GO FOR IN THE CRUCIAN WIRETAPS CORPUS: INSIGHT ON MV FOR CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE ERB/PREPOSITION DISTINCTION IN AFRO-CARIBBEAN CREOLE
GO FOR IN THE CRUCIAN WIRETAPS CORPUS: INSIGHT ON MV FOR CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE ERB/PREPOSITION DISTINCTION IN AFRO-CARIBBEAN CREOLE

GO FOR IN THE CRUCIAN WIRETAPS CORPUS: INSIGHT ON MV FOR CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE ERB/PREPOSITION DISTINCTION IN AFRO-CARIBBEAN CREOLE

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I examine uses of the construction go for in Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier creole (AEC) to gain insight on the verb/preposition distinction in contact languages, as exemplified in the construction Motion Verb + for (hereafter MV for). The MV for construction is employed when speakers wish to profile the purpose substructure of the construction’s composite semantic value. If speakers were to use the verb get instead of for, the acquisition substructure would be profiled. In most cases, however, speakers choose the morpheme for, which adds prominence to the purpose value. The morpheme for also adds aspectual content to the overall constructional meaning, and that aspectual reading is performed on the fly. It is argued here that MV for is processed simultaneously in relation to the other constituents that co-occur with it, not only syntactically, but also in terms of the semantic roles that those units convey.

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