Irrealis in Sranan

Abstract

Since Bickerton's (1974, 1981) arguments in favor of a prototypical creole TMA system, it has become almost the norm among most creolists to refer to the category which expresses futurity in Caribbean English Creole and other creoles as irrealis. This label is clearly inappropriate, since it suggests that the meaninig of futurity is subsumed along with other semantic notions under a unitary category of irrealis mood. According to Bickerton (1975, p.42) irrealis mood refers to unreal time - that is, futures and conditionals, subjunctives, and so on. With few exceptions, creolists have tended to accept Bickerton's claim that these are manifestations of the same category. The fact is that all creoles distinguish future tense categories from others which express different types of irrealis meaning associated with mood and modality. The present paper employs frameworks from Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994), Palmer (1986), and others to present an informal, pre-theoretical account to the semantics of modality in Sranan. I describe the modal categories of Sranan, and the way various auxiliaries are used to convey both deontic and epistemic meanings. I also discuss the way modal meanings are conveyed in conditionals and other subordinate clauses, particularly those traditionally associated with subjunctive mood. The analysis offered here provides a basis for comparison with other creoles, to determine the degree of similarity and difference among their systems of modality