The tense-mood-aspect systems of the languages of Suriname
Bob Borges2017, De Gruyter eBooks
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Abstract
The tense-mood-aspect systems of the languages of Suriname 313 to contact induced change than aspect, which is more susceptible than future tense, etc. A further hierarchy was also posited for modal categories. The < arrows indicate the direction of the implicational pattern in the data. (3) Matras (2007: 45-46) a. TMA: modality < aspect < future tense < other tenses b. modality (esp. MAT): obligation < necessity < possibility < ability < desire With this, Matras provides yet another possible hierarchy for the borrowability (and by implication, stability) of both forms and structures in the realm of TMA.
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Tense, mood, and aspect in Suriname
In Robert Borges, The life of language: dynamics of language contact in Suriname. Utrecht: LOT Publications, 115-162, 2013
Various proposals have been made with regards to stability, or conversely borrowability, of particular aspects of languages’ lexicons and structures. In this paper, we investigate the stability and borrowability of forms and patterns of tense, mood, and aspect systems of the Surinamese creoles, Surinamese Dutch, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese. Our investigation reveals that Sranan and Dutch tend to be the source language in the cross-linguistic transfer of forms and patterns in the Surinamese context, and that typological distance and socio-cultural factors play a role in determining contact induced developments in the languages studied. This suggests that, although our results loosely match various stability scales, language system external considerations so far largely preclude the construction of universally applicable stability and borrowability scales.
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2011
This dissertation aims to provide an empirically driven and theoretically informed study of the tense, aspect and modality system of Saamáka (or Saramaccan), an English/Portuguese based creole spoken along the Suriname River, Suriname. The ambition of this dissertation is three-fold; First, to explore the semantic interpretations and syntactic distribution of each individual (core) tense, aspect and modality morpheme. Second, to establish the hierarchy of functional projections in the IP domain. Third, to validate whether Saamáka conforms to the universal hierarchy of functional projections as proposed by Cinque (1999, 2001). These goals are intertwined such that in order to validate the universal hierarchy of functional heads, it is necessary to investigate the semantic and syntactic characteristics of each individual tense, aspect and modality morpheme. Once it has been determined what the characteristics of a certain functional item are, it is possible to establish the overt manifestation of clausal functional heads of the language which can be compared to Cinque's universal sequence. A strong semantic and syntactic study of the IP domain of Saamáka not only contributes to the description of an underrepresented language and therefore to the understanding of language structure in general, but also makes a comparison with other languages more accessible. Such a comparison is relevant for the field of linguistics in general in that it will be informative regarding possible language structures which will contribute to the universal grammar debate and it is also relevant for the field of Creole Studies in that a comparison with other creole languages and/or substrate languages contributes to the creole genesis debate.
The Verbal System of the Cape Verdean Creole of Tarrafal, Santiago. A Semantic Analysis of the Tense, Mood and Aspect Markers
2012
This thesis deals with the verbal markers of tense, mood and aspect (TMA) in Cape Verdean Creole (CVC), focussing on the influence of context and time adverbials in determining the markers' meaning. It is based on a corpus recorded in Fazenda, a small fishing community in the Tarrafal district of Santiago Island (cf. Appendix). CVC verbal markers have often been described in the literature but the present work shows that context, adverbials of time and intonation must also be considered to determine the verbal marker's semantics. Chapter One outlines the role of Santiago Island in the genesis of CVC and presents the structure and methodology of this thesis. Chapter Two offers a review of the literature on TMA markers in CVC. These previous studies are discussed in chronological order and some new insights are offered. Chapter Three presents an analysis of the meaning of CVC verbs when they are unmarked, showing that stativity is crucially relevant and that many verbs can be stative in one context and non-stative in others. Thus, CVC verbs fall into three groups according to whether their unmarked form indicates present, past or both. Chapter Four presents the range of the functions of the marker ta with particular focus on its role in indicating habitual aspect. Chapter Five examines the following CVC progressive markers: (i) the markers sta ta and sta na focussing on the importance of the particles ta and na; (ii) the inland markers sata and ata; and (iii) the occurrence of ta in certain contexts with perception verbs indicating progressivity. Chapter Six offers a semantic and syntactic analysis of-ba (a suffixed anterior marker), dja (which can also be an adverb) and the least described verbal marker, al. Chapter Seven presents an exhaustive inventory of combination patterns involving all the markers referred to above, showing that there are strict rules concerning the markers' position within verb phrase. Finally, Chapter Eight presents the main accomplishments of this thesis and suggests further research needed to help us better understand the CVC verb system, one of the most complex aspects of the language.
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This paper describes some of the tense, aspect and mood (TAM) subsystems in Dela-Oenale (D-O), a language spoken in western Rote, Nusa Tenggara Timur province, in eastern Indonesia. The description is mainly based on the theoretical discussion of TAM reviewed from the work of Givón (1984), Comrie (1976), Palmer (1988) Chung and Timberlake (1985) and Payne (1997). The analysis of DO TAM subsystems suggested that DO does not have a grammaticalized tense system. It expresses its tense through lexical time reference. Timeframe is marked at the sentence and discourse level and disambiguated by the context of an utterance. DO aspect, on the other hand, is expressed through a number of types of perfective and imperfective aspectual markers, including: ena (perfective), basa (completive), basa…ena (perfect), fee…ena (perfective), serial verbs; nala and hendi (perfective), verbal prefixes-ma-and-mba-(progressive), and various reduplications; V-reduplication, CV-reduplication and full reduplication (progressive and iterative). Meanwhile mood in DO is classified into realis and irrealis mood. The sense of realis mood is apparent in the perfective events, while irrealis mood is expressed through a number of auxiliaries, including: nae, nae'a (irrealis), musi (obligation), bisa, nala, bole, (habilitative), negated bole and afi' (prohibitions), ne'o and mbei ma (probability) and mete ma (conditional).
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This paper provides a first analysis of the tense-aspect system of Yawarana (yar), a Cariban language spoken in Amazonas State in Venezuela. The data analyzed stems from a documentation collection consisting of recordings of 13 of about 30 known conversational speakers of Yawarana. The inflectional morphology of Yawarana is relatively simple in comparison to nearby Cariban languages, with many fewer person prefixes, fewer inflectional suffixes, and no splits in alignment; in compensation, syntactic collocations with auxiliaries, clitics, and particles play a larger role in creating tense-aspect distinctions. Main clause verbs in Yawarana have a single suffix slot for inflectional tense-aspect morphology, the same slot that holds all category-changing derivational morphology. The inventory of inflectional suffixes in this slot includes three past tense suffixes, two that are identical to synchronic nominalizers (-sapë,-jpë) and one to an adverbializer (-se). This paper illustrates problems encountered in determining whether each of these forms primarily encodes tense or aspect. Crucial to answering this question is an examination of how the meaning of a given tense-aspect suffix combines with the inherent lexical aspect (especially telic vs. states) of different verbs. Examining all examples of these suffixes in our text corpus, we conclude that the suffix-se encodes past perfective,-jpë encodes past tense with no aspectual value, and-sapë is heterogeneous, with a perfect reading on lexical verbs and a simple past tense reading on the copula. Further, the two past tense forms of the copular auxiliary (one with-jpë, the other with-sapë) are specialized to occur in different constructions, chi-jpë with the progressive and wej-sapë with all other compound tense-aspects.
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Arka, I Wayan, 2013. ‘On the typology and syntax of TAM in Indonesian’. In John Bowden (ed.), Tense, aspect, mood and evidentiality in languages of Indonesia, NUSA Vol 55 p. 23-40.
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