Tone and accent in Saramaccan: charting a deep split in the phonology of a language

Good, Jeff

doi:10.1016/s0024-3841(03)00062-7

Cited by 60 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…However, further reflection suggests that it is perhaps not an unexpected phenomenon, given that we are dealing with a (postcolonial) English variety whose evolution has been in an ecology comprising a majority of tone languages; and suprasegmental features, including tone, are certainly susceptible to being acquired in contact situations (Curnow, 2001). Similar observations have been made for other contact varieties whose substrates involve tone languages, for example, tones with grammatically contrastive function in Nigerian English (Gut, 2005), a subset of words marked for true tone in Portuguese‐ and English‐lexifier Saramaccan (Good, 2004), use of both contrastive pitch accent and stress in Portuguese‐lexifier Papiamentu (Rivera‐Castillo and Pickering, 2004). In fact, various prosodic patterns of SE, such as the common occurrence of sustained level tones used in a stepwise pattern, have already been documented and ascribed to influence from the Chinese varieties (Lim, 2004).…”

Section: Mergers and Acquisitions Through The Agessupporting

confidence: 72%

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹

2007

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This paper presents a comprehensive account of the discourse particles in colloquial Singapore English (SE), considering their etymology in the light of both structure and sociohistory. While the object of many studies, mostly focusing on their meaning and use, and generally recognised as coming from Southern Chinese languages, the establishment of the origins and evolution of SE particles has not before been attempted. The thrust of this paper is thus twofold: (i) it outlines the linguistic ecology of Singapore over the decades and proposes a framework involving three ages in which different languages are recognised as dominant, influencing the feature pool in the evolution of SE, and (ii) it identifies the most likely sources of SE particles, through (a) a systematic comparison of the forms and functions of SE particles with particles from the substrates, including, in particular, their original tone, and (b) recourse to sociohistorical facts to support the linguistic postulation. I suggest that in an early era Bazaar Malay and Hokkien contributed the particles lah, ah and what, and Cantonese in a later age provided lor, hor, leh, meh and ma, inclusive of tone. This argument highlights issues interesting for contact dynamics and new varieties of English.

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Section: Mergers and Acquisitions Through The Agessupporting

confidence: 72%

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹

2007

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“…In Saramaccan (Good 2004), in one class of words a single syllable is marked /H/, the remaining syllables being underlyingly toneless. In Saramaccan (Good 2004), in one class of words a single syllable is marked /H/, the remaining syllables being underlyingly toneless.…”

Section: Typologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Word-prosodic typology

2006

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Numerous proposals have been advanced as to how prosodic systems should be typologised. In this paper I distinguish two prototype systems, tone and stress accent, which, unlike systems analysed as ' pitch accent', have two inviolable, definitional properties : (i) obligatoriness (every word has at least one stress accent) ; (ii) syllable-dependency (the stress-bearing unit is necessarily the syllable). In contrast, the oft-cited criterion of culminativity (every word has at most one tone/accent) not only includes tone/accent systems that are neither obligatory nor syllable-dependent, but also culminative non-prosodic features that are clearly not accentual. I argue that there is no one pitch-accent prototype. Instead, since tone and stress accent may co-occur, and since languages may ' pick and choose ' between the non-definitional properties that tend to cluster within the tone vs. stress-accent prototypes, there is a range of intermediate (and possibly indeterminate) word-prosodic systems which may or may not be best seen as ' types '. If stress is monarchic, and length oligarchic, we may say that tone is democratic. (Greenberg & Kaschube 1976 : 9) * This paper was first presented as an invited talk at the conference Between Stress and Tone (BeST). I would like to thank Bert Remijsen and Vincent van Heuven for the invitation and those in attendance for their helpful comments. I have particularly profited from extended discussions with Carlos Gussenhoven and José Hualde on the tone vs. accent question and good Bantu exchanges with David Odden and Gérard Philippson. I also would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their very thoughtful comments on the original manuscript.

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“…Good 2004): 20 it combines the stress-accent system of the European lexifier languages English, Portuguese and Dutch, with a tonal system. The two principal African source languages of Saramaccan, Fon (niger-congo, gbe) and Kikongo (niger-congo, bantu) have tone systems.…”

Section: Linguistic Factors: Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The phonology of mixed languages

Gijn

2009

JPCL

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Mixed languages are said to be the result of a process of intertwining (e.g. Bakker & Muysken 1995, Bakker 1997), a regular process in which the grammar of one language is combined with the lexicon of another. However, the outcome of this process differs from language pair to language pair. As far as morphosyntax is concerned, people have discussed these different outcomes and the reasons for them extensively, e.g. Bakker 1997 for Michif, Mous 2003 for Ma’a, Muysken 1997a for Media Lengua and 1997b for Callahuaya. The issue of phonology, however, has not generated a large debate. This paper compares the phonological systems of the mixed languages Media Lengua, Callahuaya, Mednyj Aleut, and Michif. It will be argued that the outcome of the process of intertwining, as far as phonology is concerned, is at least partly determined by the extent to which unmixed phonological domains exist

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Tone and accent in Saramaccan: charting a deep split in the phonology of a language

Cited by 60 publications

References 8 publications

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹

Word-prosodic typology

The phonology of mixed languages

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Tone and accent in Saramaccan: charting a deep split in the phonology of a language

Cited by 60 publications

References 8 publications

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles1

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles1

Word-prosodic typology

The phonology of mixed languages

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹

Mergers and acquisitions: on the ages and origins of Singapore English particles¹