HS SoSe16: Jamaican Creole

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The material on this page has been created as part of a seminar. It is still heavily under construction and we do not guarantee its correctness. If you have comments on this page or suggestions for improvement, please contact Manfred Sailer.
This note will be removed once the page has been carefully checked and integrated into the main part of this wiki.

The following links have been collected by David Krüger.

Overview

Overview with example: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/jamaican.php

Definiteness in Jamaican Creole

Definite contexts

• Familiarity: The girls have gone to the market.

JC: Di gyal dem gaan a maakit. (definite article) (Stewart 2007)

but: The river/a river has overflowed its banks.

Riba kom dong. (no definite article) (Stewart 2007)

Here, there is no definite article but river can still be read as determined if it is clear to the speakers which river is meant (because of familiarity or uniqueness).

• Weak Definite: First thing he does in the morning is turn on the radio.

JC: Fos tong a maanin taim im ton aan riedyo. (no definite article) (Stewart 2007)

• Associative Anaphora/Bridging: The coconuts fell until there were no more on the tree.

JC: Kokonot drap so tel di chrii no ha no muo. (no definite article) (Stewart 2007)

Since di chrii 'the tree' is definite, it is clear that kokonot refers to the coconuts that fell from the (unique) tree that is mentioned and not from any other tree.

• Anaphoric Definite: […] The boys are John and Mark.

JC: […] Di bwai dem a Jan an Maak. (definite article) (Stewart 2007)

JC: Jan tuu yong fi GSAT (Grade Six Aptitude Test), bot Richi tak egzam yeside

`John is too young for GSAT, but Richie took the exam yesterday.´ (Steward 2007)

• Proper Name: Richie took an exam yesterday.

JC: Richi tek egzam yeside. (no definite article) (Stewart 2007)

• Generic: Mongooses are cunning.

JC: Manguus chrikifai. (no definite article) or Di manguus chrikifai. (definite article) (Stewart 2007)

• Predicative: Paula Kerr Jarrett is the only one [in there?] who speaks in a reasonable way [?].

JC: Paula Kerr-Jarrett a di ongle wan in deh whe'h chat sense. (definite article) (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/newstest/Do-politicians-need-to-speak-proper-English_10258478)

References

Steward, Michele M. 2007. Aspects of the syntax and semantics of bare nouns in Jamaican Creole. In: Marlyse Baptista & Jacqueline Guéron (ed.): Noun Phrases in Creole Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 383-399.

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