2. PV Constructions in Dutch

Referred to by various names in the literature—such as verb-particle constructions, separable (complex) verbs, and particle verbs, among others—PVs generally consist of a verb and another element, the particle; together the verb and its particle exhibit unique semantic, syntactic, and morphological behavior compared with structurally parallel non-PV constructions. Déhe et al. (Reference Damsteegt2002:3) propose the following definition of particles:

This close relationship is helpful in addressing a major PV-related issue, namely, how to distinguish instances of particles from adpositions, although the symptoms of this relationship are language specific. Déhe et al. (Reference Damsteegt2002:3–5) note, for example, that English particles can intervene between verbs and direct objects, as shown in 1a, while directional prepositional phrases, as in 1b, or resultative adjective phrases, as in 1c, cannot (see also Jackendoff Reference Jackendoff2002).

1. (1)

   

In contrast, Dutch requires objects to intervene between verb and particle in a declarative sentence, as in 2a, though in subordinate clauses, as in 2b, the particle and verb must be adjacent.

1. (2)

   

However, some symptoms of the relationship between verbs and their particles are more universal. For instance, as the examples in 3 illustrate, there is a crosslinguistic tendency for PVs to have an idiomatic meaning, whereby a verb-particle combination does not have a predictable synchronic meaning (Déhe et al. Reference Damsteegt2002:3).

1. (3)

   

Aside from intervening objects, as in 2a, separability of Dutch PVs is also evidenced by the infinitival particle te and the perfect participle ge-, as in 4, as well as the topicalization of a limited set of particles, as in 5 (Booij Reference Booij2002:23–24).

1. (4)

   

2. 

3. (5)

   

Dutch PVs feed nonverbal derivations, but there are very limited means to derive nonseparable verbs from PVs. The addition of particles can change word categories (that is, a PV can be derived by combining a particle with an adjective or a noun) and valency. Additionally, some Dutch particles are used productively, and therefore PV constructions cannot be viewed as lexicalized phrasal idioms (Booij Reference Booij2002:26–30).

Though PVs are a well-studied aspect of Germanic languages in general (see Haiden Reference Haiden, Everaert and van Riemsdijk2006 for an overview), there has been little consensus with respect to important theoretical questions posed by particle verbs. Déhe et al. (Reference Damsteegt2002) provide an overview of different approaches to the study of PVs, which boil down to treating PV constructions as syntactic or morphological collocations. However, as Booij (Reference Booij2002) demonstrates, neither a syntactic nor morphological account of Dutch PV constructions is satisfactory, which leads him to a compromise. He refers to PV constructions as periphrastic word formations: “the formation in the lexicon of units that are functionally identical to complex words, but do not form one grammatical word, but two” (Booij Reference Booij2002:40).

It should also be mentioned that there are two other types of constructions in Dutch related to PV constructions. First, there is another set of verbs, which has much in common with PVs. On the surface, they consist of a verb and a preposition-like constituent, and their meaning is often idiomatic to some degree. However, these verbs differ from PVs with respect to other characteristics. For example, they are not separable, and they follow a different stress pattern: in PVs, the particle is stressed, whereas in nonseparable complex verbs, the verbal element is stressed. The minimal pairs in 6 illustrate these differences (Booij Reference Booij2002:23, part of his example 6).

1. (6)

   

Booij (Reference Booij2002:35–36) and Blom & Booij (Reference Blom and Booij2003) argue that both, PVs and nonseparable complex verbs have a syntactic origin and represent different stages of the grammaticalization process, whereby independent words grammaticalize into the particle constituent of a PV and later into the nonseparable verbal prefix within a complex verb. Second, van Marle (Reference Jaap van2002) argues that a subset of verbal compounds (defective compound verbs in his terms) formed by combining an adjectival, verbal, or nominal first constituent with a verb, behave similarly to PV constructions.

For the purposes of this paper, the main characteristics of interest are the separability of PV constructions (that is, the possibility for the object to appear between the verb and the particle), and the idiomatic meanings conveyed by PV constructions. As shown in section 4.1, these are precisely the features of PVs in the Surinamese creoles.

3. The Linguistic Landscape of Suriname

Despite its relatively small population of just over half a million, Suriname is home to more than twenty languages with diverse typological affiliations.Footnote ² Several Amerindian languages are spoken in the country, representing two major Amerindian families, for example, Trio, Kari'na (Cariban), Lokono, Mawayana (Arawakan). Evidence suggests that more Amerindian languages were previously spoken in Suriname, however, these have been subject to language shift and death due to both population pressures brought on by the arrival of colonists and slaves, and a history of group separations and intragroup conglomerations (see Carlin & Boven Reference Carlin and Arends2002).

By the end of the 15th century, Europeans had already begun explorations and settlement attempts in the Guianas. In Suriname, the main powers involved were the English and the Dutch; the former established the first permanent settlement in what would become Suriname in 1651 as a satellite colony of Barbados. Not long after, the Dutch invaded the colony and a deal was brokered allowing the Dutch to keep Suriname in exchange for New Amsterdam (New York) in 1667 (Buddingh Reference Budingh1995). Dutch became the administrative language of the colony, and subsequently Suriname's de facto national language.

Although English has not been maintained by any Surinamese population group, there is some evidence that English remained present as an intergroup language for some time after the Dutch takeover (Arends Reference Arends2002). English has also been the dominant European contributing language in the formation of Surinamese plantation creole (Smith Reference Smith1987). That plantation creole gave rise to several varieties, which are still spoken today: Sranan, the language of the coastal Afro-Surinamese population, and Maroon languages spoken by groups whose ancestors fled plantation slavery to form free communities in the interior of the territory. The six remaining Maroon languages—we know of at least two groups that either died out or were absorbed by other groups—can be divided into two groups, based on their linguistic features: Eastern Maroon languages (Aluku, Kwinti, Ndyuka, Pamaka) and Central Maroon languages (Matawai, Saamaka); the latter is distinguished mainly on the basis of a higher percentage of lexemes of Portuguese origin and a few unique structural characteristics (Smith Reference Smith2002).

Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian contract workers were imported to Suriname to fill the labor deficit on plantations following the abolition of slavery in 1863. Except for the first group imported from China, the Hakka, contracted workers were to be provided with return transportation following their indenture. However, the colonial government offered a number of incentives for workers both to extend their contracts and to remain in the colony once their contract had expired; in practice, the majority of workers remained in the territory (van Lier Reference Lier1971, Buddingh Reference Budingh1995). This is evidenced today by the local varieties of these groups’ lan-guages that have developed in Suriname: Kejia, the language of Hakka migrants (Tjon Sie Fat Reference Paul2009); Sarnami, a koiné variety of the Indian migrants (Marhé Reference Marhé1985, Damsteegt Reference Damsteegt2002); Surinamese Javanese, of the migrants from Java (de Waal Malefijt Reference Malefijt and Marie de1960, Wolfowitz Reference Wolfowitz2002). In the past 30 or so years, Suriname has seen an upsurge in migration activity adding a number of languages to the Surinamese linguistic landscape, notably from China (with Mandarin, Cantonese, and other varieties, see Tjon Sie Fat Reference Paul2009, Reference Paulto appear), Brazil (with Portuguese, de Theije Reference Marjo de2007, Reference Marjo deto appear), Haiti (with Haitian Creole, Læthier, Reference Maudto appear), and Guyana. See also Carlin Reference Carlin2001 for more details on Suriname's ethnolinguistic composition.

Suriname is well known for its widespread multilingualism due to the influx of people from all over the world, though “not everyone is multilingual in the same languages, nor to the same extent” (Carlin & Arends Reference Carlin and Arends2002:1). Recent studies (ABS 2006, Kroon & Yagmur Reference Kroon and Yagmur2010, Léglise & Migge, Reference Isabelle and Miggeto appear) indicate that knowledge of two or more lan-guages is the overwhelming norm among Surinamese people. However, the results of these studies are indicative of perceived presence of particular languages and attitudes toward them, rather than actual language practices. This is evidenced by the fact that of those surveyed, many claimed to be native speakers on Dutch and very few admitted to be native speakers of Sranan (van den Berg Reference Margot van den2013, Yakpo et al., Reference Yakpo, van den Berg and Borgesto appear).

Leglise & Migge (to appear) also discuss the ideological biases that affect people's declared language use and present some linguistic data to this effect.Footnote ³ People in Suriname utilize the languages in their repertoire to reflect relative status and familiarity between themselves and their interlocutor, the peculiarities of an interaction in time and space, and the (perceived) identity of speaker and interlocutor (see, e.g., Campbell Reference Campbell1983, Charry & Koefoed Reference Charry and Koefoed1983, Westmaas Reference Westmaas1983, Eersel Reference Eersel and Eersel2002a,Reference Heinb, Migge Reference Migge2007).

As Suriname's national language, Dutch tends to be used in formal situations, and in interactions between individuals of different social statuses or who are not familiar with one another. It is the language of all official business, education, literary works, and media.Footnote ⁴ Dutch maintains a prestigious position following its history of exclusion and function in the nationalist discourse (Campbell Reference Campbell1983, Eersel Reference Eersel and Eersel2002a,Reference Heinb). As it is the country's lingua franca, nearly all Surinamese have at least a passive knowledge of Sranan, and many a good command of it (Adamson & Smith Reference Adamson and Smith1994). On the one hand, very few survey participants reported Sranan as their mother tongue in Léglise & Migge (to appear); on the other hand, the attitudes toward the language expressed in interviews conducted by Hanenberg in Sranan were surprisingly positive. This contrast suggests that Sranan is regarded as a covertly prestigious language. The 2006 census figures and those of Kroon & Yagmur Reference Kroon and Yagmur2010 also indicate that Dutch and Sranan are the two languages that have significant populations of non-native speakers, while the remaining languages function chiefly as in-group languages.Footnote ⁵

The sudden and artificial promulgation of Dutch in the 1870s, through several pro-Dutch language initiatives, transformed it from a language of the elite to a national language. At the same time, Sranan has been continuously maintained and spread as a low-status means of inter-ethnic communication. As a result, the functions of Dutch and Sranan within the Surinamese society are continuously evolving. This situation is similar to “leaky diglossia” (Fasold Reference Fasold1984) and multidirectional layering of transferred linguistic features between two languages (de Bies Reference Renata de1994; de Klein Reference De Klein1999; Blanker & Dubbledam Reference Blanker and Dubbledam2005; Essegbey et al. Reference Essegbey, van den Berg and van de Vate2013; Borges Reference Borges2013, Reference Borges2014; van den Berg Reference Margot van den2013; Yakpo et al., Reference Yakpo, van den Berg and Borgesto appear, etc.).

In-group languages are also involved in transfer of linguistic features, though they are largely on the receiving end of the transfer (Lestiono Reference Lestiono2012, Borges Reference Borges2013, Yakpo et al., Reference Yakpo, van den Berg and Borgesto appear). Thus, one can say that a major pattern of language change in Suriname is that Dutch and Sranan features provide a model for change. Dutch and Sranan tend to be source languages in the sense that their features are transferred to other Surinamese languages. At the same time, Dutch and Sranan are recipient languages with respect to one another: Linguistic features are transferred from Dutch to Sranan and vice versa.

Finally, and relevant to the arguments in the next section, the events of the early 20th century—increasing urbanization from the early 1900s on (de Bruijne Reference Bruijne2001); the construction of the Afobaka hydroelectric dam and subsequent flooding of some 2,000 km² of land in the 1960s that displaced approximately 6,000 Maroons (Goodland Reference Robert2007, Goossens Reference Goossens2007); independence from the Netherlands in 1975 (Gowricham & Schüster Reference Gowricham and Schüster2001); the civil war of 1986–1992 that ravaged large parts of the interior and displaced many Maroons (Hoogbergen & Kruijt Reference Hoogbergen and Kruijt2005)—have caused a great number of Maroons to relocate to and establish themselves permanently in Paramaribo and urban centers in French Guiana. This has reduced the difficulty that Maroons traditionally faced when coming to coastal areas for work. Consequently, new interethnic Maroon networks started to form in coastal areas, along with new connections and the possibility for movement between Paramaribo/French Guiana and their traditional territories in the interior (Price & Price Reference Price and Price2003, Léglise & Migge Reference Isabelle and Migge2006). This development also manifests itself in the linguistic landscape through an increased presence of Maroon languages and leveling of Maroon varieties (heavily based on Eastern Maroon creole), which appears to be functioning as a second lingua franca in Suriname and has a markedly urban feel compared to traditional Maroon varieties.

4. PVs in Suriname

In this section, I first argue that PV constructions are not native creole structures. That is, PV constructions were absent from the creole languages until relatively recently (though see the examples in 10, 11), and early on, PVs were internalized as nonseparable units in the emerging creoles. I then provide criteria for distinguishing PV constructions from prepositional phrases (PPs) and serial verb constructions (SVCs). The similarity in syntactic structure, form, and meaning between Dutch and creole PV constructions suggests that the creole PV constructions have been modeled on their Dutch counterparts. Finally, I present the PV constructions attested in the Sranan and Maroon creole corpora.