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In:Advances in Contact Linguistics: In honour of Pieter Muysken
Edited by Norval Smith, Tonjes Veenstra and Enoch O. Aboh
[Contact Language Library 57] 2020
► pp. 37–60

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Moving into and out of Sranan

Multiple effects of contact

 | University of Florida
 | Meertens Institute
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.57.01ess
Abstract
In Sranan, a creole language of Suriname, motion in and out of locations is expressed differently from English, its primary lexifier language. Talmy (2000), among others, has shown that the expression of motion in English involves a verb that indicates the Manner of movement, e.g., walk, and, where relevant, a satellite that expresses Path, e.g., into or out of. In Sranan, by contrast, both Manner and Path are expressed by the verb, which may be part of a serial verb construction, such as go and kmopo in (ia) and (ib), respectively. A locative complement after the Path verb usually contains a specifying locative item, such as ini:
(i)
a.
John
J
waka
walk
go
go
na
loc
a
def
oso
house
ini.
in(side)
‘John went into the house.’
b.
John
J
waka
walk
kmopo
come_out
na
loc
a
def
oso
house
ini.
in(side)
‘John came out of the house.’
We argue that influence from the West-African Gbe languages that were part of the substrate in the early history of Sranan may account for the typological make-up of Sranan regarding the expression of movement. Recently, speakers have begun to use the Dutch preposition uit ‘out’ in Sranan to express moving out. This is related to a more general trend whereby simple locative prepositions have become possible in Sranan, whereas from around 1700 to the mid-20th century, the only simple locative preposition was (n)a. The recent developments imply that in this respect Sranan is moving away from its original state in which it is typologically closer to the Gbe languages, to become more like Dutch and English.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The typology of a complex-motion event
  • 3.Moving in and out
    • 3.1The expression of motion in English and Sranan
    • 3.2Moving in and out in Ewe
  • 4.Path and Ground components
  • 5.Sranan is not Ewe
  • 6.Developments under the influence of Dutch
    • 6.1Prepositional phrases
    • 6.2The lexicalisation of the Path
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (54)
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