Margot van den Berg's website

The aim of this Ph.D.-project is to write a grammar of (early) Sranan, a Surinamese creole language, based upon the study of 18^th century Sranan texts, such Schumann (1783), Van Dyk (c.1765), Nepveu (1770), judicial material, Herlein (1718) and Weygandt (1798). The variation in orthography and grammar exhibited in these sources is of great advantage for the study of the phonology, syntax and semantics of early Sranan. It may be expected that some variation in these sources corresponds to real variation in the language, as it is known that variation existed between the Sranan used by Blacks (Nengretongo) and Whites (Bakratongo), and between the Sranan used in Paramaribo (Fototongo) and on the plantations. The grammar of early Sranan will help us understand to what extent the European and West-African languages have contributed to the formation of Sranan. Questions? Please email me!

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Early Sranan in Court Records back to top

For my master’s thesis I researched the archives of the Nationaal Archief (The Hague, The Netherlands), that contained (parts of) reports and testimonies of Suriname’s Blacks in Sranan. This hyperlink will direct you to a short summary of the research I conducted. The thesis is a full report of this reseach - if you would like to read it, you can download it (pdf-format). The most interesting result is the discovery of the first Sranan sentences (1707).

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Teaching Assistant (Courses) back to top

š Inleiding taalwetenschap (‘introduction to linguistics’, assisting Dik Bakker in Fall 2002)

š Taalverandering & taalcontact (‘language change and language contact’, assisting Jacques Arends in Fall 2002)

š Minority Languages in Europe (assisting Durk Gorter & Norval Smith in Spring 2002)

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Publications: back to top

Articles (accepted/published):

š Margot van den Berg & Jacques Arends (to appear) ‘Court records as a source of authentic early Sranan' In: Armin Schwegler & Genevieve Escure (eds.), Creoles, Contact, and Language Change: Linguistics and Social Implications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Creole Language Library Series)

š Margot van den Berg (2003) ‘Early 18^th century Sranan ‘–man’’ In: Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, Ingo Plag (ed.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, p. 231 - 251

š Margot van den Berg (2001) ' "Mingo, joù no man" Oud-Sranan in verhoren en verslagen van rechtszaken' In: OSO Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde, Cultuur en Geschiedenis, 20 (2): 241 - 253

š Margot van den Berg (2000) "Mi no sal tron tongo" Early Sranan in court records, 1667 - 1767 (unpublished master's thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen)

Papers

š Margot van den Berg & Jacques Arends (2004) ‘A complement to complementation in early Sranan and Saramaccan: logophoricity’ Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, 8-9 January 2004 in Boston (MA), USA [hand-out]

š Margot van den Berg (2003) ‘Competition and selection in the pronominal system of early Sranan’ Paper presented at the OSU Changelings-meeting, November 4, 2003 in Columbus (OH), USA

š Margot van den Berg (2003) ‘Competition and selection in the development of Sranan’ Paper presented at the meeting of dr. Lauren McIntyre’s lab (Computational Genomics, Purdue University), October 29, 2003 in West-Lafayette (IN), USA

š Margot van den Berg (2003) ‘Reflexivisation in early Sranan’ Paper presented at the Wednesday Linguistics Talks at Purdue University, October 24, 2003 in West-Lafayette (IN), USA

š Enoch Aboh and Margot van den Berg (2002) ‘The structure of word formation in 18^th century Sranan, Gungbe and ‘Old Gbe’’ Paper presented at the Biennal Conference of the Society for Carribean Linguistics, 14-17 August 2002 in St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago

š Enoch Aboh and Margot van den Berg (2001) ‘Compounding and derivation in two morphologically "poor" languages’ Paper presented at the Morfologiedagen, 13-14 December 2001 in Utrecht, The Netherlands

š Margot van den Berg (2001) ‘Two morphological patterns in early 18th century Sranan’ Paper presented at the International Workshop on the Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, 22-24 August 2001 in Siegen, Germany

š Margot van den Berg (2001) ‘De reconstructie van het 18^e eeuwse Sranantongo’ Paper presented at the ACLC Junioren-Overleg, 10 December 2001 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

š Margot van den Berg & Jacques Arends (2001) ‘Court records as a source of authentic early Sranan’ Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, 5-6 January 2001 in Washington, D.C.

Book reviews

š Margot van den Berg (2003) ‘Review of Glen Gilbert (ed.), 2002, Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in the Twenty-First Century’ In: OSO Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde, Cultuur en Geschiedenis, 22 (1)

š Margot van den Berg (2002) ‘Review of The Ecology of Language Evolution (Mufwene, 2001)’ In: LinguistList 13-1100 http://linguistlist.org/issues/13/13-1100.html

š Margot van den Berg (2002) ‘Review of Substrate Influence in the formation of the Surinamese Plantation Creole (Migge, 1998)’ In: OSO Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde, Cultuur en Geschiedenis, 21 (2): 373-375

š Margot van den Berg (2001) ‘Review of Spreading the word (Huber & Parkvall (eds.), 1999)’ In: OSO Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde, Cultuur en Geschiedenis, 20 (2): 340 – 342

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Member of (Organizations) back to top

š Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics SPCL

š Society for Carribean Linguistics SCL

š Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap AVT

š Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics LOT

š OSO Tijdschrift voor Surinamistiek OSO

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Links back to top

Professional

Cultuurstudies Suriname	Creolica
Instituut voor de Bevordering van de Surinamistiek	Journal of Pidgin and Creole languages
SIL Languages of Suriname	Pidgins and Creole Archive
Suriname	Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication
	Purdue Linguistics Program
*Personal*
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	Dierenasiels.com (Dutch)	Petfinder.com (U.S.)

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C.V. back to top

2000 – present	PhD-project ‘The reconstruction of 18^th century Sranan’	University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
2003 – 2004	Visiting Scholar	Purdue University (IN), USA
1997 – 2000 1994 – 2000	Assistant IFWG Wetenschap & Samenleving Studies General Linguistics	Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
1993 – 1995	Propedeuse Dutch Language and Literature	Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands