In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the ‘present perfective paradox’, Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker’s conception of ‘immediate reality’ (her domain of ‘inclusion’). This basic ‘presentness’ distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation.
2008Aspect and modality in Ewe: A survey. In Felix K. Ameka & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (eds.), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages, 135–194. Amsterdam: John Benjamins..
Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Dennis Delfitto
2000Aspect vs. actionality: Why they should be kept apart. In Östen Dahl (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe, 189–226. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bickerton, Derek
1975Dynamics of a creole system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bickerton, Derek
1981Roots of language. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
Bickerton, Derek
1984The language bioprogram hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 71. 173–221.
Botne, Robert & Tiffany L. Kershner
2008Tense and cognitive space: On the organization of tense/aspect systems in Bantu languages and beyond. Cognitive Linguistics 19(2). 145–218.
Breu, Walter
1985Handlungsgrenzen als Grundlage der Verbklassifikation. In Werner Lehfelt (ed.), Slavistische Linguistik 1984, 9–34. München: Otto Sagner.
2013A contrastive analysis of the present progressive in French and English. Studies in Language, 847–880.
Dik, Simon
1989The theory of Functional Grammar, volume 1: The structure of the clause. Dordrecht: Foris.
Essegbey, James
2008The potential morpheme in Ewe. In Felix K. Ameka & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (eds.), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages, 195–215. Amsterdam: John Benjamins..
Faraclas, Nicholas G.
1996Nigerian Pidgin. California: Routledge.
Fauconnier, Gilles
1997Mappings in thought and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fleischman, Suzanne
1995Imperfective and irrealis. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse, 519–551. Amsterdam: John Benjamins..
Galton, Herbert
1976The main functions of the Slavic verbal aspect. Skopje: Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Giorgi, Alessandra & Fabio Pianesi
1997Tense and aspect: From semantics to morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2008Tense, aspect and mood in Tuwuli. In Felix K. Ameka & Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu (eds.), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages, 291–330. Amsterdam: John Benjamins..
1983Tense in texts. In Rainer Bäuerle, Christoph Schwartze & Arnim von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, use and interpretation of language, 250–269. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter..
Kamp, Hans & Uwe Reyle
1993From discourse to logic: Introduction to modeltheoretic semantics of natural language, formal logic and discourse representation theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Klein, Wolfgang
1994Time in language. London: Routledge.
Krifka, Manfred
1992Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Ivan Sag & Anna Szabolcsi (eds.), Lexical matters, 29–53. Stanford: CSLI.
Krifka, Manfred
1998The origins of telicity. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Events and grammar, 197–235. Dordrecht: Kluwer..
Langacker, Ronald W.
1987Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, volume 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
1991Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, volume 2: Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
2001The English present tense. English Language and Linguistics 51. 251–273.
Langacker, Ronald W.
2006Subjectification, grammaticization, and conceptual archetypes. In Angeliki Athanasiadou, Costas Canakis & Bert Cornillie (eds.), Subjectification: Various paths to subjectivity, 17–40. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter..
1971Tense and time reference in English. In Charles D. Fillmore & D. Terence Langendoen (eds.), Studies in linguistic semantics, 96–113. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Michaelis, Laura A.
2004Type shifting in Construction Grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 15(1). 1–67.
2002Review article. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state?Linguistic Typology 61. 199–271.
Schaden, Gerhard
2011Introducing the present perfective puzzle. In Jesse Mortelmans, Tanja Mortelmans & Walter De Mulder (eds.), From now to eternity (Cahiers Chronos 22), 105–122. Amsterdam: Rodopi..
Seuren, Pieter A.M.
1981Tense and aspect in Sranan. Linguistics 191. 1043–1076. Reprinted in: Seuren, Pieter A. M. 2001 A view of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Carlota S.
1997The parameter of aspect, 2nd edition. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Smith, Carlota S.
2003Modes of discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Carlota S. & Mary S. Erbaugh
2005Temporal interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 43(4). 217–256.
Smith, Norval
1987The genesis of the creole languages of Surinam. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam dissertation.
Sweetser, Eve & Gilles Fauconnier
1996Cognitive links and domains. In Gilles Fauconnier & Eve Sweetser (eds.), Spaces, worlds and grammar, 1–28. Chicago & London: Chicago University Press.
Tatevosov, Sergej
2002The parameter of actionality. Linguistic Typology 61. 317–401.
van der Auwera, Johan.
2011Standard Average European. In Bernd Kortmann & Johan van der Auwera (eds.), The languages and linguistics of Europe: A comprehensive guide, 291–306. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. .
van de Vate, Marleen
2011Tense, aspect and modality in a radical creole: The case of Saamáka. Tromsø: University of Tromsø PhD thesis.
Velupillai, Viveka
2002The tense-mood-aspect system of Hawai’i Creole English. Regensburg: Repro Druck Ruckpaul.
Vendler, Zeno
1957Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66(2). 143–160. Reprinted in: Vendler, Zeno. 1967 Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Verkuyl, Henk J.
1993A theory of aspectuality: The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Voorhoeve, Jan
1957The verbal system in Sranan. Lingua 61. 374–396.
Voorhoeve, Jan
1962Sranan syntax. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Welmers, William Everett.
1973African language structures. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Whorf, Benjamin
1956Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by John B. Carroll. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press.
Wilner, John
1992The use of ben in narrative texts in Sranan Tongo. Paper presented at the
Ninth Biennial Conference of the Society for Carribean Linguistics
, Bridgetown, Barbados, August 1992.
Wilner, John
2000Non-temporal uses of ben in Sranan Tongo. Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper 271. Mona: Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of the West Indies.
2001A comparison of tense/aspect systems in Caribbean English Creoles. In Pauline Christie (ed.), Due respect: Essays on English and English-related creoles in the Caribbean in honour of Professor Robert LePage, 155–183. Mona: University of the West Indies Press.
2009A grammar of Pichi. Nijmegen: Radboud University Nijmegen PhD dissertation.
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Breed, Adri, Frank Brisard & Ben Verhoeven
2017. Periphrastic Progressive Constructions in Dutch and Afrikaans: A Contrastive Analysis. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 29:4 ► pp. 305 ff.
Caudal, Patrick & James Bednall
2022. Aspectuo-Temporal Underspecification in Anindilyakwa: Descriptive, Theoretical, Typological and Quantitative Issues. Languages 8:1 ► pp. 8 ff.
DE WIT, ASTRID, FRANK BRISARD & MICHAEL MEEUWIS
2018. The epistemic import of aspectual constructions: the case of performatives. Language and Cognition 10:2 ► pp. 234 ff.
Koss, Tom, Astrid De Wit & Johan van der Auwera
2022. The Aspectual Meaning of Non-Aspectual Constructions. Languages 7:2 ► pp. 143 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.