The grammatical function of Papiamentu tone (original) (raw)

Some issues in the study of Papiamentu tone.

Leeward Voices: Fresh perspectives on Papiamentu and the literatures and cultures of the ABC Islands, Volume I. , 2009

In this paper, I will briefly set out the arguments for rejecting a lexical basis for tone in PAP. I then turn to the existence of toneless function words and the phenomenon of tone polarisation, and consider what it may tell us about the phrasal status of tone in this language. I will argue that tone polarisation has a syntactic function, namely to mark the integration of an element into a syntactic domain. We shall see that many aspects of the grammar of Papiamentu are still insufficiently described and poorly understood, and that there is ample scope for research on the prosody-syntax interface in Papiamentu.

A new analysis of the Papiamentu clause structure

Probus, 2007

This paper reconsiders the complementiser and the tense-mood-aspect systems of the Papiamentu clause within the framework of the split CP (Rizzi 1997) and the split INFL (Pollock 1989) hypotheses, providing new evidence for the left periphery heads. It provides a detailed account of the Papiamentu morphemes involved that unifies syntactic and interpretive properties. Of particular interest is the proposal that di-which introduces infinitives-and lo-traditionally considered a future marker-both head FinP, and that pa, when functioning as a marker of necessity, heads MoodP. Contra certain claims in the literature, this paper argues that the order of preverbal material is not different from that of other Caribbean creoles.

Tone in grammar: What we already know and what we still don't

In this paper, I provide an overview of tone encoding grammatical meanings, a phenomenon which to date has been insufficiently studied in depth by typologists, nor theoretical morphologists. A starting point for the present discussion is the newly published volume “Tone and inflection” (Palancar, Léonard eds. 2016), which contains a collection of papers focusing on inflectional tone in various languages, but mainly Oto-Manguean. I discuss basic formal and semantic properties of tone in grammar illustrating my claims with examples from the “Tone and inflection” volume as well as with cases from various African languages. I suggest and justify several implicational hypotheses covering typological patterning of grammatical tones; these proposed generalizations should be tested in a balanced survey in the future.

Remarks on the syntax of bare nouns in Papiamentu

Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 2024

This article presents an argument that bare (singular) nouns in Papiamentu include additional silent functional structure, as proposed in Kester and Schmitt (2007). The argument is based on Dutch-Papiamentu codeswitched noun phrases and exploits the crucial datum that a Dutch bare noun is grammatical when inserted in a Papiamentu sentence, although bare nouns are ungrammatical in a Dutch unilingual sentence. We propose that this datum can be accounted for if the Dutch bare noun is the complement of a silent Papiamentu category, D or Num. The locus of crosslinguistic variation that yields the (un)acceptability of bare nouns is a property in D or Num.

Tone and inflection: An introduction

2015

Tone is about melody and meaning, inflection is about grammar and this book is about a bit of both. The different papers in this book study possible and sometimes very complex ways in which the melodies of a given language engage in the expression of grammatical meaning. In this light, the volume aims to broaden our understanding of the role of tone in the making of grammar. We believe this is important because it challenges a widespread conception of tone as being a lexical phenomenon only. This conception flows from the expectation that any typical tone language should be like Mandarin Chinese or Vietnamese, but these are languages with little or no inflectional morphology. The contributions in this volume challenge this view by showing that there is more to tone than meets the eye.

Grammatical functions of tone in San Maka

Mandenkan 65. 2021. P. 333-348., 2021

The paper is an overview of the functions of tone in San Maka (Eastern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). In this language, tone has different grammatical functions in addition to distinguishing lexical meanings of words. The analysis of tone shows that its grammatical functions embrace different morpho-syntactic domains. Tonal oppositions are analyzed in the wide contexts of segmental morphology of the language. It is shown that tonal oppositions may distinguish paradigmatic word forms, which is primarily characteristic of a verb; tone is often the only distinctive feature that opposes neutral and perfective verbal forms. San Maka also displays verbal derivation by means of the tonal change. Tone oppositions are used in genitive constructions of the type N+N, where the tone of the second component rises. A special section is devoted to so-called floating tones. In San Maka, floating tones are allomorphs of segmental units: the 3sg pronoun à and the perfective predicative marker nə́, in certain contexts, are realized as tones.

"No Exception to the Rule: The Tense-Aspect-Modality System of Papiamentu Reconsidered"

Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives on Contact Languages, Creole Language Library 32, 2007

In this chapter, it is demonstrated that although the Tense, Modality, and Aspect (TMA) system of Papiamentu has been cited by a number of researchers (Andersen 1993; Bickerton 1980, 1981) both as being exceptional in relation to other Creoles of the Caribbean and as being deviant from universal strategies for marking TMA attributed by some to Creole languages worldwide, Papiamentu TMA operates essentially on the basis of the same system found in most Atlantic Creoles as well as in most of their West African substrate languages. All of the features which Andersen (1993: 89–91) and others cite as ‘aberrant’ in Papiamentu, including: (1) the near obligatory use of the markers a or ta before verbs; (2) the absence of a ‘Ø marker’ for perfective aspect; (3) the existence of two irrealis markers (lo and Ø) and the ‘deviant position’ of lo; (4) the dual (tense and aspect) function of the marker tabata; and (5) the lack of a specifi c morpheme that functions exclusively as an anterior marker; are all shown to be the result of features and patterns of grammatical change found throughout the Afro-Atlantic.

Subsystem Interface and Tone Typology in Papiamentu

This paper looks at the relations between tone and features from other phonological subsystems in Papiamentu. It proposes that the interaction of tonal features with features from stress and intonational subsystems provides important clues about the typological classification of Papiamentu as a tone language. Moreover, the taxis of tones, or their organization in the string, also provides a better understanding of this language. Papiamentu, as a tone language with a mixed system, fits the description of tone-restricted languages but also exhibits features of intonational systems.