Tone loss in Sranan Creole: re-thinking contact driven change

Barth, Emily

doi:10.2218/pihph.1.2016.1694

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Less-isolated Caribbean creoles like Jamaican Creole and Sranan (coastal Suriname) have intonation-only systems (Gooden 2003, Barth 2016). However, the sociohistorical context suggests that a shift from tone to intonation-only systems took place earlier in these Caribbean creoles.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact

Steien¹,

Yakpo²

2020

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This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word-tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in function words, and tonal processes. Evidence from further contact varieties and creole languages shows that similar systems evolved in other Afro-European contact ecologies. We conclude that tone is imposed by default on contact varieties and creoles that take shape in ecologies characterized by sourcelanguage agentivity in tone languages. In doing so, we argue against claims that tone necessarily cedes to stress during language contact and creolization. Instead, contact varieties and creoles partake just like other languages in the convergence processes that lead to the areal clustering of prosodic systems.*

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Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even so, most Caribbean creoles retain features that hark back to a tonal past. Barth (2016) argues on the grounds of historical phonology that Sranan once had a tone system. Today, Sranan, like numerous other Caribbean intonation-only creoles, manifests 'residual tone' (Berry 1972) in a few grammatical functions and semantic fields.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact

Steien¹,

Yakpo²

2020

Language

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“…A switch from tone to stress has explicitly been claimed by Barth (2016) for Sranan (Suriname). Barth argues on the basis of historical phonology that Sranan once had a tone system like its closest relatives, the Maroon creoles Ndyuka and Saramaccan, and then lost tone through contact with Dutch.…”

Section: Afro-european Contact Prosodic Systems Show An Areal Distribution Across the Atlanticmentioning

confidence: 89%

Creole Prosodic Systems Are Areal, Not Simple

Yakpo

2021

Front. Psychol.

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This study refutes the common idea that tone gets simplified or eliminated in creoles and contact languages. Speakers of African tone languages imposed tone systems on all Afro-European creoles spoken in the tone-dominant linguistic ecologies of Africa and the colonial Americas. African speakers of tone languages also imposed tone systems on the colonial varieties of English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese spoken in tonal Africa. A crucial mechanism involved in the emergence of the tone systems of creoles and colonial varieties is stress-to-tone mapping. A typological comparison with African non-creole languages shows that creole tone systems are no simpler than African non-creole tone systems. Demographic, linguistic, and social changes in an ecology can lead to switches from tone to stress systems and vice versa. As a result, there is an areal continuum of tone systems roughly coterminous with the presence of tone in the east (Africa) and stress in the west (Americas). Transitional systems combining features of tone and stress converge on the areal buffer zone of the Caribbean. The prosodic systems of creoles and European colonial varieties undergo regular processes of contact, typological change and areal convergence. None of these are specific to creoles. So far, creoles and colonial varieties have not featured in work on the world-wide areal clustering of prosodic systems. This study therefore aims to contribute to a broader perspective on prosodic contact beyond the narrow confines of the creole simplicity debate.

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Word prosody of African versus European-origin words in Afro-European creoles

Agostinho

2023

Linguistic Typology

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This paper is concerned with word-prosodic systems of Afro-European creole languages that show a correlation between the lexical origin (African vs. European) and prosodic pattern. The discussion is based on the evidence from four languages: Saramaccan, Nigerian Pidgin English, Pichi, and Lung’Ie. I examine how the study of word-prosodic systems of creoles can contribute to phonological typology and to the debate of whether creoles are different from non-creoles. I hypothesize that such systems are the result of extreme language contact and can only be found in creole languages. The existence of these systems further confirms that sociohistorical processes – such as historic contact – can shape phonological systems. Finally, I conclude that the analysis of African-origin words is crucial to further our understanding of creole phonology.

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Tone loss in Sranan Creole: re-thinking contact driven change

Cited by 5 publications

References 3 publications

Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact

Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact

Creole Prosodic Systems Are Areal, Not Simple

Word prosody of African versus European-origin words in Afro-European creoles

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