Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 17:2. 151-189 (2002).  John Benjamins B.V.

, Amsterdam
Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 1

Jack Sidnell
Northwestern University/University of Toronto

This paper describes variation in the grammar of aspect in Guyanese

Creole. In particular, the various grammaticalized strategies for conveying ha-
bituality, progressivity and imperfectivity are discussed. The paper contributes
to an ongoing debate regarding the function of various preverbal markers and
their interrelationships (see Bickerton, 1975; Edwards, 1984; Gibson, 1988; Ja-
ganauth, 1994; Rickford, 1987; Winford, 1993a). Choice of preverbal marker
is shown to be strongly conditioned by the stativity of the predicate (in the
case of habituals). Drawing on the insights of Weinreich (1953), it is suggested
that partial congruence between relatively independent grammatical systems
encourages recurrent interlingual identifications.

KEYWORDS: aspect, variation, Guyanese Creole, contact, interlingual identi-

fication

Introduction

Tense-aspect systems have figured centrally in the study of pidgin and

creole languages over the past thirty years.2 This is no less true for Guyanese

1 Funding for the research reported in this paper was provided by the Social Sciences

and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program and the University of Toronto Alumni
Association. Many more people than I can list have commented on some version of this paper.
I’d like in particular to thank Gord Easson, Morris Goodman, Miriam Meyerhoff and Don
Winford as well as an anonymous reviewer for this journal. Finally, thanks go to the Indo-
Guyanese people who generously opened up their homes and lives to me between 1994–1996.
The author alone is responsible for any remaining inadequacies.
2 An exhaustive listing of works on tense-aspect in pidgin and creole languages (or even

those which are concerned with Caribbean English Creoles) would constitute its own indepen-
152 JACK SIDNELL

Creole in particular than it is for pidgin and creole languages in general (see
for example Allsopp, 1962; Bickerton, 1975; Edwards, 1975, 1991; Gibson,
1982, 1986, 1988; Jaganauth, 1987, 1994; Mufwene, 1984a, 1986; Rickford,
1987; Winford, 1993a). An important goal of this research has been to charac-
terize the sometimes extreme variation one finds in this area of the grammar
and to determine its bearing on issues of language change and contact. Bicker-
ton (1975) for example attempted to illustrate the types of diachronic change
which were putatively reflected in synchronic patterns of variation across
the Guyanese speech community.3 Much subsequent research has focused
on problems with Bickerton’s description and analysis of the tense-aspect
markers themselves. We now know that because Bickerton (1975) did not
begin with an entirely accurate description of the grammatical categories he
was investigating, his analysis of variation equated non-equivalent forms and
failed to take into account the range of possible contexts of occurrence.4 In
short, despite its importance for the growth and development of the field,
Bickerton’s (1975) description of variation in tense-aspect in GC fell short
of Labov’s (1982) principle of accountability.5 Jaganauth (1994) and Gibson

dent bibliographic project. A useful recent overview of the literature and some of the main
theoretical issues is to be found in Singler’s (1990) introduction to the volume which he edited
on the subject. More recent is Winford’s (1996b) column “Common Ground and Creole TMA,”
which also includes useful discussion of terminological issues. (See also Bickerton, 1975; Holm,
1989; Labov, 1990; Mufwene, 1984a.)
3 For discussion and critique of Bickerton’s approach to language variation see Sankoff

(1977, 1990), Winford (1984).

4 This is not meant to detract from Bickerton’s pioneering contribution to the study of
variation and tense-aspect in Caribbean Creoles. In formulating the problem today, we are able
to build not only on Bickerton’s work but also on the research projects which it stimulated in
reaction to its claims.
5 The principle of accountability requires that we ask about the full range of potential

environments that are relevant to an analysis of a given variable. Labov (1982, p. 30) writes:
“for the section of speech being examined all occurrences of a given variant are noted, and
where it has been possible to define the variables as a closed set of variants, all non-occurrences
in the relevant environments.” Bickerton’s analysis did not account for non-occurrences (the
Ø form). More importantly, Bickerton did not include in his study a crucial environment for
the occurrence of aspectual markers — before statives. It is quite implausible to assume that
this omission reflects a gap in Bickerton’s corpus. My corpus of 55,000 words includes 57
examples of habitual statives. Assuming that variation is relatively uniform, Bickerton likely
had in the order of 200+ tokens. What happened to these examples, which are categorically
excluded in Bickerton’s model of Guyanese tense-aspect, is unknown.
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 153

(1986) have illustrated problems with Bickerton’s analytic categories and

sought to provide a more nuanced description of the tense-aspect markers
themselves. However, despite the availability of increasingly sophisticated
descriptions of the tense-aspect categories, we have as yet no study which
illustrates the relevance of these revisions for an understanding morphosyn-
tactic variation in this community. The following fills a small part of the gap
by offering a quantitative analysis of imperfective, progressive and habitual
markers in Guyanese Creole (hereafter, GC).
The evidence presented here suggests the following scenario for the
development of aspectual distinctions in GC: An early 19th (or possibly late
18th) century creole marked in-progress and, variably, habitual events with a
preverbal marker (d)a (this form emerged through the grammaticalization of
an earlier periphrastic locative construction used to convey in-progress events
and situations, see Sidnell, 2000b). When this marker (d)a combined with
stative verbs the meaning was unambiguously habitual. In the mid to late
19th century migrants from Barbados and other West Indian Islands (e.g., St.
Kitts) introduced a distinct habitual marker doz. This marker exhibited ‘partial
congruence’ with the already established construction (d)a + STATIVE (which
also conveyed the meaning ‘habitual’). Such partial congruence resulted in
an interlingual identification and, ultimately, the current distributional pattern
in which doz is strongly favored before statives.
Several kinds of evidence are used in making this argument. First, an
analysis of variability within a corpus of conservative Guyanese Creole is
presented. Several constraints on the selection of aspectual markers are con-
sidered including, clause type, predicate type, pastness, semantic type. The
main finding of this analysis is that the selection of a habitual marker is
strongly conditioned by predicate type. Secondly, the implications of this
variation are sketched in relation to available historical records and evidence
derived from comparisons with other creoles. The paper is organized as fol-
lows: the next section reviews the literature on aspect in Guyanese Creole and
provides examples of the relevant constructions. The discussion then turns
to an analysis of variability beginning with an overview of the constraints
considered before moving to examine the results of the analysis. The final
concluding section considers some historical and comparative evidence.
154 JACK SIDNELL

Progressive, Habitual and Imperfective Categories in GC

In his 1975 description of the “basilectal verb phrase” in GC, Bickerton

argued that preverbal a was a marker of non-punctual aspect. While there
are problems with some details of Bickerton’s analysis (and terminology,
see Winford, 1996b), the idea that a alternately conveys either Progressive
or Habitual meanings in GC is supported by the research reported here. As
such, I follow Winford (1993a, 1996b, 1996c, 2000a; also Anderson, 1990)
in referring to this category as Imperfective (see Comrie, 1976; Dahl, 1985).
Bybee et al. (1994, p. 125) cited in Winford (2000a) suggest that:
‘an imperfective situation may be one viewed as in progress at a particular
reference point, either in the past or present, or one viewed as characteristic of
a period of time that includes the reference time, that is, a habitual situation.’

It is important to emphasize, along with Comrie (1976) and Bybee et al.

(1994), that “imperfective is not made up of two separate meanings, but
rather is a single general, more abstract meaning that covers both” (Bybee
et al., 1994, p. 139). Examples in (1)–(6) illustrate the use of a in Conserv-
ative Guyanese creole (hereafter CGC) in past (3, 5) and non-past contexts,
with stative (4) and non-stative predicates, to express habitual (1)–(4) and
progressive (5, 6) meanings.
(1) Safii a jraiv kyar wid oman hool dee. (Habitual)
“Safi drives around with women all day.”
(2) Dem a kot pikni soo? (Habitual)
“Do they do autopsies on such small children?”
(3) Wen mi dadii bin ded, da gyal a kom (Habitual)
“When my father died, that girl used to come”
an shi a sliip de. (Habitual)
“and she used to sleep there.”
(4) Di man dem a de moor in sosaiitii. (Habitual)
“The men tend to be more in the public sphere.”
(5) Shi a pik plom, wen mi aks shi yestodee. (Progressive)
“She was picking plums when I asked her yesterday.”
(6) Hiir, Linda a kal yu. (Progressive)
“Hear, Linda is calling you.”
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 155

The meanings subsumed under this one unified category of Imperfective are
alternately instantiated in a range of preverbal markers with more restricted
basic meanings: doz [+habitual], yuustu [+habitual, +past], Ø+V+ing [+pro-
gressive], and Ø. Examples of these alternatives follow:
(7) i doz kyerii meed gu wid am tuu. (Habitual, Non-Past)
‘He takes his maid with him when he goes (to America).’
(8) da taim abii-diiz doz go a skuul (Habitual, Past)
‘At that time, we used to go to school.’
(9) a foor a dem doz de tugeda (doz + LOCATIVE, Habitual)
‘Four of them are generally there together.’
(10) ii doz taioord (doz + PREDICATE ADJECTIVE, Habitual)
‘He is usually tired’
(11) evriidee yu doz ga waip am dong? (doz + MODAL, Habitual)
‘Do you have to wipe it off everyday?’
(12) somtaim ii doz bii jook (doz + BE, Habitual)
‘Sometimes it’s a joke.’
(13) yuu doz noo wa yu doz taak (doz + STATIVE, Habitual)
‘Do you understand what you say?’
(14) ee, huu lukin afta mi? (V+ing, Progressive)
Hey, Who is looking after me?
(15) evriibadii Ø taak neem mi na gu see mi Ø duu it hoom aloon.
(Ø, Habitual)
‘Everybody gossips, I’m not saying that I do it at home alone.’
It is the variation between these options which is investigated in the follow-
ing report. I argue that these latter markers of aspect (with the exception
of Ø which is not in fact a marker, see Sidnell, 2000b), have entered the
conservative creole (whose speakers primarily use preverbal a to convey all
Imperfective meanings) through borrowing. Their source is an intermediate
or so called “mesolectal” creole similar to, and almost certainly genetically
related to, the variety now spoken in Barbados (see Edwards, 1975, 1984;
Winford, 1997; and below). Contemporary patterns of variation reflect in part
156 JACK SIDNELL

Table 1. Basilectal and Mesolectal aspectual categories according to Gibson (1986)

Habitual Progressive
Basilect a a
Mesolect doz Ø+V+ing

the continuous borrowing of grammatical items from the intermediate creole

into the conservative creole.6
The suggestion that preverbal a is best described as a true Imperfec-
tive category has not gone unchallenged. Advancing her claim that basilectal
(i.e., conservative) and mesolectal (i.e., intermediate) grammars differ only
in terms of lexical items and not the underlying grammatical categories they
instantiate (see Rickford, 1987, pp. 21; Winford, 1993a, p. 40 for critique),
Gibson (1986) has suggested that there are two distinct yet homophonous
preverbal a markers in the conservative creole one carrying the meaning
[+habitual] the other [+progressive]. According to Gibson the first is se-
mantically equivalent to “mesolectal” doz while the latter is equivalent to
“mesolectal” Ø+V+ing. This is illustrated in Table 1.
To support this suggestion she notes constructions such as the following:

(16) a. Shi a de a sing. (basilect)

b. Shi doz de singing. (mesolect)
“She is usually singing.” (Gibson, 1986: 572)
About such examples Gibson writes “the first a or doz is the Habitual cate-
gory, and the second a or -ing is the Progressive” (Gibson, 1986: 572, cited in
Winford, 1993a: 40). While the interpretation of the meanings associated with
a, doz, -ing in this context are without a doubt correct, Gibson’s argument
that such examples serve as evidence of distinct [+habitual], [+progressive]
grammatical categories in the conservative creole is dubious. In this respect
Winford (1993a, p. 40) notes:
[. . . ] the differences in interpretation (of a) may be explained in terms of the
semantics of the verbs following a. De, [. . . ], is a stative copular verb, hence the
only possible interpretation of the preceding a is “Habitual.” Sing by contrast

6 The details of the contact between these two varieties is the subject of papers by Edwards

(1984) and Winford (1997).

 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 157

Table 2. Basilectal and Mesolectal habitual marking according to Jaganauth (1994)

Thematic discontinuity Thematic continuity
Basilect doz a>gu, Ø
Mesolect doz gu, Ø>a

is dynamic, and allows for the Progressive interpretation. There is therefore no

need to posit two distinct categories for a. [. . . ] We can conclude [. . . ] that
a is the instantiation of the category Imperfective, whose dominant meaning
is “unbounded action or state”, and whose secondary foci include Progressive
and Habitual meanings.

A more persuasive challenge to the Imperfective analysis of a, comes from

the work of Jaganauth (1994). Like Gibson although for different reasons,
Jaganauth argues that basilectal and mesolectal grammars (my conservative
and intermediate) are less different than suggested by Bickerton (1975). Upon
consideration of a series of interviews, she proposes that both basilectal and
mesolectal speakers use doz as a marker of habituality in essentially the same
way. According to Jaganauth (1994), doz is used to refer to the first in a series
of habitual actions or events. Subsequent habitual actions or events within
the same series are marked with a, gu, or Ø. She goes as far to say that “in an
extended piece of discourse, to use either bin or doz to mark an entire series
of predicates would result in an ‘ungrammatical’ text” (Jaganauth, 1994, p.
8). In this discourse-based account doz is said to have the pragmatic function
of marking thematic discontinuity, a and Ø, on the other hand, maintain
textual cohesion. The system is represented in Table 2.
Basilectal and mesolectal speakers differ, Jaganauth suggests, only in
the proportion of a tokens. She writes:
[. . . ] both mesolectal and basilectal (speakers) use doz in the same pattern.
The difference lies in their choice of the markers for the segment of discourse
that shows thematic continuity, the non-doz segment. Compared to the more
mesolectal texts, the basilectal text contains many more continuative as, al-
though as we have seen it is not limited to this marker (. . . ). This may be
the only real change that takes place between lects with respect to marking
habitual.

While Jaganauth provides texts which seem largely supportive of her argu-
ment, based on the data examined here several objections may be raised.
First, Jaganauth restricts attention to longer stretches of talk, extracted from
158 JACK SIDNELL

Table 3. Aspect marking variants of a in G.C.

Progressive Habitual
Non-past Ø+V+ing ∼ iz+V+ing doz ∼ Ø
Past bin+V+ing ∼ woz+V+ing doz ∼ Ø ∼ yuustu

interviews in which the interviewee is asked about some type of activity

which took place in the past (in this way eliciting successive habitual-marked
verbs). As such the examples which Jaganauth discusses are all representa-
tives of a particular discourse-type. It is not clear whether Jaganauth’s model
applies equally well to other types of discourse. Secondly, Jaganauth’s ap-
proach assumes a rather unproblematic notion of thematic continuity and
discontinuity. However, identifying particular predicates in this way is by no
means a simple matter.7 In fact, one can find a number of counter-examples
which do not fit well with Jaganauth’s proposed model. There are further
problems with the approach which quantitative analysis reveals. Thus con-
trary to Jaganauth’s suggestion (above) the frequency of doz is not consistent
for different speakers (see for instance Figure 1 below).8
Despite the objections of Gibson and Jaganauth, the examples cited in
(1) through (6) alongside additional data to be discussed below (as well as
that presented in Bickerton, 1975; Rickford, 1987; Winford, 1993a), together
suggest that a is a true Imperfective marker in CGC. A set of variant forms
can be identified along the lines outlined in Table 3.

7 The problem here merges with that of relying strictly on interview narratives. In conver-

sation we can look at the recipient’s behavior to see the ways in which participants themselves
break discourse into thematic bundles and similarly the ways in which topical coherence is
produced and recognized as an ongoing accomplishment.
8 It may be true however that these forms mark cohesion∼discontinuity as Jaganauth

(1994) suggests for some speakers specifically those for whom doz occurs infrequently. This
is to say that the marking of discourse relations (including thematic cohesion but also prob-
ably including emphasis, foreground and background relations etc.) emerges as a particular
discourse-use of the markers for those speakers who use them in the proportions presupposed
by the model. However this is certainly not true for all speakers.
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 159

Conservative and Intermediate Creole Varieties in Guyana

Mention has been made of conservative and intermediate varieties. Be-

fore proceeding it is necessary to say something about the evidence for this
distinction particularly given the fact that other scholars have suggested that
variation is the result of contact between a single creole variety and Eng-
lish. Bickerton for example argues for the existence of a continuum which
is the product of decreolization (although Bickerton’s arguments concerning
chronology have changed over the years this much has remained constant in
all of his writings on GC with the possible exception of the most recent, i.e.,
Bickerton, 1996). Taking issue with Labov’s definition of the speech com-
munity and Bickerton’s analysis of the creole continuum, Winford (1988)
however argues that the existence of a continuous dimension of linguistic
variation (i.e., a continuum) and shared norms for the evaluation of linguis-
tic variants does not imply a single community grammar. In fact, there are
several different kinds of evidence to support the idea of co-existent, rel-
atively independent varieties. In the first place one can cite, with Winford
and Bickerton, significant discontinuities between intermediate and conser-
vative tense-aspect systems (Winford, 1993b), copular constructions (1990),
and pronouns (Bickerton, 1996). Secondly, there are striking differences in
the relative frequencies at which different speakers use variant grammatical
forms. This is illustrated in Figure 1 which compares the behavior of three
speakers.
Gobin, Ramaloo and Rita share basically the same set variant habitual
markers but use these at radically different frequencies. Gobin prefers the
conservative imperfective marker a while Ramaloo most often uses doz. Rita,
in contrast to both, primarily uses the unmarked verb to convey habituality.
Other important differences between speakers involve the degree to which
doz is specialized for non-past as juustu is integrated into the tense-aspect
system.
These differences are also reflected in patterns for social groups. When
the population is divided into ”working” and “non-working” groups signifi-
cant differences are observed.9 Figure 2 shows that the use of doz is most

9 Members of the working group are agricultural laborers and their families. These indi-

viduals spend the vast majority of their time in the village. Their social networks are highly
focused and local. The “non-working group” includes people who live in the village who are not
160 JACK SIDNELL

Fig. 1

Comparison of habitual marking in the speech of three individuals.

well established among non-working group — the agricultural workers and

their families prefer the more conservative variety which conveys habituality
by the use of imperfective a.
Although differences in the norms for habitual marking for different
social groups might be indicative of different underlying grammars this kind
of evidence is not conclusive. In fact, the data presented here is not radically
different from that derived from many non-creole communities where we find
that persons of higher social classes tend to use stigmatized forms associated
with vernacular speech less often than do members of the working class. As

agricultural laborers, rather they are shopkeepers, small business owners and school teachers.
These occupations bring members of the non-working group into contact with a large number of
people from outside the village. All the speakers included in this group have friends, relatives
or business associates who live in Georgetown, Guyana’s capitol. As such, members of the
non-working group are in fairly regular contact with people who speak an urban, intermediate
or mesolectal variety of Guyanese creole.
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 161

Fig. 2

Comparison of habitual working and non-working groups.

such Labov (1971, p. 456) noted in his discussion of work by Voorhoeve,

Bailey, Tsuzaki, Reisman (all of whom suggested that variation could be
understood as the effect of two interacting systems) that:
It is not enough, however, to claim that there are separate systems. What must
be done to establish one system, must now be done for two; it must be shown
that there are separate, internal constraints operating within each sub-system.

The full evidence, in this respect, cannot be reviewed here for reasons of
space. However, mention can be made of another study (Sidnell, 2000a)
which analyzed constraint rankings for a number of factor groups (e.g., gram-
matical person, discourse sequencing). Although some aspects of the system
were convergent across working and non-working groups, others showed
quite divergent weightings. For instance, the presence of a temporal adverb
shows a reversed effect for the two groups. For the working-group a temporal
adverb disfavors the use of doz, for the non-working group the adverb favors
162 JACK SIDNELL

Table 4. Totals for each variant

a doz Ø Ø+V+ing yuustu Total
n 648 128 139 71 15 1001
% 65 13 14 7 1

the use of doz. This may indicate that for the working-group, doz is itself
interpreted as a temporal adverb and is less than completely grammatical-
ized into the verbal complex. Supporting evidence for such a conclusion is
found in the fact that among working-group speakers, doz is unaffected by
the morphophonemic processes described by Rickford (1974, 1980; see also
Satyanath, 1991). Thus for the working group, doz occurs as [doz] or [das]
but never as [oz] or [z] et cetera. Such morphophonemic reduction process
are often associated with later stages of grammaticalization (cliticization) and
their absence in the speech of the working group speakers suggests that this
process is less fully advanced for them as compared with the non-working
group.
For these reasons and others (summarized in Winford, 1997), it is rea-
sonable to speak in terms of relatively distinct varieties, intermediate and
conservative. While the referents of these terms are essentially the same as
those for mesolect and basilect, their use does not imply that contemporary
patterns of variation resulted from decreolization.

Defining the Envelope of Variation

The data for this study consists of a total of 1001 environments for the
possible occurrence of Imperfective a.10 These were coded for subsequent
analysis with VARBRUL.11 The totals for each variant form are indicated
in Table 4.
The task of isolating variants raised a number of methodological issues.
In the first place a decision had to be made regarding phonologically null

10 The corpus used for this study was collected in a rural Indo-Guyanese village of about

700 inhabitants and from a nearby settlement about three miles inland.
11 VARBRUL (or Goldvarb) is a computer application used for analyzing the statistical

significance of co-occurring factors conditioning linguistic variation. See Rand and Sankoff
(1988).
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 163

contexts. After the preverbal negator na (17) and the relative pronoun wa
(18), Imperfective a is not distinguishable.
(17) wen yu Ø jringk yu na bada mii?
“Don’t you bother me when you are drinking?”
(18) di wan wa de a gyadin gu kos
“The one that is in the garden will curse.”
Since these contexts almost categorically result in a phonologically null re-
alization of imperfective a they were excluded from the analysis. As such
it is not possible to describe the effects of negation on the choice of aspec-
tual marker. Other issues were raised by the interpretation of zeros. While
in some cases it is clear that the unmarked verb carries habitual meaning, in
the absence of adverbial specification a few instances were less than com-
pletely transparent. For example, the following could be interpreted either as
referring to a past/perfective instance of talking or a habitual situation.
(19) i se shi dadii Ø taak nais wid am
“He said that her father talks/talked nicely to him.”
Cases such as this which were ambiguous were excluded from the quan-
titative analysis. There were also some cases of a which were ambiguous
between habitual and progressive meaning. These too were excluded from
quantitative analysis. A final consideration involves the use of gu. Both Rick-
ford (1987) and Jaganauth (1994) suggest that gu can carry habitual meaning
in an appropriate context.12 However, the corpus used for the current study
included no such uses of gu. One speaker whom I recorded does use gu to
convey habitual meaning as illustrated in (20).
(20) R: hou laang shi na ga waan neks wok shi na gu lef
“As long as doesn’t have another job, she won’t leave this one.”
S: we shi gon gu?
“Where will she go?”
R: eniiwee eniiwee shi get waan, yu noo?
“Anywhere, anywhere she gets another job, you know?
mii an aal na laik di nait wok
“I don’t like night work

12 See Winford (2000a) on a similar use of predictive future e in Sranan.

164 JACK SIDNELL

wen shii gaan de nou shi gu torn out chrii aklak

“when shi goes there she leaves at three o’clock
tuu twelv a klak a nait shi a wok
and till twelve at night she works.”
However this speaker was not included in the sample used here for unrelated
reasons.13 For the most part, gu and the various habitual markers are non-
equivalent. Gu frequently involves a sense of prediction whereas doz (or a)
are essentially reportive. This said, their partial similarity does raise some
serious problems for the interpretation of zeros. Thus consider the follow-
ing (21).
(21) if i taak inglish, yu Ø taak bak in inglish
“If he speaks English, you must/will/(habitual) speak English to
him.”
In the specific case of if-apodosis clauses such as the one here the problem
is less extreme since there is a strong association between this environment
and the use of predictive gu or modals such as gatu, or mos while no oc-
currences of imperfective a or doz were found in this environment. However
the interpretation of zeros is by no means resolved conclusively and in any
case a certain amount of indeterminacy is an inevitable result of natural
language use. Tokens of zero-marked verbs which were particularly ambigu-
ous (in terms of their TMA specification) were therefore excluded from the
quantitative analysis.
Each token was coded for 4 internal factor groups (stativity, pastness,
semantic type, clause type) and 2 external factor groups (speaker, style). The
present report is concerned with the linguistic factors which condition vari-
ation, sociolinguistic and historical issues have been reserved for a separate
report.

Predicate Type and Stativity

As Bickerton (1975) noted the meaning of aspectual markers is condi-
tioned by the inherent lexicalized aspect (i.e., Aktionsarten) of the predicate.

13 This text is part of a sub-corpus of approximately 20 hours of conversational data

transcribed by hand in the field by the author and a field assistant who is a native speaker of
Guyanese Creole and member of the community in which it was recorded. At present only a
small section has been prepared as a searchable electronic document.
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 165

Subsequent studies have provided further evidence of the importance of sta-

tivity in relation to both tense and aspect marking (see for example Mufwene,
1984a, 1984b; Patrick, 1999; Rickford, 1987; Sankoff, 1990; Singler, 1990;
Winford, 1993a). With respect to aspect in particular, Bickerton argued that
“the main stative rule” in CGC precludes the occurrence of imperfective a
with stative predicates. He writes (1975, p. 34):
One of the strongest rules in basilectal Guyanese Creole is that which restricts
the use a to non-stative verbs (cf. Bickerton 1973a). One seldom if ever en-
counters sentences such as *mi a noo, *dem a waan ‘I am knowing’ ‘They are
wanting’.

However Bickerton immediately notes two apparent counter-examples. First,

the use of a with ‘predicate adjectives’ and second the use of a with the
locative copula de. Bickerton defends the “main stative rule” arguing that in
the first case a ‘reverses the polarity of the items it governs, converting e.g.,
[+stative] redi ‘to be ready’ into [-stative] redi ‘to get ready”’ (Bickerton,
1975, p. 35).14 In the case of de Bickerton suggests that since it can refer
to temporary as opposed to permanent states “it may be that some speak-
ers interpret its marker [-durative] as being fully equivalent to [-stative].”
(Bickerton, 1975, p. 35.)
Bickerton suggests further that the “main stative rule” includes a series
of “deletion rules” applying in a number of environments. According to
Bickerton, these deletion rules exclude the possibility of a occurring before
modals and in conditional and temporal clauses (Bickerton, 1975, pp. 29–31).
The latter environments are discussed below. With regard to stative verbs,
compare Bickerton’s (1975, p. 30) starred example 2.8 (given here as 22)
with attested examples such as (23).
(22) *dem a gat wan kyar (Bickerton’s 2.8, page 30)
“They are having [sc. possessing] a car.”
(23) dem a gat aal mi kotlas de
“They always have all my cutlasses there.”
Contrary to Bickerton’s (1975) description, doz and a also co-occur with
modals as illustrated in (24) and (25).

14 Winford (1990, 1993a) has explored precisely these issues in detail.

166 JACK SIDNELL

(24) mi doz ga sliip a front de

“I used to have to sleep in front there.”
(25) ma ga kuk nou.
“I’m going to have to cook now.”
The co-occurrence of imperfective a with stative predicates is in fact rather
well attested in CGC (see Gibson, 1988; Winford, 1993a) and in general there
is nothing particularly odd about the marking of statives with a. However,
there do seem to be highly predictable constraints on the combination. The use
of a with stative predicates almost categorically results in habitual meaning
(see the discussion of Gibson’s, 1986 proposal above). Thus the interpretation
of a with stative predicates is considerably more narrow than it is with non-
statives where it expresses either progressive or habitual meaning. This turns
out to be quite important and I return to it below.
In recent work, Patrick (1999) has attempted to implement Mufwene’s
(1984b) scale of stativity in a quantitative analysis of past marking in JC.
Following Mufwene, Patrick divides predicates into three classes: punctual,
neutral and stative. Such work suggests that a binary distinction between
stative and non-stative predicates may in fact not capture the relevant con-
straints on tense and aspect marking. However we should not assume that
the constraints on tense marking are identical to those operative in the case
of aspectuals. Initial inspection of the corpus used for this study revealed
a paucity of punctual predicates. The vast majority of predicates expressing
imperfective meanings fell squarely into Mufwene’s middle group (Patrick’s
neutral). As such further subdivisions were introduced into this group in the
coding. This was motivated in part by the suspicion that certain verb types
were more likely than others to receive the progressive inflection (discussed
below). The non-statives were divided into three classes:

Table 5. Categorization of Dynamic Predicates

1. Verbs of motion e.g. gu, kom
2. Inceptives e.g. staat
3. Residual class
i. verbs of speaking e.g. taak
ii. dynamic verbs of activity e.g. waak

Statives were likewise divided into further subclasses:

 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 167

Table 6. Categorization of Stative Predicates

1. Modals e.g. kyan, ga (eebl)
2. Locative e.g. de
3. Predicate adjective e.g. nais
4. Finite copula e.g. bii
5. Other stative verbs e.g. ga/ge (possessive), noo

As Patrick (1999) notes a given verbal predicate can vary in stativity

across a number of uses. He discusses various uses of the verb hav “have”
in JC. The CGC equivalent of JC hav is get and it likewise varies in stativity
across occasions of use. Thus consider:
(26) wan wan taim doz ge mi ignarant
“Once in a while (they) make me abusive.”
(27) di chilren dem a get nalej
“The children get the knowledge.”
(28) mii oloon doz get a lak-op de
“Am I the only one who has a room which is often locked?”
In the first two examples get is non-stative being roughly equivalent to
“make” in (26) and “acquire” in (27). However in (28) the verb is equivalent
to English possessive “have” and is stative. It is thus necessary to categorize
many verbs according to their uses rather than according to some abstract lex-
ical specification (which is perhaps what Bickerton was trying to get at when
he said that stativity applied to sentences rather than the verbs themselves,
see Bickerton, 1975, p. 30).

Semantic Type
Imperfective markers typically have a range of discourse uses and sec-
ondary meanings (Bybee & Dahl, 1989; Dahl, 1985; Comrie, 1976). A basic
distinction has been made in the following between habitual and progressive
meaning. Bybee et al., (1994) note that the progressive “views an action as
ongoing at reference time. [. . . ] it applies typically to dynamic predicates
and not to stative ones. Thus the progressive is typically used for actions
that require a constant input of energy to be sustained” (see also Mufwene,
1984b). Habitual situations on the other hand “are customarily repeated on
different occasions” (Bybee et al., 1994, p. 127). Comrie (1976, pp. 27–28)
168 JACK SIDNELL

adds, “the situation referred to is viewed not as an incidental property of the

moment but, precisely, as a characteristic feature of a whole period.” Exam-
ple (29) illustrates both progressive and habitual meanings of a. The speaker
is correcting a misinterpretation of a previous utterance.
(29) hiir! i a see hou shi a bai rashon an soo
“Listen! He’s saying how does she buy food and that.”
The use of a to express habitual meanings is further illustrated in (30). Here,
the speaker is describing the condition of her sick mother who is in the hospi-
tal. She describes the way in which, in this condition, the mother repeatedly
behaves aberrantly.
(30) i na gu iit notin an moor yu na gu
“She won’t eat anything and its best you don’t go
ka wen yu gu an i stil (yu-yu) i onlii a get op an a wach soo an
“because when you-she still-she only gets up and watches and
a seelain an a niidl aal a kom out pon i han an soo.
“the saline and the needle protrudes from her hand”
Within the class of progressives, further distinctions have been introduced.
Thus, tokens of progressive such as those in (29) are distinguishable from
cases in which the meaning conveyed is more appropriately characterized as
expressing future intention:
(31) G: soo wa yu a duu?
“So what are you going to do?”
aiyu a duu ded wok an ting?
“Are you (pl) going to do ‘dead work’ and that?”
S: mi no noo wa ma gu duu
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
(32) B: ma kyeeri am owee tudee a gyaadin
“I’m going to take it away to the garden today.”
(33) D: eh aiyu a gu am mootookeed tuunait
“Hey, are you (pl) going to the motorcade tonight?”
S: yes
“Yes.”
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 169

D: wich chrok a gu
“Which truck is going?”
S: abii wan
“Ours”
D: aiyu a kyeri abii
“Will you (pl) take us with you?”
These examples illustrate the secondary use of imperfective a to convey a
sense of future intention. Notice that in (31) the first speaker characterizes
the future situation using a and, in response, his interlocutor refers to the
same, as yet unrealized, action using prospective future a gu. In examples
(32) and (33) the fact that these uses of a convey a sense of future intention
is confirmed by their co-occurrence with time adverbials tudee “today” and
tuunait “tonight.”

Pastness
Imperfective a is neutral with regard to time-specification. Earlier ex-
amples have illustrated the use of this marker to characterize both past and
non-past situations (e.g., past in examples (3) and (5)). All tokens were coded
for a parameter of pastness to test whether this affected the choice of aspect
marker. It should be noted that since time specification is not always overtly
marked the analysis which follows does not test the effect of tense and aspect
marker co-occurrence.15

Clause Type
As noted above, Bickerton (1975, p. 31) argued that the “main stative
rule” precluded the possibility of a occurring in temporal and conditional
clauses. However Rickford (1987) includes two apparent exceptions to this
rule in his collection of texts. These are reproduced below.
(34) wen mi a kom bak a kichen, dis naiz meek ageen
“As I was coming back into the kitchen, I heard this noise again.”
(line 1127 in Rickford, 1987, p. 229)

15 On the issue of past marking see Patrick (1999); Rickford (1987); Sankoff (1990). I

thank Peter Patrick for helpful discussion on the problem of past-marking and its relation to
the habitual markers discussed in this report.
170 JACK SIDNELL

(35) wel, wen dem a tek ot brekfos, agin dis nais mek.
“Well, while they were putting out the breakfast, we heard this noise
again.” (line 1152 in Rickford, 1987, p. 230)
Rickford notes that in both examples a conveys progressive rather than ha-
bitual meaning, and thus they do not support Edwards (1983) claim that
habitual markers (including doz) can occur in temporal clauses. Rickford
(1987, p. 227) continues,
[. . . ], these wen clauses do not have the sense “whenever,” “on any occasion
which,” that Bickerton specifies as necessary for the deletion or nongenera-
tion of the aspect marker; instead, they are equivalent to “while,” describing
processes in progress when the event in the main clause takes place.

In order to test the effect of clause type on the choice (or non-generation) of
aspectual marker, all tokens were coded according to the most local clausal
context.
Four clause types were distinguished for the present study — main,
subordinate, temporal and conditional. The category of subordinate includes
both typically subordinate clauses (for example clausal complements to pred-
icates such as se “say,” taak “talk,” biiliiv “believe,” ondastan “understand”
etc.) and relative clauses.16 The following examples illustrate each of these
categories.
Main Clause
(36) shi a kom rong bak
“She’s coming round back.”
Subordinate (clausal complement)
(37) daadii i a kos se aiyu diiz a taak out shi.
“Daddy, she’s cussing saying that you (pl) are talking about her.”
Subordinate (relative clause)
(38) iir en ga bai a kot eer
“This place doesn’t have a boy who cuts hair.”

16 It should be noted that no distinction was made between truly subordinate clauses

(e.g., indirect speech) and those which exhibit no morphological indication of a grammatically
subordinate status (e.g., direct speech).
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 171

Temporal (i.e., “when”-clause)

(39) wen abi yuustu gu fa a a a dongks.
“When we used to go for the crab-apples.”
(40) wen shi Ø suun sii shii swala enii blak shi Ø spit it out.
“When she sees that she has swallowed any black thing she spits it
out.”
(41) wen dem Ø duu rang tingz
“When they do wrong things (I cuss them).”
Conditional (i.e., “If”-protasis)
(42) if hii a diskos hee wid yuu hii taak krioliiz.
“If he is discussing here with you he (will) talk Creolese.”
Bickerton (1975, p. 31) suggests that the main stative rule prohibits the oc-
currence of an Imperfective marker (i.e., his “non-punctual”) in temporal and
conditional clauses. It does seem to be the case that temporal and conditional
clauses never contain overt markers of habitual aspect.17 I have included
in the examples above illustrations of this environment where the imperfec-
tive (habitual) meaning is instantiated by Ø (40, 41) and yuustu. However,
contrary to Bickerton (1975), it is clear from examples such as (42) that Im-
perfective a can occur in conditional (if-protasis) clauses. It should be noted
that, as seems to the case for temporal clauses (compare Edwards, 1983; and
Rickford, 1987), a in this context always conveys progressive rather than
habitual meaning.

17 Past contexts present an exception. Thus consider the following

Wen hii an Rak bina gu tong, dem a spoot.
“When he and Rock used to go to town (regularly), they would drink and party.”
A reasonable explanation for the restriction of explicit habitual marking to past, temporal clauses
might draw on a notion of quantification. Thus, a habitual marker implies a quantification of
an event (E>1). The wen of a temporal clause similarly implies a quantification of the event.
If we assume that a clause allows only one quantifier for a single event then the presence of
wen in a temporal clause necessarily prohibits the co-occurrence of a habitual marker. In past
contexts the sense of habituality is bounded (e.g., “used to”), and thus the bounded habitual
event may be subsequently quantified by the wen clause.
172 JACK SIDNELL

The Results of Quantitative Analysis

It was necessary to perform separate quantitative analyses for habituals

and progressives since the set of variants differs for each category. The set
of progressive variants for speakers in the present corpus is restricted to two
options a and V+ing. Speakers overwhelmingly use a to convey this meaning
which accounts for 81% of all progressive tokens. Table 7 provides an initial
overview of the distribution of progressive variants in relation to the internal
constraints.

Table 7. Overview of variation in progressive marking

a -ing Total N %
Clause type
Main N 224 53 277 77
% 81 19
Subordinate N 57 14 71 20
% 80 20
Conditional N 11 1 12 3
% 92 8
Temporal N 2 0 2 1
% 100 0
Predicate type
Neutral N 235 48 283 78
% 83 17
Verbs of Motion N 59 20 79 22
% 75 25
Pastness
No-Past N 209 58 267 74
% 78 22
Past N 85 10 95 26
% 89 11
Semantic type
Progressive N 239 47 286 79
% 84 16
Future N 55 21 76 21
% 72 28
Total N 294 68 362
% 81 19
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 173

Table 8. Probabilities for V+ing progressives according to internal factors

Group Factor Weight App/Total Input & Weight
Predicate-type Motion-verbs 0.545 0.25 0.21
Other 0.487 0.17 0.17
Semantic-type Progressive 0.480 0.16 0.17
Future 0.573 0.28 0.23
Pastness Non-past 0.547 0.22 0.21
Past 0.371 0.11 0.11

With regard to the alternation between a∼V+ing, Table 7 reveals a pos-

sible influence of clause-type, predicate-type, pastness, and semantic type.
The difference between main and subordinate clauses is negligible. Although
the numbers are small, there does appear to be a preference for the con-
servative imperfective marker (over the intermediate progressive marker) in
conditional and temporal clauses. An explanation for such a conditioning
influence is not however available to me at this time. For the other three
internal factors we can use VARBRUL to determine the weighting of each
factor. The VARBRUL run was set up so as to determine the probability of
V+ing and the conditioning of the remaining three internal factors.
Part of the original motivation for isolating motion verbs within the
factor group of predicate type came from the suspicion that this might be
a favorable context for the use of Ø+V+ing. Some speakers who use very
little -ing inflection, have what may be a lexicalized variant of ma kom “I
am coming”: komin. Furthermore, it had been noted that some speakers who
use very little Ø+V+ing did use constructions such as kom in as in examples
(43) and (44).
(43) Dis govament bring in som laa rait
“This government is bringing some laws, right?”
(44) Nyuu skuul kom in hia nou
“A new school is being brought here now.”
In these examples the phonetic segment /in/ is ambiguous between locative
preposition and verbal inflection. Despite these suggestive examples, there
was no clear tendency for -ing inflection to be most well established for verbs
of motion. In fact, only semantic-type has a clear and statistically significant
174 JACK SIDNELL

effect on the choice of variant. The future intention use of progressive fa-
vors the use of V+ing as opposed to a. This category of secondary uses,
future intention, is rather distinctive. While both imperfective and straight
progressive characterize events as unbounded and ongoing at reference time,
when used to convey a sense of future intention, “a pragmatic interpretation
brought on by implicatures in the discourse context” (Winford, 2000a, p. 7),
the sense of unboundedness is neutralized. Interestingly, although there is
significant structural and semantic mismatch between conservative and inter-
mediate grammars, both a and V+ing can be used in similar ways to convey
future intention. We might say then that these secondary uses exhibit a degree
of functional congruence between the two varieties.
We find a greater range of variation in the choice of habitual marker
as well as a more pronounced use of the non-a variants. The results are
summarized in Table 9.
Looking first at clause-type, we see that the effects for this constraint are
again largely categorical rather than variable. Thus, excepting past contexts,
conditional and temporal clauses categorically occur with Ø marked habitual
predicates (as suggested by Bickerton, 1975; and Rickford, 1987). Some vari-
ation is also found between main and subordinate clause types. However, a
stepping-up-stepping-down run with VARBRUL eliminated this factor group,
showing it to be statistically insignificant (apart from the categorical effects
exerted by conditional and temporal contexts).18
In contrast, the effect of predicate-type on the occurrence of variant
habitual markers is robust. Generally, stative predicates favor the use of doz.
The locative verb de is an exception.19 Given that stative predicates, with
the exception of de, appear to condition the selection of an aspectual marker
in essentially the same way they have been grouped together for the purpose
of analysis. Table 10 shows the distribution of habitual markers with stative
versus dynamic verbs.

18 A stepping-up-stepping-down run determines the significance of factor-groups which

may be interacting. See Rand and Sankoff (1988).

19 A possible explanation for this might lie in the fact that (d)a itself derived from a

locative expression. It may then be that (d)a retains some of its locative-semantics and is thus
favored in constructions expressing locative meaning.
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 175

Table 9. Overview of variation in habitual marking

a doz Ø yuustu Total N %
Clause type
Main N 312 110 91 13 526 84
% 59 21 17 2
Subordinate N 35 18 14 0 67 11
% 52 27 21 0
Conditional N 0 0 11 0 11 2
% 0 0 100 0
Temporal N 4 0 18 2 24 4
% 17 0 75 8
Predicate type
Neutral N 306 88 120 10 524 83
% 58 17 23 2
Verbs of Motion N 24 10 6 3 43 7
% 56 23 14 7
Modal N 1 10 1 0 12 2
% 8 83 8 0
Locative N 4 1 4 1 10 2
% 40 10 40 10
Pred. Adjective N 4 4 0 0 8 1
% 50 50 0 0
Stative N 8 12 2 0 22 4
% 36 55 9 0
Inceptive N 3 1 1 0 5 1
% 60 20 20 0
Finite BE N 0 2 0 1 3 0
% 0 67 0 33
Inchoative N 1 0 0 0 1 0
% 0 0 0 0
Pastness
Non-Past N 314 108 131 0 553 88
% 57 20 24 0
Past N 37 20 3 15 75 12
% 49 27 4 20
Total N 351 128 134 15 628
% 56 20 21 2

Figure 3 illustrates graphically the conditioning influence of predicate

type on the choice of habitual marker. Another VARBRUL run tested the
effect of predicate-type (stative versus non-stative) on the probability of the
occurrence of doz (versus all other habituals e.g., a, Ø, yuustu.
176 JACK SIDNELL

Table 10. Distribution of habitual markers with stative and non-stative verbs
a doz Ø yuustu Total N %
Predicate-type
Dynamic N 326 98 101 11 536 90
% 61 18 19 2
Stative N 21 30 4 2 57 10
% 37 53 7 4
Total N 347 128 105 13 593
% 59 22 18 2

Fig. 3

Percentage distribution of habitual markers by predicate type.

Doz is clearly favored before stative predicates. If we recall that with

statives and modals, a conveys unambiguously habitual meaning, we may say
that the substitution of a [+Imperfective] by doz [+Habitual] tends to occur
in contexts of maximal congruence, that is, in contexts where the distinction
between habitual and progressive is implicit in the conservative creole.
The aspectual systems of the intermediate and conservative creoles differ
substantially. The semantic domain covered by the conservative Imperfective
category is distributed across a number of semantically more restricted mark-
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 177

Table 11. Distribution of doz and other habitual markers by predicate type
doz other (a, zero, yuustu) Total N %
Predicate-type
Dynamic N 98 438 536 90
% 18 82
Stative N 30 27 57 10
% 53 47
Total N 128 465 593
% 22 78

Table 12. Probabilities for the occurrence of doz with stative and non-stative predicates
Group Factor Weight App/Total Input & Weight
Predicate-type Dynamic 0.462 0.18 0.18
Stative 0.810 0.53 0.53

ers in the intermediate creole. There are a number of other differences be-
tween the two systems. Thus although both doz and a are essentially neutral
with regard to time specification for most speakers — all occur in both past
and non-past contexts — they differ in terms of combinatory possibilities.
Imperfective a combines freely with the relative past marker bin. Doz, on
the other hand, cannot combine with bin.
(45) *Parsad bin doz wok wid dem
(46) *Parsad doz bin wok wid dem
So unlike the imperfective marker a, doz cannot enter into productive com-
binations with other tense-aspect markers. Furthermore while many speakers
use doz to convey both past and non-past habituality, for some speakers doz
carries a feature [+non-past] and contrasts with juustu which carries the fea-
ture [+past]. This makes doz (and juustu) quite unlike imperfective a and
other tense-aspect markers in CGC which do not fuse aspect and tense into
a single morpheme (e.g., a = imperfective, don = completive, bin = relative
past).
These differences, along with differences in semantics, are indicative
of structural and categorial mismatch. This said, there are some areas of
congruence between the two systems. The combination of preverbal a with
178 JACK SIDNELL

stative predicates results in a set of unambiguously habitual uses even in

a system which does not uniquely grammaticalize a [+Habitual] category.
Thus, the semantic distinction which doz grammaticalizes is in fact implicit
in the conservative creole grammar. This “implicit” distinction depends on
the aktionsarten of the predicates involved. Since this is an integral part of
the grammar of TMA in CGC, it is quite salient to speakers of these varieties
(see Bickerton, 1975; Rickford, 1987; Winford, 1993a). As Weinreich (1953)
might have predicted, the resulting areas of partial congruence encourage the
substitution of conservative grammatical morphemes by intermediate ones.
Admittedly in the case of V+ing and doz we have isolated two rather dif-
ferent types of congruence. In the case of progressives, we have a secondary
use of a grammaticalized category. In the case of the habitual doz, the substi-
tution is most advanced in cases where the aktionsarten of the predicates, in
combination with the imperfective marker, results in unambiguously habitual
uses of the Imperfective. Following Weinreich (1953) then we might suggest
that the ongoing interaction between the two varieties of English Creole in
Guyana is conditioned by the types of interlingual identifications speakers are
able to make across distinct grammars. Such interlingual identifications are
made when speakers identify a functional or structural congruence (or both)
between two grammars. Perceived similarities in semantics, function and or
syntactic distribution may contribute to congruence and resultant identifica-
tions. In the case of a + stative and doz, structural and functional mismatch
yields to partial congruence. Such partial congruence allows for interlingual
identification and thus it is here that the adoption of intermediate grammatical
categories is most well established.

Conclusion

The preceding discussion has been primarily concerned with variation

found in the use of aspectual markers a, doz, juustu, Ø+V+ing. In this final
section I draw out some of the implications of the present study for an
understanding of tense-aspect in GC and variation in Caribbean Creole speech
communities.
We have seen that in the case of variation between a and doz, selection
is conditioned by the stativity of the predicate. On the basis of the preced-
ing analysis, it seems that speakers are operating with a conservative system
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 179

which grammaticalizes Imperfective a in opposition to the unmarked verb.

The combination of this Imperfective marker with stative predicates results
in a set of unambiguously habitual uses. That is to say, before statives, im-
perfective a is essentially a marker of habituality. The introduction of doz
into the conservative grammar is significantly conditioned by this interaction
of aspectual marking and the inherent lexicalized aspect of the verb (aktion-
sarten) such that, doz is much more likely to occur before statives than before
any other type of predicate.
A question remains as to the origins of this variation in the Guyanese
speech community. Despite its centrality to Bickerton’s (1975) description
of the creole continuum in Guyana, the ‘transition’ from a to doz has al-
ways been something of a thorn in the side of the decreolization hypothesis
(leading in part to Bickerton’s, 1988, 1996 reanalysis of the situation). If
decreolization is taken to mean the gradual emergence of intermediate va-
rieties (i.e., mesolects) through the continual attrition of “creole” features
alongside the adoption first of superstrate grammatical and lexical items and,
subsequently, their associated rules and subcategorization features, it is not
clear how the transition from a to doz would fit in this model. According to
Bickerton (1973b, p. 644):
[. . . ] the creole continuum owes its existence to the fact that, after emancipa-
tion, the social, political, and economic barriers between whites and non-whites
were gradually but progressively weakened — white norms remained, at least
until very recently, dominant in the community as a whole. In consequence,
a slowly increasing segment of the creole-speaking population was provided
with both opportunity and motivation to modify its linguistic behavior in the
direction of the approved variety.

But as Bickerton himself noted (1975) habitual doz apparently derives not
from Modern English do-support (i.e., the superstrate), but rather from the use
of periphrastic-do in expressions of the simple present — a usage which was
waning in 18th century England, even if it survived in some regional dialects
(e.g., the Southwestern ones, see Elworthy, 1877). Clearly doz in Caribbean
English Creole predates emancipation by at least a hundred years. So if we
accept the idea of decreolization giving rise to mesolects, we must admit
that the transition from a to doz (the latter playing a particularly important
role on the definition of “mesolect” — see Rickford, 1974, 1980) does not
fit the traditional model. In the midst of his analysis of the continuum as the
result of decreolization Bickerton (1975, p. 62) notes that, “The most likely
180 JACK SIDNELL

possibility is that doz entered Guyana through Barbadian immigrants. Doz has
long been established in Barbados (Collymore, 1965) and was presumably
spread from there to Trinidad, where its use is widespread (Solomon, 1966).”
Quite apart from these problems of source and chronology are ques-
tions raised by the phrase “in the direction of the approved variety.” Can
one in fact say that an aspectual system which grammaticalizes a category
Habitual is anymore English-like than one which grammaticalizes a cate-
gory Imperfective? Such an assumption seems to be based on the fact that
the Imperfective category is typologically associated with “radical” creoles
such as those of Suriname (for Sranan see Winford, 2000a; for Ndyuka see
Huttar & Huttar, 1994) whereas the habitual category is associated not only
with the intermediate creoles but also dialects of English such as “AAVE
(see Rickford, 1986) and Hiberno-English (see Harris, 1986). But despite
these typological associations, neither category is, in itself, closer than the
other to the Modern Standard English pattern of using simple present to
convey habituality. Such considerations suggest that decreolization does not
offer an adequate explanation for the variation between a and doz in Guyana
or elsewhere.
In a comparative study of tense-aspect in several Caribbean English
Creoles, Winford (in press, p. 13) notes:

The semantic space covered by the label ‘imperfective’ represents one of the
areas that are grammaticalized quite differently across Caribbean creoles. The
two primary notions subsumed under imperfectivity, ‘progressive’ and ‘habit-
ual,’ are subsumed under a single Imperfective category in Sranan and (appar-
ently) the other Surinamese creoles, as well as in conservative GC [. . . ] None
of the other Caribbean English Creoles surveyed here has an Imperfective cat-
egory. Rather Progressive and Past Habitual are grammaticalized as distinct
categories, while present habituality is conveyed by various means. In JC, for
instance, Progressive is conveyed by a, alternating with de in some dialects,
while in Belizean Progressive is conveyed by di.

Although the Caribbean English Creoles display a great many structural and
semantic similarities, as Winford discusses above, the semantics of “imper-
fective” aspect are grammaticalized quite differently in these languages. This
is all the more remarkable when compared with the uniformity across the
same languages in terms of other TMA categories such as Past (all use a rel-
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 181

Table 13. Progressive, Habitual, Imperfective in Five Creoles

Semantic Sranan CGC Jamaican Belizean Bajan
Notion
‘Progressive’ Category Impfv. Impfv. Prog. Prog. Prog.
Form e a a/de di Ø+V+in
‘Present Habitual’ Category Impfv. Impfv. Unmarked Unmarked Hab.
Form e a Ø Ø doz
‘Past Habitual’ Category (Past) Impfv. (Past) Impfv. Past Hab. Past Hab. Past Hab.
Form (ben)e (bin)a juuztu juuztu juuztu

ative past marker derived either from English “been” or “did”). Some sense
of the differences is illustrated in Table 13.20
Bajan differs in significant respects from the other varieties represented
in Table 13. Although it now seems that Cassidy was correct in positing the
existence of a now archaic (and in some areas extinct) conservative creole
in Barbados, (see Cassidy, 1980, 1986; Hancock, 1980; Fields, 1992; Rick-
ford, 1992; Rickford & Handler, 1994; Roy, 1986), recent accounts stress
the structural similarities between contemporary vernacular Bajan and the di-
alects of South West English which played a particularly important role in its
formation (Winford, 2000b). Relevant to the current discussion are the forms
and functions of doz and did for which periphrastic, unstressed, non-emphatic
do appears to be the etonym. Periphrastic do appeared in constructions con-
veying simple present in the South West English dialects and this form was
apparently reanalyzed — possibly under substrate influence — as a marker
of habitual aspect in Bajan.21
While the use of periphrastic do appears to have continued as a restricted
regional variant until the modern period, it has not been widespread since
the 17th or perhaps early 18th century (see Rickford, 1986; Winford, 2000b).
As Bickerton and others noted, this suggests that the intermediate varieties
formed early in the history of the Caribbean colonies (and are not the result
of decreolization see Bickerton, 1988; Winford, 1997).

20 Adapted in large part from Winford (2001).

21 Such a reanalysis being facilitated by the fact that habituality is conveyed by the use

of simple present in these dialects.

182 JACK SIDNELL

In the case of Sranan, CGC, Jamaican and Belizean the marker of habit-
uality and/or progressive appears not to be a reflex of English do. A number
of creolists have suggested rather that these conservative aspectual markers
derive from expressions of location (Mufwene, 1986; Pochard & Devonish,
1986; Rickford, 1987; Sidnell, 2000b; Winford, 1999). As Bybee et al. (1994)
have noted there is a relatively strong cross-linguistic tendency for progres-
sive markers to develop from locative expressions (such appears to be the
case for English).22 It is therefore perhaps not surprising to find formal par-
allels in CGC and other creoles between constructions expressing duration
with those which convey location.
(47) Jan de a iit
John ASP ASP eat
“John is eating”
(48) Jan de a gyadin
John LOC PREP garden
“John is in the garden.”
In GC the de+a construction expressing “durative aspect” is well attested (see
Winford, 1993a; Rickford, 1987). It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that
Imperfective a is the fully grammaticalized and phonologically reduced reflex
of de+a. This suggestion is supported by a look through some earlier texts,
such as those of McTurk (circa 1895), in which we find that Imperfective a
consistently alternates with da (as it does in contemporary Kittitian Creole,
see Cooper, 1978). Similarly, in the Early Suriname texts collected by Arends
(1995) we find Imperfective conveyed by a marker formally equivalent to the
locative copula de. The eighteenth century use of locative de is illustrated in
Nepveu’s “Annotations” (1770, cited in Arends, 1995, p. 35).
(49) a de nami heddi
it LOC PREP-my head
‘I won’t forget.” (cited in Arends, 1995, p. 35)
The use of de as progressive (expressing future intention) is attested also in
Nepveu. Example (50) illustrates.

22 Thus forms such as “a-courting” derive historically from “at (on, in) courting.”
 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 183

(50) adekom
“he/she’s coming’ (cited in Arends, 1995, p. 82)
Finally Nepveu includes examples of de used to convey the sense of habitu-
ality as illustrated in example (51).
(51) a de wakka langa him
“She/he walks with him/her.” (cited in Arends, 1995: 81)
Although modern Sranan distinguishes between locative copula de and Im-
perfective e, these 18th century examples suggest that they derive from a
common source.
Finally, the dialectal alternation between progressive a and de in Ja-
maican (mentioned by several authors, see Mufwene, 1986; and Pochard
& Devonish, 1986, for example) further supports the idea that these forms
developed out of a single locative expression. Such a path of grammatical-
ization may have been facilitated by the existence of similar, although not,
in all cases, identical, substrate patterns (see Winford, 1999).
The aspectual function of de would then have been extended to marking
imperfective meaning in general in some but not all creoles. Such internally
motivated development of progressive to imperfective is discussed by Bybee
and Dahl (1989, p. 82). They note that:
While the most restricted and more prototypical use of the progressive requires
that the activity actually be in progress at event time, it has often been pointed
out [. . . ] that the English Progressive is more general in its use, since it may
be used to describe activities that are not actually in progress at the reference
time, but that are characteristic of a certain time frame which includes the
reference time. [. . . ] The extended usage in English is also compatible with
temporal phases indicating repeated or habitual activities, [. . . ] Such usage,
then, represents a generalization of the earlier progressive meaning. Compara-
tive evidence suggests that in Igbo, Yoruba, Scots Gaelic [. . . ] and Kuwaa [. . . ]
a progressive construction (in all cases derived from a locative construction)
has evolved into a general imperfective. [. . . ]

The internally motivated development of progressive to imperfective then

would have taken place in Sranan and CGC but not in Jamaican or Belizean.
This would explain why we find a/da/e grammaticalized as Imperfective (in
CGC, Sranan), and Progressive (in Jamaican), but never as Habitual. The sim-
ilarities and differences may lead us to the following reconstruction. In the
early stages of Caribbean colonization a pidgin or early creole spread through-
184 JACK SIDNELL

out a number of English holdings (Barbados, St. Kitts, Jamaica, Surinam).

In this language a demonstrative de from English “there” was grammatical-
ized as a locative copula and subsequently used to convey progressivity in
constructions of the de+a type discussed above. In the case of Jamaican the
de+a construction grammaticalized as a marker of Progressive and lost its
locative sense completely through semantic bleaching. In CGC and Sranan
this progressive use of de(+a) was further extended and grammaticalized as
a true Imperfective.
This scenario is again supported by an examination of the period texts.
Thus in the case of CGC we find that although bin (relative past) and sa
(dubitive future) show up quite early (in Pinckard for example, circa 1800),
a/da (Imperfective, Habitual, Progressive) is conspicuously absent.23 The
earliest examples I have been able to locate come from Premium (circa 1850).
It therefore seems likely that this marker served a somewhat peripheral role
in the earlier stages of the language. What of doz? This form is even rarer
in the early texts. There are no examples of doz in the early texts collected
in Rickford (1987). The total absence of doz from the early texts and even
those of McTurk suggests that this form entered Guyana with the waves of
migrants from Barbados and other West Indian Islands in the 19th and 20th
centuries (see Edwards, 1984; Winford, 1997).
The historical and contemporary sociolinguistic evidence thus converge
to suggest that doz and other TMA markers typical of the intermediate creoles
have gradually and quite recently been incorporated into the grammar of CGC
a language which grammaticalized only Imperfective aspect (as opposed to
separate Habitual and Progressive categories). This contact between creole
vernaculars has resulted in a distinctive pattern whereby doz is strongly fa-
vored before stative predicates. I have suggested, following Weinreich (1953),
that this synchronic pattern of variation is a result of interlingual identifica-
tions encouraged by points of partial congruence between relatively indepen-
dent grammatical systems.

23 It should be remembered that Guyana experienced British colonization relatively late

(mid-18th century). For details see Rickford (1987).

 HABITUAL AND IMPERFECTIVE IN GUYANESE CREOLE 185

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