Irrealis in Sranan: Mood and modality in a radical creole

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 CEC and other creoles as "irrealis ." This label is clearly inappropriate, since it suggests that the meaning of futurity is subsumed along with other semantic notions under a unitary c ategory of "irrealis" mood. According to Bickerton (1975, p. 42) "irrealis" mood refers to "unreal time" that is, futures and conditionals, subjunctiv es, and so on. With few exceptions, creolists have tended to accept Bickert on's claim that these are manifestations of the same category. The fact is that all creoles distinguish future tense categories from others which expr ess different types of irrealis meaning associated with mood and modality. The present paper employs frameworks from Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (199 4), Palmer (1986) and others to present an informal, pre-theoretical accoun t of the semantics of modality in Sranan. I describe the modal categories o f Sranan, and the way various auxiliaries are used to convey both deontic a nd epistemic meanings. I also discuss the way modal meanings are conveyed i n conditionals and other subordinate clauses, particularly those traditiona lly associated with "subjunctive" mood. The analysis offered here provides a basis for comparison with other creoles, to determine the degree of simil arity and difference among their systems of modality.