A Grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert. Acknowledgements 5 List of tables 13 Plates 15 Map of Guyana 18 Introduction 19 Part I Introduction to the grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole 25 1. Background and methodological aspects 27 1.1. Remarks on methodology 27 1.2. Some background information 34 1.3. Transcription and abbreviations 47 2. Word order and movement 51 2.1. Introduction 51 2.2. Question formation 52 2.3. Dislocation 65 2.4. Extraposition 73 3. Structure of the clause 79 3.1. Tense, Mood, and Aspect 79 3.2. Negation 103 3.3. Adverbs and adverbial clauses 119 4. Copular sentences 135 4.1. Introduction 135 4.2. Copular predication 136 4.3. Presentation 149 4.4. Other ways of expressing copular meaning 150 5. Minor sentence types 155 5.1. Coordinating conjunction 155 5.2. Comparative constructions 162 5.3. Imperatives and prohibitives 166 6. The Noun Phrase 169 6.1. Modification of the noun 169 6.2. Conjunction of NPs 181 6.3. Pronouns and their distribution 187 7. Adpositional structures 209 7.1. Introduction 209 7.2. Prepositional structures 210 7.3. Postpositional structures 221 8. Morphology 247 8.1. Affixational morphology 247 8.2. Category conversion 264 8.3. Compounding 284 9. Phonology 295 9.1. Segmental phonology 295 9.2. Suprasegmental phonology 306 9.3. Cliticization 318 Part II Specific constructions 323 10. Purposive and resultative constructions 325 10.1. Purposive constructions 325 10.2. Resultative constructions 334 11. Complement clauses 341 11.1. Introduction 341 11.2. Interrogative complements 345 11.3. Full complement clauses 347 11.4. Reduced complement clauses 363 11.5. Exceptional complements 369 11.6. Small Clause complements 372 12. Relative clauses 379 12.1. Introduction 379 12.2. Free relatives 381 12.3. Headed relative clauses 387 12.4. fu-relativization 403 13. Serial verb constructions 407 13.1. Introduction 407 13.2. Argument introducing serial verb constructions 411 13.3. Modifying serial verb constructions 425 13.4. Doubtful cases 433 13.5. Discussion 437 14. Focus and predicate cleft constructions 441 14.1. Introduction 441 14.2. Focus constructions 442 14.3. Predicate cleft constructions: focus of verbs 454 15. Passive constructions 467 15.1. Introduction 467 15.2. Passivization in Berbice Dutch 469 15.3. The interaction between passivization and other syntactic processes 490 15.4. Concluding remarks 494 Part III Texts and basic vocabulary 497 16. Texts 499 16.1. Personal history 499 16.2. Lukuba: Tigri mεtε skelpata (Albertha Bell) 515 16.3. Local legends 520 16.4. Various texts 533 17. Basic vocabulary 547 17.1. Introduction 547 17.2. Swadesh 100 and 200 word lists of basic vocabulary 549 17.3. A discussion of some selected semantic domains 556 Part IV Vocabulary 565 Introduction 567 Word lists 571 References 697 Index 709

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality.

Silvia Kouwenberg. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.