Trinidadian English Pronouns

LING 6401 806007430 Dr. Braithwaite

Name: Hassan Basarally

ID: 806007430

Course: LING 6401-The Grammar of English: An Extrapolatory Approach

Lecturer: Dr. Ben Braithwaite

Assignment: 4-Trinidadian English pronouns: function, structure and usage across selected

corpora.

Date Due: 06/05/2011

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Abstract

In the English Noun Phrase, possession is indicated by the insertion of an apostrophe‘s’

on the noun itself, the placement of the possessed noun before the of-phrase and the use of

possessive pronouns (Biber et.al., 82). The inventory of possessive pronouns in English is: his,

ours, mine, yours, hers and theirs. Possessive determiners are: my, our, your, his, her, its and

their. The possessive determiners are used before nouns and the possessive pronouns can replace

a noun in a sentence. Hence, the main difference between the possessive determiners and

possessive pronouns is that the latter can constitute the entire noun phrase. For example, the

sentence; The book belongs to Henry can be restructured to The book is his. However, in many

varieties of English, there is variation in the use of possessive pronouns, one such variety is

Trinidadian English. No similar study has been undertaken in the context of the Anglophone

Caribbean, so this paper seeks to stimulate research in the area.

Amongst the differences in possessives found in Trinidadian English are the substitution

of possessive pronouns and the formation of compound pronoun form. In Trinidadian English,

possessive pronouns are sometimes replaced by the third person male and female pronoun, he

and she e.g. The bag is he one/own. Solomon described this occurrence as characteristic of

English Lexicon Creoles in which possession “is expressed simply by the juxtaposition of the

nominals, with the ‘possessor’ first and the item ‘possessed’ following” (50). There are also

several alternative compound forms of possessive pronouns using –own and –one. This form is

used either with the English possessive pronouns e.g. his own or her one or with the third person

male and female pronouns, e.g. she own and he one. However, it must be noted that, the

construction of possessive determiner + own is present in Internationally Accepted English (IAE)

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and his/her one is present in other varieties of English e.g. British English. The structure’s

purpose is to make the noun phrase emphatic (Biber et. al., 97).

To describe and investigate possessive pronouns in Trinidadian English, a sample from

the International Corpus of English-Trinidad and Tobago, Great Britain and Jamaica, (ICE-T&T)

(ICE-GB) and (ICE-JA), was obtained. In addition, the online corpora of the British National

Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American (COCA) will be used as reference points.

The ICE-TT, ICE-GB and ICE-JA data was extracted using a corpus computer programme,

WordSmith®. Using this programme, a collocate list for each pronoun was obtained. Each

collocate list included one word to the right (R1) and one word to the left (L1) of the possessive

pronoun. This data will allow the following questions to be answered:

1. Which of the forms, i.e. –own or –one, has a higher incidence in Trinidadian

English? This will be done by searching for incidents of each form in the ICE-

T&T corpus.

2. Do the Trinidad English possessive pronoun constructions appear in any other of

the selected corpora? By compiling collocate lists from the different corpora the

feature’s prevalence can be determined.

3. The possessive determiner + own construct is used for emphasis in English, is this

the same for Trinidadian English? This will be done by collecting samples of the

construct from each corpora and describing the feature in each with the use of

several corpus-based grammar texts.

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The possessive pronoun in English.

Possessive pronouns are less frequent than personal pronouns in the English language. In

addition, it is used more in speech than writing. Possessive pronouns have been divided into a

weak and strong set (Quirk et. al., 361). The weak set refers to possessive determiners which

have a determinative function and the strong set refers to possessive pronouns independent in the

noun phrase. In addition, possessives in English can refer to parts of the body, personal

belongings and any other object (Greenbaum et. al., 213).

Possessive Pronouns Possessive Determiners

Mine My

Ours Our

Yours Your

His His

Hers Her

___ Its

Theirs Their

Table 1: Table showing Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Determiners in English

The possessive pronouns generally have two distinct series, the attributive and absolute

(Huddelton, 294). The possessive pronouns are absolute and are predicative in nature, i.e. occur

after the subject or absolute categories For example, The book is mine. The possessive

determiners are attributive and occur in the pre-head position e.g. My book is on the table.

Despite most possessives falling into the attributive series there are exceptions. For example, his

is both attributive and absolute, as seen in His bag is old and The old bag is his.

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The possessive does not have any modifier or determiner except own. It is described as an

“emphatic determiner” (Quirk et. al., 362). It intensifies meaning, e.g. The book is not Henry’s, it

is my own means mine and no one else’s. It also shows the relationship between the possessive

and subject. For examples, Joe makes his own bed means he makes his bed for himself. The

emphatic determiner own also removes ambiguity. An example can be seen in The Government

is encouraging citizens to grow their crops. Their can refer to either the Government of the

citizens. By changing the sentence to The Government is encouraging citizens to grow their own

crops; it becomes clear that the intended meaning is the citizens. Possessive determiners and not

pronouns can precede own and can be used without a head noun after it, e.g. It has a style of its

own (Biber et. al., 341).

Possessive pronouns cannot become part of the possessive + own construction; the

possessive determiner alone can fill that role. Hence, your own is acceptable but not yours own.

Possessive pronouns can also be part of a post modifying of-phrase, e.g. Jerome is a friend of

hers (Biber et. al., 341). This allows a noun to be specifies by both a determiner and possessive

marker.

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Methodology

The corpora used in the research are from the International Corpus of English (ICE). In

addition to Trinidad and Tobago, the ICE corpora from Great Britain and Jamaica will also be

used. ICE-T&T and ICE-JA are two of the components of the ICE corpus for the Anglophone

Caribbean. The ICE corpora were selected due to the quality and quantity of linguistic data that

is searchable and readily available. ICE collects the standard speech of adults in a territory and

tries to ensure that both written and spoken discourse is collected. The ICE corpora consists of

private dialogues e.g. phone calls, public dialogues e.g. parliamentary debates, unscripted

monologues e.g. commentaries and scripted monologues e.g. broadcast news.

ICE-T&T consists of teacher conversations and lessons in the secondary school context

of Trinidad (Deuber, 24). The sample used contained only speech. ICE-JA and ICE-GB on the

other hand consists of written text from newspapers and a wider variety of spoken discourse, for

example news broadcasts. The ICE-T&T corpus is still in its initial stages and relatively small.

The following research questions are posited:

1. Which construction, the possessive + own or possessive + one, is more prevalent in ICE-

T&T?

2. Is the construction in question 1 present in any of the other corpora?

3. Does the construction in question 1 have the same function as the possessive + own

construction in English?

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Limitations

The ICE-T & T corpus only contains speech not writing, possessive pronouns occur

primarily in speech. In addition, the speech collected is only from that of teachers and not wider

society. This means that the use of possessive in Trinidadian English across registers cannot be

determined as yet. The corpus is relatively small with approximately fifty files compared to the

over one hundred and fifty in ICE-JA. Sociolinguistic factors such as ethnicity, sex and age are

not taken into consideration so sociolinguistic variation in the usage of possessives cannot be

determined in the current paper. A study of possessive in Trinidadian English or any other

variety has not been done using a corpus based approach. Hence, there is a no research to

compare the current paper to, in order to corroborate findings made.

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Corpus findings

His8%

Ours0%

Mine0% Yours

0%Theirs

0%My17%

Our11%

Your29%

Her7%

Its3%

Their25%

Possessives: ICE-T&T

Figure 1: Pie chart showing the frequency of Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Determiners in the ICE-T&T corpus.

His16%

Ours0%

Mine0%

Yours0%

Hers0%

Theirs0%

My18%

Our12%Your

16%

Her14%

Its7%

Their17%

Possessives: ICE-JA

Figure 2: Pie chart showing the frequency of Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Determiners in the ICE-JA corpus.

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His19%

Ours0%

Mine1%Yours

2%Hers0%

Theirs0%My

15%

Our8%Your

14%

Her14%

Its10%

Their16%

Possessives: ICE-GB

Figure 3: Pie chart showing the frequency of Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Determiners in the ICE-GB corpus.

ICE-T&T ICE-JA ICE-GB0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

4539

22

3

36

11

1613

1

20

42

8

1

9

15

1

Possessive + own

Their ownIts ownYour ownThey ownHis ownMy ownOur ownHer own

Corpus

%

Figure 5: Table showing the frequency of the Possessive + Own construction across corpora.

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ICE-T&T ICE-JA ICE-GB0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.53

0.20

2

0.200 0.1 00

0.20

Possessive + one

My oneHis oneOur oneYour one

Corpus

%

Figure 6: Table showing the frequency of the Possessive + One construction across corpora.

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The Possessive pronoun in Trinidadian English.

Standard English in Trinidad and Tobago coexists with a mesolectal creole in Trinidad

and a basilectal one in Tobago. Standard English is the official language of the territory and is

taught in schools. This results in English being a second dialect in the territory along with creole.

In Trinidad, the contact varieties are a mesolectal Trinidadian English Creole and Standard

English, a few creole features deemed prestigious have become tentatively accepted in

Trinidadian English.

For the purpose of this paper the definition of Trinidadian English will follow the line of

Allsopp (lvi) as that of educated nationals and their “spoken English as is considered natural in

formal social contexts.” The linguistic situation has often been described as a continuum with

English and basilectal creole at opposite ends. Due to social and situational factors an individual

may occupy an area along the continuum as opposed to a fixed spot. As a result, the differences

between creole and Standard English are blurred.

Figure 1 suggests that the inventory of possessive pronouns and possessive determiners

are the same in Trinidadian English and the other corpora. Hence the information in Table 1 is

supported by the corpora. The ICE-T&T, ICE-JA and ICE-GB corpora are also uniform in the

distribution of possessive determiners and pronouns. The distribution is as follows:

Corpora ICE-T&T ICE-JA ICE-GB

Possessive

Possessive Pronoun 25% 16% 22%

Possessive Determiner 75% 84% 78%

Table 2: Table showing Possessive Pronoun and Possessive Determiner distribution across

corpora.

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Table 2 shows that in English, speakers prefer to use the possessive determiner over the

possessive pronoun. This means that there is low affixiation when it comes to possessives in

English. There is a preference to rely on the syntactic relationships that the possessive determiner

plus noun represent. A point to note is that amongst the possessive pronouns, his, has the highest

occurrence (See Figures 1-3). An explanation for this is that his is both a pronoun and

determiner.

In ICE-JA and ICE-GB, the two possessive determiners that show the greatest frequency

are my and their e.g. He wanted to share but I wanted my own room1, We would assume that

kings did not do their own secretarial work2 (See Figures 2-3). These represent the first person

and third person possessive determiner respectively. On the other hand ICE-T&T has a high

incidence of the previously mentioned possessives in addition to the second person possessive

pronoun your e.g. You will also need your own paint brushes3 (See Figure 1).

Figure 5 suggests that Trinidadian English has the highest incidence of the possessive +

own construction. It must be mentioned that the ICE-T&T corpus currently only has speech texts,

while ICE-JA and ICE-GB includes written discourse. As possessives are more common in

speech, this can account for the frequency of the construction in ICE-T&T. Regarding the

semantics of the possessive + own construction, the selected corpora all use the construction for

emphasis. This can be illustrated from analysing three random samples from each corpora.

Corpus Sentence Meaning1 ICE-JA2 ICE-GB3 ICE-T&T

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ICE-T&T You will also need your own paint

brushes

Your paint and no one else’s

ICE-T&T There is not much of children

encouraging their own colleagues

The children’s colleagues and no one

else’s

ICE-T&T She has seven kids of her own

five of whom are going to school

Her kids and no one else’s

ICE-JA Such implicit faith in the accuracy

and finality of his own studies.

His studies and no one else’s

ICE-JA Is prepared to access her own

money to solve the problem.

Her money an no one else’s

ICE-GB Lineker has come deep to collect

and then pushes it back to his own

half.

Lineker’s half and no one else’s

ICE-GB The legal system itself broadly

identifies its own ideals.

The legal system’s ideals and no one

else’s.

ICE-GB W e would assume that kings did

not do their own secretarial work.

The kings’ secretarial work and no one

else’s.

Table 3: Table showing the semantics of random sentences with the Possessive + own

construction across corpora.

The use of the possessive + one construction is the area of greatest divergence amongst

the corpora. Firstly in Trinidadian English, the construction of a possessive + one is most

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frequent (See Figure 6). However, the figure suggests that the construction is restricted in usage.

A reason for this can be stigmatisation as a creole feature. The use of the third person pronoun as

possessive pronouns e.g. he, she and we has been described by Winford and Youssef (38),

Deuber (27) and Soloman (50) as creole features. In mesolectal speech in Trinidad, these

converted pronouns join with one to have the same function as the possessive + own feature. As

such, the possessive + one feature is stigmatised as being creole and substituted with the

possessive + own.

In Trinidadian English the possessive + one and the possessive + own constructions have

the same semantics and function (See Table 4). This means that my one and my own in ICE-T&T

are both possessives and mean “mine and no one else’s”. In the ICE-JA corpus, the possessive +

one is used to a less extent that ICE-T&T. There is also a difference in meaning as the structure

came be used for emphasis and to single out a noun. For example, Miss Katie stuck common

pins into the bottom of his one foot so his ghost would not come back4. The use of one in this

sentence singles out one foot. Due to no collocates being found in ICE-GB,COCA and BNC

were used as a reference point. In the two corpora, the possessive + one structure was found but

with a different meaning. In both COCA and BNC the possessive + one structure is used to mean

“only”. For example, His one ambition was to devote himself to horses.5

Corpus Sentence Meaning

ICE-T&T Well I have met teachers who use

my one.

My one and no one else’s.

ICE-JA Miss Katie stuck common pins

into the bottom of his one foot so

One of his feet.

4 ICE-JA5 BNC

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his ghost would not come back.

ICE-JA They wanted the better bunch but

that was your one.

Your bunch an no one else’s

COCA His one real worry was that the

ceiling would collapse.

His only worry.

BNC His one weakness was the lack of

patience he showed people.

His only weakness.

Table 4: Table showing the semantics of random sentences with the Possessive + one

construction across corpora.

Hence, the construction may be similar at first glance the semantics separates them across the

corpora.

Conclusion

Possessives in English are divided into possessive determiners and possessives pronouns.

More than 75% of the possessives used in the selected corpora were possessive determiners.

Possessives cannot be modified except for the addition of own. In Englishes in the Caribbean

modification is allowed to a limited degree with the possessive + one construction. This is

particularly so for Trinidadian English. In Trinidadian English, the possessive + own structure is

markedly more frequent than the possessive + one. The meaning of the possessive + one feature

is distinct across the corpora. In ICE-T&T it has an emphatic effect to mean no one else’s. In

ICE-JA it has the meaning as in ICE-T&T but also serves to single out the noun referred to. In

ICE-GB it means “only”.

The research has also posed some questions for further investigation:

1. Is his used more as a possessive determiner or possessive pronouns.

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2. In what registers do the possessives occur in?

3. What is the distribution of possessives across registers.

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Works Cited

Biber, Douglas et. al., Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. 2002. Print.

Deuber, Dagmar. “Standard English and Situational Variation.” ICAME Journal, 24-40 2010 34. Web. 23 Apr.2011.

Huddleton, Rodney. An Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984. Print.

Greenbaum et. al. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. 1972. Print

Solomon, Dennis. The Speech of Trinidad: A Reference Grammar. St. Augustine: U.W.I School of Continuing Studies. 1993. Print.

Quirk et. al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Longman. 1995. Print.

Youssef and James. “The creoles of Trinidad and Tobago: Morphology and syntax.”Varieties of English: The Americas and the Caribbean. Ed. Edgar W. Schneider. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. Print.

Youssef, Valerie. “The Language Range of Tobagonians”. The Languages of Tobago. Ed.Winford James and Valerie Youseff. St. Augustine: School of Continuing Studies

UWI, 2002. Print

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Trinidadian English Pronouns

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