (124d), of the negative particle nó and an adverb, as in (124e), or of an adjective and a bound deictic marker, such as we ‘away’, óto ‘out’ and ópoe ‘up’, as in (124f). The status of ini and nebre as free morphemes is controversial: although they are attested in several complex items, they never occur independently in the way they occur in English, for instance. Therefore, they seem to be bound in Early Sranan. The final structural group presented in (124g) comprises items consisting of three elements. Two further remarks on the structure of the complex words in (124) are due here. As mentioned earlier in the present section, a considerable number of Early Sranan adverbs are

229 combinations of determiners and nouns, as in (124c). In contrast to the typical use of determiners, the determiners in (124c) do not specify the accompanying nouns, but rather modify them. Besides, they are not used for the purposes of deixis or anaphora. In fact, they bear a greater similarity to adjectives. Note that combinations of determiners and nouns rendering locative and temporal concepts are also common in Ewe (Schlegel 1856: 108, Westermann 1907: 81–82) and Fon (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 385–386). All items in (124) are Adv° units. Although there are examples where some items are attested with an intervening element between the two components, a closer inspection shows that in such cases, there is a difference in meaning between the complex word and the separated syntactic phrase: the meaning of the latter is not specific, as shown in (125): (125)

a.

wan bon plessi INDEF nice place Arends (1995b: 134): ‘a good place’ Van Dyk (c1765: 27): ‘een goeje plaats’

b.

alle toe wikki tem all two week time Arends (1995b: 145): ‘every two weeks’ Van Dyk (c1765: 34): ‘alle veertien Daagen’

Semantically, the components of the constructs in (124) express primarily temporal or locative concepts. Nouns used in these concatenations are abstract and have generalised meanings, such as ‘time’, ‘place’, ‘day’. The semantic range of determiners involved in concatenations in (124c) is rather wide: quantitative (alle, noefe), demonstrative (da), indefinite (wan), etc. The following semantic groups of Early Sranan adverbs can be distinguished: (126)

a. b.

c.

d.

e.

degree items pi(e)kien mor(r)e manner items nómo nóso temporal items pi(e)kien mor(r)e tarre te marre zomtem locative items alle plessi da ply réti óto habitual items alladeh alle tem noefetrom

‘little-more’

‘almost/a bit more’

VD

‘no(t)-more’

Fo

‘no(t)-so’

‘only/merely/but/ no more’ ‘differently’

‘little-more’ ‘(an)other-tomorrow’ ‘some-time’

‘soon’ VD ‘the day after tomorrow’ VD ‘sometime(s)’ VD

‘all-place’ ‘that-place’ ‘right-out’

‘everywhere’ ‘there’ ‘straight on’

VD VD Fo

‘all-day’ ‘all-time’ ‘enough-turn’

‘every day/daily’ ‘all the time/always’ ‘long enough/ often enough’

Sch VD Sch

Fo

230 As the data in (126) show, there is an interesting correlation between the semantic type of a given adverb and the semantics of its components: temporal and habitual items often contain the nouns tem ‘time’ and deh ‘day’, whereas many locative items have the noun plessi ‘place’ as their second component. The same nouns are used in these types of adverb-like items in Ewe (Westermann 1907: 81–82), Fon (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 385–386) and Twi (Christaller 1875: 42, 84). Another interesting observation which arises on the basis of the data in (124) is that there are very few items expressing manner of an action among the Early Sranan adverbs. The ‘manner’ meaning is more commonly expressed either by multifunctional items, such as, for instance, krin meaning ‘clearly/light/shine/to be clear/to shine/clear’, or by prepositional phrases which have the structure na-A-fasi (in-A-manner), such as, for instance, na djalusufasi (in-envious-manner) ‘enviously’ or na odofasi (in-mysterious-manner) ‘mysteriously’ (Schumann 1783: 30, 126). As to the origin of the adverb-like items in (124), it can be pointed out that remarks on their occurrence cross-linguistically and in other creoles cannot be made here because of the lack of adequate information. As to the parallels in the source languages, it can be pointed out that some of the Early Sranan adverbs, such as zomtem ‘sometime(s)’, fára-we ‘far away’, initem ‘at any time/always’ and nómo ‘no more’ can be attributed to English, others, such as réti óto, possibly to Dutch. Note that some of the Early Sranan adverbs which have one-to-one correspondences in the superstratum, such as e.g. nómo, have additional meanings, not attested in the superstratum. Most of the other items in (124) have no direct parallels in English. There are, however, interesting parallels to similar items in the substratum languages. In Ewe, Fon, Twi and Kikongo, adverbial concepts can also be expressed by morphologically complex units which are concatenations of different types of lexical categories, such as verbs, adjectives, nouns. The parallels which could be established between some of the Early Sranan adverbs and substratum adverb-like items are provided in (127) (the Ewe data are from Schlegel (1856: 108–117), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 384–391), the Twi data from Christaller (1875: 77–89) and the Kikongo data from Bentley (1887: 51, 10)): (127)

a.

b. c. d. e.

f. g.

Sranan: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Fon: Sranan: Fon: Sranan: Ewe: Sranan: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Sranan: Fon:

alle de gbe~-bI!-gbe~ e lumbu yawanso alle plessi fI!-bI! alle tem hwe~-bI!-nu! da plessi afi-ma) inipeh fI!-∂e!bu! konso kuma iniwanpeh afia-deke wan tem hwe~-∂e!-nu~

‘all-day’ ‘day-all-day’ ‘day-every’ ‘all-place’ ‘place-all’ ‘all-time’ ‘time-all’ ‘that-place’ ‘place-that’ ‘any-place’ ‘place-any’ ‘any/some-place’ ‘anyone-place’ ‘place-anyone’ ‘INDEF/one-time’ ‘time-INDEF/one’

‘daily’ ‘daily’ ‘daily’ ‘everywhere’ ‘everywhere’ ‘any time’ ‘any time’ ‘there’ ‘there’ ‘anywhere’ ‘anywhere’ ‘anywhere’ ‘anywhere’ ‘anywhere’ ‘one time’ ‘some time’

231 As can be inferred from (127), the semantic parallels between the Early Sranan and the substratum items are rather close. Besides, the substratum languages exhibit homogeneity with respect to the semantics of the adverbs. However, it is difficult to claim transfer in this case because most of the Early Sranan adverb-like items in (127) are relatively unmarked in formal, semantic and selectional terms: they consist of two items, are transparent and do not require a more specific context.

7.6

Formation of functional categories

7.6.1 Indefinite pronouns Several complex words in Early Sranan function as indefinite pronouns, as illustrated in (128): (128)

alle zanti alle zomma ibriwansanni iniwan somma wan zanti wan zomma

‘all-thing’ ‘all-person’ ‘each-thing’ ‘every-person’ ‘INDEF/one-thing’ ‘INDEF/one-person’

‘everything/anything’ ‘everyone’ ‘each separate thing’ ‘everyone’ ‘something’ ‘someone’

VD VD Sch Sch VD VD

All complex words in (128) are combinations of determiners, such as the universal determiners alle ‘all’ and ibriwan ‘each’, and the indefinite determiner wan, with the nouns zanti/sanni ‘thing’ and zomma/somma ‘person’. Pronouns containing zanti/sanni ‘thing’ have non-personal reference, whereas those containing zomma/somma ‘person’ have personal reference. All examples in (128) substitute noun phrases and have a generalised meaning, as shown in (129): (129)

a.

mi za myki alle zanti klari fo joe 1SG FUT make everything clear for 2SG Arends (1995b: 214): ‘I’ll make everything ready for you.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 91): ‘Ik zal alles klaar maaken.’

b.

somma gi ju wansanni, ju musse takki tangi person give 2SG something 2SG must say thanks ‘When somebody gives you something, you must thank him.’ Schumann (1783: 160): ‘Wenn dir jemand was gibt, so must du danken.’

c.

Mi zi wan zomma. 1SG see someone Arends (1995b: 118): ‘I see someone.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 17): ‘Ik zie iemand.’

232 Some of the items in (128) are attested in a separated form, as the examples in (130) show: (130)

a.

Miki wie doe wan tra zanti. make 1PL do INDEF other thing Arends (1995b: 137): ‘Let’s do something else.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 29): ‘Laat ons wat anders doen.’

b.

Mikki den ga na da kamere fo mi en tikki alle da zanti fo mi make 3PL go on DEF room of me and take all DEF.PL thing of me fo ja go na boote. for carry go to boat Arends (1995b: 229): ‘Let them go to my room and bring all my things into the boat.’ Van Dyk (c1765): ‘Laat ze in myn Kamer gaan om al myn Goed te krygen en brengen dat in de Boot.’

c.

da wan biggi somma it-be INDEF thick person ‘It is a big person.’ Schumann (1783: 16): ‘Das ist ein dicker Mensch.’

The phrases in (130) differ from the pronouns in (128) in that the nouns zanti/sanni and zomma/somma preserve their full meaning in the former, whereas in the latter, this meaning is generalised. Furthermore, the phrases in (130) are full NPs, and not pronouns, as in the examples in (129). The remarks made here about the potential sources of the Early Sranan indefinite pronouns will be limited to the discussion of correspondences attested in the source languages because of the scarcity of information on the cross-linguistic occurrence of this type of pronouns. As can be inferred from (128), the Early Sranan indefinite pronouns do not seem to be modelled on English pronouns. There are, however, close parallels to the substratum languages. In the major substratum languages of Early Sranan, indefinite pronouns are primarily combinations of determiners, especially of the indefinite determiner, and the nouns ‘person’ and ‘thing’, as in (131) (the Ewe data are from Schlegel (1856: 94) and Westermann (1907: 64, 134), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 368, 370), the Kikongo data from Bentley (1887: 73, 199) and Laman (1912: 150)): (131)

a.

b. c.

Sranan: Ewe: Kikongo: Sranan: Fon: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Kikongo:

alle zanti nu-sia-nu lekwa yawanso alle zomma mE~-∂o~kpo!∂o~kpo! wan zanti na-de nu!-∂e! lekwa ma

‘all-thing’ ‘thing-all-thing’ ‘thing-every/all’ ‘all-person’ ‘person-each’ ‘INDEF/one-thing’ ‘thing-INDEF’ ‘thing-INDEF/one’ ‘thing’ ‘thing’

‘everything/anything’ ‘everything’ ‘everything’ ‘everyone’ ‘everyone’ ‘something’ ‘something’ ‘something’ ‘something’ ‘something’

233 d.

Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo:

wan zomma ame-d¢e mE~-∂e! muntu

‘INDEF/one-person’ ‘person-INDEF’ ‘person-INDEF/one’ ‘person’

‘someone’ ‘someone’ ‘someone’ ‘someone’

As can be inferred from (131), the substratum languages exhibit relative homogeneity with respect to the semantic structure of the indefinite pronouns. The closest correspondences exist between the Early Sranan pronouns and the corresponding Ewe and Fon pronouns: in all three languages the indefinite determiner is combined with the nouns denoting ‘thing’ and ‘person’, whereas Kikongo uses these nouns without any determiner. The only difference between the Early Sranan indefinite pronouns in (131) and the corresponding substratum forms is the constituent order: whereas in Early Sranan, as in English, the determiner precedes zanti/sanni and zomma/somma, in Ewe and Fon, it follows them. However, despite the close parallels, no strong case for substratum influence can be made here because the Early Sranan indefinite pronouns in (131) can be regarded as formally, semantically and selectionally less marked: they consist of two elements only, are transparent and do not require a more specific context.

7.6.2 Negative pronouns The following Early Sranan items have a function similar to negative pronouns in English: (132)

a. b.

no wan no wansanni no wan zomma

‘no-one’ ‘no-INDEF/one-thing’ ‘no-INDEF/one-person’

‘nobody’ ‘nothing’ ‘nobody’

VD Sch VD

The example no wan consists of the negative marker no and the pronoun wan ‘one’. The remaining two examples also contain the negative marker and the item wan, and additionally, the nouns sanni ‘thing’ and zomma ‘person’. For them, two structural interpretations are possible. On the one hand, it can be assumed that wan is a pronoun in (132b) which builds an entity with the negator no and that no and wan together modify the nouns sanni and zomma. In this case, the bracketing for the items in (132b) is as follows: [[no wan] sanni] and [[no wan] zomma]. This interpretation can be supported by the fact that the combination no wan is also attested on its own, i.e. without any noun, as in (133a), or with nouns other than sanni and zomma, as in (133b): (133)

a.

no wan habbi hatti fo open wan moffe. no one have heart for open INDEF mouth Arends (1995b: 203): ‘Nobody will dare say a thing.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 82): ‘Geen een durft zyn Mond oopen doen.’

b.

no wan hai watra dea NEG INDEF drop water there ‘There is no drop of water here.’ Schumann (1783: 56): ‘Es ist kein Tropfen Wasser hier.’

234 On the other hand, the items in (132b) can be interpreted as consisting of the negation marker no and the indefinite pronouns wan sanni ‘something’ and wan zomma ‘someone’ discussed in the previous section. Then the bracketing would be [no [wansanni]] and [no [wan zomma]]. Support for this interpretation comes from the fact that in the negative pronoun no wansanni, the unit wansanni is written together, and this spelling is used by Schumann only when wansanni functions as the indefinite pronoun. Besides, Schumann cites the pronoun no wansanni under the entry for wansanni, and not under the entry for wan or for no wan, which again might indicate that wan and sanni rather than no and wan build an entity in the negative pronoun no wansanni. Note also that in Van Dyk, the item no wan zanti is attested only once, and the notion ‘nothing’ is usually rendered by sentences where the indefinite pronoun wan zanti occurs with the negated predicate, as in (134). This again shows that wan zanti, and not no wan, must be a unit in no wan zanti. (134)

mino habi wan zanti fo takki. 1SG-NEG have anything for say Arends (1995b: 176): ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 57): ‘Dan heb ik ummers niet te zeggen.’

In general it can be suggested on the basis of the remarks just made that there seems to be stronger evidence for the fact that the negative pronouns in (132b) consist of the negator no and the indefinite pronouns wansanni ‘something’ and wan zomma ‘someone’. A note on the use of the negative pronouns in Early Sranan is due here. The negative pronoun no wansanni is attested in only one sentence in Focke, as shown in (135a). The negative pronoun no wan zomma is attested in affirmative sentences in Van Dyk and Schumann, but in negative sentences in Focke, as shown in (135b–c): (135)

a.

a no wan sanì 3SG nothing ‘It’s nothing.’ Focke (1855: 113): ‘Het is niets.’

b.

No wan zomma za kom. nobody FUT come Arends (1995b: 154): ‘Nobody will come.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 40): ‘Daar zaal niemand koomen.’

c.

no wan somma de libi na inni nobody CNT live on inner-part ‘Nobody lives inside.’ Schumann (1783: 163): no translation provided

d.

joe no moe króektoe no wan soema 2SG NEG must do injustice nobody ‘You should do injustice to nobody.’ Focke (1855: 67): ‘Gij moogt tegen niemand onregtvaardig zijn, tegen niemand onregt plegen.’

235 As to the origin of the negative pronouns, remarks on their cross-linguistic occurrence will not be made here, and the discussion will be limited to establishing parallels between the Early Sranan negative pronouns and the corresponding pronouns in the source languages. As far as the parallels to the lexifiers are concerned, it can be pointed out that the emergence of the Early Sranan negative pronouns cannot be attributed to the influence of either English or Dutch. The corresponding English items nobody, nothing, no one and the corresponding Dutch items niets ‘nothing’, niemand ‘nobody’ differ from the Early Sranan examples in terms of their structure. As to the negative pronouns attested in the substratum languages, some of them bear close parallels to Early Sranan. The data from the substratum languages Ewe, Fon and Kikongo are provided in (136) (the Ewe data are from Westermann (1906: 131–132), the Fon data from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 371), the Kikongo data from Bentley (1887: 145–146)): (136)

a.

b.

Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo:

no wan zomma me-ama-d¢eke mE~-tI! ke vena muntu ko no wansanni na-neke-o nu~-tI! ke kuima ko

‘no-INDEF/one-person’ ‘NEG-person-INDEF’ ‘person-nothing/null’ ‘NEG-there is-person-NEG’ ‘no-INDEF/one-thing’ ‘thing-INDEF-NEG’ ‘thing-nothing/null’ ‘NEG-thing-NEG’

‘nobody’ ‘nobody’ ‘nobody’ ‘nobody’ ‘nothing’ ‘nothing’ ‘nothing’ ‘nothing’

As can be inferred from (136), the Early Sranan negative pronouns exhibit greatest similarity to the Ewe items both from the structural and from the semantic point of view. Since the Early Sranan negative pronouns are more marked in formal terms because they consist of three items, it can be suggested that substratum influence is more credible in their case and that they might have developed via semantic transfer from Ewe.

7.6.3 Wh-words Question words in Early Sranan are created by means of attaching the morpheme hoe/hu/ ho26 (< Engl. which, according to Muysken and Smith (1990: 896–897)) to words of different word-classes, as illustrated in (137) below. This morpheme is not attested independently in any of the Early Sranan sources used for the present study, nor is it attested independently in any other earlier sources, such as Herlein (1718) or Nepveu (1770). This means that there is no sentence in the sources in which hu- alone, without any other morpheme attached to it, functions as an interrogative marker. Hence, it can be regarded as bound in Early Sranan. Despite its boundness, hu- is usually written separately from the morpheme or word it appears with in Van Dyk and Focke. However, in Schumann, complex items containing the marker hu- are written predominantly together. Since the ‘core’

– 26

For reasons of simplicity, the orthographic variant hu, attested in Schumann, will be used hereafter to refer to the interrogative marker.

236 wh-words are very similar through all three sources, only those from Schumann are presented in (137a) below for the sake of simplicity. (137)

a.

hufasi hufa hudissi huheddi va hu heddi (na) hupeh husanni husomma

b.

hutem (na) hu-sei hu biggi hoe bakkera hu-hosso hoe jam jam hulanga hulati humenni humennitron ho sóortoe

‘how’ ‘how/why’ ‘who/which one/which’ ‘why’ ‘why’ ‘where/where from/ where to’ ‘what’ ‘who/which one (person)’ ‘when/at what time’ ‘where’ ‘how big’ ‘which white person/ what whites’ ‘which house’ ‘which food’ ‘how long’ ‘how late/what time is it’ ‘how much/how many’ ‘how often’ ‘which (one)’

fasi fa dissi heddi heddi peh

‘manner/kind’ short of fasi ‘this/that/those’ ‘head/reason’ ‘head/reason’ ‘place’

Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch Sch

sanni somma

‘thing’ ‘person’

Sch Sch

tem sei biggi bakkera

‘time’ ‘side’ ‘big’ ‘white person’

Sch Sch Sch VD

hosso jam jam langa lati menni27 tron sóortoe

‘house’ ‘food’ ‘long’ ‘late’ ‘many’ ‘times/turn’ ‘kind’

Sch VD Sch Sch Sch Sch Fo

As can be inferred from (137), hu- can attach to words of different word-classes, such as nouns, e.g. bakkera ‘white person’, adjectives, e.g. biggi ‘big’, adverbs, e.g. lati ‘late’ and pronouns, such as dissi ‘this/that’. The meaning of the morpheme hu- can be interpreted as ‘which/what’ in most cases in (137). In all examples in (137), the element hu- functions as an interrogative marker. It must be stressed, however, that the process of attaching hu- does not result in the creation of a new notion, as is usually the case with word-formation markers. Rather, hu- signals that the word it attaches to acquires a specific function, an interrogative function. In the Early Sranan data, two different types of hu-items are attested. They are exemplified in (137a) and (137b) respectively. The two types differ in a number of properties, which will be discussed below. The first difference lies in the fact that the wh-items in (137a) are often attested in a phonologically contracted form, which is never the case with the items in (137b). Several wh-items in (137a) are attested in both full and contracted forms, as shown in (138). Notably, some of the Early Sranan wh-items, as, for instance, ho fasi, even have two contracted forms.

– 27

Menni, however, does not occur on its own in Early Sranan, but in combination with other morphemes, such as hu, so, morro, etc. (cf. Bruyn 1995a: 151).

237 (138)

meaning ‘where’

‘why/how’

‘what’

‘who’

full variant hoe plessi not attested ho plési hoe fas(s)i hufasi ho fasi hoe zanti husanni not attested ho sóema

contracted variant hoe ply/hoe pi/hoe py hupeh ho pè/pe hoe fa hufa ho fa/fa hoe zan/hoe san/hoe za not attested ho san’/san sóema

VD Sch Fo VD Sch Fo VD Sch Fo Fo

The second difference between (137a) and (137b) lies in semantics. The meaning of the wh-items in (137a) is more general since the nouns used in them, such as ‘place’, ‘manner’, ‘time’, are generic in nature. To demonstrate the point, two examples from Van Dyk will be provided: (139)

a.

Hoe zanti joe wandi. QM thing 2SG want Arends (1995b: 123): ‘What do you want?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 20): ‘Wat will je hebben.’

b.

Hoe nuwsi joe habbi. QM news 2SG have ‘What news do you have?’ Arends (1995b: 142): ‘What’s new?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 32): ‘Wat nieuws heb je.’

The meaning of hoe zanti in (139a) is ‘what’, and not ‘which thing’, whereas the meaning of hoe nuwsi is more specific. In a similar way, it can be argued that the meaning of hufasi/ hoe fa(s(s)i) ‘how’ is more general than the meaning of hulanga ‘how long’ or hulati ‘how late’, the meaning of husomma ‘who’ is more general than hoe bakkera ‘which white person’, and hoe klossi ‘which cloth’ is more concrete than husanni ‘what’. Additionally, some wh-items in (137a) acquired more opaque meanings, such as hoe fa(s)si, which can also mean ‘why’, as shown in (140): (140)

hoe fassi joe pieki da koffi zoo haffe QM manner 2SG pick DEF coffee so half Arends (1995b: 178): ‘Why do you pick the coffee so poorly?’ Van Dyk (c1765: 59): ‘hoe komt dat je de Koffi zoo ongelyk plukt...’

Besides, in some cases, the two types of hu-combinations diverge as to their referential scope: in the two examples below the construct hoe zomma ‘who’ has indefinite reference, i.e. it does not imply that a choice is made from a limited set of alternatives. In contrast, the construct hoe passi has definite reference, i.e. the choice here is made from a limited set of alternatives, which become clear in the context:

238 (141)

a.

Hoe zomma dé. – Da mi. QM person be-there it-be 1SG Arends (1995b: 123): ‘Who’s there? – That’s me.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 20): ‘Wie is dat. – Dat ben ik.’

b.

Hoe passi wi za wakki. – Myki wi wake na watere mili passi. QM route 1PL FUT walk make 1PL walk on water mill route Arends (1995b: 140): ‘Which route shall we take? – Let’s go through WaterMill-Street.’ Van Dyk (c1765: 30–31): ‘Wat Weg zullen wy gaan. – Laaten wy de WaaterMoolen-Straat op gaan.’

To conclude, the wh-items in (137a) differ from those in (137b) in their ability to undergo phonological erosion and in their more general meaning. They correspond to monomorphemic wh-words in English, such as who, what, etc. The examples in (137b) do not undergo phonological erosion and they have more specific meanings. They show that the interrogative marker hu- can be used with almost any word which can be questioned. They correspond to English wh-phrases, such as what country, which book, etc. The origin of wh-words in creole languages has been a matter of much discussion, and Sranan makes no exception in this respect. Thus, Muysken and Smith (1990: 895) suggest that the system of Sranan wh-words can be regarded as highly transparent because the whwords can be analysed into a wh-marker and an element indicating what is questioned. They argue that since there are parallels to the substratum languages, and since the whsystems of some substratum languages, such as Fon, are also transparent, it is difficult to say whether the Sranan system developed under the influence of some universal factor, such as semantic transparency, or under substratum influence. Bruyn (1995a: 146) argues that both universal factors and substratum influence might have played a role in the emergence of Sranan wh-words. She suggests that one of the reasons to argue in favour of substratum influence is the loss of the English wh-words, which, despite their frequency and phonological salience, did not enter Sranan. Bruyn also remarks that it is unclear why the English wh-word which, once it entered Early Sranan, has not been retained as an independently occurring question word. She assumes that the existence of bimorphemic forms in the substratum languages of Sranan might have been a factor for the loss of the English monomorphemic wh-words and for the non-occurrence of hu as an independent wh-word. In order to assess the validity of such claims in general and the probability of substratum influence on the emergence of Early Sranan wh-words in particular, the true extent of the parallels between wh-words in Early Sranan and in the substratum languages should be established. Therefore, in (142) below, an overview of substratum correspondences for Early Sranan wh-words is provided. The Fon examples are taken from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 72–74),28 the Ewe examples from Schlegel (1856: 93) and Westermann (1905, 1906) and the Kikongo examples from Laman (1912: 139–141):

– 28

Note that for two Fon items in (142), gbO~n and wu!tu!, Muysken and Smith (1990: 890), following Segurola (1963) and Rassinoux (1974), provide translations different from the translations provided by Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002): ‘by’ and ‘body’ respectively.

239 (142)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e. f.

g.

h.

i.

Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Fon: Kikongo: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Fon: Kikongo: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Fon: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Ewe: Fon: Kikongo: Sranan: Fon:

hufasi ale-ke nE!-gbO~n a~lO~ tE! ndevo bwe va husanni heddi nu-ka ta (e!)-tE! (w)u!tu! mu nki the genitive of nki va huheddi tsie ta a~nI! (w)u!tu! (e!)-tE! (w)u!tu! mu nki the genitive of nki (na) hupeh (a)fi-ka fI! (tE!) kwe (na) hu-sei ga-ka husanni nu-ka nu! tE ! an~ I! (e!)-tE!/a~nI! nki husomma ame2-ka mE~ tE! nani hutem gbe-ka-gbe hwe~nu~ tE! nki antangu hudissi ∂e~-tE!

‘QM-manner’ ‘how’ ‘so/in such manner-DEM’ ‘what-to happen’ ‘manner-QM’ simplex simplex ‘for-what (QM-thing)-reason’ ‘why’ ‘what (thing-QM)-reason’ ‘that-QM-cause’ ‘inside-what’ ‘for-QM-reason’ ‘QM-reason’ ‘what-cause’ ‘that-QM-cause’ ‘inside-what’

‘why’

‘QM-place’ ‘place-QM’ ‘place-QM’ simplex ‘QM-side’ ‘side-QM’ ‘QM-thing’ ‘thing-QM’ ‘thing-QM’ simplex ‘that-QM’ simplex ‘QM-person’ ‘person-QM’ ‘person-QM’ simplex ‘QM-time’ ‘time-QM-time’ ‘time-QM’ ‘what-time’ ‘QM-DEM’ ‘one-QM’

‘where’

‘where’ ‘what’

‘who’

‘who/which’ ‘when’

‘which one’

As can be inferred from (142), in Kikongo, most wh-words are simplexes and thus bear no close similarities to the Early Sranan wh-words. By contrast, the Ewe and the Fon whsystems show both similarities and differences to the Early Sranan wh-system. Thus, the Early Sranan items for ‘when’, ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ have direct equivalents in either Fon, or Ewe, or both. Besides, both Early Sranan and Ewe have two similar items for rendering the concept ‘where’: by combining the question marker and the noun for ‘place’

240 and by combining the question marker and the noun for ‘side’. In addition, there is a very close similarity between the Sranan item for ‘why’ va husanni heddi (for-what (QM-thing)reason) and the Ewe nu-ka ta (what (thing-QM)-head): their structure is exactly the same in both languages, and both use the item meaning ‘head/reason’. The only difference between the two languages with respect to these items consists in the fact that the Sranan item is used with the preposition va ‘for’. Finally, the Fon interrogative marker tE! is not attested independently, but appears only in combination with other morphemes (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 72–74), similarly to the Early Sranan marker hu-. The Early Sranan wh-words can be regarded as semantically transparent and thus as less semantically marked. They are also less marked selectionally and formally: they do not require a restricted context and, with the exception of one item, va husanni heddi, consist of two elements only. The only item that is more marked formally is va husanni heddi, which consists of four elements. Since it has a one-to-one parallel in Ewe, it can be suggested that this item might have entered Early Sranan via semantic transfer. But in general, given the unmarkedness of the Early Sranan wh-words, claims about substratum transfer are less convincing. However, the boundness of the morpheme hu- can indeed be due to substratum influence, as suggested by Bruyn (1995a: 146–149), because there is otherwise no plausible reason why hu- should have become a bound morpheme in Early Sranan in such a short period of time. Under a substratum explanation, the reason might lie in the presence of a similarly bound interrogative marker in at least Fon which might have been relexified as hu- in Early Sranan. If hu- is indeed a relexification of a substratum morpheme, then possibly both lesser markedness and substratum influence are responsible for the emergence of the bimorphemic wh-words in Early Sranan. As to the discrepancies, one of them is that where Fon or Ewe have several items to express the same meaning, as e.g. in the case of the Fon ‘why’ or ‘what’, Early Sranan has one item only, and it is the less semantically marked one. Another discrepancy is that whereas Fon, for instance, has simplex or semi-transparent wh-items, such as a~nI! ‘what’ or nE!-gbO~n ‘how’, where the element nE! is a contraction of nu# tE! (thing-which) ‘what’, Early Sranan wh-forms are consistently bimorphemic and transparent. This all in all shows a tendency towards greater semantic unmarkedness and greater regularity of word-formation patterns in the creole. As a conclusion, it can be suggested that the emergence of the wh-system in Early Sranan cannot be attributed to one particular source: bimorphemic wh-words appear in several other creoles (Muysken and Smith 1990: 884), are less marked and are attested in the substratum languages Ewe and Fon. However, substratum influence is traceable at least in the properties of the wh-marker hu-. The superstratum English has provided only the phonological forms of the elements in wh-words.

7.7

Conclusion

In the present chapter, concatenative word-formation patterns attested in Early Sranan have been discussed. It has been shown that quite a number of patterns developed in Early Sranan during the first 200 years of its existence. The great variety of different word-

241 formation patterns in Early Sranan renders untenable any claims about the poverty and marginality of morphology in creoles. It has been argued that in many cases, the development of Early Sranan markers and patterns cannot be attributed to one particular source. Moreover, it has been shown that adaptation of complex words from English, borrowing from Dutch, transfer of patterns and items from the substratum languages and the creation of innovations are the major mechanisms which operated in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation. It has also been suggested that markedness is an important factor influencing the emergence of word-formation markers and patterns in Early Sranan. In general, the discussions throughout this chapter show that the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation was a rather complex process, in which different sources, mechanisms and factors played a role.

8

Reduplication patterns

8.1

Introduction

Reduplication is claimed to be a word-formation type common in the languages of the world (Bauer 2003: 31, Moravcsik 1978) and widely spread in creoles (Bakker and Parkvall 2005: 511, Holm 2000: 121, Huttar and Huttar 1997: 395). The present chapter deals with reduplication patterns in Early Sranan. Sections 8.1.1 and 8.1.2 will be devoted to methodological issues, in particular, to the definition of reduplication and to the discussion of the ways of establishing the sources of Early Sranan reduplication. The rest of the chapter deals with the analysis of the structural and semantic properties of reduplicated items in Early Sranan, as well as with the discussion of their sources.

8.1.1 Reduplication: a definition Reduplication has been defined in various ways (Katamba and Stonham 2006: 180–182), and therefore, in the present section, different definitions of the term ‘reduplication’ will be discussed in order to clarify how this notion will be treated in this study. Reduplication is generally defined as the process of copying an entire base or some part of a base to create a new word or a new word-form (Aronoff and Fudeman 2005: 77, Bauer 2003: 31). The copying usually serves the purpose of creating a specific semantic effect: it is argued to be frequently used to express such meanings as plurality, intensity and repetition (Bauer 2003: 32, Rubino 2005: 19–21). Reduplication has been regarded either as a kind of compounding (especially when the entire base is reduplicated) or as a type of affixation (especially when parts of a word which are repeated are added post- or prepositionally to the base) (Bauer 2003: 31). Since full reduplications make up the overwhelming majority of reduplication cases in Early Sranan and since no strict border is assumed between affixation and compounding in this work, this issue is largely irrelevant here. Therefore, in the present study, reduplication will be regarded as the process of full or partial copying a base with a specific semantic effect. Another aspect worth mentioning is the distinction between reduplication and iteration. As Huttar and Huttar (1997: 395) argue, reduplication is a repetition of all or part of the word resulting in a phonological word with a certain pitch and stress pattern. Iteration is usually regarded as a stylistic feature, “the mere repetition of a formative, a word or phrase, essentially for emphasis” (Jones 1990: 119), by which each word preserves its phonological characteristics (Huttar and Huttar 1997: 395–396). In the present study, a clear-cut distinction between reduplications and iterations is difficult to make mainly because the phonological aspects of reduplication in Early Sranan cannot be taken into consideration due to the lack of the necessary information on stress, tone and intonation in the sources. Therefore, all complex items created by means of full or partial copying of a base attested in the sources of Early Sranan are treated as cases of reduplication in the present study.

243 8.1.2 Defining the sources of Early Sranan reduplication As mentioned in section 2.3 above, there are three commonly discussed sources of wordformation in creoles: the input languages, universal development and language-internal development. All three sources have been discussed in creolist work on reduplication, with the probability and the extent of substratum influence being the issue of most debate (see different contributions in Kouwenberg (2003a)). For instance, Jones (1990: 121) notes that universals of language acquisition, universals of pidginisation and creolisation, as well as substratum influence may account for the origin of reduplicated constructions in creoles. Boretzky (1983: 83) argues that although many African languages make use of reduplication as a word-formation strategy, the inventory of reduplication patterns creoles use is not necessarily the copy of what can be encountered in the substratum languages. On a similar note, Bakker (2003b: 79) remarks that since many African languages use reduplication, it is impossible to make any firm conclusions about substratum influence in this sphere. In their discussion of reduplication in Caribbean creoles, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) show, using a methodology for assessing the credibility of substratum influence based on markedness, that there are reduplication patterns which are due to substratum transfer and patterns which might be cases of independent development. Given the variety of opinions, it makes sense to discuss the methodological aspects of establishing the sources of Early Sranan reduplication. The present section is devoted to this issue. In section 7.1.3 above, important methodological aspects of identifying the sources of Early Sranan word-formation patterns in general have been discussed and criteria for assessing the probability of substratum and superstratum influence, as well as criteria for identifying cases of universal development and of language-internal development have been established. Since reduplication is a word-formation process which bears resemblance to both affixation and compounding (see section 8.1.1), the same criteria will be used in the present chapter for identifying the sources of reduplication patterns in Early Sranan. These criteria will be repeated in this section for convenience. Since English does not make use of reduplication as a word-formation process in the strict sense, superstratum influence can be almost excluded as a source of Early Sranan reduplication. Hence, there is no necessity to present here the criteria for assessing the probability of superstratum influence. As to substratum influence, the methodology for assessing the credibility of claims about substratum influence on reduplication in creoles advanced by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) will be mainly used in this chapter. As already mentioned in section 7.1.3, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 303) argue that “a substrate explanation is much less credible for unmarked properties, because the possibility of independent development cannot be excluded”. Moreover, they remark that “this does not mean that an unmarked property may not be transferred; it simply means that it does not provide convincing evidence for transfer” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 303). To provide a clear basis for identifying unmarked and marked structures, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) establish criteria for measuring markedness of reduplication processes in creole languages along three dimensions: semantic, formal and distributional/selectional. Thus, semantic markedness is defined in terms of semantic transparency: “Where one member of a pair is less semantically transparent than the other, the less transparent member is considered more marked” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 292). For instance, nominalising reduplication, as the Jamaican Creole bon-bon (to burn-to burn) ‘burnt food crust’, is se-

244 mantically more marked because it does not correspond to the iconic principle “more of the same form represents more of the same content” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 290). Formal markedness is defined in terms of the relative amount of processing involved in relating the stem to the reduplicated form: “Where one member of a pair of reduplications requires more processing than the other to relate the stem to the reduplicated surface form, the former is considered more marked” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 297). Partial reduplication, such as the Modern Sranan ba-bari ‘tumult’ formed from the verb bari ‘to shout’ would then be more marked in terms of its form because it involves only a part of the base and thus requires more processing to relate the reduplicated item to its base (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 297, 302). Finally, the notion of selectional markedness is based on the potential of a given reduplication process to apply to different items: the greater the number of items, the less restricted and thus the less marked the process. Selectional markedness is formulated by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 299) as follows: “Where the structural description of one member of a pair includes a more narrowly defined environment than that of the other, the former is considered more marked”. Nominalising reduplication which creates instrumental nouns is more selectionally marked because it applies to a small number of bases (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 301). Using the just mentioned definitions of markedness, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 303) suggest that reduplication patterns which “show an accumulation of unmarked properties (full copying, iconic interpretations, no selectional restrictions, semantic transparency and predictability) provide the least convincing evidence for substrate transfer”, whereas reduplication patterns which “show marked properties – particularly an accumulation of marked properties” provide the more convincing evidence for substratum transfer. Thus, largely following the methodology developed in Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004), in the present study, reduplication patterns which are more marked in at least one aspect will be regarded as more credible candidates for substratum influence. To identify the cases of universal or language-internal development in Early Sranan reduplication, the following criteria – already discussed in section 7.1.3 – will be used. The only modification with respect to reduplication is that the data on reduplication in unrelated creoles can be used for assessing cases of universal development because studies on creole reduplication are numerous. Thus, reduplication patterns absent from the substrates but cross-linguistically common and/or attested in unrelated creoles will be regarded as cases of universal development. To judge the cross-linguistic occurrence of reduplication patterns, the overviews in Moravcsik (1978), Parkvall (2003) and Rubino (2005) will be used. Reduplication patterns which are cross-linguistically uncommon, absent from all input languages and from other creoles will be regarded as instances of language-internal development.

8.2

Nominalising reduplication

A number of Early Sranan nouns are produced by reduplication from verbal bases. Two nouns are reduplications of items which are attested as adjectives. (1) is the exhaustive list of such nouns attested in the three sources:

245 (1)

a. b.

c.

d.

e.

‘flogging’ ‘noise’ ‘rash’ ‘something cut into small pieces’ sakkasakka ‘remnants’ tai-tái ‘bundle’ takkitakki ‘prattle’ jam jam ‘food/dinner’ kossikossi ‘swearwords’ moi-mói ‘beauty/jewellery’ kamkamm ‘comb’ krabbokrabbo ‘rake’ nainai ‘needle’ tjarritjarri ‘ring for carrying baskets’ ty ty ‘string/rope’ waiwai ‘fan’ sibisibi ‘broom’ djompo djompo ‘grasshopper’ groen-gróen ‘moss’

fom fom balibali krassikrassi kottikotti

fom bali krassi kotti

‘to beat’ ‘to shout’ ‘to itch’ ‘to cut’

VD VD Sch Sch

sakka tai takki jam kossi moi kamm krabbo nai tjarri

‘to lower/to drop’ ‘to tie’ ‘to talk’ ‘to eat’ ‘to curse’ ‘(to be) beautiful’ ‘to comb’ ‘to scratch’ ‘to sew’ ‘to carry’

Sch Fo Sch VD Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch Sch

t(e)y wai sibi djompo groen

‘to tie (up)’ ‘to blow/to wave’ ‘to dry/to wipe’ ‘to jump’ ‘green’

VD Sch Sch Sch Fo

Almost all reduplicated items in (1) are built according to the same structural pattern: [RED-V]N, but they differ considerably in their semantic properties. The noun in (1a) denotes an act or a process, the nouns in (1b) denote results or causes of the actions expressed by the respective base verbs, those in (1c) are nouns expressing abstract notions. The items in (1d) name instruments with which actions denoted by the base verbs can be carried out, and finally, the two items in (1e) are metaphoric creations denoting an animal and a plant. Several of the constructs in (1), such as tjarritjarri ‘ring for carrying baskets’ or groengróen ‘moss’, are semi-transparent in that the relation between the derived, reduplicated form and the simple verb form is not straightforward. Despite the differences in semantics, it can be stated that the general effect of the reduplication in (1) is to create nouns from primarily verbal bases. Hence, this type of reduplication can be regarded as nominalising reduplication. Almost all forms in (1) are full reduplications. The example sibisibi meaning ‘broom’ is attested in the partial form sisibi in Schumann (1783: 155) and Focke (1855: 116). Focke remarks that sisíbi is the contracted form of sibi-síbi. This means that the form sisíbi is not a partial reduplication, but a shortening of the original form, possibly caused by frequent use. All semantic patterns exemplified in (1) seem to be unproductive in Early Sranan. Although Schumann contains more deverbal reduplicated nouns than Van Dyk, where only 5 of such nouns are attested, this cannot be taken as an indication of the productivity of this pattern, since Schumann in general contains more types of complex words. In Focke, which is the latest source of Early Sranan used for the present investigation, only two new reduplications of this type are attested in comparison to Schumann. Actions and results are more commonly expressed in Early Sranan by nouns in V/N multifunctional sets, as e.g. platì ‘to

246 separate/separation’, preki ‘to preach/sermon’, sheki ‘to shake/shaking’. Multifunctional sets containing instrumental nouns are, by contrast, less common: sa ‘to saw/saw’. This might be explained by the fact that possibly speakers generally tend to talk about actions and results of actions more often than they talk about instruments. As to the sources of Early Sranan nominalising reduplication, it is not quite clear how wide-spread nominalising reduplication, also referred to as ‘deverbal’ reduplication (e.g. by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004)), is among the languages of the world. Thus, according to Parkvall (2003: 26), verb reduplication resulting in nouns seems to be “more common globally” than, for instance, reduplication of verbs resulting in adjectives, and it is attested in other languages of the world, such as Asian languages. In contrast, Rubino (2005: 19–22) does not provide any examples of nominalising deverbal reduplication creating result, abstract and instrumental nouns in his cross-linguistic survey of the functions of reduplication. Nor is it mentioned by Moravcsik (1978) in her overview of the frequently occurring meanings of reduplicated constructions. Hence, it seems that nominalising reduplication is less common cross-linguistically. Instances of nominalising reduplication are attested in other creole languages, such as Berbice Dutch (two instances of instrumental nouns, Kouwenberg (2003b: 261)), Jamaican (result, abstract and instrumental nouns, Kouwenberg, LaCharité and Gooden (2003: 108)), Krio (result and abstract nouns, Nylander (2003: 133)), Papiamentu (result and abstract nouns, Dijkhoff (1993: 95)) and Saramaccan (instrumental nouns, Bakker (2003b: 73)), most of which are, however, related to Sranan. All in all, nominalising reduplication does not seem to be wide-spread in the Atlantic creoles, for instance, it is not attested in the French-based creoles and in Negerhollands, and in languages, in which it is attested, the number of items is rather small (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 292). Moreover, it is not mentioned in the overviews of reduplication provided for such unrelated creoles as Mauritian Creole (Baker 2003) or Indo-Portuguese Creoles (Clements 2003b). It is also remarkable that similarly to Early Sranan, the instrumental pattern in Saramaccan and the result and instrumental patterns in Jamaican are unproductive (Bakker (2003b: 73) for Saramaccan, Kouwenberg, LaCharité and Gooden (2003: 108) for Jamaican). One might assume in this connection that non-productive nominalising reduplication in these creoles might have been productive diachronically and became unproductive with time. However, since the data used in this study come from the early stages of creolisation, and since they show that there were rather few formations of this type, it can be concluded that nominalising reduplication was unproductive from the very beginning in Early Sranan. This confirms Parkvall’s (2003: 26) idea that idiosyncratic reduplication attested in some languages was not necessarily productive during some time in their history. As to the input languages of Early Sranan, reduplications of verbs to express nominal concepts are not a feature of English word-formation. However, they are common in West African languages, such as Ewe, Fon, Yoruba, Wolof and Kikongo (Parkvall 2003: 26). In Fon, reduplication is used to create nouns denoting actions and results of the actions denoted by the verb (Lefebvre 1998: 319, Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 196, 207–215). In Ewe, nouns created by full and partial reduplication of verbs and denoting results and actions are wide-spread (Ansre 1963: 129, Schlegel 1856: 22–23). Kikongo verbs can be reduplicated to create nouns with abstract meanings (Laman 1912: 243). The data from the substratum languages are presented in (2). The Fon data are from Lefebvre (1998: 319), the Ewe data from Schlegel (1856: 22), the Kikongo from Laman (1912: 243).

247 (2)

a.

b.

c.

babla dedie gbo2gblo2 Xe)Xle) ∂I~∂e~ gbI~gba! wI~wla!n dingi-dingi tengo-tengo

‘bundle’ ‘tiredness’ ‘talk/gossip’ ‘reading’ ‘sketch’ ‘construction’ ‘writing’ ‘stillness’ ‘confusion’

bla de gblo2 Xle) ∂e~ gba! wlan! dingama tenguka

tolo-tolo

‘brittleness’

toluka

‘to tie’ ‘to go’ ‘to talk/to say’ ‘to read’ ‘to draw’ ‘to construct’ ‘to write’ ‘to be still’ ‘to be or become scattered about, in confusion’ ‘to be broken/to break off’

Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Fon Fon Fon Ki Ki Ki

The examples in (2) show that there are formal differences between nominalising reduplication in the Gbe languages, where it is usually partial, and in Early Sranan, where it is almost always full. Moreover, in the Gbe languages, nominalising reduplication often takes monosyllabic bases as input, whereas in Early Sranan, both monosyllabic and bisyllabic bases can be used as input. Despite the differences, some semantic parallels between Early Sranan and its substratum languages can be established. In general, it becomes clear that several semantic types of nominalising reduplication, namely those expressing processes, results and abstract notions, are attested both in the substratum languages and in Early Sranan. Other types, namely reduplication resulting in the creation of instrumental nouns, do not have credible parallels in the major substratum languages: most Early Sranan instrumental nouns from (1) are rendered by non-reduplicated forms in Ewe (Schlegel 1856), Fon (Rassinoux 1987), Kikongo (Bentley 1887) and Twi (Akrofi and Botchey 1980). Nominalising reduplication in Early Sranan can be regarded as marked semantically because it is non-iconic and thus less transparent: as Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 294) argue, it does not express an increase in meaning and is thus semantically unpredictable. Moreover, nominalising instrumental reduplication is also marked selectionally in Early Sranan: it applies only to a small number of verbs denoting activities involving an instrument of some type. Hence, it can be suggested that at least reduplication deriving result and abstract nouns might have entered Early Sranan via substratum transfer. The fact that nominalising reduplication creating process, result and abstract nouns is attested in both the Gbe languages and in Kikongo might have facilitated this process. Note, however, that nominalising reduplication expressing process, result and abstract nouns did not become a productive and common way of creating nouns in Early Sranan, in contrast to the substratum languages, where it is productive. A more common way of creating such nouns in Early Sranan is via multifunctionality. Why is this the case? It can be assumed that in comparison to multifunctionality, reduplication is a strategy more marked formally and thus less preferable, given an alternative. As to instrumental reduplication, its source remains less clear. Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 310–312) show, on the basis of an investigation of several Niger-Congo languages, that although instrumental reduplication is not attested in the Gbe and the Bantu languages, it is attested in Igbo, a language belonging to the non-Bantoid subgroup of Benue-Congo languages. Although Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 322) conclude that there is no straightforward archival evidence about the presence of Igbo speakers in Suriname, it has been shown by Parkvall (2000a: 126) that there were slave transports from the

248 Biafra region in 1650s–1670s, where the speakers of Igbo could have come from (see section 3.4.2 above). According to Parkvall’s estimation, the number of these transports might have made up five to nine percent of the overall slave imports. Parkvall (2000a: 150–151) also argues that there are linguistic traces of the Delto-Benuic languages in the Surinamese creoles. Given this fact, it can be assumed that the presence of instrumental reduplication might indeed be due to Igbo influence. Two further arguments can be used to support this assumption. First, no new reduplicated items denoting instruments are attested later than Schumann (1783), which means that such items must have entered Early Sranan at an early stage, when Igbo speakers were present in Suriname. Second, the rather small number of such items might be due to the relatively small number of Igbo speakers and to their shorter presence in Suriname. To conclude, several semantic types of nominalising reduplication are attested in Early Sranan. Whereas reduplication resulting in the creation of process, result and abstract nouns is rather likely to be a substratum-induced feature, the substratum origin of instrumental reduplication is somewhat less convincing.

8.3

Stative reduplication

There is no special affix to create adjectives in Early Sranan. Indeed, most adjectives appear as members of multifunctional sets (see section 6.3). However, a few are also created through reduplication: (3)

brokko-broko bron-brón kottikotti loesoe-lóesoe priti-príti proi proi sa-sâ sakkasakka tifi-tífi

‘broken’ ‘burnt/very burnt’ ‘cut into small pieces’ ‘loosely’ ‘torn/split’ ‘full of wrinkles/ wrinkled’ ‘sharp/sawing’ ‘light’ ‘toothed’

brokko bron kotti lóesoe príti proi

‘to break’ ‘to burn’ ‘to cut’ ‘to let loose/to release’ ‘to tear/to split’ ‘to be wrinkled/wrinkle’

Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo Sch

sâ sakka tífi

‘to saw’ Fo ‘to decrease/to lose weight’ Sch ‘tooth’ Fo

All reduplicated items in (3) are transparent formations and express resultative states associated with the activity denoted by the verb or the noun from which they originate: brokkobroko expresses the state of being broken, tifi-tífi the state of being toothed and so on. In the case of kottikotti ‘cut into small pieces’, a diminutive meaning is added to the stative meaning, and the items bron-brón and proi proi have two meanings: one purely stative and another one where an intensifying meaning is added to the stative meaning. On the basis of its semantic meaning, the type of reduplication exemplified in (3) will thus be referred to as ‘stative’ here. Note that stative reduplication is also referred to as ‘attribute’ reduplication

249 in, for instance, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004) because it can be regarded as attributing some kind of state. In terms of their form, all reduplicated items in (3) are cases of full reduplication of verbs primarily. One example, tifi-tífi ‘toothed’, is built from a noun. In one case, proi proi ‘wrinkled/full of wrinkles’, it is difficult to establish the lexical category of the base since the item proi ‘to be wrinkled/wrinkle’ is multifunctional: it can be a noun and a verb, and the meaning of the respective reduplicated adjective allows two interpretations. Most of the reduplicated items in (3) are attested as prenominal modifiers, one of them, proi proi, ‘wrinkled’ is attested as a verbal modifier. The examples in (4) demonstrate these two functions: (4)

a.

Fa Joe kan tjári so bron-brón baäna gi mi? manner (QW) 2SG can carry such burn-burn banana give me ‘How can you bring me such burnt bananas?’ Focke (1855: 19): ‘Hoe durft gij mij zulke verbrande banannen brengen?’

b.

hem fesi kom proi proi his face come be wrinkled-be wrinkled ‘His face is wrinkled/full of wrinkles.’ Schumann (1783: 142): ‘Sein Gesicht ist voller Runzeln.’

It is difficult to make any reliable judgements on how productive stative reduplication might have been in Early Sranan: only nine adjectives of the type in question are attested in all three sources. Note that in Modern Sranan, stative reduplication is, according to Adamson and Smith (2003: 90), productive. In Early Sranan, most attributive adjectives are unreduplicated items which are members of A/V, A/V/N or A/V/Adv multifunctional sets. It can be assumed therefore that the strategy to use multifunctional items in attributive position was more dominant than creating adjectives via reduplication. Remarkably, Migge (2003b: 65) shows that the same is true for the modern Surinamese creoles, such as Eastern Maroon Creole, Modern Sranan and Modern Saramaccan, in which usually unreduplicated items are used in attributive functions. Why might this be the case? This leads us to the question of the emergence of stative reduplication in Early Sranan. Parkvall (2003: 26) notes that stative reduplication seems to be less common in older languages than other types of reduplication. As to other creoles, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 292) point out that stative reduplication is productive in the Surinamese creoles only (cf. Migge 2003b) and, with the exception of Jamaican (where it is not productive), is not attested in other Caribbean creoles. As to non-Caribbean creoles, it is not listed among the reduplication patterns provided, for instance, for Mauritian Creole by Baker (2003), or for Indo-Portuguese Creoles by Clements (2003b) or for Tok Pisin by Mühlhäusler (1979). In the substratum languages of Early Sranan, stative reduplication is common. Parkvall (2003: 26) notes that the formation of adjectives from verbs through reduplication is attested both in the Kwa languages, such as Twi, Kposso, Ewe and Fon, and in the Benuic languages, such as Bekwarra, Obolo and Yoruba. As to Kikongo, no instances of stative reduplication could be found in the sources. In (5), several examples of stative reduplication in Ewe (Ansre 1963: 130, Schlegel 1856: 21–22, Westermann 1907: 67, 127) and Fon (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 203–206) are presented for illustration:

250 (5)

a.

b.

beble d¢ud¢u# ko!2ko!2 wo2wo2# ts*o2ts*ro2 gbI~gba~ wI~wo!lO!n

‘betrayed’ ‘edible’ ‘high’ ‘done’ ‘spoiled/ruined’ ‘broken’ ‘crumpled’

ble d¢u ko!2 wo2 ts*ro2 gba~ wol! O!n

‘to betray’ ‘to eat’ ‘to be high’ ‘to do’ ‘to spoil’ ‘to break’ ‘to crumple’

Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Ewe Fon Fon

Migge (2003b) shows in her comparative account of stative reduplication in the Surinamese creoles and in the Gbe varieties that there are similarities and differences between the two. She argues that in both the Surinamese creoles and in Gbe, stative reduplicated items are, first, productively formed from verbs denoting an activity resulting in a “visible or ascertainable state” or from verbs denoting human propensity, and second, can be used in predicative and attributive positions. However, Migge (2003b: 65) also points out that whereas attributive reduplicated adjectives in the Gbe varieties can refer to resultative, unusual and inherent states, in Eastern Maroon Creole and Modern Sranan, they have the resultative meaning only. As shown earlier in this section, in Early Sranan, attributive reduplicated adjectives also express resultative states only. Besides, as Migge (2003b: 65) shows, in contrast to Gbe, where monosyllabic verbs must always be reduplicated when occupying the attributive position, Eastern Maroon Creole and Modern Sranan usually make use of unreduplicated forms in the prenominal position. For instance, the phrase ‘an old boat’ is rendered in Eastern Maroon Creole by wan gaandi boto ‘one old boat’, and not by *wan gaandi-gaandi boto (Migge 2003b: 65). One further difference which can be pointed out in addition to the differences discussed by Migge (2003b) is that in the Gbe languages, stative reduplication is partial whereas in Early Sranan, it is full. To sum up, there are close semantic and distributional correspondences between stative reduplication in Early Sranan and in Gbe. Stative reduplication can be considered semantically marked in Early Sranan since it does not follow the iconic principle “more of the same form represents more of the same content” (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 290). As Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2003: 11) argue, reduplicated adjectives expressing resultative processes trigger a change from event to attribute, and this change cannot be inferred straightforwardly from the semantic properties of the identical morphemes. Given the markedness of stative reduplication in Early Sranan, it can thus be suggested that it has developed under substratum influence. The question which remains to be clarified then is how the difference between Early Sranan and the substratum languages in terms of the form of adjectives in the prenominal position (always reduplicated in the substratum and usually unreduplicated in Early Sranan) can be explained. Migge (2003b: 69) attributes this difference to reanalysis and levelling and suggests that in the predecessor of the modern Surinamese creoles, “Early Suriname Plantation Creole”, both reduplicated and unreduplicated attributive adjectives might have been used because of the diverging evidence in the source languages: whereas in Kikongo and English, attributive reduplicated adjectives do not seem to have been used, in the Gbe varieties, they were used. The modern creoles then preserved both ways of producing prenominal modifiers: via reduplication and via multifunctionality in order to differentiate between different functions (resultative vs. unusual/inherent states). Notably, a similar

251 suggestion is made by Lefebvre (1998: 325–326) for Haitian, where conversion, and not reduplication, is exclusively used for the derivation of attributive adjectives from verbs. Migge’s suggestion that reanalysis and levelling might be responsible for the use of both forms of prenominal modifiers, reduplicated and unreduplicated, is not unreasonable. However, it leaves two questions open. First, it does not explain why, although both strategies were possible, the non-reduplication strategy was the preferred one for attributive adjectives in the Early Sranan data and in Eastern Maroon Creole, Modern Sranan and Modern Saramaccan. Second, it is unclear why the unchanged root, and not some affix, became the alternative to adjectival reduplication. It can be pointed out that the greater formal markedness of reduplication in comparison to the less marked form of multifunctional items (only one simplex root) might explain why multifunctionality is the preferred strategy for creating stative adjectives from verbs.

8.4

Approximative reduplication

There are three instances of reduplicated items in Early Sranan whose meaning resembles the meaning of the English derivatives built by means of the suffix -ish: (6)

jóngoe-jongoe redi-rédi siki-síki

‘youngish’ ‘reddish’ ‘sickly’

jóngoe rédi siki

‘young’ ‘red/to be red’ ‘sick/to be sick’

Fo Fo Fo

The reduplicated items in (6) denote properties which closely resemble the properties denoted by the bases, but are not exactly the same in degree: ‘youngish’, for instance, means ‘fairly young’ and ‘reddish’ means ‘fairly red’. The item siki-síki, however, is ambiguous: it can be interpreted either as ‘fairly sick’ or as ‘often sick’. But since the meaning of ‘sickly’ can probably be best described as ‘a state intermediate between being in good health and being sick’, it seems to be more approximative than repetitive. Reduplication of the type illustrated in (6) has been referred to by a number of terms, such as ‘approximative’ (Migge 2003b: 65), ‘attenuating’ (Moravcsik 1978: 323, Parkvall 2003: 24) and ‘X-like’ reduplication (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 295). Of the three terms, the term ‘approximative’ renders best the meaning of the reduplication in the examples in (6) because its primary effect is not to express lesser degree, as is the case with typical attenuating instances such as the Mandarin paopao ‘to run a little’ (< pao ‘run’) (example from Moravcsik (1978: 323)). Nor is it to show similarity, as in the Saramaccan example baafu-baafu ‘soup-like’ (< baafu ‘soup’) (example from Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 295)). Although properties expressed by the items in (6) bear a similarity to the properties denoted by their bases, similarity is not the core effect of the reduplication in (6). Rather, it is the fact that a property approximately resembles the property denoted by the base. Therefore, the term ‘approximative’ will be used in the present study to refer to the type of reduplication illustrated in (6).

252 As becomes clear in (6), only adjectives or multifunctional items which are attested as adjectives and stative verbs serve as the basis of approximative reduplication: jóngoe is attested as an adjective only, whereas rédi and siki are attested as an adjective and a verb each (Focke 1855: 51, 109, 117). Semantically, the bases of the reduplicated items in (6) denote gradable properties (cf. Migge (2003b: 66) for Eastern Maroon Creole and Modern Sranan). As to their distribution, the items in (6) are attested in attributive and in predicative positions, as shown in (7): (7)

a.

wan jóngoe-jongoe sóema INDEF young-young person ‘a youngish person’ Focke (1855: 51): ‘een jeugdig mensch’

b.

a de siki-síki dóro 3SG CNT sick-sick through/constantly ‘He is constantly sickly.’ Focke (1855: 117): ‘Hij (zij) sukkelt gestadig.’

Approximative items are attested in Focke (1855) only, which might suggest that approximative reduplication is a case of later development in Early Sranan. Notably, in Modern Sranan, approximative reduplication is productive (Adamson and Smith 2003: 89, Migge 2003b: 65), and in contrast to Early Sranan, it takes as input not only bases denoting properties but also bases denoting activities, such as lon ‘run’. Approximative reduplication seems to be not uncommon cross-linguistically. Thus, Moravcsik (1978: 323) provides examples with the meaning ‘fairly X’ from Swahili and Thai, and Rubino (2005: 20) from Lampung, an Austronesian language. Moreover, approximative reduplication is attested in a number of creole languages, both related and unrelated to Early Sranan, such as, for instance, Guyanese (Devonish 2003: 52, 54), Haitian (Parkvall 2003: 24), Jamaican (Kouwenberg, LaCharité and Gooden 2003: 107), Mauritian Creole (Baker 2003: 214) and Saramaccan (Bakker 2003b: 76). At first sight, approximative reduplication can be regarded as semantically marked because it does not follow the iconic principle: it shows approximation, and not an increase in content. However, Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2005: 535) suggest, contrary to their earlier observations about the marked character of this type of reduplication (Kouwenberg and LaCharité 2004: 290), that cases such as the Jamaican yala-yala ‘yellowish’ instantiate the iconic principle. They argue that items such as yala-yala have two meanings in Jamaican, one distributive, ‘yellow-spotted’, and one what they call attenuating, ‘yellowish’. The distributive meaning is iconic since it shows a scattered distribution of many occurrences over a fixed space. The attenuating reduplication is, according to Kouwenberg and LaCharité, at its core distributive and thus iconic, because in it, the scattered distribution of a property is extended to another interpretation, of down-toning the colour. Although this kind of argumentation is plausible for items denoting colours, it seems to be problematic for some other items, e.g. items denoting age, such as the Early Sranan jóngoe-jongoe, for which a distributive reading is difficult to think of. Another problem with this argumentation is that, unlike the Jamaican yala-yala, the Early Sranan items in (6) have no distributive, but only the approximative meaning. Furthermore, even given Kouwenberg and LaCharité’s argu-

253 mentation, approximative reduplication seems to be less iconic than intensifying or distributive reduplication in which iconicity is established directly and is not mediated through another reduplication type. The less iconic character of approximative reduplication makes claims about substratum influence more credible. Remarkably, instances of close similarity to Early Sranan approximative reduplication have not been found in the sources of the Gbe languages, of Kikongo and of Twi used in the present study. Migge (2003b: 69), Parkvall (2003: 25) and Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 323) come up with the same result in their search for substratum parallels for approximative reduplication. Migge, for instance, suggests that approximative reduplication in Eastern Maroon Creole emerged via reanalysis of a strategy for expressing the progressive aspect which in its turn developed under the influence of the Gbe varieties. But in such an explanation, a link between a progressive meaning and an approximative meaning does not seem to be straightforward: the progressive aspect does not necessarily indicate that a property expressed by the base is available not to the same degree, it rather refers to a temporal structure of an action as viewed by a speaker. Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2004: 316–317) show a few examples allowing, in their opinion, X-like interpretation (they refer to instances of approximative reduplication as ‘Xlike’), such as, for instance, the Twi abo-abo! (stone-stone) ‘stony’ or nsoe-nsoe! (thornsthorns) ‘thorny’, and the Kikongo nso!ngi-nso!ngi (point-point) ‘pointed’ or nkoyi-nkoyi (leopard-leopard) ‘speckled’. The meaning of reduplication in the Twi and the Kikongo examples, however, is distributive-pluralising: the general meaning of ‘stony’ and ‘thorny’ can be described as ‘having a lot of Xs’, and that of ‘pointed’ or ‘speckled’ as ‘covered with (many) Xs’. Such examples do not express the meaning ‘fairly X’ and thus differ from the approximative reduplication in Early Sranan. Even on the assumption that approximative and distributive interpretations are essentially related, as suggested by Kouwenberg and LaCharité (2005: 535), no strong case for substratum influence can be made since the Early Sranan examples have approximative meanings only, and the Twi items distributive meanings only. Moreover, there are structural differences, too: the Twi and the Kikongo reduplication takes nouns as input, and not adjectives/stative verbs. All in all, Twi or Kikongo influence on approximative reduplication in Early Sranan seems to be unlikely. To sum up, since convincing substratum parallels are lacking, substratum influence cannot be credibly claimed to be responsible for the emergence of approximative reduplication in Early Sranan. Given the fact that approximative reduplication is attested in a number of creole and non-creole languages, it can be suggested that its emergence in Early Sranan might be a case of universal development.

8.5

Intensifying reduplication

Quite a number of items attested in all three sources used in the present study can be regarded as instances of intensifying reduplication, which seems to be rather productive in Early Sranan. They are exemplified in (8):

254 (8)

a.

b.

bígi-bigi bunbun dótti dotti faijafaija hessi hessi krien krien krinkrin moimoi nju-nju peni-péni platta-plátta retireti sósosò/sósososò tákroe-tákroe trutru kwéti-kweti lukku lukku no no shekisheki srefisrefi tanki tanki

‘very big’ ‘very good’ ‘very dirty’ ‘very hot’ ‘very fast’ ‘very closely’ ‘very clear/very clean’ ‘very beautiful’ ‘very new/very young’ ‘motley’ ‘completely flat’ ‘very orderly’ ‘very useless/ absolutely in vain’ ‘dreary/nasty’ ‘very true’ ‘absolutely’ ‘oh, look!’ ‘not at all’ ‘to shake strongly’ ‘oneself/personally’ ‘thanks a lot/please’

bígi bun dótti faija hessi krien krin moi nju péni plátta reti soso

‘big’ ‘good’ ‘dirty’ ‘hot’ ‘fast’ ‘clean’ ‘clean/clear’ ‘beautiful’ ‘new/young’ ‘many-coloured’ ‘flat’ ‘orderly’ ‘useless’

Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch VD Sch Sch Sch Fo Fo Sch Sch

tákroe tru kweti lukku no sheki srefi tanki

‘evil/bad’ ‘true’ ‘exact/true/very’ ‘to see’ ‘no/not’ ‘to shake’ ‘self/own’ ‘thanks/please/ to thank’

Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch Sch VD

The reduplicated items in (8) denote either an intensified degree of the quality, action or manner expressed by the corresponding bases, as in, for instance, bígi-bigi ‘very big’, or emphasis, as in, for instance, lukku lukku ‘oh, look!’. Three special cases are worth mentioning here. The item krien krien ‘very closely’ has a meaning not directly inferable from the meaning of its base: the base krien means ‘clean’. In the case of the construct srefisrefi ‘oneself/personally’ the translation does not seem to render the intensifying meaning at first sight, if compared to the base form srefi ‘self/own’. But this item can be regarded as an instance of intensifying reduplication because of Schumann’s (1783: 166) remark that the item srefisrefi expresses “repeated emphasis”. Finally, the item tanki tanki, additionally to the intensified meaning ‘thanks a lot’, has the non-intensifying meaning ‘please’, which is one of the meanings of its unreduplicated base tanki. Formally, all items in (8) are cases of full reduplication. One item, sósososò ‘very useless’, has the formal variant sósosò which might be a case of shortening rather than partial reduplication since partial reduplication is rather uncommon in Early Sranan. Almost all bases of the reduplicated items in (8a) are members of the A/V/(N/Adv) multifunctional sets. Since the majority of the reduplications in (8a) are attested as modifiers of nouns or verbs, it can be assumed that either adjectives or adverbs serve as their bases. Therefore, mostly adjectival translations of the bases have been provided in (8a). The bases in (8a) usually denote gradable properties. Verbs and words of word-classes other than adjectives can also serve as bases for intensifying reduplication, as in (8b), but this type of intensifying reduplication is much less common in Early Sranan.

255 In terms of their distribution, the reduplicated items in (8a) can modify nouns, as in (9a), or verbs, as in (9b): (9)

a.

Fa joe wéri so wan dótti dotti pângi so? manner (QW) 2SG wear such INDEF dirty-dirty dress so ‘Why do you wear such a dirty dress?’ Focke (1855: 26): ‘Hoe hebt gij zulk een vuil paantje aan?’

b.

a ben du datti faijafaija 3SG PST do that hot-hot ‘He did this in a very hot-headed manner.’ Schumann (1783: 39): ‘Er ist sehr hitzig.’

Intensifying reduplication, also referred to as ‘augmentative’, is one of the most common types of reduplication attested cross-linguistically (Bauer 2003: 32, Moravcsik 1978: 317), and it is attested in a great number of creoles around the world (Parkvall 2003: 19–20). Intensifying reduplication of adjectives and adverbs is more common than intensifying reduplication of verbs (Parkvall 2003: 19). However, besides being common cross-linguistically, intensifying reduplication is attested in many West African languages including the substratum languages of Early Sranan, such as Ewe, Kikongo and Twi. Thus, in Ewe and Twi, adjectives can be reduplicated to express a high intensity of a quality (Christaller 1875: 48, Westermann 1943: 12), as in (10):1 (10)

pE!pEEpE ta!taata de2~de2!de2de2

‘absolutely exact(ly)’ ‘absolutely white’ ‘exceedingly sweet’

Ewe Ewe Twi

In Kikongo, both adjectives and verbs can be reduplicated to achieve an intensifying effect. Reduplicated adjectives can express an intensified quality, as shown in (11a) (examples from Laman (1912: 106)). Moreover, adjectival bases can be copied more than once to achieve an even stronger intensifying effect, as in (11b). Verbs can be reduplicated to show either that an action is carried out as quickly as possible or that it is carried out as carefully as possible, as in (11c) (from Laman (1912: 178)). (11) a.

b. c.

ngulu anene nene muntu andanda nkombo ambote mbote mbimbimbi ndandanda tunga-tunga lamba-lamba keba-keba

‘a very large pig’ ‘a very tall person’ ‘a very good goat’ ‘thoroughly wicked’ ‘extremely long’ ‘to build fast’ ‘to cook quickly’ ‘to keep very carefully’

anene anda ambote mbi anda tunga lamba keba

‘large’ ‘long/tall’ ‘good’ ‘bad/wicked’ ‘long/tall’ ‘to build’ ‘to cook’ ‘to keep’

– 1

Both Christaller (1875) and Westermann (1943) provide no bases for the reduplicated items in (10).

256 Since all three substratum languages make use of intensifying reduplication of items denoting properties, it can thus be concluded that the substratum languages exhibit homogeneity with respect to intensifying reduplication. To sum up, intensifying reduplication of gradable adjectives is attested in both the substratum languages and in Early Sranan. Moreover, in both the substratum languages and in Early Sranan reduplicated intensifying adjectives are often used as nominal modifiers. As to the intensifying reduplication of verbs, the sources of Ewe and Twi provide no information about this type of reduplication. The intensifying reduplication of verbs which denotes quick actions attested in Kikongo has no parallels in Early Sranan, where reduplication of verbs with an intensifying effect seems in general to be more marginal in comparison to intensifying reduplication of adjectives. Furthermore, multiple reduplication of adjectives with an intensifying effect, as in the Kikongo data in (11b), is not attested in Early Sranan. Intensifying reduplication is probably the most iconic type of reduplication since it straightforwardly follows the principle ‘more of the same form stands for more of the same content’. Intensifying reduplication in Early Sranan produces semantically transparent items in most cases. The only case where the meaning relation between the base and the reduplicated item is less straightforward is krien krien ‘very closely’ (< krien ‘clean’). Hence, intensifying reduplication in Early Sranan can in general be considered semantically unmarked. Moreover, it is also unmarked formally since it involves full copying. Selectionally, it can also be regarded unmarked: as the examples in (8a) show, it can take almost any adjective or adverb as input. And although there are very few instances of words of other classes being reduplicated with an intensifying effect, this does not seem to be due to some restriction, but can rather be explained by the fact that speakers tend to talk about intensified properties more frequently than about intensified actions or objects. Thus, intensifying reduplication is unmarked in all three respects in Early Sranan. Therefore, despite the parallels to the substratum languages, no strong claim for substratum transfer can be made in the case of intensifying reduplication. Note, however, that substratum influence is credible for such individual items as krien krien ‘very closely’, which are less transparent. Unfortunately, substratum parallels for individual items with an intensifying meaning are difficult to search for in the old sources since such items are usually attributes of discourse and are normally not listed as entries in dictionaries. In conclusion, intensifying reduplication is a rather common type of reduplication attested in Early Sranan. Since it is very frequent cross-linguistically and is attested in three substratum languages, its emergence in Early Sranan cannot be attributed to a particular source.

8.6

Iterative reduplication

A small number of reduplicated verbs attested in the early sources denote continuous, lengthy actions, as in (12a), or repeated actions, as in (12b) and (12c). They can therefore be regarded as instances of iterative reduplication. Such verbs are attested in Focke (1855) and Schumann (1783) only.

257 (12) a. b.

wakki-wákki píengi-píengi seki-séki

c.

shekisheki wakkawakka

‘to watch for a long time’ ‘to pinch continuously’ ‘to shake repeatedly, again and again’ ‘to sway back and forth’ ‘to go to and fro’

wákki píen$gi séki

‘to watch’ ‘to pinch’ ‘to shake’

Fo Fo Fo

sheki wakka

‘to shake’ Sch ‘to walk/to go’ Sch

In the examples in (12a) and (12b) the temporal aspect, i.e. the length or the repetition of an action in time, is crucial, as illustrated in (13a) and (13b). In the examples in (12c), the spatial rather than the temporal aspect is crucial since the actions denoted by the verbs show a repeated movement in space from one point to another, as illustrated in (13c): (13) a.

A wakki-wákki so tê, – di a no si no wan soema, 3SG watch-watch so till then 3SG NEG see NEG INDEF person, a lon go we. 3SG run go away ‘He was watching secretly for a long time, when he saw nobody, he ran away.’ Focke (1855: 146): ‘Hij heeft lang liggen loeren, toen hij niemand zag, is hij weggeloopen.’

b.

Mófo seki-séki, ódo komópo. mouth move-move, proverb come-out ‘When the mouth moves repeatedly, sneers see the daylight.’ Focke (1855: 115): ‘Wanneer de mond zich veel beweegt (d.i. wanneer het gesprek levendig, warm, driftig wordt) komen er kernspreuken of schampere zetten voor den dag.’

c.

da boto de shekisheki DEF boat CTN sway-sway ‘The boat is swaying back and forth a lot.’ Schumann (1783: 153): ‘Das Boot schwankt, wackelt sehr hin und her.’

Some examples in (12), especially those indicating a repeated movement in space, as in (12c), are similar to instances of distributive reduplication. Note also that two items in (12), píengi-píengi and wakkawakka even have two meanings, one allowing an iterative interpretation, given in (12): ‘to pinch continuously’ and ‘to go to and fro’ respectively, and one distributive, which will be discussed in section 8.7 below: ‘to distribute in small portions’ and ‘to run or to go around or about’ respectively. Indeed, the distinction between iterative and distributive reduplication is not always straightforward and can, as Huber (2003: 147) suggests for Ghanaian Pidgin English, be better modelled as a continuum. It can be argued that the two examples in (12c) should be regarded as cases of iterative reduplication since they show actions whose spatial distribution extends from one endpoint to another and thus has more or less clear spatial borders. Hence, the repetitive aspect is semantically more important here. By contrast, in cases of purely distributive reduplication, such as fili-fili ‘to feel, to grope around’ (< fili ‘to feel’) (see section 8.7 below), the distribution does not have

258 two endpoints, it is rather scattered here and there over a fixed space. In such cases, then, not the repetitive, but rather the distributional aspect is semantically more crucial. As can be inferred from (12), iterative reduplication in Early Sranan involves full copying only. It operates on both transitive and intransitive verbs. Notably, in contrast to intensifying reduplication, instances of iterative reduplication are rather rare in Early Sranan: (12) is an exhaustive list of such items. In Modern Sranan, iterative reduplication of verbs is productive (Adamson and Smith 2003: 87, 90). Iterative reduplication expressing continuous or repeated actions is common crosslinguistically (Bauer 2003: 32, Moravcsik 1978: 319, Parkvall 2003: 21) and is attested in a great number of creole languages (Parkvall 2003: 21), such as Jamaican (Kouwenberg, LaCharité and Gooden 2003: 106), Berbice Dutch (Kouwenberg 2003b: 255), Krio (Nylander 2003: 133), Tok Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1979: 412), Mauritian Creole (Baker 2003: 213) and Cape Verdean Creole (Baptista 2003: 179). In the substratum languages, iterative reduplication seems to be not as wide-spread as, for instance, intensifying reduplication (cf. Parkvall 2003: 21). Thus, in Kikongo, repetitive, frequentative or lengthy actions are expressed by means of different affixes, and not by reduplication (Laman 1912: 208–211). For instance, the Kikongo correspondence for the Early Sranan wakkawakka ‘to go to and fro’, viong-uluka ‘to go hither and thither’, is built from the verb viongula ‘to stir about’ by means of the suffix -uluka (Laman 1912: 208). Evidence for the presence of iterative reduplication in Ewe is controversial. Westermann (1943: 11) notes that expressing repetitive actions is one of the functions of reduplication in Ewe. However, he gives only one example, which he translates into German by means of a present participle form so that its iterative nature is hardly traceable: toƞ toƞ toƞ ‘dripping’ (Germ. tropfend). Schlegel (1856: 22) also notes that reduplication in Ewe functions to denote frequentative, repetitive actions. Although he gives examples, their repetitive character is not clear. Besides, the semantic relation between the bases and the reduplicated items is not always straightforward: (14) bo2bo2 tutu ko2!ko2!

‘to humble oneself’ ‘to rub off’ ‘to stutter’

bo2 tu ko2!

‘to bend’ ‘to rub’ ‘to be high’

It seems that Schlegel views the reduplications in (14) as expressing frequentative actions because the processes of stuttering and of rubbing off can be viewed as inherently repetitive. Hence, the genuine sense of iteration is not traceable in the examples in (14). It is therefore difficult to say whether reduplication is regularly used to render iterative meanings in Ewe. Notably, a single repetition of an action is expressed in Ewe by inserting the morpheme ga, which originates from the verb gba ‘to turn back/to come back’, between the verb and the pronoun, as in me-ga-gi ‘I went again.’ (Westermann 1907: 73, 67). There is, however, evidence that Twi makes use of iterative reduplication (Christaller 1875: 64, Westermann 1943: 11). Similarly to Early Sranan, iterative reduplication in Twi denotes continuous or repeated processes: (15) bobo2 kOkOkOkO te)e2te)em’

‘to knock repeatedly’ ‘to go constantly’ ‘to cry out (repeatedly)’

bo2 kO tee) m’

‘to beat/to break’ ‘to go’ ‘to cry out’

259 Iterative reduplication in Early Sranan can be regarded as unmarked in semantic and formal terms: it follows the iconic principle and thus yields transparent items, and the copying affects whole bases. It can also be regarded as selectionally unmarked: although there are few reduplicated items with iterative meaning attested in the Early Sranan sources, there seems to be no restriction on the verbal input to iterative reduplication since, as the examples in (12) show, different semantic types of verbs, such as verbs denoting motion (e.g. wakka ‘to go’), physical (e.g. seki ‘to shake’) and sensory (e.g. wakki ‘to watch’) activities, can serve as input to iterative reduplication. Therefore, substratum influence is less credible in the case of Early Sranan iterative reduplication. Given the common cross-linguistic occurrence of both types of iterative reduplication (repetitive and continuous), it can thus be concluded that the emergence of iterative reduplication in Early Sranan cannot be attributed to one particular source.

8.7

Distributive reduplication

Another frequently attested type of reduplication in Early Sranan is exemplified in (16): (16) a.

b. c.

bussu bussu drie-drie hipi hipi pisi-pisi tu tu horro-horro koendóe-koendóe fíli-fili píengi-píengi wakkawakka

d.

hai hai juru juru wan-wan

e.

morromorro pikien-pikíen safrisafri

‘in bundles’ ‘in threes’ ‘in separate heaps’ ‘in separate small pieces’ ‘two and two/in pairs/ in twos’ ‘holes all over’ ‘bumps all over’ ‘to feel, to grope around’ ‘to distribute in small portions’ ‘to run or to go around or about’ ‘drop after drop/in dribs and drabs’ ‘hour for hour’ ‘one after another/ individually/separately/ one at a time’ ‘more and more’ ‘gradually/little by little’ ‘little by little/gradually’

bussu drie hipi pisi tu

‘bundle’ ‘three’ ‘heap’ ‘piece’ ‘two’

Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch

horro koendóe fíli píen$gi

‘hole’ ‘bump’ ‘to feel’ ‘to pinch’

Sch Fo Fo Fo

wakka

Sch

hai

‘to walk/ to go’ ‘drop’

juru wan

‘hour’ ‘one’

Sch Sch

morro pikíen safri

‘more’ ‘a little’ ‘soft/mild’

Sch Fo Sch

Sch

In general terms, all reduplicated items in (16) express distribution. However, there are several structural and semantic differences between individual items. Structurally, they re-

260 present a rather heterogeneous group: the bases of reduplication in (16) can be numerals, nouns, adverbs and verbs. Numerals and countable nouns are the most common bases. Semantically, the reduplicated items in (16) are heterogeneous as well: there are differences between them in the ways and types of distribution they express. The examples in (16a), for instance, indicate the way by which objects or agents expressed by the subject or the object are grouped, as shown in (17): (17) a.

b.

dem tai datti na bussu bussu 3PL tie that on bundle-bundle ‘They tie that in bundles.’ Schumann (1783: 26): ‘Sie binden das in Bündel, bündelweise zusammen.’ demm de wákka drie-drie 3PL CNT walk three-three ‘They walk in threes.’ Focke (1855: 27): ‘Zij gaan met drieën, of drie aan drie.’

Note that in addition to the core distributive meaning, the reduplicated items in (16a) also bear a secondary meaning. Thus, the numerals and nouns rendering the ‘grouping’ meaning acquire additionally the plural meaning. For instance, bussu bussu ‘in bundles’ does not only mean that the object has been grouped into bundles, but also that there are several bundles available. In the case of pisi-pisi, a diminutive meaning is added to the core distributive meaning: ‘in separate small pieces’. The examples in (16b), horro-horro and koendóe-koendóe, also combine distributive and plural meanings. In contrast to the items in (16a), however, they indicate the distribution of some object (bumps, holes) over a fixed space. Besides, they also indicate, similarly to the examples in (16a), that a given object occurs in great numbers: (18) a.

b.

dasanni habi horro-horro DEF-thing have hole-hole ‘It has holes all over, it is full of holes.’ Schumann (1783: 67): ‘Das ist ganz durchlöchert.’ a hábi koendóe-koendóe 3SG have bump-bump ‘He has bumps all over.’ Focke (1855: 59): ‘Het is met knobbels bezet.’

The three verbs with a distributive meaning in (16c) show that the actions expressed by them are distributed over a certain space, as illustrated in (19), but the verb píengi-píengi additionally bears a diminutive meaning: (19) a.

Fíli-fili, effi joe kan fínni hem feel-feel if 2SG can find it ‘Feel around, whether you can find it.’ Focke (1855: 32): ‘Tast eens rond, en zie, of gij het vinden kunt.’

261 b.

joe moe’ píengi-píengi hem$, nóso a no de go kísi 2SG must pinch-pinch 3SG, otherwise 3SG NEG CTN go catch ‘You must distribute it in small portions, otherwise it will not be enough.’ Focke (1855: 100): ‘Gij dient er zuinig mede te werk te gaan, anders zal het niet toereikend zijn.’

c.

A de wakkawakka, no morro. 3SG CNT run-run NEG more ‘He is doing nothing else than constantly running around.’ Schumann (1783: 193): ‘Er tut nichts als beständig herum laufen.’

The examples in (16d) indicate in what kind of succession the actions expressed by the predicators take place. This succession can be either spatial, as in (20a), or temporal, as in (20b): (20) a.

b.

hem sweti tronn brudu, fadomm na grunn hai hai his sweat turn blood fall down on ground drop-drop ‘His sweat turned into blood and fell down to earth drop by drop.’ Schumann (1783: 56): ‘Sein Schweiss ward Blut, u. fiel tropfenweise auf die Erde.’ mi sa pai ju na juru juru 1SG FUT pay 2SG on hour-hour ‘I will pay you by hour.’ Schumann (1783: 76): ‘Ich will dich Stundenweise (nicht Tagweise) bezahlen.’

The reduplicated items in (16e), such as morromorro ‘more and more’ or pikien-pikíen ‘little by little’, express gradual progression of an action: (21) mi ben njusudatti morromorro 1SG PST get used to-that more-more ‘I got used to this more and more.’ Schumann (1783: 115): no translation provided What might be the source of distributive reduplication in Early Sranan? Distributive reduplication of numerals is wide-spread both cross-linguistically and in creoles all over the world (Moravcsik 1978: 318, Parkvall 2003: 22). Distributive reduplication of nouns and words of other classes is also attested in a number of older languages and in several creoles (Parkvall 2003: 22), but it seems to be generally less common than distributive reduplication of numerals. As far as the single patterns are concerned, instances of reduplication similar to the Early Sranan items expressing ‘way of grouping’ are attested in e.g. Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 94), Cape Verdean Creole (Baptista 2003: 179) and Chabacano (Grant 2003: 206), items indicating succession in e.g. Cape Verdean Creole (Baptista 2003: 179) and items showing gradual progression of an action in, for instance, Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 94), Indo-Portuguese Creoles (Clements 2003b: 197) and Mauritian Creole (Baker 2003: 215). Items similar to the Early Sranan examples expressing

262 distribution of an object over a fixed space, as in (16b), and verbs expressing distribution, as in (16c), seem to be rare: they are not cited in works on reduplication in Jamaican, Saramaccan, Papiamentu, Cape Verdean Creole, Chabacano and Mauritian Creole. However, examples similar to both types – (16b) and (16c) – are provided for Tok Pisin by Mühlhäusler (1979: 412, 417), e.g. suasua ‘sores all over’ (< sua ‘sore’) and raunraun ‘to walk around’ (< raun ‘to walk’). The data on the substratum languages show that many of them make use of distributive reduplication. In Kikongo, for instance, at least three different types of distributive reduplication are cited in the sources (Bentley 1895: 973–974, Laman 1912: 115, 242): reduplication of nouns expressing the way of object/subject grouping, as in (22a), reduplication of numerals rendering the meaning ‘Num each/every’, as in (22b), and reduplication of nouns indicating distribution of an object over a fixed space, as in (22c) (examples are from Bentley (1887: 605, 1895: 948) and Laman (1912: 115, 242)): (22) a.

b. c.

bela-bela e ndambu ndambu e tini tini bole bole zo-zole/zole-zole mango~-mango~ matuti-matuti

‘in strips’ ‘in parts’ ‘in pieces’ ‘every two’ ‘two each’ ‘spots all over’ ‘clouds all over’

Several illustrations for the use of Kikongo distributives in context are given in (23): (23) a.

Vana bole bole kwanga kwanga. Laman (1912: 115): ‘Give to every two a cassava loaf.’

b.

Muntu muntu kanata makumatatumatatu mabimbundi. Laman (1912: 115): ‘Let each one carry thirty pieces of cloth.’

c.

Basumba zole zole. Laman (1912: 115): ‘They bought two each.’

There are both similarities and differences between distributive reduplication in Early Sranan and in Kikongo. Formally, reduplication is full in both languages. Semantically, in both languages nouns can be reduplicated to express the way of grouping and the distribution of an object over a certain space. However, in contrast to Kikongo, Early Sranan reduplicated numerals do not seem to bear the meaning ‘Num each/every’: sentences similar to the Kikongo sentences in (23) are not attested in Early Sranan. In all Early Sranan examples with reduplicated numerals, reduplication expresses the way of grouping, as in (17b). Besides, Early Sranan has one type of distributive reduplication which could not be attested in the Kikongo sources used for the present study: reduplication expressing successiveness, as in hai hai ‘drop after drop’. Ewe makes use of distributive reduplication of nouns and numerals (Ansre 1963: 131, Westermann 1907: 79, 1943: 12). Distributive reduplication in Ewe can denote the way of grouping, ‘Num each’ and successiveness, as illustrated in (24):

263 (24) a.

La) foNfo!N la! na! abaabae. cut sugercane DEF for-me node-node Ansre (1963: 131): ‘Cut up the sugarcane node by node for me.’

b.

Wo!ma! eveeve. 3PL-divide two-two Ansre (1963: 131): ‘They have divided in pairs.’

c.

∂o !

d.

Wo!dyO~ tyI!wo tyI!wo. 3PL-collect cowry cowry ‘They collected one of each separate cowry.’ Westermann (1943: 12): ‘Sie sammelten von jedem einzelnen Kauri ein.’

e.

Wo!xO~ abo!lo~ ene ene. 3PL-get bread four four ‘They got four bread loaves each.’ Westermann (1943: 12): ‘Sie erhielten jeder vier Brote.’

f.

∂eka! ∂eka!

wo! ha!me~ ha!me~ place them group group Westermann (1928: 66): ‘to place them in groups’

one-one Westermann (1928: 206): ‘one by one’ As can be inferred from (24), all types of distributive reduplication attested in Ewe, except for the ‘Num each’ type, are attested in Early Sranan as well. Moreover, some Ewe items have one-to-one correspondences in Early Sranan, e.g. the Sranan tu tu ‘in pairs/in twos’ and the Ewe eveeve ‘in pairs/in twos’. Ewe, however, does not seem to have distributives of the type horro-horro ‘holes all over’ indicating distribution of an object over a fixed space, as well as verbs with a distributive meaning of the type fíli-fili ‘to feel, to grope around’: no such examples have been encountered in the Ewe sources used for the present study. Finally, distributive reduplication is attested in Twi as well (Christaller 1875: 53). In (25a), reduplication expresses succession, in (25b) its meaning is ‘Num each’, the examples in (25c) are verbs with distributive meanings and in the example in (25d) the reduplicated item expresses gradual progression of an action and has a direct correspondence in Early Sranan: pikien-pikíen (little-little) ‘little by little’. (25) a.

b.

Obisa!a~ woṅ mmiako)⁄-mmI~ako⁄). 3SG-ask-PST them one-one Christaller (1875: 53): ‘He asked them one by one.’ Oma)⁄a)Ÿ dummofra! du~ no nhI)nŸ a)⁄ mma!ṅ du! du!. 3SG-give-PST children ten DEF all string ten-ten Christaller (1875: 53): ‘He gave those ten boys each of them ten strings.’

264 c.

bubu! bend/break-bend/break Christaller (1933: XXII): ‘to bend or break a thing in many places’

d.

ṅkakra-ṅkakra little-little Christaller (1875: 18): ‘little by little’

Again, all types of distributive reduplication attested in Twi, except for the ‘Num each’ type, are attested in Early Sranan as well, but some types attested in Early Sranan have not been found in the Twi sources, such as items expressing the way of grouping and items denoting distribution of an object over a fixed space. Distributive reduplication in Early Sranan is unmarked in formal, semantic and selectional terms: it involves full copying only, results in semantically transparent items which follow the iconic principle (distribution mostly involves plurality and thus an increase in quantity or quality) and can take any numeral, adverb or countable noun as input. All in all, it can be concluded that substratum influence is less credible in the case of Early Sranan distributive reduplication. To summarise, it has been shown that some types of distributive reduplication, such as ‘way of grouping’, ‘succession’ and ‘gradual progression of an action’ are attested in other, unrelated, creoles and appear in at least one substratum language. The emergence of these patterns in Early Sranan thus cannot be attributed to a particular source. Reduplication expressing distribution of an object over a fixed space and reduplicated verbs with distributive meanings are less common in other creole and non-creole languages, but are attested in at least one creole language, Tok Pisin, and in at least one substratum language. Hence, their emergence cannot be attributed to a particular source as well.

8.8

Reduplication expressing variety and collection

There are a few reduplicated items in Early Sranan in which reduplication can be argued to express variety, as in (26a), or collection, as in (26b). The list of such items in (26) is exhaustive: (26) a. b.

fasi fasi lo lo boesi-boési

‘various kinds’ ‘different classes’ ‘collection of bushes’

fasi lo bóesi

‘manner/kind’ ‘row/line/class’ ‘bush’

Sch Sch Fo

Formally, the items in (26) are cases of full reduplication. In terms of their distribution, they behave like nouns. The reduplicated items in (26a) are formed from abstract nouns and their chief function is to indicate that the object expressed by the simplex form appears in a variety, as illustrated in (27) below.

265 (27) a.

b.

dasanni habi fasi fasi DEF-thing have kind-kind ‘This can be done in various ways.’ Schumann (1783: 40): ‘Das wird auf mehr als einerley Art gemacht, od. das hat verschiedene Arten.’ mi go platti une na lo lo 1SG go separate 2PL in class-class ‘I will separate you in different classes.’ Schumann (1783: 102): ‘Ich will euch in verschiedene classen abteilen.’

The reduplicated item in (26b) is built from a concrete item and indicates that objects expressed by the simplex form appear collectively. There is no example sentence featuring this item in a broader context attested in any of the three sources. The examples in (26) raise a classificatory problem: in addition to the meanings ‘variety’ or ‘collection’, they can be argued to bear the meanings of plurality and of distribution. Hence, the question is whether they should be regarded as instances of pluralising reduplication, or as instances of distributive reduplication, or as a separate type in its own right. In this connection, Parkvall (2003: 24) remarks that the difference between reduplicated items expressing the meaning ‘many N’ and reduplicated items expressing the meaning ‘different/various/miscellaneous N’ is not really clear and might be a matter of glossing. Moreover, Parkvall argues that it may be more reasonable to apply the labels ‘distributive’ or ‘collective’ to the functions of ‘plural’ reduplication in many languages. However, it can be suggested with respect to Early Sranan that the core meaning of the examples in (26a) is ‘various N’ and of the example in (26b) ‘collection of N’ and that the plural meaning ‘many N’, as well as the distributive meaning are actually a by-product of the variety/collection meaning. The examples in (26) thus differ from such reduplicated items as the Papago baabana ‘coyotes’ (< bana ‘coyote’) (example from Moravcsik (1978: 317)) or the SinoPortuguese filo-filo ‘sons’ (< filo ‘son’) (example from De Silva Jayasuriya (2003: 187)), in which the function of reduplication is solely to express the meaning ‘many N’, as well as from such Early Sranan examples as horro-horro ‘holes all over’ (< horro ‘hole’) discussed in section 8.7 above, where the primary function of reduplication is to show that the object expressed by the simplex base is distributed over a fixed space. Therefore, all in all, the reduplications in (26) should be regarded as types in their own right. Although reduplication expressing plurality is wide-spread in older languages (Bauer 2003: 32, Moravcsik 1978: 319), it seems that reduplication expressing variety/collection is much less common: Moravcsik (1978: 318), for instance, provides examples of reduplication expressing variety from one language only, Malay. For creoles, Parkvall (2003: 24) observes that pluralising reduplication is attested in its ‘pure form’, i.e. rendering the meaning ‘many’ in some of them, mainly those with Austronesian substrate languages, but it is not the “normal way of expressing plurality” in creoles. Parkvall cites examples of reduplication expressing variety for one creole language only, Jamaican. However, the variety pattern is also documented for Tok Pisin (Mühlhäusler 1979: 417), Ndjuka (Huttar and Huttar 1997: 397–398) and Ghanaian Pidgin English (Huber 2003: 143). Note, though, that in Tok Pisin, this might be a feature influenced by Malay since reduplication expressing variety is attested in Malay, as just mentioned. Examples similar to the collection type are at-

266 tested in Papiamentu (Dijkhoff 1993: 93–94) and in one of the Gulf of Guinea Creoles, Fa d’Ambô (Ladhams et al. 2003: 168), both of which, however, share at least one substratum language with Early Sranan. As to the substratum languages of Early Sranan, in the sources of Ewe, Fon and Kikongo used in the present study, no evidence for reduplication of nouns expressing variety/collection and plurality has been found. However, items similar to the Early Sranan examples in (26) are attested in Twi. Christaller (1875: 34, 36) provides several examples of reduplicated items, shown here in (28), which bear, among other things, the meaning of plurality. Thus, the reduplicated items in (28b) combine the meanings of plurality and variety: as Christaller (1875: 34) remarks, reduplication in Twi can denote “all the different sorts of a thing”. The items in (28c) combine the meanings of plurality and repetition. For the items in (28a), Christaller does not provide any translations so that it is unclear what meanings the reduplicated forms have in such cases. The question marks in (28a) therefore indicate that the exact translations are unknown. (28) a. b. c.

akuwaku!w apo2wapo!2w mmoawa-mmo!awa ako)ko)-ako)⁄ko)⁄ akotoko!to!w

‘?different sorts of heaps’ ‘?different sorts of knots’ ‘insects and animalcules of all kinds’ ‘repeated fightings/quarrels’ ‘repeated bows’

akuw ‘heaps’ apow 2 ‘knots’ mmoawa ‘insects’ o2ko), ako) o2kotow

‘fighting’ ‘bowing down’

As can be inferred from (28), Twi and Early Sranan share reduplication expressing variety, but the Early Sranan example expressing collection does not have parallels in Twi. Early Sranan reduplication expressing variety/collection is unmarked semantically: it follows the iconic principle and results in the creation of transparent items. Formally, it involves full copying and is thus unmarked as well. Finally, it can also be considered selectionally unmarked: although there are only three items attested in the sources, in principle, any countable noun can serve as input. Therefore, despite the similarities to Twi, substratum claims are less credible in the case of this type of reduplication. As a conclusion, reduplication expressing variety is less marked, less common crosslinguistically and is attested in at least one substratum language. Because of its unmarked nature, claims about substratum transfer are less credible. The origin of reduplication expressing collection remains unclear: it is less marked, less common cross-linguistically, seems to be absent from the substratum languages, but is attested in at least two other creoles, which, however, share substratum languages with Early Sranan.

8.9

Reduplications without attested bases

Quite a number of nouns attested in Early Sranan are reduplications whose base forms do not exist as free morphemes in the creole. Although such reduplications are not complex words in the sense of the definition of complex words adopted in the present study (see

267 sections 5.2.2 and 5.2.3 for details), they will be given regard here because of their not inconsiderable number in Early Sranan. Note that some of the items which will be analysed in the present section can be regarded as pseudo-reduplications, i.e. items in which the reduplicated form is not the result of copying the base in the strict sense, but developed, e.g. as the result of a phonological restructuring of some kind. Despite this fact, all types of reduplications without attested bases will be uniformly referred to as ‘reduplications’ here for the sake of simplicity. Early Sranan reduplications without attested bases can be subdivided into several semantic groups. One group comprises items denoting animals, as in (29a), and plants, as in (29b), which are rather common among reduplications without attested bases in Early Sranan: (29) a.

b.

boetà-boetà bonibóni fio fio kesi kesi koni koni kummakumma kwassikwassi kwikwi miti-míti moisi-móisi poesi poesi sirrisirra wassiwassi biribiri mátji-mátji móemoe mokko mokko njánja

‘a night bird (Caprimulgus)’ ‘squirrel’ ‘bug’ ‘monkey’ ‘rabbit’ ‘a big fish without scales’ ‘an animal living in the bush and similar to fox’ ‘a small fish with very firm scales’ ‘mite’ ‘mouse’ ‘cat’ ‘crayfish’ ‘wasps’ ‘rush’ ‘a kind of cane out of which papaya mats are made’ ‘name of a plant (Lycopodium cermium)’ ‘a plant which grows on the riverbanks and has broad leaves and red berries’ ‘name of a plant (Cardiospermum acuminatum)’

Fo Fo Sch VD VD VD Sch Sch Fo Fo VD Sch Sch Sch Sch Fo Sch Fo

The items in (29a) denote primarily animals small in size. Bakker (2003b: 74–75) notes for similar examples in Saramaccan that such reduplications often describe animals which occur in “flocks, herds or swarms”, or animals to which one does not ascribe individuality. A similar observation can be applied to the plant names in (29b): the items biribiri and mátji-mátji denote grass-like plants which grow as a group. Items referring to animals and plants appearing in groups can thus be regarded as iconic since their reduplicated form reflects their plurality. Another group of reduplications without attested bases is illustrated in (30): (30) a.

foggofoggo gogo hoho zey zey zoe zoe

‘lungs’ ‘buttocks’ ‘twins’ ‘scissors’ ‘shoes’

Sch Sch Sch VD VD

268 b.

gobbogobbo wiri wiri

‘small peanuts’ ‘hair’

Sch VD

The reduplicated items in (30a) denote objects which consist of more than one part, and the items in (30b) denote objects consisting of (many) separate parts. This might explain their reduplicated form. Onomatopoetic reduplications, as in (31), make up another group of reduplications without attested bases: (31) boebóe gen-gén koffokoffo pupù tikotíko tjóntjon tumtum tutu

‘horror (used to frighten children)/monster/name of an insect’ ‘bell’ ‘to cough/cough’ ‘to fart’ ‘hiccup’ ‘name of a bird’ ‘mash’ ‘horn’

Fo Fo Sch Sch Fo Fo Sch Sch

In addition to the semantic groups identified above, there are a number of items which express miscellaneous notions, both concrete and abstract, as in (32): (32) a.

b.

afoefoè atoetóe fufur/furfur jeje jen jen kekè kroesoe-króesoe kurrukurru matta-mátta pepé tokkotokko wete-wéte wissiwassi woijowoijo kúku kíki

‘pudding of cooked and finely mashed bananas’ ‘a dish made by blacks’ ‘to steal’ ‘spirit’ ‘clock’ ‘spindle’ ‘plantation ferry-boat’ ‘a container for crabs/baskets woven out of cane’ ‘floor-mat’ ‘cap’ ‘marsh/mud/swamp’ ‘quarrel/disagreement’ ‘trifles/quarrel over trifles’ ‘market’ ‘cake’ ‘to kick’

Fo Fo Sch Sch VD Sch Fo Sch Fo Fo Sch Fo Sch Sch Sch Fo

The reduplicated form of the examples in (32b) is the result of a phonological restructuring of words adopted from English or Dutch: kúku, for instance, comes from the Dutch koek ‘cake’, and kíki from the English kick. Most of the items in (32) can be regarded as non-iconic, opaque forms: there seems to be no increase of form or activity and thus no semantic motivation for reduplication in items denoting such notions as ‘to steal’, ‘cap’ or ‘spindle’. Some of the items in (32a) seem to have arisen under substratum influence, as will be shown below, and the items in (32b) are the result of adaptation of superstratum lexemes and borrowing from other input languages.

269 It can hence be argued that opacity can arise through substratum transfer and through adaptation of lexemes from the input languages. In terms of their form, the majority of the reduplications without attested bases are full reduplications, although several partial reduplications also occur, as, for instance, atoetóe ‘a special dish made by blacks’ in (32a), where the second syllable is reduplicated, or sirrisirra ‘crayfish’ in (29a), where one vowel is alternated. Partial reduplications are more marked formally because they involve partial copying of the base, and they are more marked semantically because they do not follow the iconic principle: they are opaque. Since partial reduplications are rather common in the substratum languages (Lefebvre and Brousseau 2002: 197, Schlegel 1856: 20, Westermann 1943: 10–11), it can be assumed that at least some of the Early Sranan partial reduplications might have developed under substratum influence. For instance, some of the partial reduplications, such as afoefoè or atoetóe, begin with a- and thus resemble formally a type of reduplicated items attested in some West African languages which begin with the prefix a- attached to a reduplicated base, as in: abo2bo2 ‘snail’ (< bo2 ‘soft’), ale!le! ‘rat’ (< le! ‘to seize/to hold’) (Schlegel (1856: 171), Westermann (1907: 118–119), see also Schlegel (1856: 18–19), Christaller (1875: 18, 22)). What might be the sources of the Early Sranan reduplications without attested bases? Some of the reduplications of this type have corresponding simplex forms which are attested as free morphemes, as shown in (33): (33) reduplicated item koni koni mati mati matta-mátta miti-míti sirrisirra tutu wassiwassi

meaning of the reduplicated item ‘rabbit’ ‘mat’ ‘floor-mat’ ‘mite’ ‘crayfish’ ‘horn’ ‘wasps’

corresponding simplex free morpheme koni mati mátta míti sirri tu wassi

meaning of the corresponding free morpheme ‘cleverness’ ‘friend’ ‘mortar’ ‘to meet’ ‘seed’ ‘two/too’ ‘to wash/wax’

With respect to the origin of such forms in Modern Sranan, Sebba (1981: 104) suggests that they might have been reduplicated with the purpose of avoiding homophony, but remarks himself that such an explanation is not convincing. Indeed, there are rather few reduplicated items without attested bases in Early Sranan for which homophonous simplex morphemes are attested. This means that if homonymy avoidance were indeed the reason for the emergence of Early Sranan reduplicated items without attested bases, it is unclear why most of them do not have corresponding simplex free morphemes. One can argue in general that probably all human languages tolerate homonymous items, and many of them (including English) do not employ reduplication as a strategy of avoiding homonymy. So homonymy avoidance is unlikely to be the reason for the emergence of the reduplicated items in (33). The emergence of the onomatopoetic items, presented in (31) above, can at first sight be attributed to universal development since many human languages make use of onomatopoetic words, as, for instance, English: ding-dong, flip-flop, zig-zag, mish-mash (examples from Koziol (1972: 299)), and onomatopoetic constructions are also attested at the early stages of pidgins, where they may compensate for the “referential inadequacies” (Mühl-

270 häusler 1983: 56–57). Moreover, onomatopoeia is viewed as a transitory stage to lexical acquisition: children, for instance, often imitate what they hear, e.g. brumm-brumm for cars, choo-choo for trains, and adults who try to replace a word also use onomatopoetic formations (Zimmermann 1987: 411). However, according to Westermann (1943: 12–13), West African languages, including the substratum languages of Early Sranan, make extensive use of onomatopoetic items and might therefore be a potential source of the Early Sranan onomatopoetic forms. Indeed, there are a few parallels between Early Sranan and its substratum languages in the area of onomatopoetic reduplications, as shown in (34) below (the Twi example is from Akrofi and Botchey (1980: 51), the other three examples come from Huttar (1985: 57, 60)): (34) a. b.

c.

Sranan: Kimbundu: Sranan: Ga)/Awutu: Twi: Sranan: Kikongo:

koffokoffo kohokoho tikotíko tI!ko~2tI!ko~2 tekO tekO tutu tu!utu

‘to cough/cough’ ‘cough’ ‘hiccup’ ‘hiccup’ ‘hiccup’ ‘horn’ ‘bamboo/tube/pipe’

The Early Sranan and the substratum items in (34) show close phonological and semantic parallels. The close phonological similarities in this case can be regarded as an argument in favour of substratum influence: although onomatopoetic items are attested in every human language, the way languages shape these forms phonologically differ. Note, that all in all, parallels to the substratum languages in the area of onomatopoetic forms are very few, and thus, Early Sranan onomatopoetic formations which do not have equivalents in the substratum languages might be cases of universal development. Several Early Sranan reduplications without attested bases are created from bases which have close phonological and semantic correspondences in English and/or Dutch, as shown in (35) (cf. Sebba 1981: 103–104): (35) koni koni mati mati miti-míti moisi-moisi poesi poesi wiri wiri wissiwassi

‘rabbit’ ‘mat’ ‘mite’ ‘mouse’ ‘cat’ ‘hair’ ‘trifles’

< English coney < English mat, Dutch mat < English miti, Dutch mijt < Dutch muis < English pussy, Dutch poes < English weed < English wishy-washy

However, neither English nor Dutch might be the source of the reduplications in (35) because there are no corresponding reduplications in English or Dutch. All in all, only one Early Sranan reduplication without an attested base, wissiwassi ‘trifles’, seems to come from English, and none from Dutch. A few Early Sranan reduplications without attested bases have parallels in different West African languages including the substratum languages of Early Sranan, as shown in (36) (the Ewe example in (36c) is from Westermann (1906: 164), all the other examples are from Huttar (1985: 60, 56, 63)).

271 (36) a.

b. c. d.

Sranan: Ewe: Yoruba: Sranan: Yoruba: Sranan: Ewe: Sranan: Kikongo:

afoefoè fufu!u! fu~fu! foggofoggo fu~ku!fu!ku~ kekè ke!ke woijowoijo wo!wo

‘pudding of cooked and finely mashed bananas’ ‘meal prepared from grated cassava’ ‘meal prepared from grated cassava’ ‘lungs’ ‘lungs’ ‘spindle’ ‘spindle’ ‘market’ ‘crowd/multitude’

Of all Sranan items in (36), the one in (36c) has a one-to-one phonological and semantic equivalent in the substratum language Ewe. Since this item does not follow the iconic principle and is thus semantically more marked, it can be concluded that this item has been transferred from Ewe. In the other cases in (36), the phonological and/or the semantic similarities are not one-to-one, which might indicate that substratum influence is less likely in their case. In general, the parallels to the substratum languages in the area of reduplications without attested bases do not seem to be numerous. Reduplications denoting animals and plants which appear in groups, as in (29), and reduplications denoting objects which consist of more than one part, as in (30), might have appeared as the result of the tendency to achieve semantic motivation and can be regarded as cases of language-internal development. To sum up, there are quite a number of reduplications without attested bases in Early Sranan. They present a rather heterogeneous group in terms of their semantics and their origin.

8.10 Residual cases There is a small group of Early Sranan reduplications in which the relation between the base word and the reduplicated form cannot be classified into one of the categories discussed in this chapter either because it is not straightforward or because the necessary context is missing. (37) haffe haffe kibrí-kíbri koli-kóle koli-kóli saffoe-sáffoe safri-sâfri sjém$-sjem$ wawan

‘so so’ ‘secretly/in secrecy’ ‘Supposed...(used in children’s games)’ ‘to try using soft soap to get something’ ‘watery/thin (about food)’ ‘gradually/carefully’ ‘mimosa (Mimosa Sensitiva)’ ‘alone/only’

haffe kíbri kóli

‘half’ ‘to keep/to hide’ ‘to cheat’

VD Fo Fo

kóli

‘to cheat’

Fo

sáffoe sâfri sjem$ wan

‘soft/tender’ ‘slow/gentle/soft’ ‘shame’ ‘one’

Fo Fo Fo Sch

272 The reduplications in (37) make up a heterogeneous group, both structurally and semantically. In many cases, it is difficult to establish the lexical category of the reduplicated item because the necessary context is not provided in the sources. In some cases, e.g. sjém$-sjem$ ‘mimosa’, or saffoe-sáffoe ‘thin/watery’, the meaning of the reduplicated item is less directly derivable from the meaning of the bases and is lexicalised. In other cases, however, the relation between the meanings of the base and of the reduplicated item is more straightforward, as in kibrí-kíbri ‘secretly’ (< kíbri ‘to keep/to hide’). The origin of the reduplicated items in (37) is not quite clear. None of them has parallels in English, and only two of them have parallels in the substratum language Ewe, as shown in (38) (the data are from Westermann (1907: 128–129)): (38) a. b.

Sranan: Ewe: Sranan: Ewe:

wawan d¢ed¢e! safri-sâfri d¢o2d¢o2@d¢o2

‘one-one’ ‘one-one’ ‘slow/gentle-slow/gentle’ ‘slow/gentle-slow/gentle’

‘alone/only’ ‘alone/only’ ‘slowly/gently/gradually’ ‘slowly/gently/gradually’

The items in (38) do not follow the iconic principle and are thus less semantically transparent. Therefore, it can be assumed that they have emerged in Early Sranan via semantic transfer from Ewe.

8.11 Conclusion It has been shown in the present chapter that Early Sranan makes abundant use of a wide range of reduplication patterns, such as nominalising, stative, approximative, intensifying, iterative, distributive and reduplication expressing variety/collection. It has also been demonstrated that formally, the most common type of reduplication in Early Sranan is full reduplication, which stands in contrast to its substratum languages, where partial reduplications are rather numerous. Early Sranan partial reduplications are often semantically semi- or non-transparent. It can thus be argued that there is a tendency towards lesser formal markedness in the creole. Bakker and Parkvall (2005: 521), who make the observation about the abundance of full reduplication for the majority of modern creoles, argue that this is due to the creoles’ young age: phonetic erosion, characteristic of grammaticalisation, has not taken place yet. However, young age alone does not explain why Early Sranan shows a prevalence of less marked patterns. This fact might be explained in terms of cognitive profit: less marked patterns are easier to produce and process and hence can be easier acquired by many speakers within a limited period of time. Another crucial fact about Early Sranan reduplication is that it comprises both more marked, non-iconic types, such as nominalising and stative, and less marked, iconic types, such as intensifying, iterative and distributive. It is remarkable, however, that the less marked types are usually much more productive than the more marked types. This altogether shows that there is probably a general tendency in Early Sranan reduplication towards lesser semantic markedness. Moreover, an interesting fact about the more marked types, such as

273 nominalising and stative reduplication, is that they have a competing process, multifunctionality, which is a more preferable means of creating result and abstract nouns and adjectives in Early Sranan, possibly because of its greater formal unmarkedness. Moreover, several generalisations and theoretical implications arise on the basis of the discussion of the possible sources of Early Sranan reduplication done in the present chapter. For a better overview, the parallels to the substratum languages, as well as cross-linguistic occurrence of the major patterns, are summarised in (39). Remarks on the cross-linguistic occurrence are made for the ‘core’ patterns only because the cross-linguistic overviews of reduplication usually do not contain information about sub-patterns. Note that the Fon data are excluded from the overview in (39) because no systematic comparison between Early Sranan and Fon in terms of reduplication patterns could be made on the basis of the sources of Fon used in the present study. (39) types of reduplication

ES

Ewe Twi Ki

nominalising results/actions abstract nouns instruments

stative approximative intensifying adjectives/adverbs verbs

+ + + + +

+

+

+

+

+ +

+

+

+ +

variety collection

less common common common

marked less marked unmarked

common

unmarked

common

unmarked

less common less common

unmarked unmarked

marked

+ +

+ +

distributive grouping distribution in a fixed space succession gradualness of an action distributive verbs

markedness

+ +

iterative repeated/lengthy actions continuous actions

crosslinguistic occurrence less common

+ +

+

+ + + + +

+

+ + + + + +

One generalisation arising on the basis of (39) is that clear cases of universal development or of language-internal development, as well as convincing cases of substratum influence, are few because several of the reduplication patterns attested in Early Sranan are unmarked, common cross-linguistically and are attested in at least one substratum language. Hence, it has been argued in the present chapter that the origin of several of the Early Sranan reduplication patterns cannot be attributed to one particular source. Moreover, it has been shown that superstratum influence is almost non-existent in the area of reduplication. On a theore-

274 tical level, all this means that creole formation should not just be regarded as superstratum or substratum restructuring or as an operation of language bioprogramme, but rather as a much more complex process, whose understanding requires taking into account multiple sources. Another generalisation arising on the basis of (39) is that there are numerous parallels to the substratum languages, especially in terms of individual semantic sub-patterns of reduplication. In fact, except for the approximative reduplication and reduplication expressing collection, all types of reduplication attested in Early Sranan are attested in at least one substratum language. Although it has been argued in the present chapter that convincing cases of substratum influence in the area of reduplication are few because of the lesser markedness of the majority of reduplication patterns attested in Early Sranan, the fact that there are so many parallels requires explanation. It is indeed surprising why Early Sranan, for instance, has intensifying and distributive reduplication, just like Ewe and Kikongo, but not the equally unmarked plural reduplication of the type *uman-uman meaning ‘women’, which is also absent from both Ewe and Kikongo. Moreover, given the fact that creoles show parallels to SLA, a claim gaining more and more ground in the last decades, it is unclear why German or Russian learners of English do not use intensifying, iterative and distributive reduplication in their learner varieties, whereas Early Sranan speakers did. Another fact in need of explanation is the absence of reduplication in pidgins (Bakker 2003a), which is surprising on the assumption that iconic reduplication is an instance of universal or language-internal development. Bakker and Parkvall (2005: 519–520) argue in this connection that pidgins develop reduplication at the expansion stage and suggest that whereas some reduplication patterns in creoles are obviously substratum-derived, the origin of other, more cross-linguistically common, patterns can be explained by a number of different reasons, such as the use of repetition as a communicative strategy, homonymy avoidance caused by the loss of many phonemic distinctions of lexifiers in the pidginisation process and the need for lexical expansion because of the limited lexical resources a pidgin avails itself of. However, these reasons still leave us with an array of questions and problems. Thus, although there is no doubt that repetition is one of the communicative strategies pidgin speakers make use of, the semantic repertoire of iconic reduplication patterns attested in creoles goes far beyond mere repetition and at least in the case of Early Sranan, resembles strikingly the repertoires of the respective substrates. In a similar vein, homonymy avoidance might explain, if at all, the origin of only a handful of reduplicated items in Early Sranan and cannot be regarded as a viable impetus to use reduplication, and not other word-formation means, to expand the lexicon. Finally, it is unclear why reduplication should be chosen as a means of lexical expansion if there are other rather productive and equally effective means of word-formation, such as compounding. Furthermore, there seems to be no plausible reason why creole speakers should not use phrasal combinations such as ‘very beautiful’, ‘to shake repeatedly’ or ‘full of holes’, expressing the same meaning as intensifying, iterative and distributive reduplication. Note also that the lexicon-expanding potential of many types of iconic reduplication, such as intensifying, iterative or distributive, is disputable: in the strict sense, these types are more of discourse strategies than word-formation strategies on a par with, for instance, nominalising reduplication and compounding, which result in the creation of units with clearly denotational meaning. In general, if iconic reduplication emerges in creoles to compensate for the limited lexical resources of pidgins, it remains a kind of an oddity that intensifying, iterative or distributive

275 reduplication are not used in, to use Klein and Perdue’s (1997) terminology, the ‘basic’ or ‘post-basic’ varieties of German or Russian learners of English. A possible way to explain these facts might lie in reconsidering markedness as a criterion for assessing the credibility of substratum influence, especially in cases of less marked features. One possibility to do so is to follow Kouwenberg and LaCharité’s (2004: 324) suggestion that where a substratum source can be claimed for the marked features, substratum influence becomes credible for less marked properties as well. Another possibility is to look for other criteria for assessing the credibility of substratum influence, in addition to the markedness criterion. One such criterion could be the homogeneity of the substratum, a factor whose importance in creole genesis has been shown by Singler (1988). It can be assumed that among the less marked patterns, substratum influence is more likely for those which are attested in at least two substratum languages, especially the major substratum languages, because there were more speakers present who could transfer these patterns into the creole and because dialect levelling possibly did not eliminate these patterns since they were common to more speakers. Thus, in accordance with the homogeneity criterion, substratum claims become more convincing for such iconic types as intensifying and distributive reduplication, which are attested in at least two substratum languages of Early Sranan. A further interesting fact offered by (39) is that there are numerous parallels to Twi, a language supposed to have played a less central role than Gbe and Kikongo (see section 3.4.2) in the emergence of Early Sranan. Significantly, in some cases, such as iterative reduplication and reduplication expressing variety, Twi is the only substratum language to which Early Sranan exhibits parallels. Although the patterns exhibiting parallels to Twi are less marked so that no convincing case for substratum influence can be made, the number of parallels suggests that the role of Twi in the emergence of Early Sranan obviously requires further research, both linguistically and socio-historically. A final generalisation emerging from the overview in (39) is that despite many parallels, the Early Sranan inventory of reduplication patterns is not a copy of the patterns attested in the substratum languages. Thus, some types of reduplication attested in Early Sranan, for instance, approximative reduplication and reduplication expressing collection, are not attested in the substratum languages, and, as shown in this chapter, some substratum patterns, for instance, the Kikongo reduplication expressing quick actions, are not attested in the creole. Moreover, as shown in the present chapter, some patterns, such as nominalising reduplication denoting results and abstract notions, are productive in the substratum languages, but unproductive in the creole. On a theoretical level, the fact that the Early Sranan inventory of reduplication patterns is not a copy of the substratum patterns renders untenable one of the claims advanced within the relexification hypothesis, namely, that the creole inventory of derivational affixes and of compounding patterns is determined to a great extent by that of the substratum languages (Lefebvre 1998: 333, 348). All in all, the discussions in the present chapter show that many aspects should be taken into account to present a realistic account of creole genesis and that often, no clear conclusions can be made about the origin of creole patterns, again showing the overall complexity of the creolisation process.

9

The emergence of Early Sranan word-formation: a conclusion

9.1

Introduction

The present chapter summarises the major findings of the investigation of Early Sranan word-formation done in this study. Section 9.2 contains an overview of word-formation patterns attested in Early Sranan and summarises the discussions of the sources, mechanisms and factors which have played a role in the emergence of Early Sranan wordformation. Section 9.3 discusses the theoretical implications this study bears for the scenarios of the emergence of Early Sranan and for some theories of creole genesis.

9.2

Early Sranan word-formation: sources, mechanisms and factors

9.2.1 A summary of the results The present study shows that in the course of the first 200 years of its existence, Early Sranan developed a number of word-formation patterns. Their overview is provided in (1). (1) pattern formation of nouns [N/A/V-man]N [uman-/man(n)-N]N [pikíen-N]N [mammá-N]N [V/A/N-fasi]N [N-N]N [A-N]N [V-N]N [N-V/N]N, N=ext. argument [N-V/N]N, N=int. argument [[N-N]-N]N/[N-[N-N]]N [[A-N]-N]N [[Num-N]-N]N [[V-N]-N]N [[Num-de]-worké]N [X-[fo-X]]N [RED-V]N multifunctionality

function person marker natural gender markers diminutive marker augmentative marker abstract nominaliser

example

fetiman ‘enemy’ mannkau ‘bull’ pikíen skapoe ‘lamb’ mammá-boom ‘huge stone’ laufasi ‘stupidity’ zoute bali ‘salt-shaker’ krukkutu mamma ‘stepmother’ tingi oli ‘rapeseed oil’ grunn sheki ‘earthquake’ vool-kweki ‘chicken breeding’ Bakkrakondre-stoon ‘bricks’ biggiheddi müra ‘ant species’ tuheddi snekki ‘a snake name’ tapoe-skíén-pân$gi ‘shawl’ days of the week wan de worké ‘Monday’ feya fo Gado ‘lightning’ result/instrument nouns zibi zibi ‘broom’ ougri (N/A/V) ‘evil/(be) bad’

277 formation of adjectives [RED-V]A [RED-A]A [RED-A]A multifunctionality formation of verbs [V-deictic element]V [RED-V]V multifunctionality formation of numerals [tien-na-Num]Num [[Num-ten]-tien]Num [Num-na-Num]Num multifunctionality formation of adverbs [Det-N]Adv reduplication multifunctionality formation of pronouns [Det-sanni/somma] Pr [no-[wan-sanni/somma]] Pr [hu-N]Pr

stative adjectives approximat. adjectives intensified adjectives

brokko-broko ‘broken’ redi-rédi ‘reddish’ nju-nju ‘very young’ brei (A/V) ‘knitted/to knit’

iterative verbs

kongo we ‘let’s go away’ seki-séki ‘to shake repeatedly’ brudu (V/N) ‘to bleed/blood’

numerals from 11 to 19 numerals from 20 to 90 numerals from 21 to 99 ordinal numerals

tien-na-drí ‘thirteen’ fo ten tien ‘forty’ fotentîn na fo ‘forty five’ feifi ‘five/fifth’ allatem ‘always’ pikien-pikíen ‘little by little’ nuffe (Adv/A/V) ‘(be) enough’

indefinite pronouns negative pronouns wh-pronouns

wansanni ‘something’ no wansanni ‘nothing’ hufasi ‘how/why’

Note that although, as argued in section 6.4, multifunctionality can be regarded as underspecification of lexical items rather than as a morphological process, multifunctionality patterns have been included in (1) since they can be viewed as a means of expanding the lexicon. Several generalisations about the word-formation system of Early Sranan can be made on the basis of (1). One generalisation is that none of the superstratum derivational morphemes made its way into Early Sranan. The absence of the lexifier’s derivational morphemes in Early Sranan supports earlier claims that reduction and simplification of derivational and inflectional markers are characteristic of the initial stages of pidginisation and creolisation (McWhorter 1998: 798, Mühlhäusler 1997: 142–143). Two explanations can be offered to account for the absence of superstratum derivational morphemes in Early Sranan. The first explanation is based on markedness. Many English derivational affixes are more marked formally since they are unstressed, trigger resyllabification and vowel change. Therefore, creole creators might have had difficulties with identifying affixational patterns in the input. Moreover, it can be argued that since content morphemes, which are usually targeted before functional morphemes are targeted (Clements 2003a), can be used in functions similar to affixes, there is in principle no urgent need for creole creators to acquire superstratum derivational morphology. The Early Sranan person marker -man, which comes from the free morpheme man, perfectly fulfils the same functions as the English suffix -er. The second explanation is input-based. It can be assumed that already at the initial stages, the input to Early Sranan might have contained very few derivational affixes or none at

278 all because of two reasons. First, derivational affixes are in general not very frequent in spoken language (Plag, Dalton-Puffer and Baayen 1999). Second, as Winford (2005: 5) suggests, independently of the fact whether the input to creole formation consisted of close approximations to the lexifier language or of a pidginised variety of the lexifier, individual interlanguage construction normally begins with a “highly reduced, pidgin-like system”, which is expanded at the subsequent stages of language acquisition. Since the creole creators did not have much contact with the speakers of English after the withdrawal of the British, they had hardly a possibility to adapt some of the English derivational morphology later. The absence of the superstratum derivational morphology suggests that Early Sranan should have started as a reduced variety which later did not draw on the superstratum for its lexical expansion. A further generalisation offered by the data in (1) is that as a substitute for the lacking superstratum derivational morphology, free morphemes came to be used in Early Sranan in functions such as ‘agentive’, ‘diminutive’, ‘augmentative’ and so on, which are typically expressed by derivational affixes in other languages, including Sranan’s superstratum and substratum languages. The use of content morphemes to express derivational concepts is a phenomenon common in pidginisation/creolisation (Meisel 1983: 126, Siegel 1999: 24). Free morphemes are less marked formally and have meanings more crucial for communication. They thus do not become victims of the overall reduction and can subsequently be used in functions similar to derivational morphemes. A final generalisation to be mentioned here is that there is a preference for analytical structures among Early Sranan word-formation patterns: concatenation of at least two free morphemes is the most commonly used strategy of word-formation. This supports earlier claims (Holm 2000: 130) that compounding is especially favoured in creoles. To conclude, the present study shows that the significant features of Early Sranan wordformation are the absence of superstratum derivational affixes, the use of free morphemes to mark derivational categories and concatenation of free morphemes to create new words.

9.2.2 Sources It has been shown in this study that a variety of sources played a role in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation, such as the superstratum/substratum languages, universals and language-internal development. To summarise the results of the present study with respect to the sources, in (2) and (3), overviews of the parallels in terms of major wordformation patterns between Early Sranan, English and three substratum languages, Gbe, Twi and Kikongo, are provided. Since Ewe and Fon exhibit great similarities to each other with respect to derivational patterns, they are put together and referred to as ‘Gbe’ in (2) and (3). If a pattern is attested in at least one of the two Gbe languages, this is indicated by a plus. A plus means that there is a one-to-one correspondence between Early Sranan and a given input language with respect to a given pattern. For instance, the pattern ‘state of (being) X’ is attested in every input language, but there is no one-to-one correspondence between the Early Sranan pattern and the input language patterns because the input language patterns do not make use of the marker which comes from a morpheme meaning ‘manner’. Therefore, such a pattern is marked by a minus. The combination of a plus and a minus in (2b) means that only one pattern, either ‘female X’ or ‘male X’, is attested in a given lan-

279 guage. The question mark indicates that it is unclear, on the basis of the substratum sources at hand, whether a given pattern is attested in a particular substratum language. (2)

ES Eng patterns with the person marker -man ‘person with occupation connected with X’ + + ‘person characterised by property X’ + + ‘person whose physical attribute is object X’ + – ‘person who suffers from disease X’ + – ‘person who performs action X’ + – ‘person who possesses object X’ + – b. patterns with the gender markers uman- and man(n)‘female/male animal X’ + –/+ ‘female/male plant X’ + – ‘female/male human being X’ + + ‘female/male occupation X’ + + ‘female/male body part X’ + – c. patterns with the diminutive marker pikíen‘small type of X’ + – ‘young descendant of animal X’ + – ‘young version of human being X’ + – ‘assistant or apprentice of occupation X’ + – ‘someone who pretends to be X and is not X’ + – ‘smaller, less conspicuous body part X’ + – d. patterns with the augmentative marker mammá‘huge X’ + – e. patterns with the abstract nominaliser -fasi ‘state of (being) X’ + –

Gbe

Twi

Ki

+ + + + + +

+ + + + + +

+ + + + + –

+ + + + +

+ + + +/– ?

+ – +/– +/– ?

+ + + + + +

+ + + – – –

+ – – – – –

–

–

–

–

–

–

a.

The parallels between Early Sranan, English and the substratum languages in terms of concatenative patterns and reduplication patterns are summarised in (3). A number of Kikongo patterns are indicated by blank spaces in (3) since no sufficient information on compounding in Kikongo could be found in the sources (see section 4.6.1). Because of the differences in the order of elements in compounds between Early Sranan and the substratum languages, the diverging substratum orders are provided in brackets. (3) a.

concatenative patterns endocentric N-N exocentric N-N copulative N-N endocentric A-N (N-A) exocentric A-N (N-A) endocentric V-N exocentric V-N N-V/N, N=external argument of V/N

ES

Eng

Gbe

Twi

+ + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + – +

+ + + + + + – +

Ki

280 N-V/N, N=internal argument of V/N N-N-N A-N-N (N-A-N) Num-N-N V-N-N (N-V-N) V-deictic element Num-de-worké X-fo-X tien-na-Num Num-ten-tien Num-na-Num adverbs: Det-N indefinite pronouns: Det-sanni/somma negative pronouns: no-wan-sanni/somma wh-pronouns: hu-N b. reduplication patterns nominalising result reduplication nominalising instrumental reduplication stative reduplication approximative reduplication intensifying reduplication iterative reduplication distributive reduplication reduplication expressing variety reduplication expressing collection

ES + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Eng + + + + – + – – – – – – – – –

Gbe + + + – + – – – – – – + + + +

Twi – + + – + – – – – – – + + ? +

Ki

+ + + + + + + + +

– – – – – – – – –

+ – + – + – + – –

+ – + – + + + + –

+ – – – + – + – –

– – + – – + + – –

The present study shows that the superstratum English provided two word-formation patterns, some compounds, the phonological form of four derivational markers and the righthand order of elements in complex items. This means that, contrary to what is stated by Lefebvre (2004: 49–52, 84–88), superstratum influence can go beyond the phonetic matrices of derivational affixes and the order of elements in complex words. All in all, the present study suggests that despite a number of formal and semantic parallels between Early Sranan and English in terms of complex words and word-formation patterns, the number of convincing cases of superstratum influence is small. So, the role of English in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation can be regarded as marginal. The overviews in (2) and (3) show that there are numerous parallels to the substratum languages in terms of patterns: out of the 19 patterns with the markers, only two are not attested in any of the substratum languages, and out of the 23 concatenative patterns, six are not attested in any of the substratum languages. Moreover, it has been shown that there are a number of cases of semantic transfer of substratum complex words into Early Sranan. However, convincing cases of substratum influence in the area of word-formation patterns are not numerous because of the unmarkedness of many Early Sranan patterns. For instance, out of the 19 patterns with the markers, substratum influence is more credible for eight patterns, out of the 23 concatenative patterns for five, and out of the nine reduplication patterns for three. Notably, in those cases where no convincing evidence of substratum

281 influence can be presented, semantic similarities are usually greater to the substrates than to the superstratum. The investigation of the sources of Early Sranan word-formation has also shown that convincing cases of substratum influence have been attested not for one particular substratum language, but for the two major substratum languages, Gbe and Kikongo. This suggests that both Gbe and Kikongo have played a role in the emergence of Early Sranan and thus supports existing socio-historical evidence about the role of Gbe and Kikongo in Sranan’s genesis. Significantly, there are many parallels to Twi, which has been considered a less crucial substratum language of Early Sranan (see section 3.4.2). In many cases, Twi patterns are homogeneous with Gbe patterns, but in some cases, such as iterative reduplication and reduplication expressing variety, Twi is the only substratum language to which Early Sranan has parallels. This fact suggests that the role of Twi in the emergence of Early Sranan requires further research. Of the two major substratum languages, there are more cases of convincing substratum influence on the part of Gbe than on the part of Kikongo, and also in general more parallels to Gbe than to Kikongo. This might indicate at first sight that Gbe played a greater role in the emergence of Early Sranan than Kikongo did. Such a suggestion has already been advanced earlier (Migge 2003a: 55). However, the preponderance of the parallels to Gbe can also be explained by the fact that the Gbe structures, in contrast to the Kikongo structures, are more analytical and exhibit less morphophonological alternations. The overviews in (2) and (3) also demonstrate that nine out of the overall 51 patterns have no one-to-one parallels in any of the input languages investigated in the present study. Some of them, such as X-fo-X, are cross-linguistically common and can be regarded as cases of universal development. Other patterns, e.g. the pattern with the augmentative marker mammá-, are less common cross-linguistically and can hence be instances of languageinternal development. Since the number of cases of universal development and languageinternal development of word-formation patterns is small, it can be suggested that claims about universal grammar or language-internal processes being the major source of structural expansion in creole derivational morphology (Mühlhäusler 1980: 36, 1995a: 119) cannot be confirmed for Early Sranan. The present study also shows that besides credible cases of superstratum/substratum influence or universal or language-internal development, there are many patterns whose origin cannot be established straightforwardly mainly because they are common cross-linguistically and attested in English and/or in one of the substratum languages. For instance, out of the overall 51 patterns presented in (2) and (3), 16 have parallels in both English and the substratum languages. All in all, the emergence of the approximately half of the Early Sranan word-formation patterns cannot be attributed to one particular source. Thus, the present study to some extent supports Mühlhäusler’s (1980: 33) remark that “hardly any word or construction in a pidgin or creole can be traced back to a single origin”. 9.2.3 Mechanisms It has been suggested in the present study that a variety of mechanisms played a role in the emergence of word-formation markers and patterns in Early Sranan, such as reanalysis, adaptation of superstratum complex words, borrowing of complex words from other input

282 languages (Dutch), transfer of complex words and patterns from the substratum languages and innovative pattern- and word-coinage. It has been argued in this study that a mechanism by which derivational markers have emerged in Early Sranan is reanalysis of free morphemes as derivational markers and not, as often suggested for the emergence of affixation in creoles in general, grammaticalisation. The term grammaticalisation, apart from bearing a number of terminological and other problems (Bruyn 1995a, 1996, Plag 2002), cannot adequately account for the emergence of Early Sranan derivational markers mainly because it usually describes a directional mechanism by which a free morpheme becomes a bound morpheme. The investigation of Early Sranan markers shows, however, that such directionality is difficult to establish. The role of reanalysis in creole genesis has been described by Lefebvre (1998: 41, 44), who argues that speakers of substratum languages copy a functional category lexical entry from their L1, assign it a phonologically null form because they fail to identify a suitable corresponding superstratum form for this lexical entry and thus ‘reanalyse’ a major category lexical item as a label for the ‘zero-marked’ functional category entry from the substratum. However, there are problems with such a view of reanalysis. First, as McWhorter (2004: 113–114) observes, it is unclear why creole creators should assign a null form to a lexical item. It can indeed be argued that creole creators had a whole array of free morphemes which they could use in functions similar to derivational affixes, without any mediation through zero forms. Second, Lefebvre connects reanalysis to relexification, which is problematic because, as demonstrated in the present study, none of the Early Sranan markers can be regarded as the result of relexification of substratum markers. Therefore, reanalysis as understood in this study refers to a mechanism operating independently of substratum influence by which the form of some free morpheme available in the input comes to be used as the form of a morpheme fulfilling a specific derivational function. Another finding is that the Early Sranan markers can hardly have emerged, as has been suggested for other creoles (e.g. DeGraff (2001) for Haitian) and for language contact situations in general (Winford 2003: 91), via borrowing of superstratum complex words followed by the reanalysis of parts of these words as derivational affixes. Only one out of five markers attested in Early Sranan surfaces in words which have one-to-one correspondences in the superstratum. But even in this case, the majority of the correspondences are unmarked and hence might have emerged independently. Thus, there were hardly any superstratum complex items on whose basis the markers could have been reanalysed. Furthermore, the present study cannot confirm Migge’s (2003a: 84) suggestion for the Eastern Maroon Creole that derivational affixes emerge through the projection of the substratum structural patterns onto the superstratum patterns followed by the reinterpretation of the superstratum patterns in terms of the substratum structures. As demonstrated in this study, superstratum influence on Early Sranan word-formation was marginal, and there are a number of substratum patterns for which no correspondences in the superstratum exist. It is hence unclear in how far the superstratum patterns were available at all and what substratum patterns were actually projected onto. In general, as the present study suggests, the mechanisms of the emergence of the Early Sranan markers cannot be reduced to the interplay between superstratum input and substratum influence, but involve language-internal processes as well, such as the creation of innovations. Another finding arising out of the present study is that transfer was one of the mechanisms by which some word-formation patterns and complex words entered Early Sranan.

283 Semantic transfer of a number of substratum complex words might have led to the emergence of some patterns in Early Sranan, which were possibly subsequently used for the creation of innovations. Formal transfer, in contrast, played a less significant role: none of the substratum markers has been transferred in its original form into Early Sranan, and there are very few complex words (reduplications without attested bases) whose form is taken fully from one of the substratum languages. Finally, the Early Sranan data also suggest that there is hardly any evidence for the assumption that reanalysis of phrases to word-level units, considered as an important mechanism during the move of a pidgin towards a creole (Mühlhäusler 1995a: 119), played a significant role in the emergence of Early Sranan: although some phrasal patterns, such as X-fo-X, are attested in Early Sranan, they are not a crucial means of expanding the lexicon. The majority of Early Sranan complex items are concatenations of two or three free morphemes and are word-level units.

9.2.4 Factors It has been argued in the present study that among the linguistic factors, markedness played an important role in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation. On the one hand, markedness can be made responsible for the absence of superstratum derivational morphemes. The superstratum derivational morphemes are generally less phonologically discernible, less frequent and thus more difficult to isolate in the input. Furthermore, markedness can explain why the number of English complex words in Early Sranan is small. Complex items require greater processing effort in terms of parsing, appear in more restricted environments and are hence rarer in the input. Therefore, their identification in the input and their takeover into the creole system is more problematic for creole creators. On the other hand, markedness can also be made responsible for the non-appearance of some substratum patterns in Early Sranan. As demonstrated in the present study, more marked patterns attested in the substratum languages, for instance, some patterns with the person markers or the diminutive markers, are not attested in Early Sranan. Furthermore, markedness might be a factor behind Sranan’s preference for certain types of word-formation means. First, of all word-formation processes, compounding is the most common process used in Early Sranan, reduplication is somewhat less common, and multifunctionality is the least common of the three processes. Compounding and reduplication are processes less marked semantically: they allow a more straightforward identification of the relation between form and meaning than, e.g., multifunctionality or shortening. Multifunctionality is, however, less marked formally. Second, among reduplication types, full and iconic reduplications dominate. Finally, the markers attested in Early Sranan are less marked both formally and semantically: they consist of at least one syllable, do not trigger any morphophonological changes and have general meanings. As to the non-linguistic factors, limited access to the superstratum has been mentioned as a factor in creole genesis (Lefebvre 1998: 36). However, the present study can offer little in terms of new insights into the role of this factor in the genesis of Early Sranan. Linguistically, limited access is associated with a greater degree of divergence from the superstratum. This study shows that the influence of English on the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation was small. However, evidence that this is due to limited access is difficult

284 to present. The greater divergence of Early Sranan word-formation from the superstratum can be explained by other factors, such as lack of functional need or greater markedness of certain structures.

9.3

Theoretical implications

9.3.1 Implications for the scenarios of the emergence of Early Sranan The present study allows some remarks on the scenarios of the emergence of Early Sranan introduced in section 3.5. One such scenario is Arends’ (1993, 2002a) gradualist scenario according to which creolisation of Sranan is viewed as a process that took place over several generations. One argument Arends (1995b: 40) advances in support of this scenario is that the language in Van Dyk (c1765) represents a relatively early variety of Sranan which is only partly creolised and is thus an intermediate developmental stage between the early varieties and the varieties of the late 18th century. Arends (1995b: 42) asserts that at the level of word-formation, gradual creolisation manifests itself in the fact that Van Dyk shows preference for circumlocutions rather than compounding with -man to create names of persons and thus documents a stage at which “morphology was not yet an integral part of the linguistic system of Sranan”. The results of the present study suggest that the gradualist view of creolisation of Sranan is problematic. To substantiate this suggestion, in (4), word-formation patterns attested in the three sources of Early Sranan are compared to each other. (4) person marker -man gender markers uman- and man(n)diminutive marker pikíenaugmentative marker mammáabstract nominaliser -fasi N-N A-N V-N N-V/N N-N-N A-N-N Num-N-N V-N-N Num-de-worké X-fo-X tien-na-Num Num-ten-tien Num-na-Num

VD (c1765) + – + – – + + + – + – – – + + + + +

Sch (1783) + + + + + + + + + + + + – + + + + +

Fo (1855) + + + + – + + + + + + + + + + + + –

285 V-deictic element adverbs: Det-N indefinite pronouns: Det-sanni/somma negative pronouns: no-wan-sanni/somma wh-pronouns: hu-N nominalising reduplication stative reduplication approximative reduplication intensifying reduplication iterative reduplication distributive reduplication reduplication expressing variety reduplication expressing collection

VD (c1765) + + + + + + – – + – – – –

Sch (1783) + + + + + + + – + + + + –

Fo (1855) + + + + + + + + + + + – +

The overview in (4) shows that the majority of the patterns attested in the two later sources are also attested in Van Dyk: out of the 28 patterns attested in Schumann (1783), 18 are attested in Van Dyk. Although the discrepancy in terms of the number of patterns can potentially be attributed to diachronic development, this should not necessarily be interpreted as a sign of a much earlier, partially creolised stage because of two reasons. First, compounding is a common way of creating new words in Van Dyk, and all most productive patterns attested in the later sources are attested in Van Dyk as well. Second, patterns not attested in Van Dyk, but attested in the later sources, are, with very few exceptions, less central patterns in a sense that only a few words are documented for them. Therefore, their absence in Van Dyk can be merely accidental. To sum up, in terms of word-formation, Van Dyk does not represent a much earlier, only partly creolised stage of Early Sranan. It has been argued in the present study that differences in terms of the number of patterns between Van Dyk and the two later sources can also be explained by factors other than diachronic development. First, Van Dyk differs from Schumann and Focke in terms of size and genre: it is a much smaller source and it is a language manual, not a dictionary. Second, as the overview in (4) shows, Focke (1855) does not contain three patterns attested in the earlier sources. This implies that the discrepancies in terms of patterns between the three sources can be accidental or reflect differences in the varieties each source represents. Another scenario is the “rapid creolisation” scenario of Sranan’s emergence advanced by Smith (2002, 2006), who argues that creolisation takes place within a few years when slaves have sufficient access to the superstratum. Smith (2002: 135) suggests that Sranan might have creolised before Saramaccan came into existence approximately around 1680 because the two languages share several linguistic features not attested in other Caribbean creoles. The results of the present study can be used to provide some support for this scenario. First, some of the word-formation patterns attested in Early Sranan, but not attested in other Caribbean creoles, are attested in Saramaccan, for instance, the augmentative marker mammá-. Second, Early Sranan and Early Saramaccan share a great number of complex words, especially words based on metaphors, as a tentative investigation of Schumann’s (1778) dictionary of Saramaccan shows: e.g. bobbi-watra (breast-water) ‘mother’s milk’, dehbrokko (day-to break) ‘dawn’ or hatti-bronn (heart-to burn) ‘anger’. Signifi-

286 cantly, they share many complex words of English origin with one bound element, or words of English origin which no longer have any morphological structure in the creole, such as mamantem (bound morpheme-time) ‘morning’, gunêti (bound morpheme-night) ‘good night’ or kattantrì (< Engl. cotton tree) ‘cotton tree’. These patterns and words can hardly have developed independently of each other in the two so closely related languages. This means that Early Sranan seems to have had these patterns and words at a very early stage, before Saramaccan emerged, which speaks in favour of rapid creolisation.

9.3.2 Implications for some theories and accounts of creole genesis The present study bears a number of implications for some theories and accounts of creole genesis. The present study allows some remarks on the major claims of the superstratist theory of creolisation as elaborated in Chaudenson (1992, 2001) (cf. Mufwene 2001). One central claim of this theory is that the starting point for creole languages are the second language varieties rather similar to the superstratum, which gradually diverged from the superstratum in the course of time and experienced some interference from the native languages of each new generation of slaves. As shown in the present study, Early Sranan word-formation bears little traces of superstratum influence: none of the superstratum derivational affixes survived in Early Sranan, hardly any marker has acquired its semantic and structural properties from the superstratum, several superstratum compounding patterns do not feature in Early Sranan, and there are also relatively few adaptations of complex words from English. All this suggests that if the starting point for Sranan were indeed varieties closely similar to the superstratum, superstratum influence should have been more prominent. In contrast, substratum influence on Early Sranan word-formation has been shown to be much more significant. In general, since at least one marker, the diminutive pikíen-, is not of English or substratum origin and since Early Sranan word-formation bears traces of substratum influence, it seems that the starting point of Early Sranan was a variety featuring a mixture of elements from different sources. Moreover, the present study cannot confirm the major assumptions of Lefebvre’s (1998) relexification hypothesis with respect to the emergence of creole word-formation. The central claim behind the relexification hypothesis is that creole languages arise via relexification, a mental process by which properties of substratum lexical items are copied and replaced with the superstratum phonetic strings in the creole (Lefebvre 1998: 17). With respect to affixation, Lefebvre (1998: 333) claims that first, creole derivational affixes arise as the result of relexification of the substratum affixes and second, the inventory of creole derivational affixes is largely determined by that of the substratum. The first claim cannot be substantiated by the evidence presented in this study, since none of the Early Sranan markers exhibits a one-to-one correspondence to the substratum affixes in terms of its semantic and syntactic properties. It has hence been argued in the present study that the substratum languages mainly influenced the development of Early Sranan word-formation not via the relexification of individual lexical entries, but via the process of transfer of some complex words and patterns. Therefore, substratum influence should be better described not as relexification, but as transfer, since the latter term does not presuppose a one-to-one mapping of lexical entries.

287 The second claim is problematic as well. To illustrate this, in (5), the inventory of Early Sranan markers is compared to the inventories of derivational markers used in the substratum languages. English equivalents of the Sranan and of the substratum markers are also included in (5), since some of Lefebvre’s claims relevant for the discussion here concern the superstratum. Only those cases where Early Sranan makes use of overt markers are included in (5). Cases where Early Sranan expresses a given derivational category by means of reduplication or multifunctionality are not included in (5) because these processes are regarded as different from the processes involving specific markers. The data on Ewe are taken from Westermann (1907: 79, 120–123), the data on Fon are from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 187), the data on Twi from Christaller (1875: 17–18, 23, 54), the data on Kikongo from Bentley (1887: 227, 528–538) and the data on English from the OED and Dalton-Puffer (1996). The lists of English affixes are not always exhaustive: usually, affixes with high token frequency according to Dalton-Puffer (1996) are listed in (5). (5) marker person

ES -man

Eng -er

Ewe -a -la -no2 -to2 no2 tsu nyon2)⁄ u ṅu!tsu~

Fon -tO! -nO~ -nu~

Twi -ni -fọ

gender

umanman(n)-

diminutive

pikíen-

abstract

-fasi

augmentative inversive

mammá–

woman man she he -ess -ster -ling -erel -ing -ness -ation -ity – un-

ordinal numeral locative instrumental process/manner of action nature/habit characterising a person or thing collective

– – – –

Ki mudikimnkento bakala ekoko vaka exina

a~s¸~ a~su!/su nyO~nu su!nnu

o2be!re on¸!ni o2be!a/o2ba@ o2bar¸!ma! -wa

-v¸!

-v¸!

-wa/-ba

-me

–

-e/-i

– –

– ma~-

– –

-th -ery -er –

-lea -gbe! – –

-gO!O! – – –

– -e/-i -e/-i -e/-i

–

–

–

–

–

– -ula/-ola -ona/-una – e– m-/nluki-

–

-dom -hood -ery

–

–

–

a-

kifiu-

288 The overview in (5) shows that the inventory of Early Sranan markers differs from the inventories of the substratum languages in both the size and the type of derivational categories which are marked overtly. Thus, the Early Sranan inventory is smaller than the inventories of the substratum languages in a sense that it has only one marker for a given derivational category, whereas the substratum languages often contain more than one. For instance, there is only one person marker in Early Sranan, but at least two in each of the substratum languages. In terms of the type of derivational categories, the Early Sranan inventory on the one hand contains markers which are not attested in the substratum languages, such as the augmentative marker mammá-, and on the other hand does not comprise markers which are attested in the substratum languages, such as the inversive marker, as in Fon and Kikongo, or the instrumental marker, as in Twi, etc. Furthermore, the types of markers attested in Early Sranan are less semantically marked because of their general meanings and, with the exception of the augmentative marker, belong to the typologically most frequently attested types of derivational markers (Bauer 2002: 40). Therefore, it can hardly be claimed that the substratum languages alone are responsible for the creole inventory of derivational affixes. Notably, Lefebvre provides some explanations as to why certain substratum features do not enter creole systems. One explanation is that idiosyncratic features, i.e. features not common to all relexified lexicons, will undergo levelling when creole creators stop targeting the superstratum variety and start targeting relexified lexicons (Lefebvre 1998: 46). This would mean that the absence of certain substratum markers in Early Sranan can be explained by levelling. Although dialect levelling can in principle be used as an explanatory mechanism for the disappearance of some substratum features, it will be argued here that substratum derivational markers absent from Early Sranan should have been absent from the very beginning. The argument supporting this position is that levelling is regarded as a process often taking place over several generations when children do not participate as active agents in creolisation (Siegel 1997: 128). Since children can hardly have been active agents in the genesis of Early Sranan, levelling can be assumed to have been a gradual process in Early Sranan. The data for Early Sranan used in the present investigation, as well as the data from one earlier source of Early Sranan, Court Records (1667–1767, Van den Berg 2000), do not have any traces of other markers. This points to the fact that markers not common to all substratum lexicons were most likely absent from the very beginning. Furthermore, the overview in (5) shows that even features common to several substratum lexicons, such as the inversive marker or the locative marker, do not appear in Early Sranan. Another explanation offered by Lefebvre (1998: 37–38) is that transfer does not take place when the lexifier has no item identifiable with the corresponding substratum form. However, this explanation cannot be supported on the basis of the data in (5). The data rather support McWhorter’s (2004: 112–113) observation that even if the superstratum language provided such an item, there were substratum features which were nevertheless not incorporated into the creole languages. Thus, English has affixes marking inversive, ordinal numerals, instrumental and collective which are congruent in meaning with the markers of the substratum languages, but none of these markers has entered Early Sranan. Significantly, the English equivalents of the substratum affixes which have not entered Early Sranan are more marked formally: the inversive marker un-, the ordinal numeral marker -th and the locative marker -ery are less phonologically discernible than, for instance, free morphemes. Moreover, the inversive, locative and ordinal numeral markers seem to be less

289 common cross-linguistically: they are not listed among the five most commonly attested types of derivational affixes in Bauer (2002: 40). Thus, the absence of certain substratum markers in the creole can be explained by factors other than the presence of identifiable equivalents in the superstratum. With respect to compounding, Lefebvre (1998: 348) suggests that creole creators use the principles of concatenation of their own grammar in creating complex words. For instance, concepts rendered as compounds in the substratum languages are often rendered as compounds in the creole, but as simplexes in the superstratum. Simplexes are compounded according to the semantics of the substratum languages. Besides, as Lefebvre asserts, the types of compounds in the creole parallel those of the substratum languages. These claims are difficult to maintain in the view of the evidence presented in this study. The first claim cannot be supported because many complex words in Early Sranan cannot be traced to substratum influence, but are language-internal innovations. Moreover, as shown in this study, a number of Early Sranan compounds have one-to-one semantic correspondences in the substratum languages, which means they have not been compounded according to the semantics of the substrates, but have been transferred from them. To assess the second claim, in (6), the inventory of common compounding patterns attested in Early Sranan is compared to the inventories of English, Gbe and Twi. Kikongo is excluded from the comparison because of insufficient information (see section 4.6.1). The data for Gbe are from Lefebvre and Brousseau (2002: 221–234), Schlegel (1856: 29–45) and Westermann (1907: 118–131), the Twi data from Christaller (1933: XXI–XXII). Note that English verbal compounds, such as to backbite, are excluded from (6) since first, they were not common before the 16th century and second, they are argued to be formed via conversion and backformation rather than compounding (Marchand 1969: 101–102, 104). Because of the differences in the order of elements in compounds, the diverging substratum orders are provided in brackets after the corresponding Early Sranan orders. (6) a.

b.

compound nouns N-N A-N (N-A) V-N Prep-N N-N-N A-N-N (N-A-N) Num-N-N V-N-N (N-V-N) compound adjectives N-A A-A

ES

Eng

Gbe

Twi

+ + + – + + + +

+ + + + + + + –

+ + + – + + – +

+ + + – + + – +

– –

+ +

– –

– –

As can be inferred from (6), Early Sranan’s inventory of compounding patterns is smaller in size than the English inventory, which contains Prep-N compounding and adjectival compounding besides nominal compounding, but is comparable in size with the inventories of the substratum languages which also make productive use of nominal compounding only. However, it cannot be argued that the Early Sranan types of compounds parallel only those

290 of the substratum languages: the most productive types of Early Sranan compounds, such as N-N, A-N and V-N compounds, not only parallel those of the substratum languages, but also those of English and are common cross-linguistically. Moreover, some types, such as Num-N-N, are not attested in the substratum languages. To sum up, hardly any claim advanced within the relexification hypothesis with respect to word-formation can be supported by the present study. The findings of the present investigation also bear implications for the creolisation account advanced by Seuren and Wekker (1986). Seuren and Wekker (1986: 64) argue that creole genesis is determined by a tendency to maximise semantic transparency. They regard semantic transparency as “a property of surface structures enabling listeners to carry out semantic interpretation with the least possible machinery and with the least possible requirements regarding language learning”. According to Seuren and Wekker (1986: 64–67), this tendency involves three strategies: uniformity, universality and simplicity. Uniformity means maximal uniformity in treating semantic categories and few arbitrary grammatical distinctions, e.g. with derivational processes in morphology. Universality is minimal reliance on language-particular rules. Simplicity involves minimal processing needed to get from semantic analyses to surface structures and vice versa and manifests itself in e.g., a preference for iconic expressions. The present study supports the idea that semantic transparency played an important role in the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation. Many Early Sranan complex words investigated in the present study are semantically transparent items, word-formation patterns involving markers yield hardly any idiosyncrasies, and five out of eight reduplication patterns attested in Early Sranan are iconic. Moreover, the comparison of some Early Sranan patterns, such as the Num-de-worké pattern creating names of the days of the week, to the corresponding patterns in the input languages shows that the creole patterns are more regular, more uniform and more transparent. However, it should be pointed out that maximisation of semantic transparency is not the absolute factor in creole genesis. Thus, as every language, Early Sranan tolerates some less transparent processes, such as non-iconic reduplication and multifunctionality, and a number of Early Sranan complex words are non-transparent. The tendency to maximise transparency interacted in Early Sranan with the influence from the input languages, which in some cases acted as sources of idiosyncrasies. The present study allows some comments on McWhorter’s (2004) account, within which structural reduction is regarded as a crucial attribute of creole genesis. McWhorter argues that creole languages exhibit less elaborate, or ‘younger’, grammars compared to both their lexifiers and their substratum languages, as well as to other ‘older’ languages of the world. This lesser degree of complexity is, among other things, manifested in creoles’ lesser degree of overt specification of grammatical distinctions which are “ornamental, rather than vital, to human expression” (McWhorter 2004: 78). By comparing Saramaccan to its substratum language Fon in different areas of grammar, McWhorter (2004) suggests that one of the significant processes operating in creolisation is overall structural reduction on different linguistic levels. McWhorter shows that in comparison to Fon, Saramaccan exhibits less ‘overspecification’ in that it, for instance, has only two derivational markers instead of eight or nine in Fon. McWhorter (2004: 79) attributes these differences in overspecification to creoles’ social history, in particular, to their young age. The results of the present study support McWhorter’s core position. In comparison to the substratum and the superstratum languages, Early Sranan shows less overspecification in

291 quantitative terms: it makes use of a smaller number of derivational markers, and in comparison to the superstratum, also of a smaller number of compounding patterns. However, some remarks on McWhorter’s (2004) account are due here. First, despite their small number, Early Sranan markers cover approximately the same range of patterns as the corresponding markers in the input languages. For instance, the person marker -man alone exhibits six semantic patterns and the three Fon person affixes together exhibit nine, the four Ewe person affixes ten and the four Kikongo affixes eight. The Early Sranan gender markers uman- and man(n)- exhibit the same range of semantic patterns as the markers of the substratum languages. Significantly, Early Sranan always makes use of one marker to express a specific function, whereas the superstratum and the substratum languages usually have more than one marker. So, quantitatively, the Early Sranan system of markers is less complex, but qualitatively, it is not as reduced as it seems at first sight. This means that less overspecification in quantitative terms does not necessarily presuppose less overspecification in qualitative terms. Second, the question is whether less overspecification in the area of word-formation is attributable to creoles’ young age alone. The idea that languages develop overspecification in the course of (long) time presupposes that affixes develop through grammaticalisation. However, in the case of creoles, affixes do not need years to develop: they can also be transferred from the substratum languages or adapted from the superstratum, through e.g. reanalysis of superstratum complex words containing affixes, and thus enter creole systems at relatively early stages. Hence, less overspecification in terms of the number of markers might be attributed to other factors, for instance, low frequency of occurrence of affixed words in the input. Notably, a decrease in overspecification can also take place at a more mature age: English, for instance, gradually developed towards less overspecification in some areas of its grammar, e.g. grammatical gender. To sum up, the idea of overspecification can plausibly explain some aspects of creole genesis in the area of word-formation, but it needs refinement with respect to other, especially qualitative, aspects. Furthermore, the present study bears implications for accounts which regard creole genesis as a process essentially similar to SLA (Migge 2003a, Plag 2005a, 2009, Winford 2005). For instance, Plag (2005a, 2009) argues that creoles arise as conventionalised interlanguages of early developmental stages and that phonological, morphological and syntactic inventories of creoles bear traces of processes typical of SLA. Plag suggests that both creole formation and SLA result from an interaction of the native language with the newly emerging language and limited processing capacities of the learners. There are indeed some parallels between the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation and the development of word-formation in SLA. Although there are rather few studies dealing with SLA of word-formation, some general tendencies can be established on the basis of these studies, such as the studies by Broeder et al. (1993) of untutored SLA of wordformation by 40 Turkish, Arabic, Punjabi, Spanish, Finnish and Italian learners of Dutch, English, French, German and Swedish, and by González Álvarez (2004) of L2 acquisition of English word-formation by Spanish learners. These tendencies are listed in (7): (7) a.

Compounding appears earlier than affixation and is used more frequently than affixation to create new lexemes.

292 b. Nominal compounding, especially N-N compounding, is the most frequently attested type of compounding. c. Learners make a creative and innovative use of word-formation devices by e.g. combining more elementary concepts to name more complex ones. d. Learners employ syntactic means, such as paraphrases, to denote concepts for which they lack corresponding L2 lexemes. e. The use of multifunctionality as a word-formation strategy decreases with increasing proficiency. f. Learners often use their L1 order in sequencing elements of complex words. g. The reliance on L1 decreases at more advanced stages. The first three tendencies can be said to hold for Early Sranan. First, none of the English derivational affixes is used in Early Sranan, the number of derivational markers is small and all derivational markers are originally free morphemes. Besides, concatenation of two or more free morphemes is the most common way of creating new words in Early Sranan. Second, nominal compounding is the most common type of compounding in Early Sranan. Third, many complex concepts are rendered in Early Sranan by items which can be regarded as a combination of more basic semantic concepts, as e.g. biggi tongo (big-voice) ‘bass’, swíti sópi (sweet-drink) ‘liqueur’ or takkru du (awful-deed) ‘adultery’. However, the remaining four tendencies (7d–g) do not hold for Early Sranan. First, syntactic means are used only to a rather limited extent in Early Sranan: patterns resembling syntactic phrases, such as X-fo-X, are very few. Second, multifunctionality is used in Early Sranan as a means of expanding the lexicon at later stages as well: Focke (1855) contains multifunctionality sets not attested in the other two sources. Third, almost none of the Early Sranan complex items follows the order of elements of substratum complex words: whereas substratum languages have left-headed compounds, they are almost absent from Early Sranan. Finally, the substratum languages seem to have influenced Early Sranan at later stages as well: for instance, V-N-N compounding, which has been argued to be a credible case of substratum influence, is likely to have emerged later. This fact supports Kouwenberg’s (2006: 213) assumption that in creole formation, in contrast to SLA, L1 continues to play a role after initial L2 acquisition. The discussion of the parallels between the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation and SLA of word-formation shows that since there are some similarities between the two, at least some SLA processes seem to be at work in creole formation. Moreover, some of these processes, e.g. disappearance of superstratum affixation, preference for the unmarked, can be attributed to limited processing capacities. However, even if creoles start as interlanguages of an early stage, they follow a path different from L2 learners later. So, in general creole genesis should be regarded not as an instance of SLA, but as the creation of a new language drawing on multiple resources, which resembles SLA only in some respects. To conclude, it has been shown in the present study that the emergence of Early Sranan word-formation cannot be properly accounted for within approaches to creole formation which deal with mainly one explanatory aspect, such as superstratum or substratum influence. The emergence of Early Sranan word-formation involved an interplay of different sources, mechanisms and factors.

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