Dual Aspectual Forms and Event Structure in Caribbean English Creoles

175 Pages·2019·0.65 MB·Studies in Caribbean Languages 2

by  Marsha Forbes-Barnett

Dual aspectual
forms and event
structure in
Caribbean
English Creoles
Marsha Forbes-Barnett
language
Studies in Caribbean Languages 2
science
press
StudiesinCaribbeanLanguages
ChiefEditor:JohnR.Rickford
ManagingEditor:JosephT.Farquharson
Inthisseries:
1. Irvine-Sobers,G.Alison.TheacrolectinJamaica:Thearchitectureofphonological
variation.
2. Forbes-Barnett,Marsha.DualaspectualformsandeventstructureinCaribbeanEnglish
Creoles.
3. Sherriah,AndréChé.Ataleoftwodialectregions:Sranan’s17th-centuryEnglishinput.
Dual aspectual
forms and event
structure in
Caribbean
English Creoles
Marsha Forbes-Barnett
language
science
press
MarshaForbes-Barnett.2019.Dualaspectualformsandeventstructurein
CaribbeanEnglishCreoles(StudiesinCaribbeanLanguages2).Berlin:Language
SciencePress.
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http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/80
©2019,MarshaForbes-Barnett
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ISBN:978-3-96110-112-2(Digital)
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Contents
Abbreviations v
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Outer/viewpointAspect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Compositionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.1 Viewpointaspectandinherentaspect . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.2 Progressiveaspectandstativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 InnerAspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 AspectinCECsandthenatureoftheverb . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.6 AnoteonthecompositionalityofAspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7 DualaspectandtheStative/Non-stativedistinction . . . . . . . 9
1.8 Theproposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.9 Aimandscopeofthiswork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.10 Theorganisationofthework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 AspectinCaribbeanEnglishCreoles:Anoverviewofworks 19
2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 SomecontributionstothestudyofAspectinCECs . . . . . . . 20
2.2.1 Voorhoeve(1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.2 Alleyne(1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.3 Bickerton(1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.4 Bickerton(1981/2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.2.5 Jaganauth(1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2.6 Winford(1993) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.7 Andersen(1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.8 Sidnell(2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.2.9 Gooden(2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.10 Youssef(2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.3 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Contents
3 Theproblemofdualaspectualforms 57
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2 Verboradjective?Thecategorialstatusofpropertyitems . . . . 58
3.2.1 TheSranancase:AdebatebetweenSebbaandSeuren . 58
3.2.2 Kouwenberg(1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2.3 Anoteonlaterworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.3 ThequestionoftheStative/Non-stativedistinction . . . . . . . . 68
3.4 Winford’ssemanticcategorisationofCECpropertyitemsandan
evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.4.1 Winford’ssemanticcategorisationofCECpropertyitems 71
3.4.2 Anevaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.5 Summaryofobservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4 TheStative/Non-stativedistinctionandchangeasalexico-semantic
concept 85
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.2 Thestative/non-stativedistinctionandthenotionofChange . . 87
4.3 Eventstructuresandprimitivesofchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.3.1 Eventtypesandstructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.3.2 State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.3.3 Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.3.4 Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.4 PrimitivesofChange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.4.1 becomeandcause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.4.2 do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.5 MoreonChange:Transitivityalternations . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.5.1 causeandbecomeinthemiddleandcausative/inchoative
alternations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.5.2 contactinthebody-partpossessorascensionalternation 103
4.5.3 motion+contactintheconativealternation. . . . . . 104
4.6 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5 Syntacticbehaviour,eventtypesandsemanticinterpretations 107
5.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.2 Criteriaforthecategorisationofpropertyitems . . . . . . . . . 109
5.2.1 Non-stativeuse:Theprogressivecriterion . . . . . . . . 109
5.2.2 Non-stativeuse:Transitivealternation . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.2.3 Event types and semantic interpretations: State, Transi-
tionandProcess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
ii
Contents
5.3 PropertyitemsinJC:Towardsaclassification . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.3.1 TransitionsinJC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.3.2 StatesamongJCpropertyitems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.3.3 OntheNon-stativeuseofStateitems . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.4 AclassificationofpropertyitemsinJC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6 Summingup:Onthecategorialstatusofdualaspectualforms 133
6.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.2 Onthecategorialstatusofdualaspectualforms . . . . . . . . . 135
6.2.1 Class1propertyitemsasNon-stativeverbs . . . . . . . 136
6.2.2 Class2propertyitemsas(Stative)adjectives . . . . . . . 140
6.3 Contributiontoscholarship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.4 Scopeforfurtherstudy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
References 149
Index 155
Nameindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Languageindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Subjectindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
iii

Abbreviations
BC BelizeanCreole
CEC CaribbeanEnglishCreole
ES Eventstructure
GC GuyaneseCreole
GU Gullah
JC JamaicanCreole
MOC MeasuringOutConstraint
SM Saramaccan
SR Sranan
SPD State–Processdistinction
TMA TenseMoodAspect