Variation in the Caribbean: From creole continua to individual agency

CREOLE LANGUAGE LIBRARY

VOLUME 37

From creole continua to individual agency

EDITED BY

Lars Hinrichs Joseph T. Farquharson

J O H N B E NJAMINS P U BLISHI N G COMP A N Y

Variation in the Caribbean

Creole Language Library (CLL) A book series presenting descriptive and theoretical studies designed to add significantly to the data available on pidgin and creole languages.

Editors Miriam Meyerhoff

Umberto Ansaldo

University of Auckland

The University of Hong Kong

Editorial Advisory Board Mervyn C. Alleyne

Pieter Muysken

Kingston, Jamaica

Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Marlyse Baptista

Peter Mtihlhitusler

Ann Arbor, USA

Adelaide, Australia

George L Huttar

Shobha Satyanath

Dallas, USA

Delhi, India

John Holm

John Victor Singler

Coirnbra. Portugal

New York, USA

Silvia Kouwenberg

Norval Smith

Kingston, Jamaica

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Susanne Michaelis Leip1ig, Germany

Ann Arbor, USA

Sal.ikoko S. Mufwene

Tonjes Veenstra

Chicago, USA

Berlin, Germany

Sarah G. Thomason

Volume37 Variation in the Caribbean. From creole continua to individual agency Edited by Lars Hinrichs and Joseph T. Farquharson

Variation in the Caribbean From creole continua to individual agency

Edited by

Lars Hinrichs University of Texas at Austin

Joseph T. Farquharson University of Technology; Kingston

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam I Philadelphia

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Variation in the Caribbean : From Creole continua to individual agency I edited by Lars

Hinrichs, Joseph T. Farquharson. p. em. (Creole Language Library; ISSN 091.0-901.6 ; v. 37) Includes bibliographical references and index. Creole dialects, English--Caribbean Area--Social aspects. 2. Language and languages-

1.

-Variation. 3· Languages in contact. 4· Sociolinguistics--Caribbean Area. I.

Hinrichs, Lars. II. Farquharson, Joseph T. PM7874·C27V37

2011

41.7:9729--dc1.2 ISBN 9;711

90 272 5259 3 (Hb ; alk. paper)

ISBN 9;78

90 272 8739 7 (Eb)

2010043364

© 2011- John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

John Benjamins Publishing Co.· P.O. Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam· The Netherlands John Benjamins North America· P.O. Box 27519 ·Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • usA

Table of contents

Introduction

1

Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson PART 1.

Variation and linguistic systems

Revisiting variation between sa and o in Sranan

13

Donald Winford Inherent variability and coexistent systems: Negation in Bequia

39

James A. Wa.lker e!"' Jack Sidnell Putting individuals back in contact: Accommodation strategies by Barbadians in Ipswich

57

Michelle C. Bra.fia-Straw Relative markers in spoken Standard Jamaican English

79

Ulrike Gut PART 11.

Variation and identity

"Flying at half-mast"? Voices, genres, and orthographies in Barbadian Creole

107

Ja.nina Fenigsen The creole continuum and individual agency: Approaches to stylistic variation in Jamaica

133

Dagmar Deuber Language attitudes and linguistic awareness in Jamaican English

And1·ea Sand

16}

VI

Variation in the Carlbbean

PART III.

Variation and the community

The varilingual repertoire ofTobagonian speakers

191

Valerie Youssef On the emergence of new language varieties: The case of the Eastern Maroon Creole in French Guiana Bettina Migge & Isabelle Uglise 'Creole' and youth language in a British inner-city community

231

Susa.n Dray c. . Mark Sebba Le Page's theoretical and applied legacy in sociolinguistics and creole studies

251

John R. Rickfoni Name index Subject index

273 275

Introduction Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson

Creole studies and Caribbean linguistics have always been closely linked with each other. Much influential theory on pidgin and creole languages, as well as a significant portion of descriptive work. emerged from work on this part of the world. For example, a clear majority of the papers contained in the seminal collection edited by Hymes (1971), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, draw on empirical facts and data from the Caribbean. In the same volume, Hymes and contributors showed that they considered the study of variation as a constitutive subfield of creole linguistics by allotting to it one of the book's six sections, "Variation and use: a range of English-linked cases" (297-419). John Rickford even asserts: "If one were to ask what sub field of linguistics the study of pidgins and creoles was most closely associated with, the most likely answer would be sociolinguistics" (1988: 51). The 1971 Hymes volume, and the 1968 conference from which it emerged, fundamentally shaped creole linguistics and the way it would come to be practiced in the decades to come. At the initial stages, the field drew considerable energy from a sense that it had the potential to fill in some of the blind spots that the study oflanguage in the Chomskian paradigm was seen to be developing - and the study of variation was located at a particularly important nexus in that endeavor (Kouwenberg & Singler 2008). In Hymes's formulation, Unguists wishing to treat their w01k as referring to an ideally fluent speaker-listener in a homogeneous speech community (Chomsky 1965) often can ignore variability as peripheral. In these cases [i.e. in creole speech communities] variability is central. (Hymes 1971: 300)

The motivating and unifying power of these calls to theoretical-syntactic arms in creole language studies has waned. 1 Instead, creolists are now engaging sociolinguistic questions as worthwhile objects of study in their own right, not as a weapon in the struggle between formal and empirical linguistics. Compared to the idealism of Hymes and other creole sociolinguists of the first hour, Peter Patrick (2008) recently spoke of the relationship between variationist creole linguistics and transformational syntax in rather more matter-of-fact tones. 1.

2

Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson

Caribbean sociolinguistics looks back on a history of considerable achievement, which includes substantial impact on sociolinguistics in general (see papers in Rickford, ed., 1988). Since creoles rarely exist without other language varieties being present in the same sociolinguistic space, from which they usually are very different structurally, creole-speaking communities often make the relations between grammar, variation, and social context visible in particularly stark relief As a result, theoretical models have emerged from the study of creoles that have been widely adopted by sociolinguists for non -creole settings. By causing us to re-think how we approach the social and cognitive organization of different grammatical systems in one community, the field has yielded, for example, a formulation of implicationally scaled vernacular-standard continua (DeCamp 1971; Rickford 1987; Escure 1997), and the Acts ofidentity model (LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985), both of which have been widely influential. Patrick (2008) also points out that research on creoles (especially on the creole origins of African -American Vernacular English) has played a considerable role in establishing and developing the VARBRUL framework, a multivariate statistical method that dominated quantitative sociolinguistics in the 1980s and 1990s, as a disciplinary standard.2 Though it is creole linguistics that has traditionally been most naturally interested in Caribbean languages, the somewhat younger study of English as a World Language is now equally engaged in the study of Caribbean variation. Through its focus, then, this volume intentionally unites scholars from several sub-branches of linguistics. The varieties it covers include both creoles and local standard varieties, and while a majority of the varieties discussed are English-based, creoles involving other lexifiers are also addressed. Thereby, and by including a look at diasporic Caribbean varieties (Braiia-Straw; Dray and Sebba), the volume reflects the breadth of topics and approaches in current work on Caribbean variation. The subtitle, "From creole continua to individual agency," acknowledges the range of theoretical and methodological approaches that these works take to the linguistic variation which exists in Caribbean speech communities. For a long time, discussions of (post-)creole continua in a variationist framework and continuum theory have dominated Caribbean sociolinguistics. Meanwhile, general variation studies underwent a profound reorientation, or rather: addition of interests, turning to language and identity as well as pursuing microapproaches to variation. This shift in interests has been referred to as the "interactional turn" in sociolinguistics. While linguistic anthropology engaged concepts

2. For introductions to the variable rule (VARBRUL) framework and the GoldVarb software Implementation see fur example Cedergren and Sankoff (1974), Bayley (2002), and Tagliamonte (2006). Bayley's article includes a helpful dosing section on future directions in research using variable rules (Bayley 2002: 134-136). For a critique of the statistical method see Johnson (2009).

Introduction

like individual identity/agency and language ideology as factors in variation considerablyearlier than sociolinguistics, the latter adopted them from the early 1980s onward. A culmination of this development has been the adoption of ethnographic approaches and concepts by sociolinguists who were trained in the macro-variationist, Labovian tradition. 3 A major theoretical stepping stone in this development came right out of creole linguistics: Le Page and Tabouret-Keller's Acts of Identity (1985). For a variety of reasons, however, this model had a lesser effect on the field of creole linguistics than on the rest of sociolinguistics, where it facilitated and supported studies of variation in a non-stratified, identity-based framework (Mair 2003a). This volume, as well as the 2006 workshop at the Sociolinguistics Symposium in Limerick from which it sprang, is intended as a place for Caribbean data to meet with the broadest possible range of sociolinguistic approaches to variation, which includes a chance to introduce very recent sociolinguistic thinking. That spirit is reflected in the selection of papers. The first group of papers looks at variation in linguistic features, with three papers devoted to (morpho-)syntax (Winford, Walker and Sidnell, and Gut) and one to phonological variation in diasporic dialect contact (Brafta-Straw). Don Winford addresses an issue of purported variation in Sranan: sa and o have both been analyzed as future markers, but the question of their interchangeability has so far been unresolved. Winford uses historical writings on Sranan as well as native speaker judgments to work out the semantic differences between both markers in different contexts. Walker and Sidnell address negation in one Caribbean setting from a classic variationist standpoint: binary variation analysis in the VARBRUL framework. Their contribution shows the power of such analysis in the study of an issue frequently faced by Caribbeanists: island-internal variation. The grammatical environment of their response variables lends support to a view of Bequia as a setting that features co-existing systems. Michelle Brafta-Straw's paper expands this volume's geographical scope to the Caribbean diaspora. In an analysis of the speech of Barbadians in Ipswitch (UK), she presents in detail the effects of a new majority accent on an immigrant communitfs vowel system. She demonstrates that the outcome of immigrants' dialect contact, rather than taking place on a simple continuum between accommodation and maintenance, is complicated both by phonological mechanics and the social dynamics of the diaspora. There, Caribbean varieties compete for social status in ways that differ from those in native contexts: the great symbolic load of}amaican 3· Key publications in this type of ethnographic variation studies include Eckert (2000), Fought (2003), Zhang (2005; 2008), and Mendoza-Denton (2008).

3

4

Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson

Creole makes it encroach upon the usage domains of other English-based Caribbean creoles. Ulrik.e Gut shifts the focus to an acrolectal variety: Standard Jamaican English. In her choice of data, she addresses a longstanding problem in the sociolinguistics of creole settings, which Alison Irvine describes as a kind of circularity in the definition of the polar varieties on the (Jamaican) continuum that, typically, takes this form: a) Since the acrolect is not unlike other standard Englishes, phonologically as in [khat] or morpho-syntactically as in did not take; then b) the basilect reflects structures that are maximally divergent from the acrolect - [kjat] or neva tek; as such, c) acrolectal speech is maximally nonbasilectal and can therefore be e:xpected to produce the forms [khat] or did not take. (Irvine 2004:45 and 2008: 10)

To circumvent this circularity in matching data and definitions, Gut draws on the Jamaican component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-JA, see e.g. Mair 2009). This collection of data targets acrolectal speech as defined primarily by social contexts of use, i.e. as the speech of educated Jamaicans in dominantly formal settings, not by linguistic criteria. 4 This solution is very similar to the one chosen by Irvine, who collected her data for the study of the spoken acrolect in Jamaica - in a government agency - a domain in which there was maximal pressure on speakers to use standard speech. Gut's study shows that despite the ongoing endogenization of the acrolectal norm, which is taking place in many post-colonial settings following political independence, infusion of the acrolect by the local creole cannot be observed, at least for the aspect of the syntax of the Jamaican acrolect examined in this contribution. The second set of papers addresses the individual as a cause and site oflinguistic variation. Fenigsen's paper explores the written representations of speech in a multilectal Caribbean setting, Barbados. She considers, in a qualitative-interpretative approach to written language, authorial stance as a factor in framing discourse and thus in defining the social meanings of nonstandard (English) spellings, which, in Caribbean contexts, are never just used to signal that (orthographically non-standardized) Creole is being used (Miihleisen 2002; Hinrichs and WhiteSustafta forthcoming). Deuber studies Creole influences on the English of educated Jamaicans in a set of transcribed conversations, drawn from ICE-JA. Her two-pronged study design 4· Note, however, that this definition of acrolectal speech through the combination of domain of occurrence and education of speaker does not, in practice, amount to an ex:dusion of all creole speech (Mair 1992). Creole does occur in educated speech and is therefore included in the ICE corpus. The stylistics of this particular outcome oflanguage contact are addressed in Deuber's contribution to this volume.

Introduction addresses an old problem in the analysis of stylistic variation in a (post-)creole continuum: while creolists are aware of the scalable nature ofvariation between acrolect and basilect, native speakers in a creole continuum usually think of their linguistic resources as discrete, i.e. composed of one prestige code and another non-prestige code; in the case of Jamaica: "English" and "non-English~ Deuber shows that both approaches can be productively combined in the analysis of stylistic variation, when the creole continuum approach is used as the descriptive backdrop of feature-based variation, and a binary-resources view is taken as the necessary basis for understanding the indexical values of code choices in a creole continuum. Sand's contribution investigates language attitudes toward local forms in the emerging standard Jamaican English. In addition to the discussion over newlyendonormative standards in the Caribbean, she argues, the dimension of educated native speakers' notions of appropriateness must be figured into overt definitions of such new norms. Doing so further expands the methodological inventory that can help in the interruption of the circularity sketched by Irvine (cited above). The final section of the volume deals with descriptive and theoretical ways of understanding variation in the community. Youssef's study discusses the role of individual variation in our understanding of how creole continua are generated and constituted. Her combined focus on individual style and language attitudes/ ideologies in Tobago forms the basis for a critique of DeCamp's original formulation of the creole continuum (1971), which saw decreolization as inevitable once the creole exists alongside its lexifier. A second paper that interrogates the creole continuum model is Migge and :Uglise's, which discusses the social organization of varieties in a practice-based approach. They too question the unidirectionality implicated in DeCamp's model, in which decreolization is the necessary outcome of sociolinguistic evolution in creole societies. Rather, they argue, sociolinguistic practices lend support to multidimensional views of dynamic shifts in the relationship between varieties in a multi-varietal setting like French Guiana. Dray and Sebba once again turn the view toward the Caribbean diaspora in Britain. Their study of Creole use among youth of Caribbean heritage in Manchester takes an interest in what happens to a creole in the diaspora when the influx of Ll-speaker immigrants subsides, and thus serves as an update to Sebba's work on London Jamaican. While Sebba (1993) found diasporic Caribbeans in England using Creole in conversational codeswitching that frequently drew on the potential of Creole to index ethnic identity, the younger generation of British youth (of Caribbean heritage) uses Creole without any notions of the "authentic speaker" or ethnic prerequisites regulating access to the code. In Manchester, the transformation of the function of Creole from that of "language" in the homeland to that of a "symbol" in the diaspora (Mair 2003b) is completed, though it has not

5

6

Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson

ended in a flat indexical relationship with ethnic identity. In the community studied by Dray and Sebba, speakers "are legitimate users of these vernacular styles as a result of their lived experience in the inner city and their interest in and exposure to cultural forms such as the global hip-hop culture." Rickford's paper closes this volume with a broad appraisal of Robert B. Le Page's contribution to creole studies. His paper asserts the importance of variationist work within creole linguistics. Rickford reminds us that an understanding of the identity politics of variation in creole settings, as promoted by the Acts of Identity model, is the purview of Caribbean sociolinguistics just as much as active participation in the discourse on language in education and language rights. He points to a continuing need for more work on Caribbean variation, both of the theoretical and the applied kind. In that same spirit, we end by pointing out some desiderata in Caribbean variation studies. We consider these to lie in two broad areas. First, variationist work is needed to refine accounts of the syntactic variation which occurs in creole situations. As we improve on our models of the linguistic systems of creole communities, we will continue to confront complex sociolinguistic realities composed of multiple varieties. Future work can help us produce models that express the systemic relationships of alllects in a continuum situation without discounting the existence of separate varieties and the manifest social functions of their use. While variationist creolists of the early days, following DeCamp. insisted that the different varieties, or lects, encountered in continuum situations like Jamaica add up to a mono systemic whole - a claim that resonates most readily with generativist perspectives on syntax5 - a view of performance as based on distinct varieties makes sense at least for some steps of the analysis. Native speakers in creole communities, who perform the linguistic data that we aim to explain, typically think of themselves as having separate varieties at their disposal that can be used in discourse work. Several of the papers in this volume remind us of the distinctions in social functions between varieties. e.g. Deuber, Gut, Youssef, Dray and Sebba, and Migge and Leglise; note especially how Walker and Sidnell's ethnographically informed quantitative analysis suggests a view of a continuum that features separate systems. Promising avenues for future research include taking greater interest in stylistic variation (Eckert and Rickford 2001) and indexicality (Silverstein 2003) in creole communities, as these have the potential of informing syntactic description in the area of the co-existence of varieties and systems in continuum situations. It may also be helpful to incorporate the idea of an "ethnolinguistic repertoire" into our 5· Note however that increasingly, current generativlst syntacticlans (e.g. Adger and Smith 2005; Trousdale and Adger 2007) are grappling with (micro-)variation, as opposed to earlier theorists, who tended to ignore it

Introduction

thinking about creole community grammars. 6 A better understanding of the way that the grammars of different varieties in the same sociolinguistic system are linked becomes more pressing as new domains of creole literacy continue to emerge, e.g. in computer-mediated communication. The second area for useful future work lies in the description of intra-varietal diversification. Irvine's important work on the Jamaican acrolect (2004, 2005, 2008) demonstrates and addresses the need to take empirical, variation-based approaches to the description oflects, and to abandon definitions ofbasilect and acrolect as each other's opposite, in cases where no further specification is provided. This necessarily includes a detailed look at variation along social categories. A recent special issue of Sargasso (Miihleisen and Walicek, eds., 2009) on gender and sexuality in creole linguistic settings makes an important contribution in this area. While we hope that the current volume provides a representative overview of what has been done on variation in the Caribbean since Hymes (ed., 1971), it does not signal a wrapping up of the work, but the unfolding of new directions. We hope it shows that though there are many things which sociolinguists working on Caribbean varieties still take for granted, there remain many unexplored and unmapped areas, and that there are still questions which need to be explored if not answered. Fortunately for contemporary linguists working on Caribbean varieties, these absences are coming to light in a period where the broader field of linguistics is actively seeking creole data. Typologists are demanding more and better descriptions of creoles, and they are becoming more willing to include creoles in their samples, as opposed to treating them as noise in the data (e.g. Haspelmath et. al. 2005). In essence, this volume represents our throwing down of the sociolinguistic gauntlet, and we invite as many scholars as possible to pick it up so that this joint project can move forward.

Acknowledgments The editors would like to thank Maryam Bakht, Dagmar Deuber, Hubert De vanish, Christian Mair, and Peter Patrick for helpful consultations during the preparation of this volume; the anonymous reviewers of the papers; series editors Miriam 6. Benor (2010) defines "ethnolingulstics repertoire" as "a fluid set oflinguistk resources that members of an ethnic group may use variably as they index their ethnic identities" (160). In creole settings, the notion of indexing ethnic identities may be more or less pertinent, depending on the setting (the Belize research at the heart of Acts ojlde11tity is an example of a case where inter-ethnic distinction is certainly relevant). The important aspect of this concept is that it provides a unified view of all varieties in a community as a repertoire, which allows for a notion of distinct varieties with different social functions.

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Lars Hinrichs & Joseph T. Farquharson

Meyerhoff and Umberto Ansaldo for the guidance and encouragement, as well as patience and perseverance, that they provided during the preparation of the manuscript; Shawn Warner-Garcia for substantial help with proofreading and formatting; and the authors of these papers for participating and believing in this project. Every effOrt has been made to trace and contact copyright holders for quoted materials. The editors and publishers would be pleased to hear form any copyright holders not acknowledged in this volume, so that this may be amended at the earliest opportunity.

References Aceto, M. & Wllllams, J.P. (eds.). 2003. Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean. Amsterdam: John Benjamlns. Adge~ D. & Smith, J. 2005. Variation and the minimalist programme. In Synta.t: and Variation: Reconciling the Biological and the Social, L. Cornips & K. Corrigan (eds.), 149-178. Amsterdam: John Benjamlns. Bayley, R. 2002. The quantitative paradigm. In The Handbook ofLa11guage Variation and Change, J. K. Chambers, P. Trudgill, & N. Scbilling-Estes (eds.), 117-141. Malden MA: Blackwell Benor, S. 2010. Ethnolinguistic repertoire: Shifting the analytic focus in language and ethnicity. Journal ofSociolinguistics 14(2): 159-183. Cedergren. H. & Sankoff, D. 1974. Variable rules: Performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Language 50(2): 333-355. Chomsky,. N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory ofSyntax. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DeCamp, D. 1971. Toward a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum. In Pidginizatlo1! and Creolizatio11 ofLanguage.s, D. Hymes (ed.), 349-370. Cambridge: CUP. Eckert, P. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: 1he Linguistic Co11struction of Identity 111 Belten High. Malden, MA: Blackwell Eckert, P. & Rickford, J. R. (eds.). 2001. Style and Socioli11guistic Variation. Cambridge: CUP. Escure, G. 1997. Creole a11d Dialect Continua: Standard Acquisitio11 Processe.s in Belize and Chb1a (PRC). Amsterdam: John Benjamlns. Fought, C. 2003. Chicano English i11 Context. Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M.S., Gil, D. & Comrie, B. 2005. 1he World Atlas ofLanguage Structures. Oxford: OUP. Hinrichs, L. & White-Sustaita, J. Forthcoming. Global Englishes and the sociolinguistics of spelling: A study ofJamaican blog and email writing. English World-Wide 32(1). Hymes, D. 1971. Introduction to Part V, Variation and use: A range of English-linked cases. In D. Hymes (ed), 299-304. Hymes, D. (ed. ). 1971. Pidginlzation and Creollzatlon of Languages: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, April1968. Cambridge: CUP. Irvine, A. 2004. A good command ofthe English language: Phonological variation In the Jamaican acrolect Journal ofPidgin and Creole Languages 19: 41-76. Irvine, A. 2005. Defining Good English in Jamaica: Language Variation and Language Ideology in an Agency of the Jamaican State. PhD dissertation, University of the West Indies Mona

Introduction Irvine, A. 2008. Contrast and convergence in Standard Jamaican English: The phonological architecture of the standard in an ideologically bidialectal community. World Englishes 27(1): 9-25.

Johnson, D.E. 2009. Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3( 1): 359-383. Kouwenberg, S. & Singler, J. V. 2008. Introduction. In The Handbook ofPidgin and Creole Studies, S. Kouwenberg & J.V. Singler (eds.), 1-16. Malden MA: IDack:well. Le Page, R.B. & Tabouret-Keller, A. 1985. Acts ofIdentity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: CUP. Mair, C. 1992. Problems in the compilation of a corpus of standard Caribbean English: A pilot study. In New Directions in English Language Corpora: Methodology, Results, Software Developments, G. Leitner (ed.), 75-96. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mair, C. 2003a Acts of identity. Interaction-based sociolinguistics and cultural studies: An introduction. AAA Arbeite11 aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 28(2): 195-199. Mair, C. 2003b. Language, code, and symbol: The changing roles of Jamaican Creole in diaspora communities. AAA Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 28(2): 231-248. Mair, C. 2009. Cmpus linguistics meets sociolinguistics: studying educated spoken usage in Jamaica on the basis of the International Cmpus of English. In World Englishes - Problems, Properties a11d Prospects: Selected Papers from the 13th IAWE Conforence, T. Hoffmann & L. Siebers (eds.), 39-60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mendoza-Denton, N. 2008. Homegirls: Language a11d Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. Malden, MA: Blackwell Miihleisen, S. 2002. Creole Discourse: Exploring Prestige Formation and Change across Caribbean English-Lexicon Creoles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Miihleisen, S. & Walicek, D.E. (eds.). 2009. Sargasso- Joun1al of Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture 2008-2009. Special issue: Linguistic Explorations of Gender and Sexuality. Patrick. P.L. 2008. Pidgins, creoles, and variation. In The Handbook ofPidgin and Creole Studies, S. Kouwenberg & J. V. Singler (eds.), 461-487. Malden MA: Blackwell Rickford, J.R. 1987. Dimensions of a Creole Conti11uum: History, Texts & Li11guistic Analysis of Guyanese Creole. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press. Rickford, J.R 1988. Connections between sociolinguistics and pidgin-creole studies. lnterJ~a­ tionalJournal of the SociologyofLaJ~guage 71: 51-58. Rickford, J. R. (ed.). 1988. b1ternational Journal of the Sociology of Language 71. (Special issue: Socioli11guistics and Pidgb1-Creole Studie.s). Sebba, M. 1993. London Jamaican: Language Systems in b1teraction. London: Longman. Silverstein, M. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23: 193-229. Tagliamonte, S. 2006. Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: CUP. Trousdale, G. & Adger, D. (eds.). 2007. Journal ofEnglish Language and Linguistics 11(2). (Special issue: Theoretical Accounts of Dialect Variation). Zhang, Q. 2005. A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the construction of a new professional identity. Language in Society 34(3): 431-466. Zhang, Q. 2008. Rhotactzation and the 'Beijing Smooth Operator': The social meaning of a linguistic variable. Journal ofSociolinguistics 12(2): 201-222.

9

PART I

Variation and linguistic systems

Revisiting variation between sa and o in Sranan* Donald Winford Sranan employs two markers, sa and o, which both express some kind of futurity, but the precise nature of the difference between them has been difficult to pin down. Some researchers claim that sa and o are both primarily temporal in nature, but others treat sa as primarily modal, and o as primarily temporal, though they disagree on how far its meaning overlaps with that of o. This paper employs data from historical texts as well as examples and judgments elicited from five native speakers of Sranan in order to determine the precise nature of the differences in meaning and use between the two markers. I build on the insights of researchers like Voorhoeve and Seuren to demonstrate that sa really conveys a range of modal meanings that include futurity, strong expectation, and probability. This can be ascribed to the influence of Dutch zullen. On the other hand, o is primarily temporal in nature, expressing future tense. The analysis suggests that sa and o are not really in competition in contemporary Sranan.

1.

Introduction

Sranan employs two markers, sa and o, which both express some kind of futurity, as illustrated in the following example:

pramisi yu taki mi o/sa kon tamara. lsg IMPF promise 2sg caMP lsg FUT/MOD come tomorrow 'I promise you I'll come tomorrow:

(1) Mi e

*

The research on which this paper Is based was funded by NSF Grants #SBR-930636 and #BCS-0103826, for which I wish to express my great appreciation. I also wish to thank our consultants in Suriname, especially Robby Morroy, Hertoch Linger, Margie McBean, Renata de Bies, and Yolanda Boldewyn for spending so many long hours patiently explaining the uses ofsa and other TMA markers. Special thanks are due to my co-PI, Bettina Mlgge, for her detailed work on Pam.aka and Gbe and for providing data and commentary on sa in Pamaka My thanks also to the two anonymous referees whose comments helped improve this paper. All shortcomings that remain are my responsibility.

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Donald Winford

However, there has been a great deal of controversy over the precise meanings and uses of the two auxiliaries. In particular, researchers disagree about whether sa and o are in competition with each other or convey quite different meanings. Earlier views on this issue fall into two categories. First, there are studies such as Simons (1954) and Donicie (1954, 1956), which claim that sa and o are both primarily ternporal in nature, but there are slight differences due to the kind of attitude speakers have toward the event. Second, there are studies such as Voorhoeve (1957, 1962), Seuren (1981), and Wendelaar and Koefoed (1988) which treat sa. as primarily modal and o as primarily temporal, though they disagree on how the meaning of sa overlaps with that of o. Despite their different interpretations, all of these researchers suggest that sa and o compete with each other for the expression of futurity. This competition, however, is not a case of variation between two variants that express precisely the same meaning, so it does not fall under the ambit of the sociolinguistic variable as it has traditionally been described. So far, no one has oftered a complete and plausible explanation of the precise relationship between sa and o. In this paper, I re-examine this issue by analyzing uses of sa and o in contemporary Sranan, based on elicitations and recordings made with native speakers during 2002. I argue that the conflicting views on this issue can be reconciled if we take into account the different histories of sa and o in Sranan and the differences in the ways they are used in particular discourse contexts. In Section 2, I first draw on evidence from the early Sranan texts to trace the historical developments that seem to have led to the difterences between the two auxiliaries. I examine the uses of sa and o in earlier Sranan and argue that sa was established as the marker of futurity before o emerged as its competitor in the early 18th century, leading to competition between the two. In Section 3, I examine and critique previous analyses of the meanings and uses of sa and o in modern Sranan. Then, in Section 4, I present my own analysis of the relationship between the two auxiliaries. Based on evidence from elicited data, I argue that sa is in fact a modal that conveys strong expectation or probability, while o is primarily temporal in nature, expressing future tense. I also suggest that there has been continued and growing influence of Dutch zullen on the interpretation of sa in contemporary Sranan, which has led to further differentiation between sa and o.

tar

2.

Historical excursus

The variation and apparent competition between sa and o in contemporary Sranan has its roots in the historical past, particularly in the course of the 18th century, when the TMA system of early Sranan was still undergoing development. The earliest known example of a future marker in early Sranan is wil (< English will?),

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

which occurs in the Herlein fragment of 1718 (Van den Berg 2007: 190). However, in court records of 1745 (Van den Berg 2000: 91), the attested future marker is sal, which appears to have its source in Dutch za.l (see below). In VanDyk (1765), zal (also spelled zel, za., sa.l, sa, sa.a, etc.), appears to be the sole auxiliary used to express futurity (Van den Berg 2007: 188). The following examples illustrate this point. (2) Pikien morre wi za drinki koffi. little more we fut drink coffee 'We'll drink coffee in a little while: (VanDyk c1765, in Arends and Perl1995: 150) (3) Mi fon zomma. morre den za. ziki kwetti. 1sg beat person more 3pl FUT sick quite 'If I beat them more, they will get really ill: (VanDyk, in Arends and Perl1995: 176)

In these early texts, za.l, now increasingly spelt sa, is also used in a more modal sense, for instance to convey a hypothetical meaning, as in the following example.

mi sa jerri? Mi jerri wan gon piki toe trom. (4) No, hoe fa no, how manner 1sg FUT hear 1sg hear one gun speak two time 'No, how should I have heard? I heard a gun shoot twice~ (VanDyk, cited in Arends and Perl1995: 205) These uses of sa are confirmed for later 18th century Sranan by Schumann (1783: 146), who analyzes the auxiliary as follows: Sa: will (future tense, i.e., to point something out that is in the future; not: become or develop); also: shall [sollen]. (Van den Berg 2007: 188 [her translation])

In VanDyk (1765), however, we find evidence that sa. has a new competitor, namely the combination progressive de +go, which appears to express futurity in some contexts. (5) Zili de go didde. Anno gray hessi ba.kke. seed PROG go die it-NEG grow hastily back 'The seeds will die and won't sprout that easily again: (VanDyk, cited in Arends and Perl1995: 210) Schumann (1783: 50) also points out that "very frequently, go is used to indicate future tense instead of sa" (Van den Berg 2007: 191) [her translation]), as in the following example. (6)

Dem go

killi mi.

3pl FUT? kill 1sg 'They'll kill me:

(Schumann 1783: 50)

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Donald Winford

Most of Schumann's examples, however, involve the combination of de +go, as in: (7) Mi de go jam. 1sg PROG go eat 'I'm going to eat:

(Schumann 1783: 50)

Texts of the late 18th century such as Weygandt (1798) provide further evidence of these uses of de +go. Van den Berg (2007: 194) points out that go in most of these cases may still be interpreted as a main verb, hence the combination de +go is not necessarily grammaticalized as a marker of futurity at this time. Over the course of the 19th to mid-20th centuries, de + go appears to have undergone a gradual process of grammaticalization, evolving into the combination of progressive e + go, which in turn eventually yielded the future tense auxiliary o. Nickel and Wilner (1984: 58, note 18) observed that "current speakers of Sranan Tango understand o as e +go." On the other hand, Seuren (1983: 224) claims that use of (main verb) go to express futurity "reflects an older stage of the language... [and is] virtually reduced, nowadays, to the religious services of the Moravian Church:' This brief historical overview will have to suffice for our present purposes, though it would be useful for future research to trace the evolution of future o and its growing competition with sa during the 19th and earlier 20th centuries. This would require a great deal of exhaustive historical research, which is beyond the scope of the present paper. At any rate, as late as the mid-20th century, various researchers still viewed sa and o as being in competition for the expression of futurity. Voorhoeve (1957: 379) claimed that futurity could still be expressed either bye +go or by sa. Voorhoeve and Kramp (1982: 8) suggested that "the modal sa may be in the process of being replaced by the purely tense marker o~ The following section examines these earlier views on the competition between the two auxiliaries.

3·

Previous analyses of sa versus o

All previous studies of Sranan agree that o functions as a marker of future tense. They differ in their view of whether sa. is primarily modal or not. Simons ( 1954) suggests that sa and o are both temporal in nature, but that o is used for an immediate future, while sa is used for other kinds of futurity. Donicie (1956) also treats both as temporal markers, but argues that o is used for events that are mentally closer. Other researchers distinguish more clearly between the two. Voorhoeve (1957) was among the first to draw a clear distinction between sa and e +go, which was apparently the common form of the marker of futurity at the time.

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

He claims that "it is possible to render the occidental future in Sranan by means of sa + verb and by means of e -go + verb," but the latter "is a verbal group consisting of the auxiliary e plus main verb go, and hence cannot be described as a category within the system of verbal forms (formed by prefix+ verb)" (1957: 379).1 While acknowledging that his informants "were originally of the opinion that the sa- forms and the verbal groupe- go+ verb might be used interchangeably with only a slight difference in meaning (p. 380), he found several instances where the two markers could not be interchanged. He ascribes this to the fact that sa. has a "hypothetical" character not found in e-go, and describes the various discourse uses of sa as follows. First, there are cases where sa is used to express "a wish, intention, or expectation of the subject" (p. 380), as in the following examples (glosses are mine; free translations are Voorhoeve's).2 (8) Mi sa teki Streeteresser limonade. (In reply to "What will you drink?") 1sg MOD take Streeteresserlemonade 'I'll take Steeteresser lemonade: (9) Mi sa. taki nang a bakra. 1sg MOD talk with DET Whiteman 'I shall talk with the white man: In the above cases, Voorhoeve (p. 381) notes that sa might be interpreted as conveying "future tense," but goes on to illustrate other uses of"sa-forms which are impossible to consider as indicative of the future." These uses include the following. To convey a "dubitative" sense (i.e., of incredulity) in certain questions expressing indignation on the part of the speaker. (10) I sa go taigi a man dati? 2sg MOD go tell the man that 'You've really been so stupid as to tell this to that person?' To expresses an "optative" sense, as with the verb winsi 'wish: (11) Mi sa winsi a e kon tamam. 1sg MOD wish 3sg IMPF come tomorrow 'I only hope he comes tomorrow: To express the sense of can, that is, a "potential" sense.

Note that Donicie (1956: 183) represents the future marker as (de) go, indicating that de was optional.

1.

2. Though Voorhoeve doeslft specify which sentence expresses a wish or which an intention, I assume that sentence (8) expresses a wish, while (9) expresses an intention.

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Donald Winford

Here, Voorhoeve simply repeats a claim by Donicie (1956: 186), who compares this use of sa with the use of sa 'can' in Saamaka, but gives no examples. I have found no examples of this use of sa in contemporary SN, though it is quite common in the Maroon creoles (Migge and Winford 2009). Voorhoeve sums up his account by noting that "our future tense is actually reproduced occasionally by means of the verbal form prefixed by sa-, but more often by the verbal group go +verb (1957: 382). However, he continues, it is impossible to replace the verbal form with the prefix sa- by means of the verbal group go + verb when the action is seen as hypothetical. The verbal form prefixed by sa- is used moreover as a dubitative, a potential, an optative, and an irrealis. (1957: 382-383)

For this reason, Voorhoeve describes sa. "not as indicative of the future, but as indicative of the modus non-realis" (p. 383). Voorhoeve (1962) very briefly summarizes the earlier analysis, describing sa as conveying "irrealis," and noting the form with prefix sa- usually indicates the future, as does the auxiliary go with main verb. However, the verbal form sa- with verb has more possibilities, which cannot all be interpreted as indicative of the future. Between sa- + verb and e-go or o + verb there is only a slight difference in meaning, the sa- + verb form having a more hypothetic (sic) character. (1962: 40)

On the whole, Voorhoeve's account still falls short of explaining the precise nature of the similarities between sa and o (which allow them to alternate in some cases), or the differences (which prevent them from doing so). Moreover, while he offers some good discussion of some of the discourse uses of sa, his characterization of its modal meaning as "irrealis" is too broad to explain either its basic sense or its uses in discourse. Other markers such as lean 'can: musu 'must: and indeed future o itself also express "irrealis" meaning, so the precise nature of the meaning of sa is left unclear. As we shall see, some of the uses of sa described by Voorhoeve can be found in contemporary Sranan. I will discuss these in more detail, and with more illustration than Voorhoeve supplies. I will also offer an alternative analysis of the modal meanings of sa. that explains these uses in a principled way. There are also some noticeable differences between Voorhoeve's account of the use of sa in the more conservative varieties of Sranan of the 1950s and my own account of its uses in contemporary Sranan. In particular, there is no evidence in my data for the so-called "potential" use of sa. to express the sense of'can: Moreover, Voorhoeve says nothing about the deontic and epistemic uses of sa that I discuss later. Seuren (1981) also attempts to distinguish between the meanings of sa and o, describing the former as a modal auxiliary and the latter as a future tense marker. This accords with my own analysis. His analysis in fact contains more insight than

Revisiting variation between sa and o in Sranan

Voorhoeve's. Like Voorhoeve, Seuren points out that sa has a variety of functions, including that of indicating "future or temporal posteriority relative to a defined moment in time" (1981: 1054). Seuren acknowledges that he has "found it very difficult to formulate generalizations concerning the correct temporal usage of sa and o" (ibid.). However, he offers the suggestion that

sa is the proper form for neutral predictions, but also for future events or situations resulting from somebody's (the speaker's) insistence, order, wish or promise. 0 on the other hand, indicates a future event or situation resulting from some pre-established plan or from natural causes already present at the time of speaking. (1981: 1054) Seuren's view of the temporal uses of sa closely resembles that of Voorhoeve, though, unlike Voorhoeve, he provides no examples. As we will see, this account of the "ternporal" uses of sa. agrees well with my own analysis of the use of sa to convey what I shall refer to as dynamic modality. On the other hand, I analyze o as a marker of future tense, which can convey prediction, intention, or simply future time reference. In addition, Seuren notes that sa has modal functions that "are more salient than the temporal meanings" (ibid.). He describes these functions as follows, providing the respective examples (glosses are mine, translations are Seuren's except where indicated). To indicate the speaker's wish or order. (12)

Yu sa

go.

2sg MOD go 'You shall go~ To indicate the speaker's hypothesis. (13) A sa ben dringi doti watm. 3sg MOD PAST drink dirty water 'He will/must have drunk dirty water: To "express the speaker's disbelief or doubt as to the truth of what is said in the following infinitive.: In this case, according to Seuren, sa "tends to occur in past tense, ben sa, and does what the subjunctive does in so many other languages" (ibid.).

ben du en. (14) A taki dati mi ben sa 3sg say that 1sg PAST MOD PAST do it. 'He said that I <subjunctive> had done iC ['He said that I might/must have done it: - DW]

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Seuren's account of these modal uses of sa accords more closely with my own analysis than Voorhoeve's does. I argue below that what Seuren refers to as the use of sa to indicate the speaker's wish or order (a) represents the deontic use of sa.. And what he refers to as the use of sa to express the speaker's hypothesis (b) and the speaker's doubt as to the truth of a proposition (c) represent the epistemic uses of sa. Wendelaar and Koefoed (1988) argue that sa is competing with o in two senses: first, the two are mutually substitutable, with slightly different meanings; second, o is gradually replacing sa. in certain contexts. They attempt to distinguish sa from o in terms of two parameters: the degree of certainty of the event and whether the event in question is "realizable" or not. They define a realizable future event as one that can be realized without intervention from other agents or factors, by which they appear to mean an event under the control of the speaker. They provide the following example (p. 68) (glosses are mine, translations by Marinus Stephan). 3 (15) Tamara mi o/sa bai a buku gi ju. tomorrow 1sg PUT/MOD buy DET book for you 'Tomorrow I will/shall buy the book for you.' A non-realizable future event, on the other hand, is one that is either literally impossible, or can only be realized by intervention of other factors, such as a third party or a factor beyond the speaker's control (p. 68). The following example illustrates.

kon. (16) Tamen·a. alen o!sa tomorrow rain PUT/MOD come 'It will/shall rain tomorrow.' Another factor which they claim influences the choice of sa versus o is the speaker's degree of certainty about the occurrence of the future event. Combining the factors of realizability and certainty yields complex future meanings like the following. Realizable but either certain or uncertain. (17) Mi o/sa yepi yu. 1sg PUT/MOD help you 'I wilV shall help you.'

3· I wish to express my thanks to Marinus Stephan for translating Wendelaar and Koefoed's paper, including the examples, from Dutch into English for me. I modified his English translations of the sentences so as to make a distinction between 'will' and 'shall: corresponding to o and sa respectively.

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

Non-realizable, but either certain or uncertain. (18)

Yere, a

o/sa

ferteri wan tori.

hear, 3sg FUT/MOD tell a story. 'Listen, he will/shall tell a story.' Wendelaar and Koefoed presented a number of test sentences in both Dutch and Sranan to two informants, asking them to indicate whether o or sa would be appropriate to use in each case. Their goal was to test four hypotheses, as follows (1988: 69). la. lb. 2a. 2b.

o is used for the (relatively) certain realizable future. o is used for the (absolute) certain non-realizable future. sa is used for the uncertain (doubtful) realizable future. sa is used for the neutral and uncertain non-realizable future.

Their results show that prediction 1b is confirmed without exception, while hypothesis 2b is confirmed in 20 of 22 instances. However, they found that informants chose sa 12 times out of a possible 46 instances in the case of hypothesis 1a (where o was predicted), and chose o 9 times out of a possible 25 instances for hypothesis 2a (where sa was predicted). Clearly, these results fail to identify precisely why speakers chose sa or o. Despite the inconsistency of their results, Wendelaar and Koefoed claim that their hypothesis concerning the differences in meaning between sa and o have been fairly well confirmed. They suggest that future research may find answers to the exceptions to their hypothesis. As we will see, several aspects of their findings are borne out by my own data. For instance, they are certainly right in suggesting that degree of certainty and degree of control by the agent (not necessarily the speaker) are important factors in determining which marker is chosen. They are also right that various dimensions of meaning need to be taken into account if we are to explain the subtleties of the uses of sa and o, especially the former. One of the major problems confronting us is to determine what is "realizable" or "uncertain" from the perspective of the speaker. This is not something that can be determined a priori but requires input and intuitions from native speakers. Such intuitions, as we shall see, often depend on the discourse context, which typically determines whether sa or o can be used and, if so, in what interpretations. In the following section, I introduce the methodology that was employed in obtaining data and intuitive judgments from my informants, as well as the framework I used for the analysis of the meanings and uses of sa and o.

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4· Methodology

The different analyses of sa and o that have been offered in the literature reflect the fact that these auxiliaries can convey a fairly broad range ofinterpretations in context This is particularly true of sa, a fact that makes its core meaning quite difficult to pin down. If we are to clarify its relationship to o, we need a more explicit descriptive framework as well as an appropriate methodology for collecting and analyzing data. It should be obvious by now that the alternation between sa and o in modern Sranan does not lend itself to the traditional tools of quantitative sociolinguistic analysis. We are not dealing here with variation between two variants that express the same meaning, but rather with a choice between two auxiliaries that both express some kind of futurity but can still convey quite different interpretations depending on the context in which they are used. The framework used here is modeled after Dahl's (1985) typological study of TMA systems in a broad sample of the world's languages. A key assumption of that framework, which is most relevant to the present study, is that every TMA category has a dominant meaning and often has other secondary meanings as well. In general, the dominant meaning of a category is represented in its primary or prototypical uses, while secondary meanings are contextually-determined interpretations that arise from more peripheral uses of the category. A full analysis therefore requires emphasis on the crucial role of the discourse context in deciding the interpretation ofTMA categories. With this in mind, I employed methods of data collection designed to capture as much discourse context as possible, so as to determine how each auxiliary could be used. The data for this study come from elicitations conducted with five native speakers ofSranan Tongo in Paramaribo in the summer of 2002. They included one male and one female over the age of fifty, and 3 informants - two females and one male - under the age of forty. The questionnaire used for the elicitations was a modified version of Dahfs (1985) questionnaire. It consisted of a number of sentences and short connected texts in English, which were offered for translation by informants. They were given clear indications, with additional explanation where necessary, of the contexts in which they were to envisage the sentences being uttered. For example, to elicit a verb with future time reference, the prompts illustrated in (19) to (21) were among those used. (19) [Q: What are you planning to do right now?] I WRITE letters. (20) [The boy is expecting a sum of money] When the boy GET the money, he BUY a present for the girl. (21) [The boy thinks that he will perhaps get a sum of money] If the boy GET the money, he BUY a present for the girl.

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

Material enclosed in square brackets is meant to provide a context for the utterance to be elicited (the translation of which is outside the brackets). Verbs are offered in bare form (capitalized in the text) so as to minimize the possibility of interference from English when translating. The elicitations were conducted with a view of obtaining not just translations of the prompt sentences, but more importantly the informants' judgments as to whether sa or o would be more acceptable in particular contexts. In cases where both were deemed acceptable, informants were asked to explain the degree of similarity or difference in the meaning they conveyed. Finally, the informants were invited to create their own discourse contexts to illustrate their judgments of the appropriate uses of the two auxiliaries. In the next section, I will examine the various discourse contexts in which sa. and o are used, and attempt to clarify the degree to which they are substitutable in such contexts.

5·

The uses of sa and o in contemporary Sranan

In this section, I put to the test previous views, including those of Voorhoeve, Seuren, and Wendelaar and Koefoed, that certain contexts allow alternation between sa and o, and that sa has a kind of "temporal" meaning in these cases. I begin the analysis by considering my informants' judgments concerning when o is appropriate to use, but not sa. First, there are situations in which the speaker is the agent of the future action, such as the following test sentence from Dahl's questionnaire: (22) [Mother to child:] If you not STOP PLAY with that ball I TAKE it away.

Efu yu no tapufu prei nanga a ba.l, if 2sg NEG stop for play with DET ball mi o (*sa) puru en na yu anu. 1sg FUT pull it LO c 2sg hand 'If you don't stop playing with that ball, I'll take it away from you' But there are also cases in which the speaker is not the agent of the future action, such as in the following test sentence, adapted from Dahl. (23) [Q: What HAPPEN if you PUT a stone in this bag?] It TEAR.

Efu yu poti wa.n ston ini a saka. disi, a saka o (*sa) priti. if 2sg put ART stone in DET bag DEM, DET bag FUT tear 'If you put a stone in this bag, it will tear=

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There were four test sentences of this type, containing open conditional clauses, and informants were unanimous that o was more appropriate than sa in all cases. One informant commented that use of sa would "sound stiff, like a foreigner trying to speak Sranan." The general consensus among informants was that, in the above cases, o conveys a sense of relative certainty on the speaker's part. Sa is pragmatically inappropriate in these cases, since it implies uncertainty, or perhaps more accurately, speculation. Note that it matters little whether the future action is in the control of the speaker, so Wendelaar and Koefoed's distinction between "realizable" and "non-realizable" future does not apply here. It is clear from examples like these that o is a marker of future tense, which conveys a strong sense of certainty and prediction. On the other hand, sa lends itself to a fairly broad range of interpretations, which makes it very difficult to pinpoint its core meaning. Despite this, there are several contexts in which alternation between sa and o is possible. In some cases, my informants perceive subtle differences between the two, while in other contexts the distinction is neutralized to some extent. There were a number of test sentences in which all informants agreed that either sa or o could be used, though their meanings differed slightly. These include cases where some uncertainty is already expressed in the sentence, for example by use of the adverb ka.nde 'perhaps~ (24) Kande mi sa/o kon tide neti, efu mi abi ten. perhaps lsg MOD/FUT come today night if lsg have time 'Maybe I shalVwill come tonight, ifi have time~ One informant noted that sa is used in a case like this when you're not really willing, or when youCl do something reluctantly. Another noted that only elderly people tend to use sa in such sentences. It would seem then that informants still recognize a subtle difference in meaning between o and sa, which is almost neutralized in contexts like these. This is also true of questions, where sa and o alternate with subtly different meanings. For instance, one informant notes a contrast between the following requests. (25) a.

Yu o man leni mi moni? 2sg FUT can lend 1sg money 'Will you be able to lend me some money?'

b. Yu sa man leni mi moni? 2sg MOD can lend lsg money 'Would you be able to lend me some money?' This informant notes that he wouldn't use sa, but other people use it. For him, sa implies that you don't need the money. This may be due to the fact that sa has a

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

more speculative character than o. This may also explain why informants generally thought that sa was more appropriate than o when asking questions, as in the following example:

mi? (26) Efu mi aksi yu wan sa.ni, yu sa. piki if lsg ask 2sg a thing 2sg MOD answer me 'Ifl ask you something, would you answer me?' This brings us to other cases where sa and o alternate, but informants perceive a sharper distinction between them both in meaning and in the kind of discourse context they require. Let us first consider cases where the speaker is the agent of the future action, as in the following. (27)

[Q: What are you planning to do right now?] I WRITE letters.

Mi o/sa

skrifi brifi.

lsg PUT/MOD write letter 'I will/shall write letters: The first choice of all informants in this case was o, which all agreed conveys a sense ofintention on the part of the speaker. They also unanimously agreed that sa could only be used to indicate the sense that the speaker has nothing else to do, so that writing letters is like a last resort. For them, sa conveys the sense that one might as well do something, because one has no other option. This interpretation ofsa seems to reflect one of the most common uses of this auxiliary to indicate a choice or option, and will be discussed further below. Note that this interpretation differs from both Seuren's and Voorhoeve's view that sa expresses simple intention. In cases where someone other than the speaker is the agent of the future action, informants have somewhat different intuitions regarding the interpretation of sa, though they agree on o. Consider the following. (28)

[The boy is expecting a sum of money.] When the boy GET the money, he BUY a present for the girl.

Te

a

boi kisi a moni, a o/sa bai when DET boy get DET money 3sg FUT/MOD buy wa.n kado gi a umapikin. ART present for DET woman-child 'When the boy gets the money, he wilVshall buy a present for the girl: Informants agreed without exception that o is used here to indicate the speaker's certainty about the future event. But they also judged sa. to be appropriate, though in somewhat different interpretations. Three informants (two older and one

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Donald Winford

younger) indicated that sa would be appropriate in a context like the following, where the boy is not certain to get the money. (29) Efu a hoi kisi a moni a sa bai wan kado if DET boy get DET money 3sg MOD buy ART present

gi a

umapikin.

for DET girl 'If the boy gets the money, he shall buy a present for the gire For these informants, sa conveys a degree of uncertainty, in keeping with the fact that the boy is not sure to get the money. The two other younger informants suggested that sa is appropriate in a context like the following. (30) [Context: It's his girlfriend's birthday, but the boy hasn't bought a present for her. The speaker thinks he should have bought a present but knows he didn't have the money.]

abi

mon~

A

boi no

DET

boy NEG have money but

a

sa

bai wan kado

te

ma

a

kisimoni

when 3sg get money

gi a

umapikin.

3sg MOD buy ART present for DET girl 'The boy doesn't have money, but when he gets money, he'll buy a present for the gire In this case, sa conveys the speaker's strong expectation that the boy will buy the present As one informant puts it, "sa here is like shall, it implies that I shouldn't worry, that the boy will be able to buy the present=' There seems to be some difference between the intuitions of these two groups of informants. A similar difference in judgment emerges from their comments on the use of sa and o in sentences like the following. (31) [What your brother DO if you don't got to see him tonight, do you think?] He COME tomorrow (to see me).

A

o/sa

kon tamara

fu luku mi.

3sg FUT/MOD come tomorrow for see me 'He will/shall come tomorrow to see me~ Again, all informants agreed that both o and sa could be used in this case, and that o conveys certainty that the future event will happen. But again, the first group indicates that use of sa conveys the sense that the speaker is not certain that the brother will come. On the other hand, the other two younger informants again interpret sa as expressing a sense of strong expectation. As one of them puts it, sa

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

indicates that "he must come, because one way or another, we must see each other=' There is no necessary incompatibility between the different judgments of the informants with regard to the way sa can be interpreted in these contexts. I will argue below that both the sense of uncertainty and the sense of expectation that informants perceive in sa are related to the fact that this modal functions as a marker of probability, and has shades of both deontic and epistemic meaning. 4 Finally, my informants also confirm Voorhoeve's (1957: 382) account of the use of sa to express a sense of indignation and incredulity (which he refers to as a "dubitative" sense), as in the following example. It would not be appropriate to use o in this case. (32)

[Context: someone tells you he thinks you told lies about him.]

Mi sa forteri tori fu yu? 1sg MOD tell storyofyou 'Would I tell lies about you?' As Robby Morray (pers. comm., 2002) notes, this implies "I would never do such a thing. How could you think I would do such a thing?" Both sa and o can combine with the past marker ben, producing the complex forms ben sa and bo (< bio < ben o), which both convey the sense of hypothetical or counterfactual past or present Again, there have been somewhat different views expressed about these combinations. Voorhoeve (1957: 376) points out, rather succinctly, that "the verbal form with ben sa indicates a past future," and also that it "generally indicates an irrealis" (p. 382), providing the following examples. (I have amended his examples. His glosses follow mine. The free translations are mine.)

mi ben sa aksi en dati. (33) Efu a ben kon esde, If 3sg PAST come yesterday, lsg PAST MOD ask 3sg that if he been-come yesterday, I would-have-asked him that 'If he had come yesterday, I would have asked him that: (34) Efu oto no ben de, mi ben sa e waka if car NEG PAST COP, 1sg PAST MOD IMPF walk

te mi no abi futu. until1sg NEG have foot If automobiles not existed, I would-walk until I not have feet 'If cars did not exist, I would be walking until I had no feet:

4 Still, it is possible that the differences ln judgment reflect the fact that older speakers tend to use sa to express more uncertainty, whlle younger ones use it to express stronger expectation. It is worth noting that the younger informant who expressed judgments simllar to those of the two older informants learned Sranan from her grandmother.

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Voorhoeve is correct to note that ben sa can express both present and past counterfactual meaning. However, he says nothing about ben o. Seuren does distinguish between ben sa and ben o, but does not elaborate much on their meanings, except to say that ben sa "does what the subjunctive does in so many languages (1981: 1054). He also claims. without further elaboration, that ben sa "occurs regularly in the main clause of past counterfactuals," while ben o is preferred in present counterfactuals (p. 1055). He provides the following examples. (Glosses are mine; translations are his, though fve amended the second one slightly.) (35) Efu a ben wroko mom tranga, a ben sa kisi mom moni. if 3sg PAST work more hard, 3sg PAST MOD get more money 'If he had worked harder, he would have earned more money;' (36) Efu a man ben o meki bari no~ a fowruben o freygwe. if DET man PAST PUT make shout now, DET bird PAST PUT fly go-away 'If the man were shouting now, the bird would fly away;' ['If the man were to shout now - DW] In fact, as we will see, ben sa and ben o (bo) can both occur in past and present counterfactuals, but with slightly different meanings. Wendelaar and Koefoed, for their part, treat the distinction between ben sa and ben o as identical to the one they propose for sa and o, that is, as a distinction between uncertain and certain future. Their argument therefore suffurs from the same flaws as their analysis of sa and o. It seems fair to say; therefore, that none of the earlier studies has provided a clear or adequate explanation for the difference between ben sa and bo. I will argue here that the distinction between ben sa. and bo parallels the distinction I have made between sa and o. Informants were presented with six test sentences involving counterfactual conditions, and asked to determine whether bo or ben sa would be more appropriate in each case. Three sentences involved counterfactual situations in the present, such as the following. (37) Efu mi ben abi moni mi bo!ben sa bai wa.n wagi. if 1sg PAST have money 1sg PAST.PUT/PAST MOD buy ART car 'If I had money, I would buy a car: The other three sentences involved counterfactual situations in the past, such as: (38) Efu mi ben sabi taki a abi yepi fanowdu, if 1sg PAST know COMP 3sg have help need mi bo!ben sa yepi en. 1sg PAST.PUT/PAST MOD help 3sg 'If fd known she needed help, I would have helped her:

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

All but one informant expressed a clear preference for bo in all six sentences. The exception was an older female who preferred ben sa in all but 2 cases. The four informants who accepted both ben sa and bo, however, offered somewhat different views of how they differed in meaning. One informant. a younger female, saw little difference between the two, but claimed that elderly people were more likely to use ben sa, and that she wouldn't use it herself. For a younger male informant, ben sa expresses more of a wish in some contexts, such as (37) above, but is totally unacceptable in some contexts, for instance with verbs like abi 'have' and 'sabi' know (thus *ben sa abi/sabi). In other cases where the speaker is the agent of the hypothetical act, he accepts both ben sa and bo, but notes that the former expresses a sense of certainty, while the latter suggests a duty that must be carried out, perhaps with reluctance (the speaker is not sure s/he would have done it). Two other informants agree with these judgments. The following example illustrates this further. (39) Efu mi ben sabi taki a de dya, if lsg PAST know caMP 3sg be here

mi bo!ben sa

go luku en.

lsg PAST.FUT/PAST MOD go see 3sg 'Iffd known she was here, I would have gone to see hd As Robby Morray notes, ben sa in this case implies "I have the option to go, I decide." He compares the use of bo vs. ben sa in the context of having to go to two funerals, one willingly (a good friend has died) where bois appropriate (since it expresses more certainty), and one reluctantlywhere ben sa is appropriate (because it implies a social obligation). This distinction is quite similar to that between o and sa, as described earlier by the same informants. In general, however, the trend in modern Sranan is that the distinction between ben sa. and bo seems to be neutralized in most contexts. As Robby Morray (pers. comm., 2002) puts it, "there is very little difference between bo and ben sa, so people tend to use bo all the time. Sa conveys a more subtle meaning, so in generalit appears less frequently. Older people use (ben) sa more often, and distinguish it from (ben) o." Similar opinions were expressed by all other informants. However, there still remains a fairly clear distinction between sa and o, as we saw above. In the following section, I explore the meaning and uses of sa in more detail to clarify how and why it differs from o.

6.

The meanings and uses of sa in Sranan

The discussion so far has provided further evidence to support the views of previous researchers that sa is used to express various modal meanings that cannot be

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expressed by future o. The uses of sa surveyed in the previous section may all be interpreted as cases of dynamic modality and represent the most frequent use of this modal in my data, which is to express some kind of futurity or perhaps more accurately the speaker's expectation that some event will occur. 5 In addition to this, sa can also express epistemic and deontic modality. which might be regarded as secondary uses. Neither of these uses is possible with future o. In all cases, the apparent ditrerences in meaning expressed by sa are contextually determined. In the following subsections, I will first provide support for these interpretations of sa and then argue that they are influenced by Dutch zullen. 6.1

Cases where sa expresses dynamic modality

In its most typical use, sa expresses what has been referred to as dynamic modality. which Perkins (1982: 252) explains "is concerned with the disposition of certain empirical circumstances with regard to the occurrence of some event' Use of sa in this sense can yield interpretations such as commitment on the part of the speaker as agent of the action or the speaker's expectations concerning actions for which s/ he is not the agent. My analysis here is based primarily on the detailed commentary of my informants on what they perceive to be the meaning of sa in various contexts which they themselves created in order to explain their intuitions. First, let us consider in more detail situations in which the speaker is the agent of the future action. 6.1.1 Cases where sa is used to express a future act of the speaker In this use, as Voorhoeve (1957: 380) pointed out, sa typically expresses a wish, intention, or expectation of the speaker. The common element in all these interpretations is that the speaker exercises some choice or option available to him. This may have the force of a promise, as the following examples show.

(40) [Context: You owe someone money; and she demands payment.]

Mi sa gi yu a sani, yere. lsg MOD give you ART thing hear 'I shall give you the money, okay?' (41) [Context: I'm renting your house and you want me to leave. After repeated requests, I finally decide:]

Te mi kisi a moni na a kba fu a mun, when 1sg get ART money we ART end of ART month 5· It's not dear whether the use of sa to express incredulity and indignation can best be described as a case of dynamic modality. It is certain! y neither epistemic nor deontic. The sense of incredulity/indignation is really a product of the discourse context, but its basic sense seems to be dynamic.

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

mi sa yuru 1van tra oso. lsg MOD rent ART other house 'When I get the money at the end of the month, I shall rent another house: In other contexts, sa can convey the sense of a threat.

moni, mi sa Jon yu. (42) Efu yu no gi mi a if 2sg NEG give lsg DET money lsg MOD beat 2sg 'If you don't give me the money, I shall beat you: In other cases, sa conveys the sense that the choice of an option is forced on the speaker by circumstances. This may involve a duty that must be fulfilled, as in the following example, provided by an informant with his commentary. (43)

[Context: A relative you never liked dies. He had stolen money from you. You decide:]

Mi sa go beri mi omu. lsg MOD go bury lsg uncle 'I shall attend my uncle's funeral: Informant's commentary: "This suggests I've been playing with the idea, and I come to the conclusion that although I don't want to, it's my decision. Sa implies it's not my choice, and indicates doubt. I'm not sure I should, but I will (reluctantly). It would be reasonable not to go (since he stole from me), but out of moral obligation I should go:' (Robby Morray, pers. comm., 2002) A similar example is provided by another informant. (44)

[Context: I keep telephoning the city authorities asking them to fix the road, but they keep ignoring me. I decide:]

Mi no o bel moro. Mi sa skr~(i. wan brifi. lsg NEG PUT call more lsg MOD write ART letter 'I won't call anymore. I shall write a letter: Informant's commentary: "Sa here is stronger than o. Because of the response I got, I have no choice but to write. There is no other option=' Informants generally agreed that sa expresses a sense of reluctant choice in these cases. 6.1.2

Cases where someone other than the speaker is the agent of the future action

In cases where the speaker refers to an action or situation under the control of another agent, he indicates an expectation based on his judgment of the circumstances. Use of sa in these cases conveys a sense of strong expectation that the event will occur.

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(45) [Context: John's father has died in Holland, and John is in Suriname. He hates flying, but still:]

Fu di na en p'pa dede, a sa go na p'tata. for that Foe his father die 3sg MOD go we potato 'Since it's his father that died, he shall go to Holland.' As Robby Morray (pers. comm., 2002) puts it: "Sa does not convey possibility here. It implies he has other options, and he concluded that going to Holland was the best choice." The above examples clearly illustrate that sa does not primarily convey a sense of uncertainty, as Wendelaar and Koefoed (1988) suggested. Rather, the views expressed by Voorhoeve and Seuren are closer to the mark. In all these cases, the sense conveyed is rather that of strong likelihood or expectation, based on the speaker's assessment of available options or choices available to the agent involved. This of course involves a certain degree of doubt, which is what lends sa. its uncertain or speculative character. This sense of weighing options can also be observed in cases where sa is used in a more epistemic sense to express probability, as discussed in the following section. 6.2

Epistemic uses of sa

Sa can also be used in epistemic senses which cannot be conveyed by o, particularly when it occurs with imperfective e or the copula de. (46) Den pikin sa (*o)e sribi now(naw). the.pl child MOD IMPFV sleep now 'The children should be sleeping now.'

In this use, sa conveys the sense that the speaker has made an inference or deduction based on the evidence available to him. This is in tact quite close to the epistemic use of English must, that is, the sense of probability. Informants were quite clear that sa does not convey any sense of futurity in these uses, but refers only to present probability. It would be impossible to use o in this sense. Consider also the following.

(47) Jan sa

de na oso. Di djonsro mi sii a pasa. John MOD COP LOC house just now lsg see 3sg pass 'John should be at home. I just saw him go by.'

Robby Morray (pers. comm., 2002) suggests that sa here (as in other cases) implies a certain doubt and weighing of options. In the above example, the speaker provides the reason for inferring that John is at home. Or there might be a situation

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

where the speaker concludes that John should be at home, since he isn't at the office or playing football or something else. In such a case, "a logical choice is he's at home, but there are other options" (Robby Morray, pers. comm., 2002). Also related to these epistemic uses are cases like the following, provided by one of the older informants, where sa refers to a past event and cannot be replaced by o. John sa go sribi kaba; en oso dungru. John MOD go sleep COMPL 3sg house dark 'John must have gone to sleep already; his house is dark~ Na den pikin sa musu nyan a kuku. Foe the-pl chile MOD must eat DET cake 'It's the children that must have eaten the cake~ Like the earlier examples, these epistemic uses of sa convey the speaker's assessment of the probability of a situation being true based on his assumptions, expectations, and weighing of options in relation to the situation in question. This is what really distinguishes epistemic sa from o, making it impossible for them to substitute for each other in this use. 6.3

Deontic uses of sa

Sa can also be used in a deontic sense to express a sort of command, where the deontic source is the authority of the speaker or some other person or institution that imposes the obligation. This confirms Seuren's observation that sa can express the speaker's "wish or order:' One such example is the following. (48) Alen sa kon tide neti. rain MOD come today night 'It shall rain tonight.'

One informant commented that only God can utter a sentence like this, since sa conveys the sense of a promise or command that it will rain. Another example of the use of sa with the force of a command is the following. (49) A

hoi sa tan dya tide neti. boy MOD stay here today night 'The boy shall stay here tonight: DET

An older informant notes that this conveys the sense of a strong promise, meaning that "the boy shall stay; fll see to it that he stays." Again, o cannot be used in this deontic sense. On the other hand, this strong sense of sa is weakened in a case where someone expresses a wish, as in the following, where o is also possible.

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(50) [Context: Speaker A says her plants are drying up, and laments the fact that no rain has fallen. Speaker B replies:]

Kande alen sa/o kon tide neti. perhaps rain MOD/PUT come today night 'Perhaps it shall rain tonight: In the following section, I argue that the three uses of sa in contemporary Sranan as described above are due primarily to the influence of Dutch zullen. 6.4

Parallels between sa and Dutch zullen

Recent research (Migge and Goury 2008; Migge and Winford 2009) argues that sa. derives from Dutch zal, the first- and third-person singular form of the Dutch auxiliary zullen 'shall= Others (e.g. Van den Berg 2007: 188) have suggested that its source was English shall, but there is no other English-lexicon creole that derives a marker of futurity or modality from shall. Moreover, as Migge and Winford (2009: 143, fn 8) point out, the only other creoles outside of Suriname that employ sa as a modal auxiliary are Dutch-lexicon Negerhollands and Berbice Dutch and English-lexicon basilectal Guyanese creole as spoken in Berbice. The first two ereales clearly got it from Dutch, and it is very probable that Guyanese creole borrowed it from Berbice Dutch (Robertson 1983: 13). All of this seems to offer strong circumstantial evidence for the claim that sa in the Surinamese creoles derives from Dutch zal. Indeed in the early Sranan texts, it is spelled variously as zal, zel, za, sal, sa, etc. (Van den Berg 2007: 199). Also, early texts such as Van Dyk (c. 1765) consistently translate sa with forms of zullen. Our discussion so tar has shown that sa in modern Sranan Tango can convey various interpretations in discourse, which include dynamic, epistemic, and deantic modalities. This range of interpretations is quite similar to that of Dutch zullen both in the early texts and in modern Dutch. As discussed in Section 2 above, we find several cases in the early texts where sa is used in a dynamic sense to express futurity as well as notions like a promise or a threat. The following are examples of the latter two uses from VanDyk (c1765: 40) with his Dutch translations. (The first example is cited in Van den Berg (2007); glosses and English translations are hers.) (51) Tamara manmanten na tien uri mi za kom na joe. tomorrow morning LO c ten hour 1sg PUT come LO c 2S ['Morgen Ogtend te tien Uuren zal ik by u koomen:] 'Tomorrow morning at ten o'clock I will visit you: (Van den Berg 2007: 189)

Revisiting variation between sa and o ln Sranan

(52) A doe wan trom morre mi za kiele da homan. she do one time more lsg MOD kill the woman ['Als zy het nag reis doed zal ik haar Kapot maaken~] 'If she does it one more time, I shall kill the woman= (VanDyk c1765 in Arends and Perl1995: 179) As noted in Section 2, we also find uses of sa where it expresses the sense of'should' or a 'hypothetical' meaning (see example 4). Van den Berg (2007: 191) also points out that early Sranan sa is sometimes used to describe hypothetical or uncertain events. There do not seem to be any clear examples of the epistemic or deontic uses of sa in the early texts. It would appear, then, that only some of the modal senses that sa expresses in contemporary Sranan can also be found in the 18th-century texts. Continuing influence from Dutch is likely to have reinforced these uses of sa and extended them further, for example into epistemic and deontic domains. Indeed, all of the modal meanings associated with sa.- dynamic, deontic, and epistemic- closely parallel those associated with zullen in contemporary Dutch. In its most typical use, zullen (like sa) conveys a kind of futurity that can be interpreted as a case of dynamic modality. 6 When the speaker is the agent of the future action, zullen conveys the sense of an intention or commitment to act in a certain way, as in the following? (53) Morgen zal ik dat boek wel kopen. tomorrow shall I that book ADV buy 'Tomorrow I will buy that book (but not today): (Wendelaar and Koefoed 1988: 68) Similar to sa, the intent to act can be construed as a promise or threat, given the right context. (54) Als je vanavond komt zal ik je het geld betalen. when you tonight come shall I you the money pay 'When you come tonight, I shall pay you the money= (55) Als je me niet betaalt zal ik je in elkaar slaan. when you me not pay shall I you in each.other beat 'If you don't pay me, I shall beat you up= 6. According to Adrienne Bruyn (pers. comm., August 2007), the future use of zullen is (currently) more typical of written and formal speech. 7· I am grateful to Adrienne Bruyn. Margot van den Berg, and Marleen van de Vate for providing translations of Dutch sentences as well as examples of the various uses ofzullen and their intuitions concerning these uses.

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Donald Winford

Moreover, like sa, zullen conveys an expectation on the speaker's part that someone else will act in a certain way, as in the following (gloss and translation by Margot van den Berg). (56) Mijn vadet· zal je helpen. my father shall you help 'My father will help you=

(Wendelaar and Koefoed 1988: 68)

Zullen can also be used in an epistemic sense, to express probability. (57) De kinderen zullen nu wel slapen. the children shall now ADV sleep 'The children should be sleeping now' (=it's very likely they are).

zijn. (58) ]an zal nu wel thuis John shall now ADV at.home be 'John should be at home now: Finally, in certain contexts, zullen can have deontic force, conveying the sense of a command, as in the following. (59) De jongen zal vanacht hier blijven. the boy shall tonight here stay 'The boy shall stay here tonight (60) Het zal vanavond regenen. it shall tonight rain 'It shall rain tonight From a historical perspective, the use of sa to express dynamic modality has always been its primary function, as we saw in our discussion of the early Sranan texts above. This function seems to have derived directly from that of zullen. The other uses of sa in contemporary Sranan -to express epistemic and deontic modality - appear to have developed more recently under the influence of zullen (see Migge and Winford 2009 for more discussion). I do not, of course, claim that influence from zullen fully explains the path of change that sa seems to have been following in modern Sranan. Further research is needed to ascertain how far the current semantics and uses of sa can be attributed to such influence, as opposed to the dynamics of internal language change. But there is evidence that Dutch has been exerting considerable influence on the grammar of Sranan over the last several decades as more and more speakers of the language have become bilingual in Dutch.

Revisiting variation between sa and o in Sranan

7·

Conclusion

We've seen that sa and o are both possible in many contexts but express clear distinctions of meaning and hence cannot be said to be in competition. In other contexts, such distinctions appear to be fading, for instance in complements to verbs like 'promise, think' and the like or in combination with adverbs like kande 'perhaps,' where choice of one or the other seems to make for little difference in meaning. The combination ben sa. seems to be gradually giving way to bo for similar reasons. Apart from these contexts, however, the distinction between sa and o seems to be alive and well in contemporary Sranan. Historically, the distinction between the two began to emerge only in the course of the 18th century, when de go gradually became grammaticalized as a marker of future tense, yielding the current form o. Given the observations by Voorhoeve and Donicie regarding (d)e go as the source of o and Nickel and Wilner's observation that speakers in the 1980s still understood o as ego, this process of grammaticalization may have continued we 11 into the 20th century, though further research is necessary to confirm this. In addition, it seems likely that the meanings and uses of sa became increasingly subject to influence from Dutch zullen, which conveys epistemic and deontic senses similar to those conveyed by sa in modern Sranan. As a result of the emergence of o and the influence of zullen, sa seems to have become less associated with futurity and more associated with modal meanings and uses in modern Sranan. In short, o is not competing with sa in any significant way, since o cannot express the kinds of modal meanings that sa can.

References Arends, J. & Perl, M. 1995. Ear~v Creole Texts: A Collection of 18th-century Sranan and Sara maccan Documents. Frankfurt: Vervuert. Dahl, 0. 1985. Thnse and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell Donide, A. 1954. De Creolentaal van Suriname. Spraakkunst. Paramaribo: Radhakishun. Donide, A. 1956. De partikels sa en (de) go in de creolentaal van Suriname. West-Indische Gids 36: 183-191.

Mlgge. B. & Goury, L. 2008. Between contact and internal development: Towards a multi-layered explanation for the development of the TMA system in the creoles of Suriname. In Roots of Creole Structure, S. Michaelis (ed), 301-331. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mlgge. B. & Winford, D. 2009. The origin and development of possibllity ln the creoles of Suriname. In Gradual Creollzatlon: Studies Celebrating Jacques Arends, R Selbach, H. C. Cardoso & M. van den Berg (eds.), 129-153. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nickel, M. & Wllner, J. 1984. Papers on Sranan Tbngo. Paramaribo: Instituut voor Taalwetenschap (Summer Institute of Linguistics). Perkins, M. R 1982 The core meanings of the English modals. Journal ofLinguistics 18: 245-273.

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Donald Winford Robertson, I. 1983. The Dutch linguistic legacy in Guyana: Berbice and Skepi Dutch. Carib 3: 11-23. Schumann, C.L. 1783. Neger-Engl.isches Worterbuch. In Early Creole Lexicography: A Study of C. L. Schumaruis Manuscript Dictionary of Sranan (1983), A. Kramp, 44-305. PhD dissertation, University ofLeide.IL Seuren, P. 1981. Tense and aspect in Sranan. Linguistics 19: 1043-1076. Seuren, P. 1983. The auxiliary system in Srana.n. In Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and Rilated Puzzles, Vol. 2, F. Heny & B. Richards (eds.), 219-251. Dordrecht: floris. Simons, R. D. 1954. Het partikel sa en het Surinaams. West-Indische Glds 35: 166-170. van den Berg, M. 2000. "Mi no sal tron tongo:" Early Sranan in court records, 1667-1767. MA Thesis, Radboud University ofNijmegen. van den Berg, M. 2007. A Grammar of Early Sranan. PhD dissertation, University of Nij megen van Dyk. n.d [c1765] Nleuwe en nooit bevoorens gezlene onderwyzinge In het Bastert Engels, of Neeger Engels, zoo als het zelve in de Hollandsze Colo11ien gebruikt word. Amsterdam: Jacobus van Egmont. Voorhoeve, J. 1957. The verbal system ofSranan. Lingua 6: 374-396. Voorhoeve, J. 1962. Srana11 Syntax. Amsterdam: Publications of the Bureau for Linguistic Research in Surinam. Voorhoeve, J. & Kramp, A. 1982. Syntactic developments in Sranan. Paper presented at the 4th Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Paramaribo, Suriname. Wendelaar, W. & Koefoed, G. 1988. 'Sa' en 'd in het Sranan. OSO 7: 63-7 5. Weygandt, G. C. 1798. Gemeenzame leerwijze, om det basterd of Neger-Engelsch op een gemakkelyke wyze te leeren verstaa11 en spreeken, etc. Paramaribo: W.W. Beeldsnyder.

Inherent variability and coexistent systems Negation in Beq uia James A. Walker & Jack Sidnell The robust linguistic variation observed on the island ofBequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) raises the question of whether there is a single variable linguistic system or multiple systems. We examine the distribution and conditioning of variable negation (na, ain't or not/-n't) in three communities distinguished by ethnicity and socioeconomic history using variable rule analysis. The variant na is restricted to one community and is conditioned by co-occurrence constraints, while ain't is conditioned by auxiliary context and temporal reference, which serve to distinguish between communities. Thus, although there is variation between communities and speakers, there is also evidence for overlapping but discrete and coexistent systems. These results underline the importance of examining the distribution and conditioning of all features implicated in the linguistic system.

1.

Introduction1

Bequia is the northernmost of the Grenadines, located just south of St. Vincent (see Figure 1). Despite its small size Oust 7 square miles), this island features a surprising degree of linguistic diversity, apparent even to the casual observer. An array of apparently quite distinct linguistic varieties is spoken on Bequia, ranging from a relatively standard Caribbean English, through what is best described as a nonstandard variety of English (Williams 1987), to a more restructured variety showing affinity to other English-based creoles (Winford 1993; Aceto and Williams 2003), all of which are characterized by linguistic features found elsewhere in the Eastern Caribbean. 1. The Bequia project is generously supported by the United States National Science Foundation. the Social Sciences and Hwnanities Research Councll ofCanada and the British Academy. We thank Miriam Meyerhoff; the local research assistants and the residents of Bequia and St Vmcent who have welcomed and helped us there. Earlier versions of this paper received helpful comments from audiences at Sociolinguistic Symposium 16 (UniversityofLimerick) and the UniversityofEdinburgh. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helping to clarify the analysis and argumentation.

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James A Walker & Jack Sidnell

..

..,_ ••

'

I)

BE QUIA

~ Q

EASTERN CARIBBEAN

If:'

Mount Pleasant

.. 0

\) ~

a

()

[j

I

'·

~j]

.;::?

SOUTH AMERICA

LaPompe

Paget Farm 'Southside'

Figure 1. Bequia, St Vincent, and the Grenadines

Such linguistic diversity presents a challenge to our models of the speech community and the linguistic system. A basic question that has continually confronted us in our research on Bequia is whether we can model the observed variation as a single, highly variable linguistic system or whether there are multiple coexistent systems. Indeed, this question has long beset the analysis of linguistic variation, especially in the context of language (and dialect) contact and creole-speaking communities. An early response in creole studies was the idea of'polylectal' grammars (e.g. DeCamp 1971; C.-}. Bailey 1973; Bickerton 1975), in which apparent variation is viewed as an artifact of conflating different levels of a (post-)creole continuum: that is, the community is in the process of shifting from a basilectal creole system to a more acrolectal English system via several mesolectal stages. Although more recent work has abandoned the diachronic assumption of the continuum (e.g. Rickford 1988), the view that variation reflects a mixture of different levels of the continuum is still widespread. Yet our research has shown us that we cannot escape the fact of variation, even at the level of the individual speaker in the same

Inherent varlabllity and coexistent systems

social and linguistic contexts. This leads to the question: can we maintain a model of multiple linguistic systems while acknowledging the fact of inherent variability? In the context of a similar discussion about African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Labov (1998: 139) proposes four conditions that would favour the recognition of coexistent linguistic systems, two of which are relevant to our research question. The first, segregation ofvariants, states that: The variants oflinguistic variables are not evenly distributed across texts or situations, but concentrated in long runs of the same value, so that extended stretches of speech show one value rather than the other. (ibid)

The fourth condition, strict co-occurrence, states that "rules show strict co-occurrence, so that one never applies without the other" (ibid.). Taken together, these conditions suggest that, wherever we find 'conspiracies' or co-occurring features that can be attributed to one linguistic system, and not to another, we may infer the presence of coexistent systems. In our contribution to this volume, we make use of Labov's conditions in a quantitative analysis of verbal negation on Bequia to propose a partial methodological solution to the problem of studying linguistic variation in (potentially) polylectal communities. In brief, our argument is that, although we may observe considerable variation aero ss communi ties and even individual speakers, we can nevertheless isolate partially overlapping yet discrete and coexistent systems localized in different communities on the island. We begin by reviewing the literature on negation in English-based creoles, nonstandard varieties of English, and African American English, with a view to identifying linguistic contexts which might be operationalized as factors to isolate different linguistic systems. Before detailing our analysis of variable negation and the factors conditioning the choice of negation, we provide some sociohistorical background on Bequia and our ongoing research there.

2.

Negation in English, English-based creoles, and African American Vernacular English

Variability in the expression of verbal negation is a longstanding feature of English. Postverbal not, which originated from an adverbial began to compete with preverbal clitic ne in the period between Old and Middle English, gradually winning out by the end of the Middle English period (Strang 1970: 312; Mitchell and Robinson 1992: 101-2). In Early Modern English, not began to vary with its contracted form -n't (the first attestation of contracted not is given in (la)), and ain't (spelled in different ways) made its first appearance as a contracted form of have and be (an early attestation is provided in (1b )).

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James A Walker & Jack Sidnell

(1) a. But mayn't I Bar points, being the Challenged? ( 1652: John Tatham, The Scotch Figgaries, m· a Knot of Kna.ves IV, i;

Oxford English Dictionary) b. wee'l play heads or tails, who goes first, that's fair now, e'nt it? (The Mock-Tempest IV.ii; Duffett 1674) In modern standard varieties of English, ain't has all but disappeared, and not varies only with -n't. In nonstandard varieties, ain't survives as a variant in contexts of negated have and be (Feagin 1979; Cheshire 1982; Christian, Wolfram, and Dube 1988), though it occurs more frequently in have contexts (Cheshire 1991: 57). A related consideration is the grammatical person of the subject (Wolfram 1973), though this may have to do with the irregular paradigm of auxiliary verbs (cf. Hudson 2000). Variability in verbal negation is also a well-known feature of the English-based creoles (EBCs) of the Caribbean. The prototypical creole negator is an invariant form (usually no or na) placed before the verb and any tense-mood-aspect markers (Bickerton 1975: 43; Holm 1988: 171; Rickford 1992; McWhorter 1996: 276; Schneider 1997: 1057; Greene 1999; Parkvall1999: 38; Patrick 1999; Kephart 2003: 235; McPhee 2003: 34; but cf. Van Herk 2003). Another frequently cited negator is ain't (which occurs in various phonetic forms, such as ernt, en or eh; Rickford 1974; Bickerton 1975: 99; Winford 1983; Schneider 1997: 1057; Van Herk 2003: 255), though unlike the English form, it is said to occur across a wider range of auxiliary and tense contexts (Bickerton 1975: 99; Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2004: 1190) and in some cases its function resembles that of no/na (Schneider 1997: 1057). Other forms of negation include neva, doon(t)!duon, di(d)n(t) and the suffix -n, all obviously derived from English never, don't, didn't and -n't, respectively, though again these forms are said to differ in distribution and function in some EBCs (Bailey 1966: 90; Bickerton 1975: 95-6, 98, 101, 1996: 314; Holm 1988: 172-4; Schneider 1997: 1056; Greene 1999:86, 88; Patrick 1999: 201; McPhee 2003). Although variation among these different forms of negation is generally noted (Bickerton 1975; Winford 1983; Schneider 1997; Cutler 2003: 74; Kephart 2003; McPhee 2003), accounts difter as to the source of the variation. Some claim difterences in meaning or selectional restrictions for the distribution of each form. For example, McPhee (2003: 38) notes that anterior marker birn and future marker gtJ can only be negated with na/no, whereas did and WAZ are negated with a suffixed -n. More commonly, each variant is assumed to represent a different lector level of the continuum. Thus, Bickerton (1975, 1996) and Winford (1983) argue that, as speakers shift from the basilect to the acrolect, forms are first relexified, taking on the properties of the replaced form, before being reanalyzed according to the English system. Under this view, no is first replaced by ain't or didn't, which, unlike

Inherent varlabllity and coexistent systems

the English forms, are unanalyzed (i.e. monomorphemic) negators, before being reanalyzed according to the English system (i.e. bimorphemic). Others are more agnostic about the diachronic nature of the variation, simply noting that speakers alternate between forms of negation from different levels of the continuum (e.g. Patrick 1999: 199; Cutler 2003: 74; Kephart 2003). Despite the acknowledgment of this variability, there are very few quantitative studies of negation in EBCs. Winford's (1983) examination of eh (