Syntactic Developments in Sranan Creolization as a Gradual Process Jacques Arends bron Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan. Z.p., z.j. [1989] Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/aren012synt01_01/colofon.htm © 2009 dbnl / erven Jacques Arends VII In memory of my parents For Melanie, Jasper, Michiel and Tommie Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan IX Preface This study is the result of a research project entitled ‘Syntactic change in Sranan’, which was initiated by my supervisor, Professor Pieter Seuren, and by the late Professor Jan Voorhoeve, the founder of Sranan studies in the Netherlands. The project was financed under number W 39-81 by the Dutch Organization for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), which assistance is here gratefully acknowledged. I feel I have been lucky to be able to work on a research project that turned out to be so rewarding in so many ways. There are several people and institutions who I would like to thank for helping me during the preparation of this thesis: Lilian Adamson and George Bakboord for teaching me Sranan; Hein Eersel for sharing with me his vast knowledge of early Sranan and for checking my interpretation of all the sample sentences contained in Part 2; Bart Geurts for providing computer assistance in the analysis of some of the data; Geert Koefoed and Herman Wekker for their encouragement and commitment; Renata de Bies, Glenn Gilbert, John Holm, Robby Morroy, Pieter Muysken, Leon Stassen and Harry Wetzer for many helpful comments on some of the papers which formed the basis for this thesis; Mr. H. Leeuwenberg of the State Archives at Utrecht for giving me access to the wonderful Sranan collection of the EBGS (Moravian Brethren Suriname); my employer, the Dutch State School of Translation and Interpreting, for granting me a two-week leave to visit Suriname; my wife, Melanie, Percy Balemans and Kurt Haverkort for doing a fine word processing job; and, finally, Melanie, Jasper, Michiel, and Tommie, for reasons they already know. Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan X Abbreviations ASP aspect marker c. circa COP copula DEM demonstrative DET determiner EDD English Dialect Dictionary GCCE Guinea Coast Creole English HCE Hawaiian Creole English LBH Language Bioprogram Hypothesis LOC general locative preposition MOD modality particle MOM. PART. momentariness particle MSL Maroon Spirit Possession Language NEG negative marker NP noun phrase OED Oxford English Dictionary p.c. personal communication REL relative marker TMA tense-mood-aspect TNS tense marker WAPE West African Pidgin English WNT Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan XI Part I: Analysis Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan 1 Chapter one: Introduction 1.1. Background In a sense the ‘prehistory’ of this dissertation goes back as far as 1961, when Jan Voorhoeve, the godfather of Sranan studies, wrote that ‘in Surinam we have the unique opportunity to make a study of the process of creolization in its later development.’ (Voorhoeve 1961: 100). This, as far as syntax is concerned, is precisely what the present study is about. It is an investigation of syntactic developments during the 200 years after the first (largely undocumented) century in the history of Sranan (roughly 1750 to 1950). The ‘unique opportunity’ referred to above is given by the fact that many written documents are available, dating back to the latter part of the 18th century. Among these documents is the famous Neger-Englisches Wörter-Buch by the Moravian missionary C.L. Schumann from 1783 - a treasure of early Creole lexicography - of which a scientific edition was prepared under Voorhoeve's supervision by André Kramp (Kramp 1983). In fact, the quality of the material collected by Schumann provided the impetus for these two authors to write their seminal paper on Syntactic Developments in Sranan (Voorhoeve & Kramp 1982), which produced the preliminary data necessary to design the project of which this dissertation is the result. These findings made it very clear that an in-depth study of syntactic change in Sranan would prove to be rewarding. It is within this context that the present work should be seen as a continuation of a tradition, whose first and foremost inspiration is the person of Jan Voorhoeve. Of course, the Schumann dictionary is not the only source for historical data on Sranan, but it is one of the oldest and certainly one of the best. For a study of syntactic change, however, the comparison of only one 18th century source with the modern variety will not do, for several reasons. First, changes in a period intermediate between these two that were levelled out soon afterwards (such as is partly the case with the rise of the de-variant for the identifying copula between 1800 and 1850 (see Chapter 2 for details)) would go unnoticed. Second, it would seem wise not to depend on only one source in order to avoid possible idiosyncrasies, misunderstandings or plain errors on the part of the author. Third, the excellent quality of some other sources besides Schumann, such as Focke's 1855 and Wullschlägel's 1856 dictionaries and the Herskovitses' collection of folk-tales from 1936, would turn their exclusion into a missed opportunity. Finally, a number of sources were added in order to spread our data as much as possible over the entire period under study, and some others to include as many native speaker texts as were available. The period to be investigated was determined as ranging roughly from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 20th Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan 2 centuries. Two remarks are in order here, one concerning the starting point and one concerning the point of termination. As to the former, this was determined solely by the lack of data from the preceding period, with the exception of Herlein's sample text from 1718. For obvious reasons this text was included in the corpus, although the next one of any substance (apart from Nepveu's 1765 corrections of Herlein) to emerge dates from half a century later (Van Dyk c. 17701). It seems more realistic, then, to indicate the period under investigation as is done at the beginning of this paragraph than to give the impression that this study covers the entire period from 1718 onwards, including that between this year and 1765. As to the endpoint, that was determined at roughly 1950 in order to keep some distance from recent developments that have taken place, and still are taking place right now, since World War II. These developments, arising among other things from the fact that increasing numbers of speakers from other ethnic groups besides creoles2 (i.e. African descendants) have started to use the language as a lingua franca, deserve a separate study. 1.2. Short sketch of Sranan Sranan (also called Sranan Tongo (Voorhoeve 1953), Taki-Taki (Hall 1948), Negro-English (Rens 1953) or Nengre (Tongo)) is an Anglophone creole language with a considerable admixture of African, Portuguese and Dutch vocabulary (Voorhoeve 1973). It is spoken in the capital (Paramaribo) and along the coastal strip of the Republic of Suriname3, which is located on the north-eastern coast of South America, between Guyana (formerly British Guiana) and the French département d'outremer of Guyane. The number of speakers is estimated at less than half a million, of whom approximately one third is now resident in the Netherlands. Sranan is the vernacular for most creoles (the official language being Dutch), and is used as a lingua franca by speakers from other ethnic groups, such as people of (British) Indian, Javanese and Chinese descent. For excellent, although somewhat outdated, bibliographical introductions to the language the reader is referred to Voorhoeve & Donicie (1963) and to the relevant section in Reinecke et al. (1975). Besides Sranan several other creoles are spoken in 1 See note 8 below for a modification of this date. 2 The word ‘creole’ here refers to a person of African descent, but throughout this study it is mostly used to refer to ‘creole language’. 3 I adhere to the convention that the names of countries should be spelled as they are in the country concerned. Jacques Arends, Syntactic Developments in Sranan 3 Suriname, mainly in the interior, by the so-called ‘bush negroes’, the descendants of the 17th and 18th century maroons (run-away slaves). Some of these are also English-based and mutually intelligible with Sranan, especially Ndjuka (also called Djuka or Aucan); others in this group include Boni (Aluku), Paramaccan and Kwinti. A different branch is formed by the Portuguese-based creoles called Saramaccan and Matawai, which are historically related to the others (see Smith 1987 for an intriguing exposition of this and related issues). Sranan is supposed to have come into existence somewhere between 1650, the year of arrival of the first English-speaking colonists and their slaves from Barbados, and 1680, the year when all slaves purchased before 1667 (when Suriname was ceded to the Dutch) had left the colony (Voorhoeve & Lichtveld 1975; Voorhoeve 1983). This assumption is made by those who adhere to this view, since they see no other way of explaining the fact that the ‘new’ black arrivals from West Africa (imported after 1667) managed to continue an English-based language after the English- (or English pidgin/creole-) speaking input had been removed. The resemblances between the Maroon Spirit Possession Language of Jamaica, documented by Bilby (1983), and brought to the island by the British-owned slaves who had left Suriname after 1667, on the one hand, and Sranan on the other seem to corroborate this view. In this thesis a different view is developed, both on the basis of linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence.