A Watra E-trubu (The Water Gets Muddy): Creole Genesis and the Sranan Verbal System
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2012
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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Abstract
Creole genesis is a process subject to some controversy. This thesis examines three
divergent models of creole genesis against two areas in the morpho syntax of Sranan, a creole
language of Surinam.
Bickerton (1984) argues that children's innate linguistic knowledge (the language
bioprogram) is responsible for the emergence of creoles from the linguistic chaos that
precedes them. Mufwene (2010) disputes this, claiming that creoles evolve directly from the
European languages from which they derive their vocabulary. Siegel (2008), in contrast,
traces the origins of creole syntax to the various languages native to members of the
communities in which creoles emerge.
To test these three theories, I compare and evaluate their predictions about Sranan's
tense, mood, and aspect particles, and about its serial verb constructions. Both areas of
Sranan grammar are claimed by Bickerton (1984) to reflect the syntactic universals built into
his language bioprogram. Both areas could also be argued to support Siegel's model of
substrate influence. The Gbe languages, which were the primary substrates of Sranan, have
serial verb constructions somewhat like Sranan's. Their TMA marking system has also been
argued to be mirrored in Sranan (Winford and Migge, 2007).
By applying Bickerton's (1984) and Siegel's (2008) theories to Sranan, I show that
many of Bickerton's claims may need to be reexamined. Siegel holds up better to scrutiny,
but it may be that he is harder to falsify because of the complexity, rather than the accuracy,
of his model. Both theories offer reasonable explanations for the phenomena examined.