Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

While Features 79 and 80 deal with motion-to and motion-from constructions, respectively, in this feature we compare the coding of the two kinds of motion constructions: we investigate whether languages use the same strategy of different strategies to express the two opposite orientations. However in this feature, the goal/source element is not a named place, but a highly frequent place like 'home', 'town', 'village', ‘the market’ or 'the woods'.

All European base languages have different constructions for motion-to and motion-from a place in that different prepositions are used: English to town/from town, French à la maison/de la maison, Portuguese ao mercado/do mercado.

But in APiCS, it is striking to see that many European-based languages do not follow the European pattern and instead mark goal and source identically. Thus in Krio the preposition na occurs in both contexts, in a motion-to context like a di go na di makit [15-104] 'I am going to the market', and a motion-from context like a jɛs kɔmɔt na di makit [15-105]'I just came back from the market.' The hearer has to infer the relevant orientation from the meaning of the verb.