A New Creole Future Tense Marker Emerges in the Panamanian West Indies

Aceto, Michael

doi:10.2307/455925

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Our analysis draws on data from ten communities across the United Kingdomfrom the Shetland Islands in the North to Devon in the South, as in the Map in Figure 1. 8 Figure 1: Communities studied This data was collected for a number of different projects between 1997-2009 (Tagliamonte, 1996-1998, Tagliamonte, 1999-2001, Tagliamonte, 2000-2001, Tagliamonte, 2001, Smith, 2007-2009 as in Table 3. The communities range from small villages to cities, from the Shetland Islands off the north coast of Scotland to the southern counties of England, from mainstream to isolated.…”

Section: Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 3 See e.g. Curme (1913), Royster & Steadman (1923/1968), Fries (1925, 1927), Luebke (1929), Ultan (1972), Harner (1976), Wekker (1976), Close (1977), Anderson (1979), Harner (1980), Haegeman (1981), Ofuani (1981), Fleischman (1982), Wales (1983), Nieuwint (1986), Bybee & Pagliuca (1987), Elson (1988), Myhill (1988), Nehls (1988), Arnovick (1990), Gagnon (1990), Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins (1991), Howe & Strauss (1991), Grancrov (1992), Schwegler (1992), Roberts (1992–3), Danchev & Kytö (1994, 2002), Berglund (1997), Mair (1997), Aceto (1998), Poplack & Turpin (1999), Tagliamonte (2002), Torres-Cacoullos & Walker (2009), Wagner & Sankoff (2011). …”

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confidence: 99%

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Grammaticalization at an early stage: futurebe going toin conservative British dialects

Tagliamonte¹,

Durham²,

Smith³

2014

English Language and Linguistics

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The Englishgofuture, a quintessential example of grammaticalization, has shown layering withwillsince at least 1490. To date, most synchronic evidence for this development comes from dialects wherebe going torepresents a sizable proportion of the future temporal reference system. However, in the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century there were still dialects wherebe going towas only beginning to make inroads, representing a mere 10–15 per cent of future contexts. These varieties offer an effective view of the early stages of grammatical change.Statistical analysis of nearly 5,000 variable contexts reveals that the use ofbe going tois increasing across generations, but at different rates, depending on location and orientation to mainstream norms. Major patterns of use mirror previous findings:be going tois favoured for subordinate clauses. However, other widely reported constraints conditioningbe going toare radically different across age groups, exposing contrasts between incipient vs later stages of grammaticalization. In the most conservative dialectsbe going tois strongly correlated with negatives and questions especially in the first person singular. This suggests that these contexts may have been the ‘trigger’ environments for redistribution of meaning of the incoming grammatical form (Hopper & Traugott 1993: 85). The fact that strong effects of negatives and questions endure in contemporary urban varieties (Torres-Cacoullos & Walker 2009) confirms that grammaticalization begins in very specific syntactic contexts, and impacts on the system for generations to come. In contrast, other reported constraints – resistance ofbe going toin the first person singular and extension to inanimates and far future readings – emerge across generations, suggesting they are later developments.Taken together, these findings demonstrate how synchronic dialects show us incremental steps in the grammaticalization process. Comparative sociolinguistic analysis thus offers insights into which patterns define the point of grammaticalization itself; which derive from systemic processes; which can be attributed to discourse routines and collocations; and how these factors converge in shaping the evolution of grammar.

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Section: Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grammaticalization at an early stage: futurebe going toin conservative British dialects

Tagliamonte¹,

Durham²,

Smith³

2014

English Language and Linguistics

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“…Interestingly, although irrealis markers differ across English-based creoles, most, if not all, derive from an English future marker: thus, sa (, shall; or possibly , Dutch zal ) in Sranan (Seuren, 1981;Winford, 1996) and Ndjuká (Holm, 1988), and we0wi (, will ) in Jamaican Creole English (Bailey, 1966;Gibson, 1992), Carriacouan Creole English (Gibson, 1992), 18th-and 19th-century Nigerian Pidgin English (Fayer, 1990), and Kru Pidgin English (Singler, 1990). The most widely used marker go(n)0guo0o (, going to) has reflexes in just about every attested English-based creole (Aceto, 1998;Bailey, 1966;Bickerton, 1975;Fayer, 1990;Gibson, 1992;Holm, 1988;Seuren, 1981;Winford, 1996; see also Faraclas, 1989;Hancock, 1987). Its frequency may explain the creole origin many impute to variants of going to, particularly gon(na), in contemporary AAVE and in Gullah (Mufwene, 1996:8).…”

Section: T H E F U T U R E I N C O N T E M P O R a R Y E N G L I S Hmentioning

confidence: 99%

The grammaticization of going to in (African American) English

Poplack

Tagliamonte

1999

Lang Var Change

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Focusing on the process of grammaticization, whereby items with lexical meaning evolve into grammatical markers, this article examines the future temporal reference sectors of three diaspora varieties of African American English which have evolved in linguistic isolates and compares them with those of British-origin rural and mainstream varieties of English. With one exception, the same constraint hierarchies condition the selection of going to across the board, indicating that their future temporal reference systems are descended from a common source. All other distinctions among the varieties result from their differential positioning on the cline of ongoing grammaticization of going to as a future marker. Operationalization of constraints representing different stages of the development of going to and comparison of their probability values across communities confirm that the enclave and the rural varieties retain conservative traits, visible here in the form of variable conditioning, in contrast to mainstream English, which is innovating. We suggest that the major determinant of variability in the expression of the future is the fact that the speech of isolated speakers, whether of African or British origin, instantiates constraints that were operative at an earlier stage of the English language and that are now receding from mainstream varieties.

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“…However, Herzfeld (1983a:34-5, fn. 8) provides the following census figures from 1950 regarding the Antillean-born population registered in the entire province of Bocas del Toro: 8) Aceto (1995) presents an analysis of variation in a cryptolect called 'Gypsy' which is based on the English-derived creole spoken on Bastimentos. This secret language was, most likely, imported into the area with Jamaican immigrants.…”

Section: Bastimentos and The Province Of Bocas Del Toromentioning

confidence: 99%

SYNTACTIC INNOVATION IN A CARIBBEAN CREOLE: THE BASTIMENTOS VARIETY OF PANAMANIAN CREOLE ENGLISH

Aceto

1996

EWW

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This article examines the origins of the past tense marker woz, which is in variation with di(d), in the English-derived creole spoken on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos in the Caribbean Sea. This study of language variation suggests that the concepts of decreolization as well as the Creole continuum itself have limited applications in regions where the national language is unrelated lexically to a creole spoken within its national borders. It also suggests that decreolization as an explanatory model has been overapplied in general, and that some variation phenomena designated as the result of language contact may instead be disguised examples of internally-motivated change or at least the result of multiple causation (i.e. a combination of internally-and externally-motivated factors).

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A New Creole Future Tense Marker Emerges in the Panamanian West Indies

Cited by 10 publications

References 15 publications

Grammaticalization at an early stage: futurebe going toin conservative British dialects

Grammaticalization at an early stage: futurebe going toin conservative British dialects

The grammaticization of going to in (African American) English

SYNTACTIC INNOVATION IN A CARIBBEAN CREOLE: THE BASTIMENTOS VARIETY OF PANAMANIAN CREOLE ENGLISH

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